I realized that all I’ve written is bad news. Depressing news. And that sucks. But not today. Let me get that out of the way so I can move on to better things.

Lafayette has been fairly quiet(comparatively) the last 2 weeks. Fires, robberies and shootings of course, but no signs of the outlaw army I wrote about 2 weeks ago. If they are planning something, they sure know how to keep quiet. To me, that is scarier than the mobs. That said, news has been pretty sparse. The people I have been speaking to on the short-wave are diehard survivalists barricaded in their homes. They tell me that their neighborhoods are either empty or the people are staying in. The scanners stay busy, and there is an air of desperation in the voices. Civil order, or lack thereof, has reached an equilibrium of sorts, and the chaos has become an unpleasant background noise. Tolerable, but I gotta keep an ear to it.

Good(ish) news

The neighborhood has been running smoothly. People are preparing permacutlture, and food shouldn’t be a problem. Things have been running smoothly, and people are really pulling together. I am especially pleased about that. After years of hanging on the peak oil and primitivist boards, and hearing everyone say "it’ll be chaos, and dog-eat-dog trust no one times", I am very happy to report that whilst chaos reigns, people have been coming together more and more. Seems like everyday I get people coming from the neighborhoods further and further out, asking how to get organized and how to grow food and prepare themselves. I counsel the same thing: send someone here and we’ll show them permaculture, and organize yourselves!!!

I guess I need to talk about what we have here, since I have only dropped vague hints. I, and "my" tribe live in an 150 year old plantation home on about 2.5 acres. Before the shock, we ran a rock-n-roll bed&breakfast, along with a audio/visual studio and nonprofit record label. We have been preparing for collapse for about 2 years, and were fairly ready for the shock when it came. We are still not self-sufficient, but fairly close. We are just lucky that we had freezers full of meat, otherwise we would be whiny vegans now(I kid).

Prior to the shock, there were three of us living there, with my fiancee staying 4-5 nights a week. Since then we now have 14 people. The original 4, Brian his wife and daughter, Jen Rob and their son, Nils and his son, Erotica (yes that name is on her birth certificate, I checked) and her daughter Lilith. and . We are also hosting two "kids" (18 and 19, kids to me) from surrounding neighborhoods, showing them permaculture, water harvesting, and system design. The house is starting to get crowded, but I like having so many trustworthy people around.

The neighborhood is shaping up nicely. Everyone has some kind of garden, whether a few planters with clippings from neighbors’ plants, to huge ornate gardens bursting with food and fragrances. We have designed water collection systems for every home, and are about 2 weeks away from every home being self-sufficient in water. We were able to cordon off the neighborhood, with only 2 ways in or out. We have armed guards there and on patrol 24-7, and as of yet no one has acted the ass. Better safe than sorry, b/c I reckon when some really desperate people find out what we have, they’ll try to take it. But I digress.

Pretty much everyone in the neighborhood stopped going to work. I have convinced them to A. stop paying their mortgages, b/c banks can’t come dispossess them, B. use their energy to better/ feed themselves from home, and C. they could get killed just going to and from work. Not worth in my and their opinions. Means more eyes and ears watching, more hands for tough projects, and more people working to make everyone’s lives better.

They neighborhood is filled with children’s and adult’s laughter, people working together, and old animosities forgotten. Our community grows stronger everyday, and the surrounding areas are starting to get their shit together, based on how quick we were able to get organized, fed, safe and the obvious advantages to our "tribal" style of living. We are helping people out as much as we can, and it makes me feel good. Much better than I did at my real job prior to the shock, doing divorces and custody work.

Personally, I’d like to see oil and oil based civilization go the way of the dodo. Life is too good now, even with the possibility of outlaw armies, no electricity, and general chaos. I have a strong community around me, and we are close to being self-sufficient. Before the shock, everyone was isolated, overworked and unhappy. People tell me everyday how glad they are to know each other and work together, and how without the shock they wouldn’t know their own neighbors. How sad. But I can’t say I was any different. But things are different now, and that makes me happy

Oil, civilization, and the "elite", you aren’t welcome anymore. Don’t come back. 

Stay busy and safe, everyone.