Sauerkraut and the Tar Sands

Harvest activity began in earnest last week, when Jane and I made a batch of peach jam. Right now I'm writing in the middle of the so-called hurricane, and I'm making sauerkraut out of the eight cabbages I picked yesterday in a flurry of pre-storm activity. So far, the worst damage has been to the basketball hoop, which came crashing down (I will have to consider how to repair plexiglass), but it was good to harvest the tomatoes. I expect the garden is awhirl with flying green tomatoes right now, but I got all the riper ones, and the question is — now what?

Jane did some quick math last week, and discovered that canning tomato sauce might cost us as much as $9.00/quart (that's the price of the jars, plus the need to purchase more tomatoes at the farmer's martket — we don't quite have enough of our own). These are the dismaying discoveries of those with ambitions to be self-sufficient. Frankly, economies of scale are a reality, and so is the fact that our food is highly subsidized, and picked by immigrants making a fraction of the minimum wage. In other words, it's cheap to buy food, and not yet efficient to grow your own. Please don't let this discourage you. I find I can eat a lot of tomatoes and freeze the rest, and at some point we'll come to know why we've invested in these skills.

Due to problems with Amtrak, a delayed flight that has kept my kids in Europe, and the difficulty of finding a good dog-sitter, I am not where I should be today. I was meant to take the train down to DC to participate in the Tar Sands Action, a major act of civil disobedience in the climate change movement. It wasn't, frankly, all that appealing: The prospect of spending a day in "training," and the next sitting in the hot sun in front of the White House waiting for the police to make the third and last announcement that we remove ourselves from the sidewalk, before pulling out the handcuffs. But this is a critical moment for the movement to show some teeth, and I wanted to be there.

The State Department is about to make a call to okay the Keystone Pipeline, which will greatly increase the amount of crude oil coming out of the Canadian tar sands. It's obscure and hard to understand why this is so critical, but like all key issues around climate change, it's important to listen to the scientists who study the climate. Our best and most vocal climatologist, Dr. James Hansen at NASA, says that a full exploitation of the tar sands would put so much carbon into the atmosphere that it would mean "game over" for the climate.

No issue of national security, or access to a local source of energy from our allies, or potential boost to the economy is worth this level of damage to the Earth.

You can learn more about the Tar Sands here in the NY Times. It takes about six weeks for sauerkraut to ferment, so I'll report on that later. Meanwhile: Support the Action — oppose the Pipeline.

About JP Green House

Our century-old house served the Woodbourne neighborhood as "Jack's Corner Store" for 70 years. We bought it in 2008 out of foreclosure,and rehabbed it from a derelict state to be a model for low-carbon living. The house features passive solar design, super insulation, recycled materials, triple-glazed windows, a heat transfer ventilation system and an air-to-water heat pump for hot water.

We maintain an average indoor temperature of 63 degrees in the winter without a heating system. Our organic garden provides all the produce for our family from April to November.

Follow us here on Patch, and on Facebook. We welcome visitors as well! Make an appointment by email: greenhousejp@gmail.com