With the Province of Buenos Aires being exactly the same size as France ...or Arizona, for that matter ...and the City of Buenos Aires being bigger than Chicago and about 300km/200mi from the ranch, I´ve always felt like I´ve had a foot in both of those two very different worlds.
"The best of both worlds," I´ve always said. We live very much downtown while in the Capital ...and very much in the countryside while at the ranch. There's never been anything sub-urban or ex-urban about our experience.
Stark contrasts ..."night and day," you might say.
Over the past few years, though, the lines have begun to blur ...and some lines are getting very, very clear.
When we first got down to the ranch, there was no cellphone service, no electricity, no hot water, and no central heating except for the woodburning kitchen stove. Now we have all of that... if you count a rather small gasoline-powered generator that we use for a couple of hours a day.
The lines that are no longer blurring, however, are making their way, pole-by-pole, to the home of The Happy Bottom Riding Club. I can see them coming. Clearer and clearer, every day. Full, honest-to-God, 220v electric power is making its way to the ranch.
That's great, right? Progress. Modernity. Rural electrification. So why do I feel so bad about it? Well, my 19th century is vanishing before my eyes ...and I´m gonna miss it. I´ll probably be the only one who does.
Don´t get me wrong; I´m no Luddite. I love gizmos in general and I´ll love the opportunity to use a few more power tools, more conveniently. Being able to charge my cellphone whenever I want or need to will be super. Being able to have a "real" freezer will be a wonderful thing. I´ll be able to read even when the light fades. You can hardly count all the benefits.
But it will be a rush! A real rush. A rush that grandparents, dead and gone, would be able to appreciate. Zoom! 100 years will pass in the few minutes it will take to connect that last wire.
Forgive me, but I´m suspicious. It's not clear to me that this is all going to be for the good.
Right now, when the sun comes up, the birds start squawking and you get out of bed. That's especially important in the winter when the days are short. In summer, it's important, too; the days might be longer then but midday is too hot to work ...so siesta is important.
What I love the best, though, is sundown. When the sun goes down, you go to bed. The only alternative is to wander around in the dark and bump into something or fall into a hole.
When I´m in the campo, I fall into a circadian rhythm that the big city can´t possibly deliver. "Artificial" light, I´m afraid, could take that all away ...and take it quick!
The talk at the ranch is all about the practical applications of electricity ...all the above plus electric fences that no longer need to rely exclusively on car batteries charged from solar panels. No one, however, has mentioned television or late-night blogging on the internet over the weak cellular connection ...soon to become stronger with an signal amplifier.
Wow. How many times have I chuckled at the Amish who deny themselves electric lights while running heaters and milking machines in their barns? How inexplicable, right? Sheesh, payback is a bitch, ain't it?
We have light now. We are so far from the nearest town that, during a full moon, I can actually read a newspaper. On a moonless night, I can see my shadow from starlight alone.
Maybe I got nuttin' to worry about ...but I wonder if I´ll still be able to see the "milkiness" of the Milky Way through the glow of inevitablility.
No comments:
Post a Comment