Comments on: ‘How We Used to Live’: bringing Transition and oral history together

By: Andy in Germany

Andy in Germany — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:10:41 +0000

Interesting stuff. What encourages me is that the world these pictures show isn’t the post-apocalyptic wasteland often conjured up by many people trying to keep the status quo going.

Germany isn’t as far along this process as the UK. We’ve lost a lot of local businesses, but even in our village we have two carpenters and two housebuilders, two butchers, a general food shop, and three bakers (although they are part of a chain, it’s a local chain.) We do have one supermarket.

And we have a flour mill in the valley, albeit in the next town.

By: Josef Davies-Coates

Josef Davies-Coates — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:14:33 +0000

Hydraulics are used a great deal in the incredibly inspiring project Open Source Ecology who are working to design and build the a Resilient Communities Construction Set!

I’d encourage everyone to join me in becoming a true fan by contributing $10 a month to help fund their efforts!

By: Brad K.

Brad K. — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:40:18 +0000

I wonder just how much we romanticize the difficulty of re-creating historical skills and crafts.

Take the flour mill. I imagine that the first step is to find someone interested in milling flour. The second is to find someone that knows how, knows what the important parts of the process are, and what equipment and accessories are important. Then learn.

One asset we have today cannot be over-emphasized – information. Back when flour mills were a local necessity, milling was simple to learn – every region had one or three. You hiked to the nearest mill, hung about and hopefully worked there, learning the trade. You learned the equipment, figured out how to locate and procure what was needed, from a spot of ground to a building and other needs.

Today what might have taken years of preparation, half a lifetime unless learned growing at your father’s knee (half a lifetime!), can be done in a couple of years. Books, videos, even the remembrances of those from previous years, are available – once you find someone interested in milling.

Book learning is not the same as apprenticing. No two people read a book and get the same information, mistakes must still be made, and rectified, and any trade or craft is still a half lifetime in the learning. But today thousands have access to the basic background and information that one person or one craftsman had to offer a handful of apprentices, back in the day.

The Internet, newspapers and magazines, libraries and bookstores enable communications for questions, for recommendations, and for swapping stories that happen to share insights, values, and inspiration.

With care, we might even be able to preserve some of the best of today’s and yesterday’s knowledge.