morning walk reflections

I seem to be gaining back an hour a day in my sleep patterns — today I slept in until 4:30 AM. I’m kind of liking this early morning routine I’ve heard others talk about and have often been too snoozy to explore on my own.

what’s coming — Walked to the gas station to buy a bottle of water. Who would have predicted gas prices over $2 (or bottled water for that matter). I read in the China News that car ownership in China is currently at 20 million cars and this number is expected to soar another 100 million in the next generation. That’s going to mean a lot more guzzlers bellying up.

Somewhere I read that we have used up roughly one half of the earth’s finite oil reserves in the past 150 years, chugging like freshmen at a frat party. In my lifetime gas has gone from $.19 per gallon to $2+ and rising. What’s coming?

what’s past — yesterday, the librarian at Mill Valley told me that her husband and sons are dairy farmers. Another teacher commented that she loves to watch the cows come in for milking and she wished she could get her third graders to form such a nice, organized line as Kristi’s husband manages with his cows.
“You mean you have a real live dairy farm still?”
“Yes.”
“And you actually let the cows outside of the barn?” (as opposed to keeping them standing on concrete for their entire lives hooked to machines)
“Yes.”
I told her I was so glad to hear that. She told me that there were only two dairy farms left in her area, that she has two sons in their twenties. One likes the cows and one LOVES the cows, but with the way land is being eaten up in this area above Columbus for suburban sprawl, she doesn’t know how long the farm will last.

I hope the Chinese learn from some of our mistakes and don’t start ripping up all their train tracks, spending all their transportation resources on highways for all those new cars. Highways that rip the guts out of cities and separate folks into isolated economic camps, paving over all their farmland.

Lots of worms on the roads and sidewalks today, finding their way across asphalt. The story of us all?