And they did look very glamorous, desirées and beautifully mannered ladies, out of the top drawer/off the top perchoir.
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Hello Jeanette and thanks for posting such a heartfelt and pertinent question. I too live in rural France (66) in the heart of a wonderful village community of around a thousand people. So—upon the manure hitting the proverbial windmill—what do I expect to happen in my milieu? Well … I’m not waiting to find out.
Let me explain. I have a decent working knowledge of soil and plant science as well as a not too shabby grounding in physics and chemistry. Moreover I also have 25 years’ experience as a gardener, a library of highly relevant and applicable reference books and, for now at least, an extensive network of contacts within the horticultural industry. So what next? My curriculum vitae? No — I’m just outlining that, in practical terms, I have all the knowledge and materials I need to amend the sandy, depleted soils at a nearby potager, for instance, with compost (for microbiology and organic matter) manures, guanos, blood and bone meals (for nutritional inputs) and coco fiber or peat moss (for increasing water holding capacity). I know how to farm my own endomychorrizal fungi, brew fungal / bacteria dominant compost teas, etc. I understand how plants interact with their environment, whether that’s in a greenhouse, poly tunnel or out in the field. As well as organic gardening, I have a passion for soilless growing techniques, water culture (hydroponics) controlled environment indoor gardening, propagation (including cloning, tissue culture and seed production) and so on. I’m working towards getting a solar installation on my roof, and in the meantime I keep large stores of dry food, salt, sugar, oats, pulses etc - as well as water purifying machines, seeds, propagation lights, generators, etc.
However—despite all these skills, contacts, blah-blah-blah, this guy’s a bit delighted with himself, etc, etc, do you know what my greatest asset is? Do you know what will guarantee my survival above all else?
Actually it’s not a question of what, but who.
It’s my 999 fellow villagers!
I’m not worried about them coming with their pitch forks and raiding my food stores. They already know that I have acquired this food — and everything else I mention — with THEM in mind!
My goal is not to be self-sufficient but community-sufficient. I want to build resilient communities. And I am so blessed to be a part of a truly amazing and diverse mix of people.
For instance, note that I didn’t mention building and construction among my skills. That’s because I can find putting up a tent quite challenging at the best of times! But I don’t need to worry. There are many people in my village who are excellent builders.
My advice is don’t think about what you can do for yourself — otherwise you’ll end up living a miserable, nocturnal life, guarding your turnips with a shotgun, passing your day shift wife like ships in the night, handing her the shotgun. You might as well use it on yourselves if that’s the sort of future you envisage.
We’re moving into a new time. I think rural France is a great place from which to experience this transition. If you’re wondering what you can do right now to integrate better into your community, let me give you a very simple and practical idea: buy / build a wood fire pizza oven. Make a job lot of pizza dough (surprise, surprise, I have a great recipe) and invite people over. Most importantly, get GOOD at making pizza. Or amending soil. Cleaning. ANYTHING that could be useful to your FELLOW HUMANS. Think how you can help your neighbors and you won’t need to worry about yourself.
It’s easy to be cynical and pessimistic — and if you are, congratulations on your self-fulfilling prophecy. This is not idealism. This is how I have lived for years and continue to live. I will not lose my head, even if all around me others are losing theirs … In my experience, when you are kind to people - especially those you don’t necessary know all that well, it really goes a long way here in France - surely, it goes a long way anywhere!
I hope I have inspired at least some of you to become pizza making, soil-enriching Gandhis.
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Loved your post! 
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Another excellent post…from a name I must have seen before! So many ace thoughts, to consider while working. You were raised by/with Kipling too! My mum very rarely delivered motherly instruction/dissertation! But If was her standby! and I’ve thought of it, in tight corners, all my life…my parents wanted a boy, they got me, “. its appropriate, if a bit macho, for their era. Together with “The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes”.
Must think about all you wrote, while catching up on last weeks deadlines!
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…you’ve got chickens, pg?
I sure got chickens, @anon78757855, but currently just four, 100% chickenny chickens, largely self-sufficient as they roam freely, but they get a supplementary ration of mixed seed and cereal to satisfy their nutritional needs, and repay them their eggs: they use lots of energy in producing them.
They are good egg-layers some of which they leave for us, a few they secrete in nests of their own making under hedges or in long grass.
We plan to refresh the small flock with some young sisters early next year. My wife is very reluctant to eat their flesh, so they haven’t so far been considered for the knife.
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There is already co-operation between us and our neighbours.
By the way please do not enrich your soil with peat moss.
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I was going to ask why but ended up googling.
Thanks for the heads up Jane, amazing what you can learn on the forum.
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well said, when we moved here people said “but you don’t know anyone here”, (meaning English people) and perhaps that was a good thing as now in under a year I feel I know many of our village community (250 in the commune) and am involved in village life, so have got to know people as individuals and am able to offer support and advice from my previous profession as an OT, as well as day to day practical help like watering plants and caring for their chickens while they are away.
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I’ve read a bit about water powered cars and watched apparent demonstrations of cars powered by water…???
It’s quite an elusive sort of subject and I don’t know how true the demos are…it all seems to tie back to Tesla (not talking about Elon musk and Tesla) but the energy of the universe…uni-verse…one verse…one song…
It’s probably why when I try to read anything really technical about electricity that I end up trying to apply it to human beings…lol…somewhere in this incoherent ramble is a theory that everything is energy…us included…
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When it comes down to it, that pretty much sums it up, with a lot of empty space inbetween
Think my RRS might complain if I put water in it though 
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This is the stuff of Disney!!. I know that humans are supposed to thrive best, as social animals. I just have to bow out of all of it. The worst word in Eng… lang. for me is WE… the second worst us.
Social skills? Nope. Got none. I refuse to feel guilty or remorseful about loving solitude, that’s just the way it is.
So if defeating extinction requires my cooperation with crowds of unknown others, nah. I’ll pass. Wait for the end, and leave without a fuss.
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Do you have a favourite word in the English language Jeanette…???
One of my favourite words is “freedom”…at the minute the word kind of floats around in my head in an ethereal manner…difficult to pin down…
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@Helen6 muses: “One of my favourite words is “freedom”…at the minute the word kind of floats around in my head in an ethereal manner…difficult to pin down…”
I think freedom is only capable of being pinned down with reference to one of its numerous antitheses: oppression, slavery, imprisonment, restriction, restraint, regulation, control etc.
Orwell deals with this dramatically in ‘1984’, his dystopian novel.
Freedom may be justly seen to have drawbacks: like salt it is indispensable to life, and useful in cooking or preserving food, but too much carelessly used can be fatal.
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If you pin freedom down, then it’s no longer freedom
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And if freedom defies definition, it means nothing of merit. What about “the freedom to molest children”? or “the freedom to own slaves”?
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“T’is Neither good nor bad, only thinking makes it so.” — hmmm, I wonder what’s in your garden-center purchased houseplant pots? Lol. Sure “peat moss” is a trigger word for some Gardengooglers—but back in the world of direct experience—peat can actually be very handy to some gardeners in certain situations—like the one I described in my last post (sandy, depleted soils)—so, given that I can source local peat moss, this is a great resource for me, especially as its acidity counters the high levels of carbonates and bicarbonates in the irrigation water, and this in turn helps to make more nutrients more available. Peat is also very good at holding on to nutrients so they don’t simply get leached away when it rains. Together with coco fibre, I have transformed the texture and water holding capacity of my soil. I look forward to hearing about any alternative solutions and suggestions for achieving similar goals.
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I very much doubt that any conscious beings are truly alone. Your personality, selfhood and sense of separation from the world and others—this is Disney fodder that’s far closer to home.
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Alors! What is your favourite word Jeanette “Me” - You obviously cannot cope with the rest of us who enjoy the company and comfort of others - How sad that is when you have created so much beauty in your painting which gives enormous pleasure to those you would appear to despise - unless l expect when they are giving you money.
Dan Fox has given a brilliant response to the question you posed in this thread - you might consider heeding some of the valid points he makes about communities. None of us are an island, even if you live on one - we need each other to survive. Even You.
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Middle of the night?! No…nearly five am…I was very tired so maybe my brief note, comment on “solitude” seemed hostile or unfriendly… and @Dan_Fox … you used my own “Disney” to express what might be disapproval. In fact I haven’t got any strong feelings against what seems to me to be a Disney world, of smiling interaction between kindly souls. Simply…I don’t think that there is any one size fits all, a truism!
I think that humans , clearly, do appreciate? (‘need’ might be too strong) the understanding? awareness? I don’t know, something is good…in consciousness of other minds, other lives. Why would I or you write thoughts and ideas here, or use internet communication at all, if it were not so. However, diversity? Respect for “each one” …that is each person as precious individual, that, to me seems a cause, that needs to be defended. ‘Solitude’ has a very bad press. Managing solitude, alone or in a vast crowd, at some time in everyone’s life, might be inevitable. Maybe that’s my social value, if I have any at all! I love solitude. It is not even remotely like “loneliness”, and nothing whatever to do with " self serving" or selfishness. I’m “good” at it. Its my top life skill. Maybe especially now I am old! Don’t dread or fear solitude. Celebrate it. Its like a beloved place, an island of calm and peace where anyone might find themselves safe, from the turmoil, cruelty, indifference, pain, of civilisation! Congratulations to each of you, who discovers a good, best way to take part, be part of community life, be loved and loving/giving within a group. Maybe I will do that too, but cannot imagine it. Maybe I do take part, just not in the same way. I love my son and his family and the people I work with in Japan, everything so far away. No less precious than each of the milky way stars.