NEWSLETTER

Modern Homesteading Movement

Newsletter 5-10-05

1) Some Curious Statistics from the 2005 Western States Tour
2) Retraction of the Week
3) Frugality News
4) Health News
5) Self-reliance News
6) Letters from Readers

1) Statistics from the 2005 Western States Tour
Hi, everybody! I'm back (for a month) from the first speaking tour of 2005. Don and I were gone from home for three weeks. Not counting visits with relatives, we had 11 bookings. We acquired 24 new invitations for 2005-6 during the trip.

Our smallest audience was seven people at Minersville, Utah (5 were members of one extended family). Our next two smallest audiences both consisted of nine people. Our largest audience was the 70 who came to hear me at Eugene, Oregon. Our second largest audience was 60 at Clayton, Washington. Our most enthusiastic audience--a category with keen competition--was the 51 folks who came to hear me at Eatonville, Washington! They also bought the most books of any single-event audience!

I have no idea how many hundreds of people passed by our booth at the Small Farmers Journal Draft Horse Auction at Sisters, Oregon, and many of those folks stopped to visit, pick up freebies, and / or shop but, over the four days, they created our largest sales total of the trip. Our smallest sales total for an event on the trip was $35 at Minersville (made me grateful for the $100 booking fee as it was about 700 miles both going and coming from that one). Our largest sales total was at the Draft Horse Auction, cumulative over the four days (Thur. through Sun.) that we sat from 7 in the morning until 7 at night by our book tables in a huge, unheated tent as that famous Oregon rain poured down outside.

Our most challenging lodging was those nights at Sisters, sleeping on an air mattress in the back of our unheated van, parked back of the tent. Don came away from that one with a heavy cough that he's still trying to get rid of. (Smoking for the 44 years before he met me makes him vulnerable to bad weather and cold nights.) Our most delightful accomodations of the trip immediately followed that campout in the van. It was lodging in the Whalebone House (www.whalebonehouse.com), an elegant bed and breakfast in the oyster-growing center of Ocean Park, Washington. Our most interesting and unusual lodging was the "cob cottage" provided to us at Maitreya Eco-village in Eugene. It was handmade of shaped mud and came equipped with bed, tiny wood stove, and a plastic bucket for night pottying. Don built a fire to take the chill off as I watched the huge swarm of honey bees hanging from a limb about 10 feet outside the picture window installed in the front side of the cottage. I

knew that European honey bees do not sting when in their swarming state of mind.

2) Retraction of the Week
About my metro vs. rural statistics, you're absolutely right, Arlene. Thanks for spurring me to do a more careful search. Definitely, I can't define "inner city" as an urban county. That was a stupid assumption. Hate it when I do things like that. I've learned interesting things while researching this. About 15% of Americans live in an apartment. The Department of Homeland Security has gotten interested in this issue of urban food production. Seems that less than 5% of our food is produced locally. The rest comes from a considerable distance, across the U.S. or from overseas. The DHS wants to encourage urban folks to produce more of their food.

Dear Carla,
I'd like to weigh in on the current urban/suburban/rural debate. I don't know if your statistics are correct or not, but I must take issue with your definitions of "Inner City," "Suburban," etc. Your definition of the inner city (defined as a county with a population of more than 1 million) as a place where one can neither grow food nor keep livestock is inaccurate. I know because my partner and I live in Oakland, California, in an urban apartment, and we keep chickens and raise some of our own food (http://www.pdbd.com/henwaller).

In fact, here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the further you go into the inner city, the more community-scale agriculture projects you will find.
--There is a fellow in Berkeley who owns a house on a standard size lot, where he raises several goats for milk and meat, along with several dozen poultry and a huge vegetable garden. He and his fellow farmers also make excellent cheese.
--Our friend Novella is farming a large vacant lot next to her house, andshe and her partner make their own biodiesel. Novella is also raising two dozen chicks in her tiny backyard.
--Further into West Oakland, the non-profit City Slicker Farms is farming several city blocks and providing fresh produce (on a sliding scale) to a neighborhood that is literally bereft of grocery stores. (information at http://www.oriononline.org/pages/ogn/vieworg.cfm?action=one&ogn_org_ID=805&v
iewby=name)
--In South Berkeley, Spiral Gardens has converted two blocks of former (unused) railroad right-of-way into a community farm, living food bank, and produce market for the neighborhood (http://www.urbangardens.org). These projects are not limited to the San Francisco Bay Area. In Portland, Oregon, there is a CSA farm in the city limits (http://www.pacsac.org/47Farm/index.html)! Also in Portland, Growing Gardens (http://www.growing-gardens.org) helps low-income residents start and maintain their own food gardens through volunteer labor and a mentoring program. There's even an urban nursery in Portland that sells chicks and organic layer mash. In Vancouver, B.C., urban agriculture is promoted and supported by the city as, among other things, a way to reduce automobile usage. Residents of Cheyenne, Wyoming benefit from a solar-powered, community-run greenhouse (http://www.botanic.org) that allows them to grow food year-round.

I won't claim that it is easy to grow food and livestock in the city. It's hard work, and it certainly challenges the status quo. But it is simply a choice people must make for themselves--with few exceptions, there are no laws against urban farming. Even if a person lives in a high-rise apartment, that person can container-garden, work in a community garden or farm, or, as you note in your book, raise quail on the balcony.

I think that urban, community-based agriculture projects are essential to our future. These types of projects don't have the same kind of appeal as the self-sufficient 1.9 acre homestead, but we homesteaders (myself included) need to remember that America's culture of individualism is yet another product of our abundance of cheap oil. Along with re-learning to skin rabbits, gut chickens, and press cider, we need to re-learn the ancient practice of living in communities of proximity.

(Charles Eisenstein has written a thought-provoking article about this subject, disguised as a recipe for home-brewed ginger beer, at http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/Realthing.html)

I have been very fortunate to spend the past five years learning simultaneously about homesteading and urban planning. I believe it will take lessons learned from both disciplines to carry our fragile planet into the future. Thanks, as always, for the weekly blessing of your newsletter.
Fruitfully, Patrick Barber Oakland, California

P.S. ...I am realizing that this letter is to me and Holly as much as anyone else. We will do well to follow our own advice.

3) Frugality News
If you have an equity loan, KILL IT. They're nothing but trouble. If you have credit cards, cut them up and throw them away. Research shows that people who have a credit card or equity line of credit spend more money than they would if they didn't have those temptations. Whenever somebody offers you a credit card or home equity loan, throw it in the garbage!

a) China, Consumption...
Unfortunately, since the dismantling of so much American industry, there are now no domestic substitutes for many Chinese or other overseas imports. Do buy American when you can. Don got creative and ordered a magnificent pair of custom-made cowboy boots from a bootmaker with a booth at Sisters. The artisan said he had more work than he could keep up with (high-end, $450 a pair!). This is a field for you leatherworkers to look into! http://americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=1890,
http://americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=1312

b) Sales Tax on Internet Purchases & Catalog Buying?
Kansas, and some other states, are adding questions to their tax forms, asking if taxpayers have bought anything online or in a catalogue. If the answer is "Yes," they will ask if state sales tax was paid on the purchases. For example, Connecticut's Department of Revenue Services has sent 141 state residents tax bills, a total bill of $165,000, for unpaid state sales taxes on cigarettes bought online. The revenuers are also assessing penalties and interest.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0415/p02s01-usec.html?s=hns

c) A Coming Real Estate Crash?
If you own property with a flexible mortgage rate, unload it. If there's any way you could get out from under a big mortgage and get into a place with a small mortgage or, better yet, a paid-for place, be it ever so humble, do it NOW! If you own a big, expensive house on a teeny-tiny lot, swap it for a teeny-tiny house on a big lot! If you haven't bought yet, focus on saving your money for a year or two. Then, after real estate prices have crashed, as so many experts now think they will, you'll be able to make that money buy a lot more value. Buying a home in this type of real estate market ("hot") takes great patience. You have to be willing to say no if the price and terms don't work for your budget. You have to understand that the saleable price of that property may drop rather than rise in the coming years: http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_04/tacinv050404.html

d) Make Money from Agritourism!
Are you operating a farm, farmhouse, B&B, winery, vegetable or fruit farm, livestock farm, or anything else based on the land? http://www.agritourismworld.com/

4) Health News
a) School Bus Exhaust Leaks Harming Children?
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?2450

b) Shy Bladder Syndrome?
http://www.bottomlinesecrets.com/blpnet/article_dhn.html?article_id=34043,
http://www.paruresis.org/

c) Too Much Water Drinking Bad for You?
The New England Journal of Medicine says it may be dangerous to your
health to drink huge amounts of water or sports drinks while doing heavy
exercise, such as a marathon.

d) MBTE in a Well Near You?
Hundreds of U.S. communities are now finding the gasoline additive, MBTE, a carcinogen, in their groundwater. The issue of who will pay for testing for methyl tertiary butyl ether in groundwater and paying for the cleanup is becoming increasingly contentious; if oil and chemical companies have their way, majority of lawsuits will be thrown out by Congress as part of energy bill backed by Bush administration; bill includes waiver that would protect chemical makers, which are some of biggest oil giants in US, from all MTBE liability lawsuits filed since September 2003.

e) U.S. Drug Use Soars
The Centers for Disease Control say that, over the past decade, the number of prescription drugs taken by Americans has increased by two-thirds to nearly 3.5 billion annually. 130 million Americans regularly take one or more prescription medication. Americans buy more medicine than folks in any other country. Drug reactions and medication mistakes cause about 125,000 deaths each year. (This is the fourth leading cause of death. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the top three.) Prescription drug sales have risen by about 11 percent each year for the past five years. Much of the increase is caused by the pushing of prescription medicines on people who are actually healthy. http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/11413830.htm

f) Drinks in Cans Make You Fat (and Unhealthy)
In Harvard's "Nurses' Health Study," researchers measured 116,686 young and middle-aged women several times during an eight-year period. Women who drank no more than one sugar-sweetened soft drink per week did not gain weight. Women who drank more than one sugary soft drink per week put on weight.

g) Spring Allergies?
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/104/107593.htm

h) More Herbicide Use, More Cancers?
The author of Seeds of Deception reports rising rates of herbicide application with growing use of GMO crops. Most people don't realize that herbicides are even riskier to human health than pesticides. About 80% of the herbicides are carcinogenic. Only 35% of the pesticides are carcinogenic (the others just damage central nervous system, IQ, etc.).

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Newsletter/Mar05GECropsDamageWildlife
/index.cfm

5) Self-reliance News
a) Minerals under Your Land?
Does somebody else own the minerals under your land? http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0510/p01s02-usju.html?s=hns

b) Passing of the Railroads
RICHARD C. CARPENTER, author of "A Railroad Atlas of the United States in 1946": "In 1946, the peak year of the American railroad system, nearly every rail line, both main and branch, was served by at least one passenger train per day, which also picked up and delivered mail. All railroad lines carried freight. More than 1.3 million railroad workers were needed to manage the complex transportation system. A steady procession of railroad mergers, as well as highway and airline competition, would cause most of the 1946 American railroad scene to disappear forever."

c) American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association is...putting on a North American convention. Great opportunity to learn! http://www.arcsa-usa.org/2005_conference/index.htm

d) 2005 SolWest Fair

This is a great renewable energy fair for the Northwest and anybody else
who can get there! http://www.solwest.org/

6) Letters from Readers

Hi Carla, I just found you via inter-net. Was I Thrilled!! I have had your 75' mulit-colored book that has been through the wringer, poor thing is taped and rubberbanded together from USE!!! My hubbie and I are still doing the back to the land thing after 30 years. The first chicken I cleaned, John read instructions line for line out of your book, that was 1977 or '78.
Cathy

Carla, Re: Aileen and her row gardening versus sq. ft gardening, remind her that with sq. foot gardening you get much more production from a much smaller space using closer spacing and intensive growing and companion planting and succession planting so one does not need a HUGE area to get HUGE production.
Best, Norma

Hi, Carla!
If you need more information about chickens, I have raised them since 1967, am an expert in small flock management, and - most importantly - am an expert on the LAWS relating to chickens!! Have successfully kept cities and counties at bay so that I can enjoy my "animal enterprise" right in the middle of the city. NOTE: City codes and ordinances are enacted for the protection of the PUBLIC on property that is OWNED by the PUBLIC. Even if you live in the middle of the city, if the city wants to tell you what you can and cannot own or keep, they have to PAY you for it, FIRST. It HAS to be on your Deed! I kept 65 chickens in the middle of Corona, California on 1/4 acre, and Animal Control LEFT ME ALONE for 7 YEARS after I told them (very nicely) that if they wanted to regulate and control my property and privacy rights, that I would let them, but it would cost them 3X the value of my home (since they used threat, fear and intimidation by showing up with badges and a guns without a warrant ), $1 million for my 4th Amendment right to privacy (I'm entitled to that per Cal. Prop. 190 and Prop. 218), and $3,000.00 per chicken (federal sentencing guidelines for theft or destruction of agricultural commodities - Title 7 U.S.C. sec. 2 - legal security/property - Title 18 U.S.C. sec. 2311 - and war materials and national defense materials - Title 18 U.S.C. sec. 2152). And, I was entitled to PRIOR just compensation for chickens and property under the 5th Amendment, Cal. Const. Art. 1 sec. 19, and the recent Supreme Court decisions in Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, Fuller v. Vines, and Headwaters Forest v. Humboldt County. The city left me strictly alone after that to enjoy my chickens in peace! As long as you know what you own, and know the "bundle of rights" that come along with property ownership, you won't fall prey to these con games pulled by municipalities. -Janet I.
Fischer

Hello Carla,

I have been a big fan of yours for many years and I feel like you are a friend of mine! I had a dream to live in the country. My dream did not come true until about 7 years ago. But I spent years reading your book and learning all I could and doing all I could in the city (called my self an urban homesteader for many years!). I wanted goats and chickens and I wanted to raise pigs, etc.. Well I do all of that now and have a nice big garden every year. My family and I (I have 8 children and a hubby. Six of the children are still at home), live on 18 acres in Washington near the Oregon border. We have 9 Nubian milk goats (does and

bucks), and 2 Boer goats that we hope to breed for meat this year. We have chickens also and 2 of my daughters just ordered another 40 Rhode Island Reds to raise in hopes of being able to sell farm fresh eggs to our neighbors very soon. Last November we purchased 5 little wiener pigs.

Last weekend my husband and I did the slaughtering of our first 300lb. pig (we have now done 3, with 2 more to go). My husband had watched a friend do his pigs, but has had no practical experience of his own. So armed with your book and the necessary tools to do the job, we began to do our first pig. I jokingly told people.. "I read Carla's book and my husband operated the knife" J Everything went very well. It was a lot of work, but we were very proud of our accomplishment. We should be getting the last two pigs done this weekend.
http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com;
http://thefamilyhomestead.aimoo.com

Carla, I found another kindred spirit here at work. We were chatting about gardening, then she mentioned a big green book she once had. Then, of course, we started talking about you! I sent her the link to your website. We are in the midst of early spring planting and my potatoes were doing fabulously well - until we reached 29 degrees Sunday morning! We'd had days in the 80s, then suddenly a cold snap and now my spuds are black. Do you think they'll come out of it? [Yes.] I like your idea of trowel gardening. I use my garden claw and trowel from way down on the ground (yep, I do most my gardening sitting down). I have a neck problem and bending over letting my head hang down causes bad headaches, so I sit. I do need to have rows because of that, but I love sitting out there scooting along pulling weeds and clawing out the bad boys! Well, have a wonderful spring and God bless!
Linda Anderson