Twenty-Nine Thousand Acorns

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77577864687689230912012-01-27T11:33:38.377-05:00Twenty-Nine Thousand AcornsA mature oak can produce twenty-nine thousand acorns a year. Each has the chance to sustain our people, heal the world some, and spread where it can.29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-54602405052039381152011-12-04T18:36:00.008-05:002011-12-04T19:16:51.099-05:00The Quandary of Medical Technology

This summer my father nearly died, and was saved by high-tech heart surgery. In the immediate period of recovery following this event, during which I was busily employed at my parents shop to help pull up some of the slack (while working another job at that), I was a bit to preoccupied by everyday activities to give much thought to the ramifications of the event (aside from pointing out to my dad

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-32448664491541442872011-07-12T14:19:00.007-04:002011-07-12T16:20:42.711-04:00Cattails: "Supermarket in the Swamp"

It's about time I did a post on the other wild plant I think is supremely important as a food source for self-sufficiency and wilderness survival. Cattails, which are the plants in the genus typha, are a moisture loving plant usually found and swamps, on the edges of bodies of water, and in fairly wet ditches. They grow on every continent, and are fairly easy to identify. There are edible

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-27115774113364235892011-07-07T00:21:00.002-04:002011-07-07T00:25:31.839-04:00Eco-literacy

Just as you can't truly love another human without knowing them intimately, you can't love your landbase without knowing it intimately. In other words, you can't be a real environmentalist, or not much of one anyway, if you don't know how the land you live on functions and how to interact with it properly. You need to know how to live in place to be able to make any real decisions about that

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-65166265732874251642011-04-30T13:47:00.005-04:002011-04-30T14:58:47.206-04:00Three Sister Gardening

I just started digging out some gardens to plant the Three sisters, a traditional triad of plants grown in many places on the North American continent. It's a fantastic technique for growing a survival garden, that is something you can actually feed yourself off of with minimal work and land use. The plants help each other as per the principles of companion planting. The corn stalks grow tall,

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-8229870785246365672011-03-08T14:48:00.003-05:002011-03-08T14:57:37.049-05:00Jensen quote

I've been wanting to include this quote from Derrick Jensen for a while. It's a pretty important quote in my opinion, and one that encapsulates my particular goals and feelings."If you've gotten this far in this book, if you're anything but entirely insensate, we probably agree that civilization is going to crash, whether or not we help bring it about. If you don't agree with this, we probably

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-69075511750492676522011-03-01T16:00:00.003-05:002011-03-01T16:10:10.536-05:00Wild Food Challenge Part II

Last night I decided that I want to try my hand at another wild food challenge. This time, I'll be stepping it up a bit, simply because of the circumstances. The first difference is that it's still winter. Last year when I started my wild and local challenge, it was spring. There was a small amount of fruit and wild greens available. Now there isn't quite so much, and I admit that my winter

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-5877923796494827422011-02-28T01:19:00.002-05:002011-02-28T13:04:46.005-05:00The Premises of This Blog

It's been said often enough that argument arises out of people thinking they mean the same thing with the same words. More specifically, a lot of these disputes have to do with pre-conceived ideas about a subject, and the assumptions we make concerning the world and our relationships. Often these assumptions are not examined, the result of our culture's conditioning and the narrative conveyed

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-67533263600547905482011-02-24T21:05:00.002-05:002011-02-24T21:19:51.919-05:00Hunting Advice

As I've mentioned before, I'm making efforts to transition my diet away from markets and towards relying on my landbase for food. This has involved some gardens (some failed, some successful), lots of foraging, and learning to hunt. Well, shortly after my hiatus from blogging began, I finally went on my first deer hunt. This was a huge thing for me, not just because I love well cooked deer

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-61472207973858457192011-02-24T12:32:00.002-05:002011-02-24T12:32:00.807-05:00Winter Hibernation and Return

Winter is always a weird time for me, writing wise. A lot of things have been happening lately with me, and I can use them all as excuses to cover for the fact that, essentially, I've just ignored writing. Sorry for those of you who enjoy my writing. In part, I think I've been depressed, and while I know it's at least a little bit because of a lack of sunlight and monetary troubles, some of it

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-70879038036624369882010-11-07T19:57:00.005-05:002010-11-08T03:36:32.855-05:00Why Environmentalists Need to Hunt

After reading Sean's great piece about reasons for eating meat, it occurred to me that in many places, hunting isn't just an environmentally sound way to get meat, it's a social and environmental responsibility.In many places certain species are so over-populated that they are an environmental blight themselves. In some parts of Connecticut, for example, I've heard that there are around 65 white

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-55658745188558836942010-11-01T23:22:00.003-04:002010-11-01T23:50:41.470-04:00F*ck Voting

With election day coming up tomorrow, and me being unable to vote (going camping for work, yay!), I got to thinking about voting. It really astounds me how much seemingly intelligent people can continually put faith in a system that has proven itself to be exploitative and destructive to life in general. So I say Fuck Voting.So many 'progressives' talk about reform through voting, but no real

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-7174597953656445552010-10-31T13:34:00.000-04:002010-10-31T13:34:00.222-04:00Why I HATE Conspiracy Theories

I really hate conspiracy theories. A lot of people assume I'd be into them, and sometimes I get a good chuckle out of them, but overall they annoy the crap out of me. They more often than not completely lack a logical sequence, even when some really good information is dug up.The biggest thing that really pisses me off, though, is how much any non-mainstream idea, particularly those that are

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-62908505940761708722010-10-29T18:54:00.001-04:002010-10-29T18:54:00.324-04:00Why I Eat Meat

This is a beautiful post from Sean Donahue at Green Man Ramblings, reproduced here because I think it's important, and have touched on similar things with a piece some months ago.I was a vegetarian for seventeen years. And in the end, it was reflecting on the same questions that led me to stop eating meat that made me start eating it again.Throughout my years as a vegetarian, I subscribed to the

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-45133587284033917062010-10-28T00:46:00.001-04:002010-10-28T00:46:00.803-04:00Survivalism for Radicals?

I've been thinking about changing the tone and direction of this blog. Up until now I've mostly been focusing on the intellectual side of rewilding and related subjects, occasionally adding in a bit of real-world know-how to help people make growing feral cultures more possible. This has been great, and has allowed me to examine some subjects I've been wanting to, and share that with all of you

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-75154023880684843802010-10-25T12:35:00.000-04:002010-10-25T12:35:00.696-04:00Self-Blame=Bullsh*t

Ever have someone tell you that we're all just as responsible for environmental damage, because we use oil from the ground and wood from clearcut forests? I keep hearing this from time to time. The problem is, it's complete bullshit.I didn't choose to live this way. If you're reading this, you probably didn't either. I've tried to live in a different way. And I mean radically different,

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-55845175302034250252010-09-10T07:28:00.000-04:002010-09-10T07:28:00.245-04:00Acorn Processing

I was asked on my Facebook recently if I had something about how to process acorns on this blog, and realized I hadn't. Seems like a kind of important post to have, considering the name of the blog and its meaning. Different people have slightly different ways to process them, dependent on the tools used, environmental conditions, and of course the types of acorns. So I'll post a method

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-26947853537850933692010-09-03T19:00:00.001-04:002010-09-04T00:14:55.695-04:00Survivalism and Rewilding

I've been considering more lately what are the best way to help influence circumstances towards the formation of sane, sustainable, egalitarian cultures. This is, after all, what rewilding is about. But I've been reconsidering some of my ideas, leaning just a bit more towards the more "mainstream" survivalism (if there is such a thing), which is probably not a surprise to anyone reading the

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-39467566605722279282010-08-30T21:00:00.005-04:002010-08-31T01:37:32.265-04:00When Collapse Goes Wrong!

Given the recent prediction from Michael Ruppert that the oil economy is about to collapse following the predicted model of Peak Oil, it seems prudent to hurry up and write this. This is partially a continuation of the previous essay, and partially a counterpoint to it. If you haven't read my previous posts, please check the links to them that I'll post below.What we need to discuss is what can

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-5392546109934060242010-08-25T12:00:00.002-04:002010-11-08T03:39:44.979-05:00Reasons to be (Heavily) Armed

I wrote this some months ago, and pondered whether to post it. It's a semi-serious list of reasons I think individuals and communities need to be realistic about self defense. It's also a good teaser for what I'm planning for my next post.1.) Civilization* 1a.)racism 1b.)misogyny 1c.)fascism/corporatism 1d.)mercenaries like Xe(formerly Blackwater, USA)(see 1c) 1e.)police violence and state

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-72706318969791408882010-08-22T00:00:00.004-04:002010-08-22T02:02:25.572-04:00Collapse, Hard and Soft Collapses, and Why You Should Care

In my previous essay, Tyranny, Exploitation, and Unsustainability, I covered why societies based on unsustainable lifestyles, those that take more than they give and reduce rather than maintain biodiversity, necessarily lead to systematic violence, slavery, and a host of other illnesses of civilization. This is obviously important to anyone who wants to better the world, since we need to have

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-72896754418025048722010-08-15T14:06:00.000-04:002010-08-15T14:06:00.937-04:00Recipe: Venison Adobo

My partner Kris has been saying that I should post one of my recipes that always goes over well: venison adobo. I've made it for Rewild New England gatherings, as well as in general from time to time. The last time I brought it to a gathering, a friend of mine who hadn't eaten red meat for ten years chowed down, remarking that it was the right way to eat red meat. I also quickly became the

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-90997654666557919072010-05-28T16:03:00.004-04:002010-08-11T02:01:56.310-04:00Wild Eating Challenge Conclusion

After just over three weeks, I've decided to end my wild/gardened food experiment. It wasn't for any lack of food or blandness; over the past three weeks I've had the opportunities to try a number of foods I might not have thought of, tasted delicious delicacies and used wild foods in ways that I'd never expected. I've had the opportunity to dine on barbecued snapping turtle, and been able to

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-60553433858008098752010-05-07T14:47:00.002-04:002010-05-07T15:31:43.199-04:00Wild/Local Food Challenge!

My partner has been suggesting that I do some posts about more physical things, such as step-by-step tutorials and updates about my own projects and activities. After all, telling people why they need to live sustainably and in free feral groups just doesn't cut it if you can't at least give hints on how to do so. Granted, there are a lot of other places to get that information, and I'm glad to

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-50784878682276580272010-03-29T22:13:00.001-04:002010-03-29T22:20:48.452-04:00Tyranny, Exploitation, and Unsustainability

Too many otherwise extremely critical people concerned with social justice overlook a vital area. It's a shame, really, considering how otherwise thoroughly this field of discourse seems to have explored so many aspects of life by these folks. But in this one area, so many radical groups have ignored the most fundamental aspect of life, and in so doing have set up the course for a system doomed

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-47098981404315521132010-03-14T23:09:00.008-04:002010-03-15T00:01:29.605-04:00"With Friends Like These..."

Yesterday author Lierre Keith (of "The Vegetarian Myth", which I'm currently reading) was attacked by three masked cowards, with a cream pie laced with cayenne pepper, who then shouted "GO VEGAN". By her account she's still in pain today. This is an ideologically driven hate crime, and I suspect misogynistic motivations as well (myself and others have spelled out why the fanatic vegan movement

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-69269065291519695852010-03-10T12:00:00.000-05:002010-03-10T12:00:02.962-05:00Machetes: A Look at Historical Armed Liberation

I'm obsessed with the tool commonly called a machete. I'm an avid outdoors-man, and when I can I spend hours in the forest. Naturally, interacting with the world around me, the bioregion I dwell in and am a part of, requires some tools. The machete has a great range of uses, and a good one can be acquired for a small price. It is essentially a large knife, and therefore has all of the uses of a

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-13749994106962797682010-03-09T12:00:00.002-05:002011-05-24T23:03:46.978-04:00An Appeal For Community

This is an appeal to many of my friends and allies nearby, any of those wishing to live saner lives and create a better world. It will hopefully also be inspiration and resource for my friends outside of my immediate area. Spread it around as you see fit.I'm becoming more and more aware that our culture's divisiveness and it's general hatred for real community makes many sorts of social movements

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-71327905469446816162010-03-08T12:00:00.001-05:002010-03-08T12:00:00.799-05:00On Killing and Balance: An Ecological and Reciprocity Based Ethical Foundation

I am a killer. I don't deny this, and I have no problem with it. I'm a complex animal, and therefore I'm a killer. All complex animals are, as are most simple animals. Basically all creatures besides a few types of lichens feed off of the dead matter of other creatures, though plants don't kill firsthand too often. So I kill things or have things killed for me. This is not to say I'm a murderer,

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-20168612645519895522010-03-07T23:00:00.001-05:002010-03-08T21:50:10.718-05:00Firearms Enculturation, Patriarchy, and Unexamined Hierarchies

Women must not depend upon the protection of man,but must be taught to protect herself.- Susan B. Anthony, July 1871 I've come to notice that there is a particular difference between men and women. I mean, aside from the very obvious stuff, slot A meets tab B, birds and bees and all that jazz. Specifically, I've been noticing that many women just don't know anything about guns, and yet most men

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-53519369625063035432010-03-06T12:00:00.002-05:002010-03-06T12:00:02.151-05:00Community Organizing and Planning for the Future

One thing that's become increasingly clear to me is the need to offer/create immediate and viable alternatives to civilization and its unhealthy cultural traits. In this area especially, I think Malcolm X presents a great example. As he covered in the statements of purpose for the OAAU, we need to think about all the basic needs of our community. It's also become clear to me that, while learning

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-81265864563316263152010-03-04T12:00:00.001-05:002010-03-04T12:00:03.610-05:00Civilized/First World Privilege

One night, my partner and I went to a meeting of the discussion group that my friend puts together. One of the people there brought up the idea that the dichotomy between Reform and Revolution is a false one, which I quite agree with (an opinion I dropped and then picked back up recently, both times due to Derrick Jensen). After all, what good is it to dismantle civilization if there's nothing

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-51289571585028930132010-03-02T12:00:00.007-05:002010-03-02T15:23:30.883-05:00"Post-Colonial" Rewilding

After work Sunday night I managed to make it to a great party hosted by my friends Elizabeth, Marco (of the blog "Politics of the Cerebral", linked on the right), and Christina. The party was in celebration of Black History month, and featured a clothing drive to send to Haiti. As always happens when these particular friends are involved, the night was full of fantastic intellectual discussion,

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-86448407739443819782010-03-01T18:43:00.001-05:002010-03-01T19:58:46.110-05:00"Whose Side?"

This piece has been spread around a lot lately, and originates from Lierre Keith and Derrick Jensen.When a government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.Do you believe that the United States government takes better care of corporations, or human beings? I don’t know anyone who believes the United States

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-24048724885278636722010-02-27T23:03:00.005-05:002010-03-01T20:30:41.406-05:00Foundational Acorns

I've been criticized in the past (by people who don't bother to actually converse with me) for advocating and teaching skills such as foraging, gardening, hunting, fishing, and permaculture as a means to create social change. "How is eating acorns going to help the poor, stop women from being raped, stop corporations from blasting the tops off of mountains?". The primary misunderstanding that

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7757786468768923091.post-61799576679424448502010-02-26T19:21:00.003-05:002010-03-01T21:03:03.081-05:00Rewilding: One Explanation

Imagine living in a way in which you’re rarely hungry or cold. You live in a comfortable house nearby all of your family and close friends. It’s not fancy, no, not hardly, but it’s comfortable and it’s yours. It smells like fragrant wood smoke, cooking, and dried herbs. You eat seasonally, and the food that you and your family and friends get is full of delicious and varied flavors, far more than

29,000 Acornshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668130282973833943noreply@blogger.com4