The Year of Compromises & Staple Food Self-Sufficiency | Rewilding Update
or “What we should really be focusing on right now” --- [Estimated reading time: 30 min.]
The Year of Compromises
This dry season felt decidedly hectic. With the Peak Oil Wars dominating the news and a strong El Niño on the horizon, it seemed like things could get precarious any time now. Preparing for the worst, we often found ourselves in a mental state we half-jokingly call “prepper mode,” mapping out different scenarios of the coming energy price hikes and supply chain issues, and what we needed to get done “before SHTF.” There were a number of projects we pushed up the to-do list, before prices of commodities and construction materials (like cement, sheet metal and square steel tubes) increased even further.
And in order to finish all those projects a few compromises had to be made.
First of all, after seven years on the land, we couldn’t get around pouring concrete anymore. The thin, 20-year-old concrete footpath leading up to our house was cracked and broken in so many places (partly due to wild elephants walking on them) that slats of concrete were washed out and moved underfoot, thus turning our most-used path into a dangerous obstacle course during the rainy season. Karn had started repairing the worst areas temporarily by stomping coconut shells into the exposed ground, but I vowed to solve the problem once and for all – despite our stubborn aversion towards concrete as a material (emissions, sand mining, etc.), we eventually had to give in.
Then there were all sorts of smaller projects: a low wall behind the house to prevent flood water from rushing through our kitchen,1 several concrete posts for chicken- and rabbit enclosures, and various other small repairs and renovations.
The second (huge) compromise2 was that we bought two decent second-hand power tools – a corded electrical drill and a small angle grinder – again marking the end of a seven-year period of making do without any electric tools. To my own surprise, I never really missed power tools. I grew up learning how to get things done without them. My grandfather, subsistence farmer and carpenter by profession (and a little bit of a Luddite), cherished manual tools and handled them skillfully. To make hay for his small herd of sheep, the whole family helped scything the meadows like people had for centuries, at a time when all other farmers had scaled up operations and fully mechanized the process. He always worried my brothers and I would injure ourselves, and consequently declared that we were only to use hand tools (drills, saws and axes) when we tinkered in his workshop or helped clear out dead trees to haul as firewood in his small plot of woodland, since the potential for severe accidents is far greater when machines are involved. Once we grew up, he’d say, he’ll teach us how to use them.
And indeed, I do feel a weird sense of having reached another level of adulthood (at least as defined by the dominant culture) each time I rev up the drill, although I’m still respectfully cautious of its potential dangers. I naturally mistrust anything that spins thousands of times per minute.
Another limiting factor on our use of electrical tools and appliances – apart from our stubborn aversion towards machines – had been the size of our solar PV system. But ever since we upgraded it late last year,3 our battery is pretty much always full4 and we now find ourselves in the novel situation of having both too much electricity and, since we now can run our water pump for over an hour (not, like before, for around 20 minutes), too much water. After being told to turn off the tap and switch off the lights for my entire childhood and youth, I suddenly find myself compelled to do the exact opposite: “Keep the tap running for a while, the trees nearby will like it – the tank is already almost full, and tomorrow we’ll run the pump again!”
“No, leave the lights on, it’s better if the battery has the chance to discharge a bit!”
Three decades of environmental education turned upside down in a single season.
The main reason for the purchase of these tools was that we planned on expanding our rabbit enclosure. If we scaled up the operation, the old bungalow-slash-rainy-season-rabbit-retreat would surely become a bit claustrophobic, we thought, plus it might be useful to have a spare place in case some rowdy rabbits needed to be separated from the group.
This required drilling hundreds of holes into metal – a rather time-consuming task, as I learned during the construction of our porch roof a few years back (using only our hand drill). Drilling metal with a hand drill is also rather demanding on your wrists, since you have to use your body weight to apply pressure while simultaneously cranking the drill (and keeping it steady enough).
Ultimately, we concluded, a hand drill works perfectly fine with larger drill bits5 and natural materials like wood and bamboo – but when working with metal, using power tools saves time and thus definitely makes sense.
Nevertheless, I have the feeling that I won’t be using these tools too often. For most smaller tasks our hand tools work perfectly fine. Even when cutting metal (which we don’t do very often) the hacksaw is almost as quick (quicker even if you include the time it takes to find, untangle and plug in the extension cord needed to suckle the angle grinder), and the chance that you’ll accidentally blind yourself with it is zero.
Equipped with our little handheld machine helpers, construction took only a few days once we had accumulated all materials, and we managed to complete it just in time before the first rains.
But just as we finished the five-star luxury rabbit resort, disaster struck.
Into each life some rain must fall, but too much is falling in ours…
In an attempt to scale up our rabbit farming efforts (“before SHTF”), we had switched to “meat rabbits” earlier this year, which seemed like a logical next step. The time window for low-stakes experimentation with alternative subsistence modes is closing fast, we reasoned, and key factors such as availability, price and ease of transport probably won’t be this favorable in the future.
Meat rabbit breeds are much larger (which is great, otherwise we’d have to slaughter two rabbits when we have special guests), a pair costs between 300 and 1000 Baht (10-30 USD) if you’re not super picky about purebreds, and while people often reacted quite shocked when we told them that we slaughter our rabbits, this response changed markedly after adding the word “meat” – “Oooh, okay, meat rabbits!”
But they also immediately seemed less tolerant of humidity than the “regular rabbits” we’d kept before, avoiding wet ground as good as possible.
Unbeknown to us, trouble was brewing. For the first time since we’ve started keeping rabbits three years ago, we finally had a run-in with disease: mange, a fairly common, fast-spreading skin disease caused by parasitic mites.
And it was carnage.
The disease arrived with the first shipment of rabbits (a crossbreed of “Giant” and the local “Dam Phu Phan”), but went unnoticed until after the second shipment reached us (“New Zealand” and “Dam Phu Phan”). Naïvely, we didn’t even think about quarantining the new arrivals. The two New Zealand does were among the first casualties of the outbreak (conclusion: definitely not suited for our environment).
Over the course of a single month we lost half of our initial set of eight meat rabbits, due to our overly stubborn reluctance (i.e. stupidity) to see if it would go away on its own (which it doesn’t). To our untrained eyes, it initially looked like a minor skin irritation. But eventually we had to make yet another compromise and buy Ivermectin to inject them with (on the recommendation of the rabbit farm we purchased them from).
Having heard of problems occurring only after a few years had passed, we partly expected there to be a “day of reckoning” sooner or later. As with the chickens, our approach to animal husbandry is rather merciless Darwinism – if any individual doesn’t seem well-suited to our local conditions we have no quarrel with removing it from the gene pool; at the slightest hint of serious disease we usually do what’s called “emergency slaughter” in German. Two rabbits could be salvaged for meat, two others had accompanying complications that meant they went straight into the ground (only to be dug up repeatedly by our dog, who has a thing for rotting carcasses).
Just a few weeks later, after the start of rainy season proper, three more rabbits died of unknown (but probably humidity/mosquito-related) problems, leaving us right underneath the threshold – one breeding pair – below which we’ll have to call the switch to meat rabbits a failure.
Nonetheless, we were not ready to give up on rabbits per se, since the local breed we previously kept handled rainy season much better. Just the conversion of random vegetation into neat pellets of potent organic fertilizer alone is reason enough for us to stick with our composting corps of tiny herbivores.
But meat rabbits definitely need drier climates (or more restrictive conditions, i.e. elevated steel mesh cages), and, we concluded, are sadly not suitable for our conditions.
So we tried yet again, one last time(?),6 with the local Thai (“regular”) breed we’ve had better success with for over two years. Two more pairs of rabbits now keep our sole surviving meat rabbit doe company, who highly appreciates her new friends.
Luckily, a small colony of meat rabbits is pretty much the same as a slightly larger colony of regular rabbits, or, how we will call them from now on, “dwarf meat rabbits.”
(Theoretical) Staple Food Sufficiency
But the most pressing concern so far this year was how the hell we’re gonna ramp up staple food production in anticipation of potential harvest failures, price spikes, and shortages (perhaps as early as next year). With the mix of staples we already have we would probably survive somehow, but a) it wouldn’t always be easy, and b) the food wouldn’t always taste super nice. Most importantly, as history has shown, you’re always only as hungry as the community around you, so looking at us and our little garden in isolation makes little sense in (worst-case-)scenario-building.
A hastily ordered second shipment of rice from Karn’s parents7 arrived just when the government announced plans to implement a curfew on gas stations during the night in a bid to reduce fuel consumption. Ultimately the curfew did not happen, which left me with the eerie feeling that this whole Iran thing might end up becoming my personal Y2K (i.e. an apocalypse averted), and things might yet turn out “okay.” As many others, I was surprised by how little immediate impact the disrupted oil supply chains had on the global economy (so far, I might add, since the crisis is far from over). Still, we thought, better safe than sorry.
As soon as the Strait of Hormuz was closed, we realized that it might be in our best interest to prepare for the worst, and plant tubers as if our lives depended on it. Compared to earlier years, we actually slightly increased our rice consumption this year (as long as it’s still readily available), and replanted most of the annual tuber harvest straight away.
As a result, in our eighth year on the land it looks like we are finally approaching staple food self-sufficiency – theoretically, at least. To be honest, this was not our most pressing concern when we began this project (we thought we had a little bit more time to rely on rice from the Thai side of our family), but (in part thanks to Shane from Recombination Nation) we realized soon that a lavish collection of exotic fruits will not nearly be as important as bulk calories during the coming simplification and localization of the global food system.
To make matters worse, Thailand imports over ninety percent of its fertilizer, and pretty much all eggs are in the same giant (bread)basket in terms of staple foods. Certainly not the best prerequisites.
Consequently, over the course of this year’s dry season we’ve been frantically planting staple crops – mostly cocoyam – in order to ensure (theoretical!) staple food sufficiency as soon as anyhow possible.
A few quick words about cocoyam: Xanthosoma saggitifolium/violaceum (sometimes called “tannia”) is not taro (Colocasia esculenta), although the corms look similar. Apparently, cocoyam feeds around 400 million people worldwide, making it one of the most important tuber crops.
Discovering the potential of cocoyam still feels like we’ve hit the jackpot – or, to use a better analogy, cocoyam is like the missing piece to our puzzle in terms of species composition and ecological niche. Fast-growing, extremely tolerant of high precipitation and shade (!!), it can be integrated perfectly into our emerging Food Jungle. Wherever we look, we see more free slots to fill up with cocoyam in places that were too shady for cassava or too close to fruit trees that don’t like being smothered by yam vines (Dioscorea alata).
But let’s back up a bit. The first time cocoyam popped up on my radar was only a little over a year ago – incredible, really, since I’d been practicing permaculture for over a decade already, and usually absorbed information about plants like a sponge. Many a rainy afternoon was spent scanning plant databases, resulting in hastily written notes about medicinal (and other) properties of plants or seeds we still need before the global transportation network collapses. Yet somehow, this particular plant managed to fall through the cracks8 – until, by sheer chance, when visiting an old man’s garden in the next village early last year, a patch of large aroids caught my eye. Upon inquiry he told us it’s “Cambodian taro,”9 and dug up a few tubers for us to plant. He never took much care beyond occasional weeding, and apart from pulling up a few corms every now and then no maintenance had been necessary. The dozen-odd cormels (smaller “side corms”) he gifted us sprouted vigorously and grew fantastically, although we didn’t even put too much effort into planting them. Intriguing, I thought, and made a mental note to finally figure out the scientific name, as online searches for “Cambodian taro” didn’t turn up any useful results.
Fast forward a few months, and I read about “cocoyam” being used in the traditional Mayan milpa system.10 Strange, I wondered, how come I haven’t heard of that one before? A quick image search caused a major revelation: this was the “Cambodian taro” we had planted last year! The surprise didn’t end there, though: there is a purple-stemmed variety, I read, and… Wait. Holy shit! We have that plant already!!
Ever since I started learning & practicing permaculture, I had unwittingly cultivated a few purple cocoyams as a quaint ornamental! Soon after arriving in Thailand, someone from the village had pulled up a few smaller plants for me after I’d commented on their beautiful purple-black leaf stalks, without ever telling me that the tubers are edible as well!
I wonder how many more botanical treasures are hidden in plain sight somewhere in our garden.11
A little over half a year after planting (perhaps a little too early?) we were able to dig up, divide & replant cocoyam tubers at a rate of roughly 1:10, thus turning the dozen or so plants we already had into over a hundred. The bulk of our first own harvest was replanted pretty much immediately, but we left enough to experiment a bit with preparation (our favorite way is steam-boiling). Pulling up a single large plant provided sufficient carbohydrates to feed two people for a day.
Additional material was sourced from the old man (in exchange for a bottle of wine) and bought in the market (five rounds of 5kg each for 30 Baht – 1 USD – per kilo), and the final count for this year’s planting season stands at over 400 tubers buried.
(In the same time, we’ve also planted over 150 more white & purple “regular” yams.)
Our goal is to have at least one cocoyam plant for each day of the year (i.e. 365 plants plus buffer in case not all of them germinate), in addition to all other seasonal staples. This means that we will have achieved theoretical (!) staple food self-sufficiency from cocoyam alone by the end of the year. (If there’s sufficient rain, that is. Potentially a big “if,” considering what’s currently brewing in the Pacific.)
If we’re lucky, our efforts might have been just. on. time.
The work doesn’t end there, though: since nobody else is preparing, it will be up to us to not only maintain the capacity to feed ourselves, but also keep enough planting material ready to share with other villagers once they eventually realize how precarious the situation actually is. At the moment, renting an extra acre somewhere in the village is a serious consideration for us, as we could plant excess staple food (mostly cocoyam & cassava) there with little effort and maintenance, and keep it as an external store in case demand for cuttings/tubers increases suddenly. Perhaps the field on which we did our semi-successful Hill Rice Experiment would suffice. The cost for a small parcel would be negligible, and we’re already seeing the start of a trend towards the gradual abandoning of more marginal, distant plots due to the rising cost of various crucial inputs.
If it is possible for us to rely on rice from the Thai side of our family for another year, we could potentially scale up cocoyam planting by an order of magnitude. If divided at a 1:10 rate, this year’s 350-odd planting target might yield sufficient material for about 3,500 new plants, theoretically enough to feed several households.
What follows is a quick recap of our main alternative carbohydrate staple foods (in order of decreasing relevance) and their up- and downsides in our (admittedly rather unique) conditions, after roughly a decade of experience in cultivation, that can be skipped by those for whom it is of no concern:
Conclusion: Perfect for integration into a tropical food forest; little effort required for planting, care, harvest & processing; excellent taste
Conclusion: Little effort required for planting & care; excellent taste
Conclusion: Excellent long-term strategy staple; very little effort required for planting, care, harvest & processing; extensive upscaling possible with major time delay; excellent taste
Conclusion: Extensive upscaling possible; very little effort required for planting, care, harvest & processing; excellent taste
Conclusion: Very important stopover & long-term staple as large plantations already exist and the plant is common throughout the region. Taste varies according to cultivar (from ‘excellent’ to ‘edible when hungry’).
Conclusion: Excellent quick fix & stopover staple (extensive upscaling possible), but probably not for the soil type predominant in our bioregion. Little effort required for planting, care, harvest & processing; excellent taste
Conclusion: Only a minor crop in our conditions. Little effort required for planting, care, harvest & processing; excellent taste
Conclusion: « Main commercial cultivars are impossible to plant in our location due to persistent mold infestations and rot of both foliage and tubers.» (But maybe I have to try sourcing some “swamp taro”!)
Widening the Circle… (continued)
Another major compromise was that we were, for the first time since we moved here, actively involved in the harvest season. Due to the truly horrendous amounts of pesticides being used, we had refrained from working in the commercial orchards as good as possible – although this meant having to turn down occasional requests for help, which always left me with a lingering unease.
One of the main reasons was a phenomenon we observed each time we worked in other peoples’ plantations. As gardeners/farmers, we injure ourselves literally constantly. Thorns, sharp bamboo edges, the harvesting & processing of various fruits, and the constant handling of tools that might be used as weapons – all it takes is a split second of inattention and blood flows. Usually, that’s no big deal for us. Since we’re relatively healthy, wounds heal fast and without any major complications.12
But each time we injure ourselves while working in commercial orchards, even the tiniest wounds take days to heal properly and hurt substantially more than any cut, abrasion, or puncture wound obtained on our own land. There’s often reddening and sometimes pus secretion, indicating low-level inflammation.
My theory is that this is likely related to a) pesticide residue, and b) a dramatically impoverished phyllosphere microbiome with a higher percentage of pathogens and/or germs that our immune systems are not used to (because they exist only in much smaller quantities in our garden).
Regardless, since we had already planned to slowly integrate ourselves more into the local community, we didn’t want to turn down earnest requests for help. Becoming part of the village means being there when others need you, even if the rain hammers down incessantly and you’d much rather stay in your hammock. Traditionally a communal activity, the durian harvest requires first and foremost (wo)manpower, and helping hands are always in short supply – especially after the border clash with Cambodia scared off most migrant workers.
In addition, this was a great opportunity to show the rest of the village that we don’t exactly fit into the typical Farang-Thai couple stereotype, but that we can carry heavy baskets of durian on our shoulders, up and down the slopes of the mountain orchards and through the pouring rain, just like everyone else here. I even learned how to catch the spiky fruit using a burlap sack,13 and although I usually always prefer climbing, with this particular task I’m fine doing the groundwork – there’s too much at stake.14
Each year, I had climbed petai bean trees for a few villagers before, but I took great care to only climb trees that nobody else was interested in, either due to the size of the tree (too tall) or the size of the harvest (too small). The last thing I want is to appear as if I compete with locals for jobs – which, apart from being morally questionable, might even carry legal consequences.15 As luck would have it, during the durian harvest I finally had the chance to get to know the only other man that climbs petai bean trees in our village; he turned out to be very friendly and was glad that I can help relieve some of his seasonal work burden.
Accordingly, I had plenty of trees to climb, and since people often insist on reimbursing us for our efforts, this particular compromise even carried a beneficial financial side effect.
Overall, it was a strange fruit season – short and intense for some crops, long and intermittent for others; abundance of some crops and near-complete failure for others. Chances are high that there will be a noticeable decline in agricultural output for many commodities this year, in our region first and foremost mangosteen. Most of our mature mangosteen trees barely fruited at all, and since we normally use the earnings to cover our annual student loan payment,16 the extra harvesting work came at just the right time.
We had no mangoes,17 only a single avocado, and few rambutans. But our first salak palms started fruiting, and the longkong trees surprised us with a decent harvest – which also delighted the squirrels, and, in return, us. Fruit surplus for bushmeat is a worthwhile tradeoff.
The vegetables did surprisingly well, though, but only because we watered all beds every two days.
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It has become obvious that we were wrong in thinking that a small plot of land is sufficient to weather the coming storm. If we make it through, we will have to somehow persuade a sufficient part of our village to change their ways as well. People already grow plenty of food, but its mostly fruit, mostly seasonal, highly dependent on agrochemical inputs, and staple crops are missing entirely from the picture. It’s a system geared towards maximum profits and hopelessly dependent on highly complex supply chains stretching over several countries.
But, importantly, there’s still potential. And at least people have access to land.
All in all, things haven’t been too bad for us. Like during the Covid-19 pandemic, we were not directly affected by any of the complications other people have to deal with, and all price increases so far have been manageable for us.18 There is an almost adventurous excitement in the air when we have a certain type of conversation while in “prepper mode.” What else do we really need before serious shortages start? (The answer: another drinking water tank19 and a backup power inverter.) Unlike the efforts of “ordinary preppers,” our list is not focused on canned beans – or any food, really. In this regard we’re actually quite well prepared by now, and we’ve found substitutes for most of the “non-native” foods we occasionally crave (like German Bratkartoffeln or French fries made from cassava, Malabar spinach instead of European one, etc.).
Over the years, we’ve accumulated enough knifes, machetes, saws, sickles, shears and scissors, hoes, shovels, chisels, drill bits and other tools to – again, theoretically! – last us a few generations, and (apart from a proper workbench) I can’t think of anything our makeshift workshop is still missing.
Apart from what’s been happening in the world at large (and the anxiety and dread this sometimes inadvertently evokes), the past few years have actually been pretty good, both personally and in regard to our rewilding project. Trees are growing, and for the first time since we moved here we have reached a level of material comfort that – to us! – feels almost a little like luxury.20 After living in rather pitiful material conditions for the first few years, we now have enough dishes, cutlery, pots & pans (and enough space to store them), a table large enough for four, sufficient hammocks and chairs for visitors, and (relatively) safe footpaths. Food is abundant, the (surviving) animals are (as) healthy and content (as is possible in rainy season), and in the meantime we’ve even managed to become a small part of the village community.
There are now at least a few families who’ve come to appreciate us and our efforts,21 and we’ve become a steady component of the local informal gift exchange network, eagerly storing surplus food in our neighbors’ bellies and receiving random gifts in return.
The changes we’re about to witness over the coming few years will be monumental and likely entail considerable hardship, but there are plenty of reasons to be (carefully) optimistic. Less cars on the road is a good thing! Rising diesel prices will ultimately mean less excavator and bulldozer activity, which I’m looking forward to with particular excitement. More expensive gasoline eventually means more cycling and walking, which is good for both the environment and our spirit (and restores a long-lost opportunity for socializing). Less fertilizer and pesticide applications would be a very welcome change as well, despite the catastrophic impact on people’s (already insufficient) income – but even a concomitant financial crisis/economic crash might turn out a net positive for the rural poor, as long as the system’s capacity to project power is severely diminished as a result. Less dependence on technology, electricity, fossil fuels and the government means more reliance on our neighbors. Higher food costs mean people will have to begin planting more food around their houses and raising a few chickens or pigs here and there (maybe even some rabbits22), and the aforementioned abandoning of marginal lands planted in useless placeholder crops like rubber23 means increased wildlife habitat and improved microclimate.
Somewhere along the way we will have to make some hard choices about what’s really necessary in our lives and what can be relinquished. Things have become too cheap and convenient in this society – the world doesn’t end even if we have to wait a few weeks for our online order, and a shift in consumer demand towards durability and ease of repair would be a welcome change to the current avalanche of cheap Chinese industrial junk burying more sustainable local industries. Entire sectors of the economy (advertising, cosmetics, fashion, junk food like sweets & snacks, most “management” & much of the bureaucracy, etc.) could vanish overnight without leaving humanity substantially worse off in the long term, and plenty of resources might be freed up and redistributed to be used in essential services.24 This system still has more slack than we might think.
I’ll refrain from saying anything about the fate of the cities here (more on that in an upcoming essay, working title: “Towards the original Perma-Culture – A much-needed deep time perspective beyond urbanism”), but there is still plenty of potential for resilience in the rural area. The deciding factor, as I’ve said before, will be the mentality of the people.
As far as I can tell, we’re still nowhere close to some sort of “public awakening” or “cultural shift,” and (as Nate Hagens recently put it), “‘loss aversion’ means people will fight harder to keep what they have, rather than to gain something new.” The sheer implications of merely admitting the true trajectory we’re on would be too scary for most, and so far even the slightest attempt to start conversations around the topic of collapse are still met with stern silence or an abrupt change of subject.
The good news: our fellow villagers, like all peasants in the Global South, are tough people – both men and women alike. Much tougher than any city dweller I’ve ever met. I have the utmost respect for this character trait, and it will come in especially handy as things deteriorate and collapse accelerates. They are no strangers to hardship and suffering, and they weather debilitating disease, personal loss, environmental catastrophe and financial ruin with a stubborn smile. In many regards, collapse (here defined as ‘a continuous reduction in overall standard of living’) has already arrived for many of them, despite the system still being in place.
Most certainly, I can learn a lot from their resilience.
And as old stories start failing to deliver the anticipated results, it will eventually get easier to get people to listen to new ideas and stories about our past, our future, and the role we play in this world. We can either shift our paradigm, or perish. Up to us.
Until then we keep on “prepping,” zealously planting tubers and building stronger relationships with those living within walking distance from us – even if that means we have to make a few compromises here and there.
A few more impressions:
Previous Rewilding Updates:
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Update after the first large downpour of the year (120mm in 6h): it doesn’t work. Although the dam has alleviated the problem somewhat, water still flows through the kitchen, it just seeps through the various burrows of insects and other critters.
Admittedly, using power tools is pretty much the opposite of rewilding – hence “huge compromise.” We only make purchases after consensus is reached; in this case the decision-making process took around half a year of mulling over the pros and cons.
We’ve added two more panels for a total of 640W and upgraded to a 280Ah LiFePO4 battery, since the two 100Ah VRLA batteries were nearing the end of their useful lives – already! – after about three years. After replacing the battery, we were shocked by how bright the lights in our house were all of a sudden. It feels like the system is finally well-balanced and fine-tuned, even after weeks of cloudy weather everything works as supposed. Because I literally have zero idea what I’m doing, I had to buy a second DC circuit breaker to put between panels and charger. The old one was rated for 43A, and with a panel output of 8.9A each (35.6A total) I thought to have nailed the sizing, only to encounter days where the breaker would mysteriously disconnect several times a day. Consequently, I learned that rated output can be exceeded by up to 25 percent in certain conditions (such as when the sun emerges from cloud cover or rain droplets concentrate rays), which would mean a total of 44.5A – just over the limit of our breaker. A new breaker rated for 50A should do the job.
When extending the AC wiring to reach the concrete house, I suddenly remembered that there is such a thing as a “ground line,” and wondered where it should lead – Google said to a “ground rod.” (First time I’ve heard of this.) Now our entire electric system (plus panel casings and inverter) are grounded, and the whole setup might even reduce or prevent damage should it ever get struck by lightning. At the very least it provides psychological comfort, and, as a result, I sleep a bit better during nocturnal thunderstorms.
In a bid to extend battery life, I programmed the charger to never charge fully to 100 percent, and reduced the bulk charging voltage from 14.6 to 14.2V, as well as adjusting the floating voltage (from 13.8V to 13.2V) so that the maximum charge amounts to no more than ~80 percent.
I have broken so many small drill bits over the years that their total cost would have likely covered the purchase of a power drills.
Guinea pigs seem to be more resistant to humidity, so if everything else fails perhaps that will be our next experiment.
We now have a good estimate of the rice required to feed us (and occasional visitors) for a year: about 100kg in total. Karn brought two bags (~25kg each, one sticky rice, one regular) after the harvest, and the second shipment will likely last us until the next harvest season.
Now that I think of it, I might have encountered the term “cocoyam” before but erroneously assumed it to be a synonym for taro.
People have a habit of informally naming unknown plants after the supposed country of origin; apparently, up North it is known as “Chinese taro.”
In The Maya Forest Garden: Eight Millennia of Sustainable Cultivation of the Tropical Woodlands by Anabel Ford & Ronald Nigh. Highly recommended for tropical forest gardeners.
Just last year I learned that the young shoots of Parkia speciosa and those of the coffee plant are edible (you can also make a pretty good tea from coffee leaves; apparently in some places coffee is cultivated mainly for harvesting the leaves). Now it seems like I’ll have to re-research even the most basic plants growing here one more time.
Sometimes people ask us why we don’t wear gloves, to which we reply that we maim and kill countless other living beings every day, so it’s only fair we get hurt a little bit here and there in return. Confused looks and awkward silence ensues.
The main tasks are a) climbing, selecting and cutting the fruit, b) catching and collecting it in baskets, and c) carrying the baskets to designated collection points, where they’re loaded onto trucks – click here for a demonstration of the technique used.
By far the most difficult part of the entire process is selecting which fruits have adequately matured and can be cut. Even people who do this for decades sometimes have trouble telling, and since immature durian fetches only about twenty percent of the usual price, the potential consequences of misjudgement can be financially devastating. On one occasion, overzealous climbers had hurried to harvest before a storm arrived; over half a ton of underripe durian was rejected by the buying station.
As a foreigner, I’m technically prohibited from engaging in any “agricultural work.” But since I’m just helping out people in my community (who explicitly asked for my help), I hope nobody will report me to “la migra.”
Overall private (and public) debt levels in Thailand remain catastrophic; household debt currently stands at around 90 percent of GDP. I’ve actually played with the idea to (anonymously) try to popularize an act of civil disobedience I’ve termed ปีนี้ไม่จ่าย (“this year we don’t pay”): life is already difficult enough, prices are rising across the board, everyone works harder than ever, but we still have to pay the criminal enterprises called “banks” that do nothing but push paper in air-conditioned rooms?! As a former leftist, one slogan I still rally behind is “el pueblo – unido – jamás será vencido!” What would the authorities do – arrest all farmers?
Somewhat surprising, since mangoes are usually adapted rather well to conditions of drought and heat. In addition, mangoes in the market were scarce to find – in large part due to the cessation of Cambodian mango imports – and prohibitively expensive. Accordingly, we were very happy about a large bag of mangoes from Karn’s parents that they sent together with the rice.
The monthly expense for gasoline is usually between 100 and 200 Baht (~3-6 USD; depending on how often we go to the market and/or visit other people), so even a doubling of the cost still wouldn’t be too painful financially.
One 1,500L tank is just about enough for us two, with a buffer of around 250L remaining when the spring starts flowing again.
The capacity of our solar PV system is now enough to run the fridge during the day even when it’s cloudy for a week, and sawing or drilling holes into metal now takes seconds instead of minutes. We feel like the Industrial Age has arrived in our small hillside orchard.
In accordance with the guidelines laid out in the last Rewilding Update, we helped a friend from the village to remove water hyacinth from his hopelessly clogged pond, so that he can use it to mulch and fertilize his fruit trees. He has a small, rather crude metal workshop, so in return we are able to use his tools or ask for his help when, for instance, our hammer breaks and needs to be welded, or we need random pieces of scrap metal. He also let us borrow his steel sawhorse indefinitely, for which my back is eternally grateful. (In addition, it makes a great roadblock/vehicle barrier in case that will ever be needed – well, there’s that “prepper talk” again.)
This would surely make our own efforts at rabbitkeeping much easier, since we could just exchange rabbits with, and, if necessary, replenish our colony from others’ colonies close by.
A few decades ago, when people could still clear forest for planting crops, farmers often planted distant plots with rubber trees – not necessarily to tap them (except if prices were extraordinarily high), but to lay permanent claim to the plot as agricultural land. Subsequently, once they’re able to make (or borrow) enough money, they might “develop” it into something more profitable (like a durian orchard).
For instance, basic healthcare can be prioritized by abolishing beauty clinics and downscaling non-essential procedures that have proliferated in both human and veterinarian medicine.
Brilliant update. Also extremely happy to see you found your best staple crops after lots of trials. There really is no other way around it- no amount of reading books will tell you which crops which seem perfect on paper just refuse to do anything useful under specific conditions.
Have you considered crossing the meat rabbits with the common hardy variety? That is how I would do it. If time permits, consider buying a couple of male meat rabbits at the best possible time of year for them to live long enough to impregnate your hardy strain. That way if they drop dead after you still have a chance on harnessing some of their useful traits.
So many nuggets of wisdom here. Thanks for a really interesting read.