Backstory Part I

My work schedule this month is a bit wacky, my mother is coming to visit, my wife needs to make a trip to south-west Oregon, and I'm trying to plan an overnight to Brown Creek Campground this week. Outside of an issue with some local dogs and our chickens (the chickens are okay, thanks for asking) it's only been generally busy. We did sample some frozen peas from last summer's harvest and they were WONDERFUL.

Here is an excerpt from my notepad blog a few months ago. It helps get the ball rolling...

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I suppose the first question you might have is who the heck am I, but the next question is the one that kept me from blogging for many years -- why? To be fair, let's address the first question...

I am a husband, father, musician, and entertainer, among other things. I was born and raised all around the Portland-area of Oregon until I was 34 when my career took me and my family across the country to Wilmington, North Carolina. We have since returned to the northwest and are now living just west of Seattle on the Kitsap Peninsula. Other details will surface over time and who I am now will come out more when I get to the why.

I have long avoided blogging for the same reason I don't subscribe to most online communities; I am a private person. I have a pretty large circle of friends and have primarily used email to keep in touch with most of them since about '93 or '94. My journey this past several years has lead me to a path I never expected to follow. Many of my friends have tired of my emails on the subject. I find it discouraging that a group who collectively shuns complacency can't be bothered with such things, but that's the way it goes I guess. So it is that I have decided to join the blogging community to share my journey.

Where and when my journey began is difficult to pin-point. I would say it began when we rented and watched Super-Size Me, after which either my wife or I made a Taco Bell run and brought it back to the house. It was an interesting watch but had no real immediate impact on us.

That was some years ago, but I realize now that I had a jump on the game by being a homebrewer. At that point I had been homebrewing beer for a few years and, while I was still experimenting a little at that time, I was mostly brewing to save money and was brewing all my own beer. I find it curious the connection between homebrewing and self-sufficiency.

Then I go back to a time around first through third grade when we lived on several acres growing vegetables and raising goats and pigs. It's only now that I realize now how much I really learned during that time.

Growing up in the northwest, I already had an idea that something was wrong, but I found myself unable to put my finger on it or reasonably explain myself.