The other day after giving a talk on active solar and simple living I had to run to the hardware store. On my return trip it was bumper to bumper traffic backed up for over 2 miles. What could have caused such a back up?? Maybe a major accident, road construction, Obama in town. No, the grand opening of a McDonald's, Gas Station and a Bank all in a new building (a perfectly good near empty one was right next door). This grand opening was very important, so important that they stationed a police officer with lights flashing in the middle of the road. This is a significant watershed event because now you can drive from Portland to Damariscotta and stop at a McDonald's every 15 or so miles (after eating there you will most likely be hungry again in 15 miles). What I also found amazing, is that in this one big building we find the three big troubles our country is facing; unhealthy eating, over consumption of non-renewable resources and a financial institution. So what is a person to do. I could have set up a protest, wrote letters or blogged about it, but that would not have made a difference. What I did was have a wonderful mid-summer party with about 30 people, shared a local vegetable meal and the next morning built a mud earth bread oven.
This oven cost me nothing, uses no fossil fuels, and cooks food that is good for the soul and body. In addition I had the pleasure of seeing 6 children and 2 adults working together to build and learn. Every time a group of people gets together to do something like celebrate the mid summer, eat a local meal together or get their hands dirty building an oven our society takes another little step in countering the drive to consume more.
We cooked our first two loaves tonight, from our own made up bread recipe. Its not hard, most of the world does this every day just to survive.
Peace and build a mud oven (just don't cook a big mac in it)
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