Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living

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Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Features

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About Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure In Local

Product Description Advance praise for Farewell, My Subaru “Fine is Bryson Funny.” ——Santa Cruz Sentinel “Fine is an amiable and self-deprecating storyteller in the mold of Douglas Adams. If you're a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-style humor -- and also looking to find out how to raise your own livestock to feed your ice-cream fetish -- Farewell may prove a vital tool.” —— The Washington Post “Fine is an eco-hero for our time..” —— Miami Herald “An afterward offers solid advice and sources for learning more.” —— On Earth Magazine, Natural Resources Defense Fund “This is Green Acres for the smart set—: a witty and educational look at sustainable living. Buy it, read it, compost it.” –A. J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically “The details of Doug Fine’s experiment in green living are great fun——but more important is the spirit, the dawning understanding that living in connection to something more tangible than a computer mouse is what we were built for. It’ll make you want to move!” –Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future Like many Americans, Doug Fine enjoys his creature comforts, but he also knows full well they keep him addicted to oil. So he wonders: Is it possible to keep his Netflix and his car, his Wi-Fi and his subwoofers, and stillreduce his carbon footprint? In an attempt to find out, Fine up and moves to a remote ranch in New Mexico, where he brazenly vows to grow his own food, use sunlight to power his world, and drive on restaurant grease. Never mind that he’s never raised so much as a chicken or a bean. Or that he has no mechanical or electrical skills. Whether installing Japanese solar panels, defending the goats he found on Craigslist against coyotes, or co-opting waste oil from the local Chinese restaurant to try and fill the new “veggie oil” tank in his ROAT (short for Ridiculously Oversized American Truck), Fine’s extraordinary undertaking makes one thing clear: It ain’t easy being green. In fact, his journey uncovers a slew of surprising facts about alternative energy, organic and locally grown food, and climate change. Both a hilarious romp and an inspiring call to action, Farewell, My Subaru makes a profound statement about trading today’s instant gratifications for a deeper, more enduring kind of satisfaction. About the Author DOUG FINE, a contributor to NPR and Public Radio International, has reported from remote perches in Burma, Rwanda, Laos, Guatemala, and Tajikistan. He is the author of Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man, and lives in southern New Mexico. From the Trade Paperback edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. One THE PARKING BRAKE WAKE-UP CALL As I watched my Subaru Legacy slide backward toward my new ranch’s studio outbuilding, the thought crossed my mind that if it kept going— and I didn’t see why it wouldn’t—at least I would be using less gasoline. A few days after I moved into the sprawling, crumbling, forty-one acre New Mexico spread that I had named the Funky Butte Ranch (it had a funky limestone butte on its east side where two great horned owls with an active love life nested), I neglected to firmly apply that last click to the parking brake on my aged fossil fuel–powered hatchback, the LOVEsubee. This was a good thing. Really. The imminent demise of my ride, I rationalized, would help me with one of my four big goals for the next year, which were: 1. Use a lot less oil 2. Power my life by renewable energy 3. Eat as locally as possible 4. Don’t starve, electrocute myself, get eaten by the local mountain lions, get shot by my UN-fearing neighbors, or otherwise die in a way that would cause embarrassment if the obituary writer did his or her research Epiphany in the desert Southwest is not subtle. Almost nothing in this stark, gorgeous ecosystem is. I moved several thousand miles from my place of birth in order to kick fossil fuels and live locally. Three days later,