There is something magical in the country, watching the Earth produce whatever particular glory it chooses to brighten the morning. Loma was late for the pre-meeting today. He had been next door attempting to negotiate for some fresh eggs from the Russians, and got a dozen nice ones. It is useful that people around the farm are actually productive. We harvested some of the flowers, too, which brightens the temporary refuge for production members who could theoretically “work from home,” or whatever it is they are calling it. The Writer’s Section has advanced that cause to something more evolved. We call it a “consensus dwelling,” filled with a representative assortment of properly tinged and mostly documented people devoted to a cause that betters us all collectively.

At least there some new guidance on that. One of the Interns was tasked with tracking Executive Orders, which seem to be issued without much additional context. The early morning had a little tinge of its own color, a faint reddish hue influenced by the huge California wildfires blowing vibrantly east. There was some controversy about that matter, as there is about virtually everything in this strange summer.

DeMille had produced a list of what we were supposed to believe this morning. Because of the fires, we agreed that the lousy forest management practices implemented to preserve Nature’s means of periodic forest thinning should simply be left alone, and allowed to naturally recycle pastoral mountain villages into ash. It improves the color of the sunsets all the way to the East Coast. Responsible failure to maintain high-tension electrical lines naturally play an important factor in this natural process. As does lightning and arson. So the swaying powerlines brushing against new tree growth also play their role in the new society we are building.

We ceased trying to do anything about forest management long ago. And moved onto DeMille’s second item, which was reliable electrical power. That is still a matter open to public discussion, since we are being encouraged to ditch our fossil-fueled travel and home temperature controls to make up for all the new CO2 being produced in China to make us solar panels and wind turbines. Rocket produced a short paper from the EO Intern, which described all the valuable thigs we can accomplish by junking our current electrical network even as we are being encouraged to transition to electric vehicles powered by intermittent generation sources. In nine years, from what the Intern heard.

That was another issue we deferred action on, since there are apparently trillions of dollars available to install charging stations for electrical vehicles all over, duplicating the network that seems to work just fine the way it was shaped by market forces. That was the practical matter DeMille thought worthy of discussion, which is that in the places reliant on regular power supplies, intermittent power sources don’t seem to actually work. And installation of solar and wind power generation would cover the equivalent of a couple of the existing states.

There was laughter at that, since in places that would support all that construction, powered by fossil fuels, they can’t even copy their photo IDs to prove who they are. Thus, their objections to living under a swirling tower of power could be dispensed with. Like in California, which is on fire.

Anyway, that line of conversation clearly was going to lead to one of those long boring discussions about Civics, which is one of the things that was changed a while back without much discussion since Science tells us everything is fine. Loma and DeMille looked at each other with straight faces for nearly a full minute before laughter broke out. “Remember when we used to talk about this stuff? It is much more efficient now. The Government can cause a mess by Executive Order, or in an omnibus appropriation, then propose crazy solutions for which Science has no accuracy, announce they have solved a problem they created and then move on. “Like those big batteries that will harvest all that renewable power and then provide it on demand except at the times when people could actually use it.”

“Nah. I like the elimination of the flu and the common cold. It is the perfect problem, since Science has been trying that for the last couple hundred years. The problem always comes back in Spring and Fall, thus keeping everyone employed full time solving problems that can’t be solved.”

Chairman Socotra’s Tesla is still smoldering out on the gravel driveway. In a way, that is good news since apparently only a small percentage of the new electrical vehicles burst into flames all by themselves, so we should be covered. The Intern had the official notification that the mandatory new cars should not be parked in garages, just in case. The reason for that notification is that there is no apparent way to put out the fires if they spontaneously start, so you want to have plenty of free space around them so that you and the First Responders can have a place to hang out and drink coffee while waiting for the fire to die down. If you have power to run the coffee maker, of course, which is why there is always a small fire going in the pit out in the North pasture in case we need to boil something when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t moving the little fan over the pump.

Having arrived at one of those Civics lessons, the group fell silent and decided to look at the flowers grown on the farm’s own land, integrating those who live on it- temporarily- to enjoy the majesty of nature. That is something we could all agree on, at least if the Interns had collected all the stuff we were supposed to believe before all the coffee was gone. Country living, at it’s finest.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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