Sustenance

The fuckedness quotient here in paradise, where 99.9 percent of everything that feeds and powers the iPhones to the economy travels several thousand miles by ship or plane, continues to go up like global temperatures.

Built a chicken trap, from an ancient cat bin and a water+time burned bird cage, spliced together with wire cutters and twisty ties. Tomorrow, I'll be doing a chicken coop. Also working on putting together a roof catchment system for a future terraced wetland-taro patch. The valley must be second in rainfall to Waialiali on Kauai, we could pull in at least five hundred gallons every time it rains (three times a day). Machete'd the post-apoc rain forest overrunning the yard, for environment hacking win.

Researched wind, hydro, and solar energy vectors for our place. Hydro is the most powerful/reliable, one impulse-style micro-hydro turbine with a fraction of our stream would put us well above our energy high-water mark. Problem there is politics, Department of Land and Natural Resources. Wind is as reliable as the weather but less invasive. Solar is most expensive still, but solar water heating is exploding around the island with massive tax incentives.

Electricity has gone up many cents per kilowatt hour this year and our electric bills are off the charts at $200+ per month; a serious jolt to the system. Airlines and as a whole keep divebombing, there won't be much system left to shock. Although, it seems it's mainly Americans getting jacked out of their Corona commercial recliner dreams. Tourism from China is on the rise and Canadian arrivals are up 13% for May. Be like water, my friend, eh?

I'm also taping this all for a potential little documentary of one household's voyage into the post-carbon world.