Subsistence Farming - Hawaii

a few nights ago our community neighborhood association (scott and i are on the board) met and on the agenda was our response to our councilperson’s recent letter informing us of upcoming planned and proposed development projects. we wanted to let him know that not everyone wants bigger faster roads everywhere. part of our discussion centered around “when will the cost of gas cause people to consider mass transit alternatives?” i rec’d this from my father today. he lives in southern delaware. This was the first time they had taken the bus.

We are doing well and spent yesterday going to Rehoboth via our bus service. We learned a lot. Like check the time a bus will be leaving the hub that the one from the beach returns us to. On our way back to the hub our driver let us know that the scheduled bus leaving the hub to Long Neck would not be leaving until an hour and half after she would drop us there.

She suggested we ride back to the beach with her, in the air conditioned bus, rather than sit on the bench in the sun waiting. Good idea, so we took the tour and then sat on the bench awaiting our bus. That was around 5 pm and the next bus was 8 pm. We arrived home around 6 pm. It cost us 40¢ each for each leg. So our total cost for both of us, round trip was $1.60. A lot less than $3.12 for a gallon of gas.

I feel giggly hopeful when I hear that people considering giving up their reliance on vehicles. I love the story of what happened in cuba when the USSR dissolved and abandoned them and our government decided to get revenge for years of humiliation caused to the US image by castro by increasing our embargos. overnight, cuba had almost no imports. that meant gasoline, pesticides, fertilizers….. and they did not starve. castro implemented victory gardens (on patios, city lots etc), and the people started to really recycle and reuse everything. i delighted at pictures of corner markets with local foods, people piled in and on the roof of buses, bikes, walking….

being surrounded by a neighborhood of doom and gloomers it has been depressing to constantly hear about gas prices, peak oil, global warming, pollution, gmo’s, war…. it was not until i read about cuba that i began to create a beautiful future image.