NEWSLETTER

Modern Homesteading Movement

Newsletter 5-17-05

1) The Common Disasters...and more
2) Retraction of the Week: Washington's Chicken Butchering Rules
3) Carla Will Travel. Got Freebies?
4) Composting Toilets
5) College Degreee in Renewable Energy? Organic Farming?
6) Sustainability News
7) Letters from Readers

1) The Common Disasters
Lots of folks are interested in news about future asteroid impacts on earth, magnetic pole shifts, volcanic explosions, or the possibility of California dropping into the Pacific. But in terms of statistic probability, it's the common disasters that are most likely to get you, not those uncommon ones. Here is my list of the six most common life disasters, in no particular order, and mostly avoidable.
a) Lack of self-discipline in money management.
American consumer debt is at a record high. The personal savings rate is at a 25-year low. Personal bankruptcies hit a record in 2004. Half of all Americans are in credit card trouble. The gambling industry keeps growing. Under the new bankruptcy law, those who earn more than their state's median income cannot declare bankruptcy; they can only enter a long-term repayment plan. Fully 63% of new mortgages in the second half of 2004 were adjustable-rate or interest-only loans. More and more "equity loans." Don't borrow money. Don't buy on credit. Protect yourself by just saying, "No, no, no, no..." If you say "No" to the rest of it enough, you can afford health insurance, and you'll have savings. It costs money to be short of cash. Having health insurance and savings saves you much more expense.
b) Health problems caused by smoking, drinking, or over-eating.
Half of all cancers are caused by smoking. Ten percent of cancers are caused by over-eating.
c) Illegal drug use. The problems with hard drugs are obvious. What about pot? A scientist did an experiment using a type of spider that spins a lovely, precise, predictable web. He gave this kind of spider various drugs to see how it affect the web outcome. Meth kills brain cells, makes a messy, ugly web. Pot? The spider never finished the web. "Turn on, tune in, drop out," indeed. The pot user doesn't finish things: unfinished educations, unfinished marriages, unfinished parenting, unfinished wonderful projects...
d) Poor choices in mating habits.
e) Failure to stay put--and network.
A rolling stone has a chronic running-away problem. You need to stay put to invest...in relationships, in property, in building a business. The temptation of mobile America can undermine your progress. Nothing is perfect. Nobody is perfect. Dig in, accept imperfection, live with it. But not alone. Join a like-minded group. Volunteer and work for the group's goals.
g) Refusal to reproduce.
Heredity is real; genes are real. Selection works in human reproduction as well as in other species. In chicken species that are consistently selected, generation after generation, for strong appetite, a line has developed that would happily sit and eat all day--until it has a heart attack. In chicken species that are consistently selected, generation after generation, for weak appetite, a strain has been developed that barely eats enough to stay alive and thus is severely stunted in growth. In every genetic category, this rule holds true. At this time, the more education, talent, intelligence, achievement (one or all) that a woman has, the fewer children she will have. She typically selects a mate of as stellar genetic qualities as her own and then proceeds to limit his offspring along with her own. This rule holds true for every nation, every race, every ethnic group: the more positive genetic attributes a woman has, the fewer children she (and the equally talented mate that she has chosen) will produce. This spells disaster for the future of humankind. As a consequence, we see social traditions that deprive women of reproductive choice or educate them to choose reproduction moving into political dominance. Once upon a time, there was a religious order called the Shakers. There were hundreds of them. They didn't believe in having babies. There are no Shakers now. Compare population trends in the (liberal) Methodist congregations with the growth of the Amish in numbers. Bottom line: If you value your religion, your language, or your world view and want to pass it on, if you have that choice, choose to have children. If you are a talented person, you have a genetic DUTY to the future of humankind to pass on those genes.

* * *

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a little girl and her mama went to live on an organic farm. When offered wonderful homegrown eggs the little girl said, "No, thank you." Her mama said, "She doesn't eat eggs." When offered wonderful vegetables from the garden (which produces some 30 different vegetables), the little girl said, "No, thank you." Her mama said, "She doesn't eat vegetables." "Except for corn," the girl interjected.
Every day for breakfast, the little girl ate a cocoa-flavored cereal. For lunch, she ate applesauce from a little plastic box topped with an aluminum lid, plus a child's packet of artificial juice. For supper, she ate a portion of instant store macaroni and cheese.
You can lead 'em to good food, but you can't make 'em eat it--or serve it? My kids didn't have a choice unless we were rich. Usually we were poor. I put on the table what I could. If they didn't like it, that was their problem. I am amazed at some homes we visit where every mealtime is a scene of struggle between parent and child over the eating of what, when. "Eat just one more forkful." "If you don't finish your..., you can't have any dessert."
We didn't have desserts in our house, except on special occasions. And oh with what delight I remember Mama's desserts: delicate custard baked in the oven of her wood cook stove in a little glass bowl. Homemade pie followed the meal on national and religious holidays. Ice cream was homemade or a treat at the soda shop on the once a week trip to town to shop because frozen food rarely survived the two-hour trip to town.
There was only one rule regarding disliked foods, "Don't comment on it." Kids didn't have to eat anything that was served, but if they didn't like it, they said nothing of that fact and there was no other food. When we went to the grocery store, Mom made the decisions about what was purchased. That's tough love in the food department. That was a discipline based in circumstance. This generation, growing up in the midst of a slop trough of sugary, fatty goodies has no idea of what the natural rhythms and rules of real eating are like.

* * *
I was in the garden staring perplexedly at a big blank space. She's been clear-cutting the carrots, I thought to myself in amazement. Now I won't have enough to get through the winter. I'll need to plant more. Her eyes followed mine: "I don't think I got that part about if you harvest something, you're supposed to plant something."
"It's a little more complicated than that," I said. "When harvesting carrots, I only take the biggest ones. That loosens up the rest and makes room and provides more food for the smaller ones to grow. Eventually, every carrot that I take out of that space will be a big one. I harvest the first ones a couple months after I plant. I'll be harvesting the last ones in a patch in late fall, even late winter. When my harvesting creates a truly bare spot, then, yes, I always plant something in it. If you just keep pulling stuff out, you have less and less to harvest. Eventually, if you don't replant, you have nothing left to harvest. If you plant something every time you harvest something, you keep your ground producing at maximum efficiency."
"I didn't know what to plant," she protested.
"I plant whatever I would be planting at that time of year in that type of garden area. Every day, I plant something."
Every day, before I go out to harvest greens for the goslings (root vegetables and greens that have gone to seed, tender weeds), I fill the pockets of my garden apron with choices to plant that day. Yesterday I planted small, whole red potatoes if I was in one of my deeply sandy areas of the garden. I planted eggplant, pepper, and leek seeds if I was in a damp area near a garden path, so I'd be sure to spot them when they're ready to transplant. I planted pumpkin and squash seeds in comparatively open spaces on the new edge of the garden where I'm still fighting weeds and those husky plants can sprawl off the garden itself onto the adjacent field."
"I planted a row of corn," she said, and some oregano, marjoram, garlic chives, and thyme." There was pride in her voice.
I hated to disillusion her. I knew that one row of corn wouldn't produce much. She planted it in poor soil on the new side of the garden. Corn is a heavy feeder. Also, corn needs to be planted in a bloc of multiple, adjacent rows, even short rows, to have ears that are completely filled with kernels. Each kernel must be individually wind-pollinated from another corn plant to develop. As for those herbs...
"Let me show you something." I led her to a thriving big plant and pointed down at it. "That's Greek oregano. It's a ground-cover. I keep pulling it out of the ground where it is spreading. I take the pullings to the farmer's market to sell, but there's little demand for it. Of plants like oregano and rosemary, one is all you need. So we'll be pulling that oregano you planted back up. I already have the others, too. A little bit of herb goes a long way. My best sellers at the farmer's market are basil--that's an annual, and mint. My mint is planted in isolation on the other side of the house to keep it from taking over the garden."
We went over to the chicken yard where I dumped a basket of weeds over the wire. "I see you have a lot of roosters," she said. "I was wondering why you don't get more eggs. I was told at the other place I worked that the more roosters you have, the more eggs there will be."
"No, it doesn't matter a bit how many roosters you have. The chickens lay eggs whether roosters are present or not, and they lay the same number. But what you feed them can affect egg laying. Less feed, fewer eggs. I have all these roosters because most of them are destined for the deep freeze."
"No...you butcher the hens, right? That's what I was told."
I sighed and silently asked for patience. "In every livestock species, half of the offspring are male and half are female. Generally, only a few males are needed to keep production going. One bull services a herd of cows. A few roosters can make a flock of chickens fertile. So, instead of feeding useless mouths, we butcher surplus males for our meat supply and keep the females to produce eggs, milk, and new offspring."

* * *

The Basics of a Great Garden. Work a minimum of two hours per day in your garden.
1. Dig all the weeds out of your chosen number of square feet of ground. A rototiller is not necessary. You can do this with a spade and trowel. Never pull a weed. It will come back from the root. Dig it out and get as much of the root as possible.
2. Plant (or transplant) something every day. If a weed appears in your cleared ground, immediately remove it. Plant something where the weed was. If you harvest a entire plant, leaving an open space, immediately plant something in that space. For bulk seeds at a very good price, order from Morgan County Seeds: 1-573-378-2655, 1-888-266-0014, then 2, Box #8475. 18761 Kelsay Road, Barnett, MO 65011-3009. Ask for a copy of their catalog.
3. If you see plants that are too crowded, transplant them to give each plant its own growing space. Don't transplant corn, peas, or carrots. Do transplant lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, cabbage, broccoli. I remove the biggest carrots in a thinning process. As the remaining carrots grow big enough, I harvest them one by one.
4. A great garden needs to be fed lots of manure. Keeping animals such as rabbits in the middle of the garden or alongside it makes it convenient to get the manure to the plants. You can toss kitchen scraps onto the garden, or bury them if you want to hide them, or feed them to the animals.
5. Give plants that are culls--such as plants that managed to flower and set seed before you could harvest them in their prime, and weeds that have been dug out--to the animals to eat. Every time you remove a plant to harvest, fill that open space with a seed or seeds, or a transplant.

That's all there is to it! Happy gardening!!!

2) Retraction of the Week
For me, this is a biggie. For an entire year, I closed every speech on my circuit with the story of how the homesteaders of Washington State had won their freedom. That's how I heard it. I was told that the Washington State Legislature had passed a law that no person could butcher birds and sell them. Federal law allows up to 5,000 poultry to be home-raised and home-butchered, but the state law can be more restrictive than the federal law and this one shut it down completely. I was told that a grass-roots movement then agitated until they got a new law, allowing butchering of up to 1,000 birds. Recently, during the Q. and A. after speaking in Washington state, a listener objected. "We don't have that right," he insisted. I researched it. Sure enough, he was right.
The people who had given me the information both worked for the government. I had trusted them. I felt so betrayed. It turns out that the new law of which the Extension people are so proud still does not allow people to butcher and sell poultry from their homestead. "A mobile poultry processing unit is available to provide processing services to families raising chickens for their locker or for those interested in resale opportunities. Currently only chicken and turkey can be processed. Bring your live chickens to the processing unit where a custom crew will process them...A minimum of 100 chickens is required before a processing time will be scheduled...What does processing cost? $2 per chicken. What if I want to sell my processed poultry? There are licensing requirements you must meet. Licensing through Washington State Department of Agriculture costs $55." That was quoted from Washington State University, Stevens County Extension pamphlet, "Chicken - >From Pen to Plate: What you need to know to successfully raise and process your own chickens for meat." "Your own?" The implied thought is that somebody else should butcher "your own" chickens before you can eat them.
My longtime gut instinct suggests that I should never trust a government person and that I should stay as far away from that sort as possible. This experience heavily reinforces that feeling. I am absolutely horrified at this wolf of state control masquerading in the sheep's clothing of supposed support of a homesteaders' needs. As far as I'm concerned, there's only one way it can get worse than the law above, and Washington state homesteaders seem well on the way to that fate. That worst case scenario is a law making it illegal to butcher anything yourself, even for family use.
Think that is far-fetched? That's the law for the entire country of Germany right now. A German publishing company wanted to translate my book into German. They added that, since home butchering was illegal in Germany, they would leave out all the butchering instructions in my book. I said that, in that case, I would not consent to let them publish the book. Butchering knowledge is survival knowledge. Like the knowledge of how to grow grain and a garden and a flock of chickens or hutch of rabbits, it is impertive that our children's children have access to information as to how to butcher, and the right to butcher--be it even for the sake of putting rat meat in their thin soup. What would be more controlling than a government that won't let you process home-grown meat???

3) Carla Will Travel -- Got Freebies?
Does your business have a mailorder side and is it compatible with the principles of the Modern Homesteading Movement? Do you have leftover old catalogs or flyers from previous years or beat-up ones that were returned in the mail? Then, please consider sending them to me to put on my "freebies table." I'm on the road four to six months a year, speaking almost every night (www.carlaemery.com ), so your catalogs will find many eager takers. Send them to PO Box 133, 2785 North Parker Road, San Simon, AZ 85632. I'll be leaving June 1 on the next tour.

4) Composting Toilets

Hi Carla and Don:
Glad to hear that you made it home safely. There has been a lot of positive feedback about your presentation. It was a special treat to meet both of you, spend some time sharing experiences, and discover the people in our little community with
similar interests.
.....my composting toilet project is doing well. My solartoilet design has a large chamber in the rear of the stall to use a 4'x4' poly cannery tote under the seat. This container has good capacity, reducing maintenance, but is more expensive. Recently I designed the Humanure Harvester, which uses the plywood box and bucket system, identical to the unit in our house. I'm very happy with its performance at my roadside oyster stand. Customers often express compliments that it is the nicest outhouse they have used......The Humanure Handbook has plans for a simple box (a bit different than mine, but serviceable). I've thought about offering workshops where participants build the system from a kit, get a copy of the HH, and get a little instruction on composting humanure. Maybe some day. Joe
Jenkins has done several such workshops for a $50 fee, including kit and book. In July Sandy and I will travel to a music camp in the Sierras east of Fresno. The manager asked my help converting from porta-potties to composting privys. They have their own sawmill (and lots of sawdust). The plan is to spend a week building 20 stalls from their lumber, then train some staff during the following opening week of summer music camps, which could be attended by as many as 400. This should be a good learning experience. There is quite a demand for ecological toilets to replace the chemical disposal toilets usually used at group events such as festivals, receptions, fairs. etc. I think there is potential for a grassroots cottage industry supplying composting privys on a rental basis.....After the Indonesian tsunami I proposed to more than a dozen aid agencies that composting toilets could play an important role in improving sanitation while contributing to the re-building of local food production by returning valuable plant nutrients to the soil. I quickly learned that most aid agencies already have emergency sanitation programs designed by engineers, who favor pipes and pumps centralized (expensive) sewage treatment facilities, funded by the World Bank. But there are a few independent NGO's that recognize the value of composting toilets. Today I received a request for my solartoilet plans from an NGO in New Delhi, India that is working with communities impacted by the tsunami. Progress is measured in small steps.
Thanks again for including us in your itinerary.
Appreciatively, Larry

Carla: Wow, that is exciting, Larry. You mean composting privies for public events can be legal?

Larry: Legality is a complicated issue. A friend/colleague introduced composting toilets to the Okanagan Barter Faire several years ago, where the concept has been well-received, tolerated by the local authorities, and gradually expanded. Many State and Federal agencies that manage public facilities are using composting toilets at campsites, public rest stops, etc. Health authorities are generally more receptive to composting toilets at public facilities because there is dedicated staff and consistent management of the systems. There is much more resistance to residential systems, where management may be inconsistent, neighbor complaints are more likely, or people move and the new residents don't want the toilet. Managers for the Oregon Country Fair near Eugene have pestered me for some years to bring a solartoilet to the event. So far I haven't had the time, but it would be a great venue that would introduce my design to a lot of open-minded people. I expect the music camp project this summer will be a good springboard for future efforts.

Yesterday there was an interesting note on one of the 3 composting toilet chatrooms that I monitor. Arizona DEQ just revised its rules to allow owner-built composting toilets, constructed according to specific design criteria. It has been the widespread practice until recently for all States to limit permits for CTs to only Approved designs. That means commercial units that have National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) certification, an expensive process, so the toilets are expensive. I lobbied Washington State for many years to change this rule, finally succeeding in 2000 when our State Health Dept. adopted new Guidelines that allow permitting of non-proprietary owner-built (much cheaper!) designs. Through correspondence with other CT advocates I have encouraged similar rule changes; colleagues in 7 States are working on this issue. Arizona is now the second State, after WA, to make this rule change.

Another approach is that of Joe Jenkins, author of the Humanure Handbook, who takes the position that composting humanure is no different than a backyard garden compost pile. No sewage is generated, there is no disposal of waste, and no need for an Approved wastewater treatment facility. He recommends avoiding the bureaucrats, don't seek a permit, just do it. I suspect that is the approach most people take. I doubt that very many people obtain a permit for their CT. http://www.solartoilet.com/

5) Sustainability News
a) Gulf Stream Slowing? http://www.emagazine.com/view/?2518
b) A College Degree in Renewable Energy? Or Organic Farming?
The Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) in Portland, Oregon, is now offering a Bachelor of Science degree in Renewable Energy Systems. This program is the first of its kind in the U.S. You'll need to be comfortable in physics, chemistry, math, and writing skills. The course teaches energy systems, heat pump systems, photovoltaics, energy management, wind and bio-mass, renewable energy transportation systems, zero net energy building, and hydrogen fuel-cells: www.oit.edu. Want to study organic farming for college credit? http://www.newfarm.org/depts/student-farm/index.shtml. How about studying draft horse and oxen use, or blacksmithing at the U. of Mich.? http://www.wmich.edu/tillers/home/

c) Methane-Generated Electricity
Dear Carla,
Consumer Power has a renewable power plant called Coffin Butte Resource Project near Corvallis, OR. They have three 16-cylinder generators that are powered by methane collected from an adjacent landfill. Much of what is in a landfill (paper products, plant matter and foodstuff) is organic. When organic materials decay, they release methane gas. Methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, is then burned to power generators that produce electricity. For tours, call 1-541-745-3812. God bless you and keep you safe on your journeys. Earlene Umphress

d) Urban Food Production in Cuba
For all you urban gardeners, and everybody else, too, who is wondering how we can make the transition to a post-petroleum ag production, this article that MHMN reader Kathleen provided to us is MUST reading!
http://www.gardeners.com/gardening/content.asp?copy_id=5039

6) Letters from Readers

Hi, Carla, I'm glad your travels are going well.
I have a few questions concerning Janet Fischer's letter about laws governing her right to have chickens in the city. For those of us less "legally minded," how do we go about knowing these laws and statutes as back-up knowledge before the neighbors or city take legal action against us? While this doesn't apply to me directly (yet), it would be good knowledge to have. We live in a rural, agriculurally-zoned township, but
our property had deed restrictions that limits us to 1 animal over 100 lbs/acre. We are over that limit now, but no one has complained yet, and the township trustees and county zoning officials have assured me that the township agricultural zoning laws supersede the deed restrictions, but I would like to have my backup reinforcement knowledge in place in the event of a neighbor taking issue with the number of animals we have grazing on our pasture. Thank you for your great newsletter, and I am looking forward to hosting you and Don at our home in June. Sincerely, Nancy

I don't know the answer to this one, Nancy. Can any of you Readers help her?

Hi, Carla. Re the last letter in last week's MHMN, I too have a bad back and am also afflicted with years *grin* So I got a "Lawn Buddy" at Wal Mart. I can sit on it and roll down the garden row or around the flower beds. It's wide enough for most anyone to sit comfortably on, and stable underneath when you stand up. There's a handle to pull it like a wagon. It holds quite a bit inside, if you take the tool tray out, such as a sack of fertilizer or a toddler on an old pillow. It was about 25 dollars a couple years ago--may be more now. Jeannie T

Carla, do you know if there are any particular weeds, peelings, etc., that we should not be throwing to the chickens. If something is not good for them, will they eat it anyway? Karen

Answer: Don't feed potato peelings that have green or sprouts on them. When you keep livestock, you need to learn your local poisonous weeds. Around here, we have Johnson grass which is edible, even delectible in its green stage, but poisonous when it's gone to seed. A hungry animal may be tempted to try something dangerous. A well fed animal generally will reject unhealthy food. I let them teach me what they will and won't eat. The goslings are picker than the chickens. But there are some local weeds that even the chickens won't eat.

Hi Carla,
People in our small town think I'm somewhat eccentric, especially when I'm out pruning blackberry bushes (they're like,"doesn't she know they grow on their own?") The plants that I've managed to prune and make paths through the thickets to are exploding with buds. I counted over 100 buds on one pruned-back branch of the black raspberries that grow outside my daughter's window and in our garden. We should have some nice berries this summer with God's blessing!
Bless you and your family, Carla! Marie

Hi, Carla. Your talk was the most entertaining I've heard in years, and probably the most intelligent, as I expected from reading the book.
Of all the kinds of fat you talk about for making soap, you didn't mention chicken fat. I've been trying to keep my weight down, avoid red meat, and I resist throwing anything away, especially energy sources. So I have five quart cottage cheese containers (yes, plastic) of chicken fat in my freezer. Since I couldn't find a recipe for it, I experimented with a small batch, as I usually do anyway. It ended up in a two cup glass measuring cup, so I could see that the "soap" was all on top of the water, indicating it still had fat. The water was basically clear. It turned out to have excess lye also, according to the test suggested, of putting a little bit on the tongue. Did I need to heat it more, stir it more, though nothing had seemed to change in quite a while? Can I still rehabilitate it, or is it not possible to make soap with chicken fat? With what other kinds is it not possible, besides dear, goat and elk? Can I use chicken fat for something between candles and a kerosene lamp, wait till I really need a lot of food calories, or what?

I mentioned making "plastic" from milk (casein), obviously not a petroleum derivative. Warm a cup of milk, add a teaspoon of vinegar and stir. (At this point, to make it more like glue, heat it some more and add some baking soda.) Strain it, or just pick 90% of the curd out in one piece with your hand. Dry the surface on paper or whatever. Mold it as best you can to the shape you want, and again as it cools, dries and shrinks. Figure on filing down rough spots and adding more where needed. It's surprisingly strong once completely dry. If you put it in a non-porous mold, it will dry just on one side and slowly shrink into the bottom. Of course it will soften again if it gets wet, and no doubt would get moldy before long. I got the basics of this from a book "Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things" by Cy Timony. Maybe it could be painted to seal it. I was experimenting with making pseudo-primative arrowheads. I put it between two pieces of paper and stapled it around the perimeter. I'm also thinking about combining it with other materials to give it a sharper edge, but I think pitch of the right kind would work better. Dan Robinson

Answer: Readers, help!!!