Well, the sun is shining, and our power is back on. We lost it on Sunday at about 3 P.M., and it came back on Tuesday at around 2:00 A.M. All in all, except for the inconvenience of having no power, we came through pretty well. There was no damage to our house, to our car, to ourselves. Clean up was minimal, accomplished on Monday morning. It was so minimal, in fact, that we were even able to go on a bike ride on Monday afternoon.

Best of all, our New York City daughter, Dee, came through safe and sound, and my husband, Clif and I were happy to learn that New York City escaped the worst of Irene. So many people in such a small space.

On the other hand, our thoughts and good wishes go to the people of Vermont and upstate New York, who are dealing with the devastation of the flash floods. Irene proved to be unpredictable, sparing New York City and turning west instead to soak an already soaked region. I’m sure the people of both Vermont and upstate New York will make it through this difficult time, but how discouraging it must be for them.

Even though we were only inconvenienced for two days, Irene reinforced what I had already learned from the great ice storm of 1998: One must be prepared for power outages and emergencies. With climate change and increasingly fierce storms, this has only become more evident in the past decade. As I wrote in a previous post, we were prepared for this storm. We had water in big buckets for the toilet as well of plenty of water in pans for drinking. I had canned baked beans and pasta and jarred spaghetti sauce for meals that would be easy to heat. (As it turned out, I didn’t have to use them.) There was plenty of lamp oil, cannisters of propane for the camp stove, and batteries for the radio and flash light. I will be vigilant about replacing these things when they get low, and readers, I hope you will be doing similar things in your own home.

On a lighter note…on Monday, the day after the storm, the weather was warm and sunny with a brilliant blue sky. Clif and I ate breakfast, dinner, and supper on the patio. Clif grilled toast for breakfast, and he fried some eggs. For dinner, we had leftover macaroni and cheese, made on Sunday before the power went out. We also had hot dogs, nitrite and nitrate free, of course. Supper was made from food tucked away in our cooler. We ate well, and if the power had stayed out longer, we had plans to cook a whole chicken on the grill.

Now, to get the house back in order after the rigmarole of having no power for a couple of days, and then out to lunch I go with my friend Barbara Penrod.

I just finished reading “A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself” written by Justin Gillis and published in the New York Times on June 4, 2011. The title pretty much gives you the gist of this long but very worthwhile piece. Gillis notes how weather disasters are responsible for failed harvests all across the planet. For example: Floods in the United States, drought in Australia, and extreme heat waves in Europe and Russia. Farmers all over the world, from Mexico to India, are seeing their crops damaged by “emerging pests and diseases and by blasts of heat beyond anything they remember.” Most scientists believe that climate change is, by and large, responsible for this and that climate change is “helping” to destabilize Earth’s food system.

As a result, consumption of wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans—the foods that pretty much feed the world—has outstripped production for most of the past decade. Stockpiles are going down. Prices are going up, pinching those of us in rich countries and bringing hunger to millions of people in poor countries.

According to agricultural experts, in the upcoming decades farmers “will need to withstand whatever climate shocks come their way while roughly doubling the amount of food they produce to meet rising demand.” (The population is projected to reach 10 billion by the end of the century.) At the same time, farmers also need to reduce the environmental damage that can come with farming. To produce more food while causing less environmental damage is a tall order indeed.

While Gillis expresses the hope that we can develop crops to meet the challenges brought by climate change—there is a type of rice that can withstand floods by waiting until the water recedes before germinating—there is no denying that this is a sobering article. Who knows what the eventual outcome will be? None of us can see into the future. Maybe ingenuity, creativity, and innovation will help us get through the approaching era of climate chaos and an ever-increasing population. I sure hope so.

I just wish that the leaders of the world would take this problem more seriously, that they would start addressing the problem right now, this minute, and not delay the way they usually do.

A couple of days ago, in the food section of the Portland Press Herald, Meredith Goad wrote about a home (a mansion, really) and its kitchen, which is part of the Falmouth Kitchen & Tasting tour. The house is 10,000 square feet, has ten bathrooms, and gold-plated faucets. There is even a morning room, which sounds like something straight out of a Jane Austen novel.

The kitchen, which Goad describes as “not so large that it is overwhelming”  has “four ovens, two dishwashers, two warming drawers…” Four ovens! I will admit that from time to time, I have wished for two ovens, especially around the holidays, but what possible use could a noncommercial cook have with four ovens? Isn’t this, well, a bit much? In fact, isn’t it too much?

I suppose that is the point—the glorious excess of it all. As primates, we are all concerned with status, even though we live in the 21st century in a country that supposedly eschews class. And in our current culture, where one oven is the norm, four ovens are so over-the-top that few people can compete with such a display.

Now, I would not want to live in a country where the government dictates how many ovens a family might own. Although I am a firm believer in social services, that would be far too much governmental control for my liking. But wouldn’t it be nice if people with enough money to live in a 10,000 square foot mansion with four ovens followed the Dalai Lama’s advice and used some self-restraint?  Especially since this country is already using more resources than the planet can comfortably provide?

Since I am clearly in fantasy land here, I will go one step further: Wouldn’t it be great if our sense of status came from self-restraint rather than showy display? Not repression—no one likes a Puritan. Not a stingy, bare-bones existence—no one likes a martyr. But instead self-restraint, which might mean being content with two ovens and a bib house that wasn’t a mansion, no matter how much money you had.

A final note of irony: This tour is a benefit for Preble Street’s Maine Hunger Initiative, and I’m sure they will be very happy to receive the money. From here I could easily segue into a piece about how strange it is that one of the richest countries in the world still must deal with hunger.

But I won’t.

Nothing cheers me up as much as reading about young people working in gardens and on farms. Today, I read an article from the Bowdoin Daily Sun and learned that on Eco Service Day, some of the Bowdoin students took time out from studying to clean eggs, spread hay, plant seedlings, and prune apple trees.

Good for them!

Another cheering bit of news from that same article in the Bowdoin Daily Sun: “[T]he increasing popularity of local agriculture comes from younger Mainers (and more broadly, Americans) who are interested in restoring a connection to the land.”

Let’s hear it for young farmers. We certainly need them.