A Birthday Trip to Austin, TX

Enjoy the trip! (4.00 / 3)

Lol, that pretty much perfectly sums up my thought process on my annual trip back East.

Seems like a great idea at the time, but the morning I wake up???

I always end up feeling like, "I'd rather stay in Portland this week, thanks"...

Heh.

Anyways, I'm sure Austin's cooler than North Jersey.  Or at least, it probably has better food (although I'm not sure about the beer, Newark and Austin may cancel each other out there as both "meh"...).  Austin must have better public transit, though.  I believe Azerbaijan even has a more user-friendly transit system than NJTransit does outside of downtown Newark or Jersey City...

I've always wondered what Austin's like.  Never been there, but since I'm nuts it was one of the cities I considered moving to in 2006 (along with Boulder, Denver, Seattle and Oakland), before I ultimately ended up here in Portland...

Maybe you can take some pics, or do a bit of a writeup on the city?

:)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 21:11:01 PM UTC

Oh, and... (4.00 / 4)

I forgot to mention Santa Fe, NM as one of my potential destinations.  D'oh!  How'd I forget that?!  That was actually my first choice for months...

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 21:14:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Santa Fe is nice, (4.00 / 2)

but I'd rather live in Taos and drive down to Santa Fe once in a while if I felt the need for city life.

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by: count @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 21:51:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

JayinSantaFe... (4.00 / 2)

Let's not also forget that my username here would have had a bit of a nicer ring to it, as well...

:)

But to be honest, in my own case, as much as I write (and think) about escaping and just 'dropping out' to The Middle of Nowhere?

I've gotta be honest with myself, and admit I could never do it.  I'm just way too much of an urbanist at heart, and my first night in Wyoming would consist of me screaming at the sky, wondering why there were no coffee shops or brewpubs within a block's walk or a 3-minute bus or train ride.  Heh.

Always nice to dream, though...

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 22:03:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Heh, (4.00 / 3)

what you say about your probable reaction to country livin' reminds me of what Harold says about people who move to rural Missouri. They either love it or they hate it.

There are people who like cities and people who like the country, and let them live where they will...

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 22:22:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And there are also... (4.00 / 2)

...people who love both, in which case Portland's gotta be one of, if not the, best areas to live in the US, right?

:)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 22:29:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

No offense intended, (4.00 / 3)

but you can have Portland. I grew up there and I'll never go back if I can help it. I don't like Portland. I don't hate Portland, I just don't like it, never have. I'd rather throw a tarp over my mare and sleep under her.

The only reason I live as close to Portland as I do is because I have a father who I'll probably need to take care of one of these days, and given that I have to work to make money, Portland's where most of the customers are for tile/stone work.

If I won the lottery, and didn't have dad to be here for, I'd buy a section of land and park myself in the middle of it. The land is home for me, not the city.

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 00:08:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

"Area" is the key word... (4.00 / 2)

What tends to be lost in the urban - rural debate is that neither could really exist sustainably without the other.

If Portland didn't exist, neither would its massive economy which provides quite a bit of support to outlying rural areas.  If the rural areas didn't exist, then my beloved Portland farmers' markets wouldn't exist in their current form.

It's not an either / or thing, which was my point.  We need the synergy, the working-together of urban and rural areas, which seems to work well here in this region.  Not perfectly, of course, but certainly better than it does pretty much anywhere else in America.  

If you think land use policy is interesting here?!  Spend a few years in New Jersey!

;-P

If I won the lottery, and didn't have dad to be here for, I'd buy a section of land and park myself in the middle of it. The land is home for me, not the city.

This pretty much makes my point, no?  If rural people didn't need incomes, they wouldn't need lively nearby cities full of vitality.  But that ain't the way the world works, no more than mega-cities (cough, NYC, cough) can make their way without guaranteeing a large and sustainable nearby supply of preserved and working farmland.

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 00:24:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yeah, but not all of the people who want to live away from the cities (4.00 / 2)

want to farm. Hence the urban sprawl problems that everyone talks about. I've been living all the way out here in Mulino since 1991. We farmed the first few years we were out here, untill the emu market went belly up. The horse business I started up wasn't for food, it was to provide people with fancy horses. I've only been farming full time for food production this year, and I only got into that becasue I thought the USDA was going to force us into NAIS.

My reasoning? If USDA was going to treat me like a business, I might as well be a business. Fortunately this happens to be a good time for a person wanting to get into this line of work. And this line of work fits me better than most others.

Anyway, the point I was actually trying to make, is that the bulk of the people living away from the city, but still close up to the city are living out here not because they want to farm, but because they don't want to live in the city.

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 01:00:42 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes, and... (4.00 / 1)

I never disputed that point -

Anyway, the point I was actually trying to make, is that the bulk of the people living away from the city, but still close up to the city are living out here not because they want to farm, but because they don't want to live in the city.

But I do contend that rural living is only sustainable, in the United States of America in 2009, via engaging in farming or participating in the economies of lively nearby cities or towns.

Since we apparently decided as a nation, back in the 1970's and 80's, that we no longer needed our small towns (which I personally believe are the ideal sustainable human living arrangement), our cities are currently the only reasonable replacement for them.  I think everybody realizes by now that the alternative we came up with, The Happy Motoring Suburbs (the original idea to replace Main Street, USA) are dreadful and disastrous failures in roughly 99.9% of America, and can and will only will get much worse as the easily accessible oil supplies we've become accustomed to since the 1950's continue to dwindle these days...

We're on the same wavelength here though, in that I agree the choice of American dwellings shouldn't solely be the stark choice of either Portland or Mulino.

Where did all of our Pendletons and Baker Cities go?

Frankly, it was decades of cheap oil, WalMart and The Car that brought us to where we are now.

How do we get out of this mess that the previous few generations of our decision-makers left us, is the question...

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 01:20:52 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

To your question of (4.00 / 2)

Where did all of our Pendletons and Baker Cities go?

One of the problems is that everyone thinks that you have to sell into the large cities in order to make a living, as opposed to selling into the small cities and towns in your area. That's something I'm working on changing in both my businesses. While people in Portland are more than welcome to purchase a share in my farm's production, I'm really concentrating on feeding people around Mulino, Molalla, Canby, etc. Amazingly, while there are loads of people out here, and they have more acreage than you can shake a stick at, most of them don't raise their own food, and many are happy to buy from people like me. I'm also trying to shift my contracting to serving primarily people out here. The farm things going better than that, but I'll keep working on it.

Also, I've been thinking and researching, and I think that a lot of people back in the 1800s and the first part of the 1900s were homesteading. Because of all the taxes we have to pay anymore, you couldn't really homestead 100% anymore unless you are already independantly wealthy, or you have a job you can do 100% from home. I think the homesteaders made the small towns possible. You don't see too many homesteaders anymore, and most of the people farming large acreages are farming commodity crops for industry. They're producing raw feed stock, either for processed foods, fiber, fuel, etc., most of which go to support people living in the cities. The proffit from that type of business is low enough fewer and fewer people are getting into that type of business.

Frankly, it was decades of cheap oil, WalMart and The Car that brought us to where we are now.

It's what makes cities like Portland possible and the small farms that serve your farmers' markets able to do so. Back before WWII, before we had the interstate highway system, people didn't travel much.

I asked Harold once how long it took to get to town when he was a kid. Town was 10 miles away, about as far as it is from Mulino to Oregon City. He said on his horse it took an hour at a brisk trot. If you were going in the wagon though, it took about 8 hours, remember, you had to walk. So generally, going to town meant a two day trip if you were doing much other than going and coming right back.

I asked how close the nearest town after that was. He said about 30 miles. I asked if anyone went to that town. He laughed and said of course not, that was way to far.

You have to remember (I know I have to keep reminding myself this), before the early 50s, there essentially were no paved roads between cities, especially between cities that were a long way appart. Also, back then Portland wasn't anything like the city you're living in. You probably wouldn't recognize Portland back in the 30s. The city was much, much smaller. Lots were big enough in most neighborhoods that people could actually grow enough food and keep enough animals that they didn't need to buy food at the store the way everyone does now. Remember, Westmoreland Park was a big open field that my dad staked a cow out to graze in when he was a kid. His mom was able to keep as many chickens and roosters in SE portland then as we do out here now. And, very few people had motor vehicles. They lived that way because they had to. They had to because they were grindingly poor.

We all live the way we do now because we're incredibley rich compared to back then. I'll tell you the quickest way to get people out of their cars. Take away their money. Make 'em poor again, that'll do it.

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 02:32:59 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Be right back... (4.00 / 1)

I wanna reread this again, and I have a few points to make.

But I gotta step out for a couple hours.

Be back in a bit...

Btw, we really gotta start up those debate threads, you and I.

:)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 04:22:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

U.S. Highway 2 was completed (4.00 / 2)

in the Depression years, probably 1934-1935. I was born in 1941 and by the time I was sensate, far as I know all the towns in Montana were connected by paved roads. The worst bit was getting from town to my grandmother's farm. That still was hell 6-7 years ago. I went out to visit the best chokecherry tree in Montana, and the damned cables kept jolting off the spark plugs. No problem getting to Portland or Minneapolis in the '40s though, nor Parker's Prairie Minnesota, a few cubits east of Lake Wobegone. Parents in the front seat, kids in the back seat with a bucket of hard boiled eggs and off we went, asphalt all the way.

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by: count @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 06:09:56 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

My grandmother (4.00 / 2)

That grandmother was a hardworking farmwoman. She always wore a dress, never slacks or pants. I have photos from 1933-1934 while the family was building out the homestead.
Granma in a dress, her daughters, my aunts, wearing jodhpurs or slacks.

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by: count @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 06:24:08 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Jill... (4.00 / 3)

is it true that you're going to be in NYC next week?

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

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by: wide eyed lib @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 21:52:30 PM UTC

Merrigan (4.00 / 2)

Did anyone catch the Merrigan chat this afternoon? I completely forgot, until abiy 4:45.

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by: count @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 00:04:13 AM UTC

I caught some of it (4.00 / 3)

I went to the facebook page, and all I saw were questions, no answers. Perhaps I missed something, or maybe the chat was to collect questions that they'll answer later and post?

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 00:10:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Merrigan on YouTube (4.00 / 2)

Looks like the chat will make its way to YouTube eventually. Here's a video from October 1, also about Know Your Farmer Know Your Food.

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by: count @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 00:44:10 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Austin! (4.00 / 3)

Happy Birthday

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by: Eddie C @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 02:33:29 AM UTC

Cool pic (4.00 / 2)

I love the armadillo on the trolly! Dead give away that you ain't in San Fransisco! ;-)

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 02:55:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

And I though the cowgirl was the givaway. (4.00 / 3)

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by: Eddie C @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 03:55:30 AM UTC

[ Parent ]