WWO - Week 18 - Breaking Bread With Neighbors

It's no secret any more that food is getting scarce. I'm losing weight, Trooper is losing weight, my neighbors are losing weight. Everyone is getting skinny. All of my neighbors with horses have begun selling and trading them. Others have been butchered and eatten. House pets are next. Pasture land has begun to take on a value other than as pasture. Several people have approached me about helping them establish new gardens in their former pasture. I have a tractor, and I have seeds. These facts have given me a position of power in my neighborhood. However, I use that power to enrich my neighbors' lives rather than to profit from them. We are in this together.

Locally the food situation has consolidated into a few main items. Aside from horse meat, milk and cheese are plentiful and cheap. A number of people have taken up new careers transporting Enumclaw cheese to Seattle and Tacoma and selling it there.

The best thing to come out of all of this has been my new relationship with my neighbors. Aside from working together we are also sharing food. Every Sunday the whole community comes together to break bread potluck-style at someone's home. The atmosphere is both jovial and serious. We laugh at life's small mishaps and discuss how we can use our collective resources to everyone's advantage. Right now plans are being laid for a community garden to be set up on some of my unused land. The situation seems grim, for now, but my neighbors have really come together.