The Hot Hot Future

Peppers from the summer harvest. The flash on my camera made them look like cheap garish vegetables, rather than the complex cayennes they really are.

Remember summer tomatoes? I'm still hoping for more snow here in McMinnville, so it's not as though I'm pining for the summer yet. As I recall it, it was pretty miserably hot here and I wore a lot of heat rashes in July. That's not a look that inspires admiration. Or comfort. Still, I've been thinking a lot about produce lately, how there isn't much to choose from around here, and in plotting to never buy any vegetables ever again I was trolling through pictures from the summer garden; getting hungry. I went to Roth's recently, the posh grocery store, just to have a break from the miserable health food store. Here's what I have to choose from:

Safeway: a place that is contributing mightily to the destruction of our local economy, global warming, chemical poisoning, and the spread of the corporate disease. We buy most of Max's food at Safeway because he was sent to us from the devil and will only eat Ritz Bitz and Goldfish.* I avoid buying produce there as much as possible, mostly on principle, but also because I bought broccoli there this past year that, when steamed, smelled really wrong. It had a strong foul chemical aroma.

Harvest Fresh: Their prices aren't all that bad. Not great, but I have made immense efforts to support them since they aren't corporate, they sell "good quality" products, and they support lots of local farmers. I want to give the owners a swift kick in the butt though for trying to sell produce way past it's prime, for not controlling the aggressive unappetising clouds of fruit flies always hovering over the produce, and for not staying on top of general expiration dates. Oh yes, and their mediocre food makes me upset too because there's no excuse for it.

Roth's: This is where you go when you have annoying stacks of greenbacks burning holes in your pockets. Or when you just get so tired of your other choices you break down and go there against your better judgement. I will ask you this: what grocery store doesn't carry swiss chard in the winter? Oh yes, and: who can afford to spend $2.99 per pound for "heirloom" oranges? I'm sure the Donald wouldn't blink twice at that price. But only because he has probably never gone to the grocery store in his entire life. (That alone deserves my scorn.)

There's the fourth, secret, choice: GROW ALL MY OWN FOOD.

Because all this spare time and acreage I've got is really bringing me down.**

Seriously, this has been on my mind a lot this past week. Partly that's because this is the time to plan the garden. But also because I feel like the only way any of us can eat produce that's healthy, tasty, and not prohibitively priced is to grow it ourselves. There's something wrong with farmers using chemicals they won't let their own family touch. That's right, there's at least one commercial farmer out there who isn't buying the whole "pesticides are harmless" crap the chemical companies are trying to shove down our throats, but who, none the less, is using them to grow commercial crops. There's one farmer out there who won't let his family eat the food he grows for the rest of us. He has an untreated patch of potatoes for his own family. There is something so morally wrong with him being willing to feed the rest of us this poison when he isn't willing to give it to himself, his wife, or his children.

I'm not actually trying to bust the farmer's balls. I mean, someone should, but right now I'm trying to focus on what I can do for myself. All good change starts not from pointing fingers at others but pointing them at ourselves and asking what the hell we can do about it. I have my own hens, so I have eggs whose origin and content I am in complete control of. I give my girls lots of good scraps and I keep them pretty clean, and they are pretty happy for a bunch of fluffy birds. Some people don't think this makes a difference. But it does. Oh yes, it does. It just isn't a difference that's going to make you richer.

I can grow some of my own produce too. Which I do, every single year. If I had the time I would grow a lot more. And once I'd used up my yard, I would, if I could afford it, either buy more land or rent more. There is no more powerful thing you can do for yourself than to grow some of your own food. Go ahead, doubt me. Remember the victory gardens everyone was growing during World War II? Millions of people were gardening because of food shortages. People were on rations. Do people think this couldn't happen again? What a bubble we live in.

All of these thoughts combined with all of the research I've been doing for the store have made some ideas sharpen. I've become focused on how to make Dustpan Alley not only become successful, different from our competition, but also a company that reflects what's truly important to me, to us, and if not to you, then what should be important to you. Sustainability, high quality lives, environmental awareness, and self sufficiency.

By self sufficiency, I don't mean that we all need to become creepy cult-like woods dwelling self righteous people who don't participate in culture, and make our own tools as well as grow our own wheat. I mean, more power to you if you embrace that level of self sufficiency. Just don't stock-pile weapons and ammunition please. By self sufficiency I mean we all need to have more independence. Most of us can't grow all of our own food. But as I've mentioned before, everyone can grow some fresh herbs. Almost everyone can grow a tomato plant or two, some lettuce. I mean that it's empowering to make things for ourselves.

Most people have to work a lot of hours away from home just to pay the bills. Even when you do this you can learn to cook healthy food for yourself, you can learn to use some tools to build small things for your home and garden. You can sew things. You can fit so much in life that's fun and gives you a little more personal power than you had before. How can anyone not want that?

I suppose I'm preaching to the choir here. I want my store to have ready made gifts in it, because I'd be stupid not to have plenty of cool things for people to buy that don't require any assembly. But what I want more of is kits. Kits that help people get started learning new things such as how to make small useful items like key chains. Kits to get people started making their own natural body care products. Kits for making soap. These aren't original thoughts or kits. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be more of that out there. Who doesn't love kits?!

OK, I know, plenty of people don't care about kits. But they will when they see mine.

You can't see it from your screen, but my mind is rearranging itself. My mind is taking what we've already done and is starting to hone in on what might really work, distinguish us, and offer something truly valuable. A lot of my inspiration comes from my creative friends who all around me are making fantastic things. Beautiful knits, magical toys, incredible food. Not just my friends right around me, and the ones I left behind in California. But you. You who might be reading this right now.

Right around the new year I was asking some pretty important questions about my business. Not comfortable questions, but important. I'm coming up with answers now. That doesn't mean I'm going to have it all figured out any time soon. But my mission, my vision has become much more obvious and my path more clear. Even if at the end of the year our brick and mortar isn't paying enough of the bills to keep us floating, it won't necessarily mean the end of Dustpan Alley. My original vision for my company, thought up several years ago when I became a housewife, has gotten a little obscured. Yet all I had to do was some serious brainstorming to find out that I'm still building what I wanted to build, it just got complicated by opening an actual store and having to fill it.

I feel like I'm making almost no sense because my head is buzzing. I'm not on drugs. I'm not drunk. It's buzzing with ideas. Like I hit the idea jackpot and I need three more bodies so I can develop all of them simultaneously. In fact, I have to get back to organizing the projects and do more research. I guess if I didn't make sense today, you'll just have to wait and see what develops here. I will get that camera battery replaced so you can see some of the projects as they are taking shape.