The Backroads, Homesteading, & Conspiracy Theorists (No. 6)
April 24, 2024 - Full Hare Moon
Image Citation: Butterly Cottage by Mary Charles
I bought my first house in Dec 2021, and I am in living in immense and total awe and gratitude at the beauty, joy, and healing happening within my home and on my land.
My first year, here, was simply adjusting to the sticker-shock and energy expenditure required for home and land ownership. Year one’s big message was: “you have to do it yourself because nobody is coming!” There is no landlord to call to come fix anything for free. Those days are gone. That oil tank that needs replacing to the tune of $4000? Yup, all me. Got cracks in the plaster? Time to go to Home Depot and Lowe’s, to buy all the things I’ve never needed to own before, like a step-ladder, paper tape, mesh tape, plaster compound, trowels, drop cloths, sandpaper. And, then, three hours lost in a store and $270 poorer, I still have to come home and actually do the project! I learned everythingrequires “stuff” to make it happen and that stuff costs money!! And going to get the stuff costs money!! And even thinking about a project costs money!! There’s a lot of talk about how “owning a home is cheaper than rent once the rents get so high,” and that is very misleading. My mortgage is half what my rent used to be; but, my monthly expenses are thousands of dollars more than they used to be when I rented. So year one, for me, was just the adjustment to the cost of homeownership.
Year two, 2023, was my favorite year, here, so far. It was all about figuring out ‘who am I’ living here? And, who else lives here with me? With whom am I in relationship within this place and space? It was a year of documenting the flora and fauna that have been living in this place long before I came along. What naturally grows here? What is the relationship I have with it medicinally, nutritionally, or aesthetically? What is indigenous (Big and Small Bluestem and Mountain Laurel), what has been introduced well (Purple Loosestrife), and what is invasive (Looking at YOU, Bitter-Sweet)? I cleared a small path around the entire property just to make the boundary pop, and animals started using the path, their little footprints left in the snow. So sweet. Animals visit my land with regularity. Bears, foxes, rabbits, crows, wild turkeys, bobcats, coydogs, frogs, cardinals, blue jays, robins, bats, and many more animals come to my land to rest, feed, and find peace. And I love that. 2023 was also the wildflower year; the year I walked all around the property documenting about a hundred species of wildflowers blooming beautifully, living their best lives here.
Now, I am now in Year 3. And 2024 is all about crops. I currently have five gardens:
The Annuals Garden: cosmos and bachelor’s buttons
The Stone Circle: mugwort, soapwort, damiana, artemesia
The Moon Garden: all white flowers and night bloomers
The Rock Garden: it is literally a pile of scattered rocks around which wildflowers (like Joe-Pye Weed) have grown. Although mostly rock, the area has a lot of personality, so it feels like it wants to counted as a garden.
The Poison Garden: fly agaric, belladonna, foxglove, delphiniums (larkspur), Poke Weed
And this year I’m adding:
The Food Garden: peppers, cabbage, onions, garlic, tomatoes
The Herb Garden: dill, rosemary, basil, sage, yarrow, and lavender
For a total of Seven Gardens
I am so excited at my first attempt to grow food!
2024 is also the year for a wood stove (no electricity) to replace the pellet stove (needs electricity).
And, I am learning to cook whole meals, outside, on open coals, in cast iron dutch ovens.
The reason that I am so excited for these endeavors is that they are my first ventures into off-grid living.
The cost of food has become so astronomical that I’m—quite literally—seeking to supplement my shopping with home grown foods. Growing my own food may take its toll in terms of labor, but my own food will be much cheaper to produce and re-produce in my garden than to buy at a store. Economically, I’m starting to off-grid my food supply.
Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, eco-feminist, anti-globalization author, and founder of Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmer’s rights. She infamously said:
“Food is a weapon. When you sell real weapons and arms, you control armies. When you control food, you control society. And, I would say for seed, when you control seed, you control life on earth!”
As I lean into reclaiming control of my own (healthy, un-poisoned, un-processed, un-pesticided) foodways, and (reliable and affordable) home heating and cooking, I find myself in spaces inhabited by conspiracy theorists. Like, the real dealconspiracy theorists. I’ve joined Meet Ups, Facebook Groups, Email Groups, to learn how to forage, grow food, heat the house without electricity, compost, start fires from scratch, cook on open fire, safely can and preserve food. And, in these groups, I can’t help but notice that I am surrounded by conservative conspiracy theorists. And, I’ve just had to ponder that. What that means? Why is it happening? What is even going on here?!
And, here’s what I’m finding…
There is a convoluted web of movements that seem focused on the end-times, or the fall of civilization as we know it, maybe the rapture, like some kind of venn-diagram-nit-wit-jamboree, that seems to combine Donald Trump, Trad Wives, Fall Out Shelters, Underground Bunkers, Guns, Guns, and More Guns, Distrust of the Government, Distrust of the Education System, Moms for Liberty, Banning Books, Sister Wives, and the Apocalypse.
Right?!
Now, what’s interesting is that these conspiracy theorists are also participating in activities like homesteading, gardening, hunting, canning, weaving, making clothes, homeschooling, and creative queer forms of partnerships and family outside the one + one partnership model. Unfortunately, they are inspired and driven by fear and delusion. They are just flat-out not operating within the reality that the rest of us have (wait for it…) co-conspired (see what I did there) to create and dwell within together.
And, honestly, the reason I find conspiracy theorists so aggravating is because the truth is plenty to get worked up over! You don’t need conspiracies.
· 8 multi-billionaires control like 90% of the world’s wealth and won’t share it with anybody.
· We keep getting fed a narrative of “food insecurity.” There’s no food insecurity. The planet Earth’s literal natural state of being is to continuously, abundantly, and freely, produce earth, air, fire, and water, to such a degree that food just grows outside in your backyard. If you walk outside right now, you’re standing on food. But someone won’t let everyone have it!
· Billionaires are quite literally funding and planning to put a train on the moon and figure out how to start life on Mars. Well you know what?! If you can make the moon and Mars “more like Earth,” then you can make EARTH more like Earth, you’re just not doing it!
· Etc. Etc. The list goes on and on.
So, that’s why conspiracy theorists get on my nerves. There are plenty of things that are really happening to be wild-eyed, angry, nervous, and anxious about. But, the reality, that “Billionaires and companies are hoarding our food,” isn’t enough for conspiracy theorists. They will instead choose to go down the path of…what was it? “Space Jews,” right?! Wasn’t it Space Jews?! Space Jews are coming with their intergalactic planetary, planetary intergalactic, space lasers to over-take planet Earth! (I didn’t make this up. I used a real example of a conspiracy theory floating around out there)
But, conspiracy theorists do have a desire to take back as much of their resources as possible off-grid, and they’re very successful farmers, gardeners, canners, and homesteaders. They truly have skills and knowledge of self-sustaining foodways.
So, I’m finding that this creates a weird thing where I, Dominique, find myself in groups with conspiracy theorists, because of our shared, mutual interests, in self-sustaining agricultural and energy production.
Theoretically it looks like this:
You and I are out in a restaurant for a meal.
You’re on one side of the booth, and I’m on the other side of the booth.
And, next to me, is also a conspiracy theorist.
So, it’s you, sitting across the table from both me and a conspiracy theorist.
And the conspiracy theorist says: HILLARY CLINTON IS OPERATING A PROSTITUTION RING OUT OF A PIZZA SHOP IN MYSTIC CONNECTICUT! ALIEN SPACE-JEWS ARE COMING TO USE SPACE LASERS AND TAKE OUR ELECTRICAL GRID AWAY! EVERYBODY GET IN THE BUNKER UNTIL OUR MESSIAH, DONALD TRUMP, SAVES US!
(and, again, I want it duly noted that not one thing I just said above is embellished; I used their stories as they are; so, yeah)
And then I say: [eye roll] Well, I dunno about all that! LOL! But, I do know that my friends in Texas are quite literally having a harder and harder time trusting their electric grid to provide them with lights, heat, and air conditioning, and every year have to go without electricity for a period of time. AND, Flynt, Michigan, had their water contaminated for two solid years, undrinkable, and people died. They now still use bottled water because they don’t trust their water system nor the government officials that lied to them and said their water was safe when it wasn’t. AND, here in Western Mass, trailer park owners are raising the lot fees $500 from one month to the next, so that anyone who can’t afford it can be evicted from their trailer. Once the tenant is evicted, the trailer park owner acquires their trailer. The lot owner has acquired a free home to rent out to the next person who can afford the higher fees. In other words, landlords are stealing people’s homes out here. AND, nationally, investors are purchasing (at an alarming rate) HVAC businesses, because they’re looking for “recession-resistant” places to grow their money, and people will always need heat and air. They realized businesses closed during the pandemic so they’re trying to business-ize THE HOME. I truly believe if this continues then home necessities like HVAC will become a luxury only a certain economic class can afford. We are really in a mess right now.
And then, together, in unison, both me and the conspiracy theorist say: It seem like it isn’t such a bad idea if we learn how to grow our own food, heat our homes off-grid, and learn how to cook without using electricity.
At which point I snap my head around and look over at the conspiracy theorist, completely shooketh, because we just actually agreed on something!
Really?! Is this how the world finally comes together? Our food ways, health care, and infrastructure systems get so bad that we need to start living off-grid with one another, and this finally brings all the peoples of the world together, to garden and create wells; to weave and cook; to build homes with our own hands and tell stories?
It’s just not how I pictured my life going forward.
And yet, here I stand with conspiracy theorists (physically, not ideologically); and, we’re united in our …I don’t want to say values, because I think our values are drastically different. So what it is? Our…priorities around self-sustained foodways and energy production? I’ll call it that. Albeit we share those interests and concerns for drastically different reasons; but we do share them.
I’ve just got to think about this more. Because there’s something Anthropological happening here.
Are we finally hitting our Road to Damascus moment (I’ve read the Bible! I know things!)
(Except these folks were previously on the “Road to De-MASKING” amirite?! ba dum dum tsssh. Here all week, folks, tip your servers!)
But, for real: Is our collective consciousness awakening more and demanding a reverse-course on the damages we do, to the planet, to ourselves, in the name of progress? Are we collectively—across huge ideological, religious, and political chasms—realizing how out of alignment we are with our own planet’s ecosystems? Will this spur more movement towards self-sustained agriculture and energy?
I don’t know.
What I do know is: I am really happy with my simple home and humble land.
It’s more than enough to keep me busy.
And, I can lean into my values here, learning/remembering how to grow my own food, and finding creative ways to produce heat and energy that do not rely upon systems that seem to be failing before my ears and eyes.
I often find myself thinking of larger world problems and thinking: well, what can *I* do about it, I’m just me.
You know what just me can do…? Grow a garden. Learn to quilt (I know how to sew, knit, and crochet; quilting is next; and spinning wool will come after that). Use a wood stove to supplement my heating. Trade flowers and veggies for my neighbor’s honey. Buy (cheaper) eggs off my other neighbor with the chickens. Take a short walk down my street – two houses one direction and two houses the other direction – and pick up any road side trash I see. I can purchase a CSA Farm Share and get fresh local produce dropped off right on my porch and support local agriculture.
Perhaps because of my age—or perhaps because I am doing it single-handedly and that’s not how humans are intended to live—I find it is a lot of work to take care of my house and land.
I am so exhausted all the time.
And, it feels good.
Both things can be true.
I am exhausted all the time, and I’m feeling grateful and joyous leaning into my values and co-creating a world to my liking.
And, I know my vision is shared by many people of like-mindedness. And, also, not so much (shout out to the conspiracy theorist crowd, heeeeey!)
But, I’m here, an active participant in World-Making.
A few lines of world-making inspiration from Starhawk’s novel The Fifth Sacred Thing:
“Here, water runs freely in open streams where ducks can bathe, and kids swim, and people catch fish. Nobody owns anybody else, and everybody has a roof over their heads and enough to eat and drink.”
“The Four Sacred Things are earth, air, fire, and water. Nobody can own them or profit from them, and it’s our responsibility to heal them and take care of them. That’s the basis of our politics and our economy.”
“A True Revolution is motivated by great feelings of Love.”