Finding Ulysses

Now in the tenth week of the energy crisis, gas prices here in Ulysses are at seven dollars per gallon. We’ve always been a bit above the average when it comes to the price of fuel, and now with the system stressed, it seems that the Finger Lakes are not the top priority. No one worries about our villages erupting into violent anarchy, mostly with good reason.

There’s still no one contributing official word from Ithaca for the World Without Oil information network, which surprises me on one level, but then I remember that it is the middle of the summer, and most of the students from Cornell and Ithaca College are away for the summer anyway. Poor Ithaca always is a bit more hot in the summer, but they’ve got Cayuga Lake right there to cool off in as well. There are no more incidents there than normal, and the roads are a lot more clear, so people have been holding lots of impromptu block parties, as everyone walks around anyway during the summer.

The local foods network is holding up just great down there, and up here too. Our Community Supported Agriculture programs are in high demand, and the Trumansburg Farmer’s Market has been very well attended. The new supermarket, Sav A Lot, has had to raise its prices, given that almost all its goods are nationally distributed. No longer are people saving a lot there. Sweet Land Farm, Black Diamond Farm, and Stick and Stone CSAs are all filled up with members for next year, and there’s talk of organizing a new community farm space for people to work on collectively, not just with vegetables, but livestock as well.

The Town of Ulysses government has not gotten far with the plan for rationing, but the grassroots network for carpooling is working so well that it’s been rendered unnecessary. Thanks to the sharp thinkers at Back to Democracy and Trumansburg Freecycle for that one.

The Trumansburg School District is working on cost-cutting for the coming school year, announcing that it will stop mowing its playing fields and lawn areas until gasoline prices go back down. Many Trumansburg residents have the same idea, and are letting their lawns grow high. Escaped garden flowers are even seen growing in some lawns. It’s a very different aesthetic pleasure, walking down the street and seeing the shin high grass waving in the breeze. It’s like living in a prairie, although soon, if we keep the lawn mowers stored away, the maple seedlings will start to fill in.

Speaking of that, there are a number of people who are getting wood stoves installed in their homes, and are harvesting some of their backyard trees to burn for heat this winter instead of using expensive natural gas. It’s a good way to save economically, but where will they turn to next year for wood, and I wonder what this trend would mean, if applied nationwide, for global warming.

Certainly, this summer has turned out to be unusually hot – although given that we’re coming to expect such unusual weather, I wonder how much longer we’ll really describe it as “unusual”.

At night, to save money with the electric rates going up so quickly, the street lights are no longer being turned on. Few people are driving at night anyway, what with the price of gasoline being so high. The same thing is being done in villages all over the region, and so we’re treated, after sunset, to a view of the stars without much light pollution.

That alone may be worth all the trouble we’re going through in this crisis.