NEWSLETTERS

Modern Homesteading Movement

Newsletter 8-23-05

Members of the Modern Homesteading Movement strive to base their life choices on these five principles: 1. Frugality; 2. Health; 3. Sustainability; 4. Self-reliance; and 5. Neighboring.

"It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll use the next trillion in 30 years."
The Economist

I. Modern Homesteading Movement Checklist
II. Your Family Food Production Check List
III. News and Links
a) Discovery Channel Producer Seeks New Homesteaders
b) How to Make Newsletter Links Work
c) Eat...Lard?
d) U.S. Economy Based on Real Estate Sales?
IV. Letters from Readers
a) About Homemade Shampoo, and Laundry Soap
b) Selling Wild Plants, "Wildcrafting"
c) More on Monsanto
d) Lead Shot
e) Are Snakes Edible?
f) Move into a Grain Bin?

I. Modern Homesteading Movement Checklist
I don't do ALL this stuff either, but I try. I'm getting closer all the time, and so can you! If this long list seems overwhelming to begin with, skip to section II for a simplified version.

1. Be Frugal.
a) Spend less, earn more.
b) Cut up your credit cards and throw them away.
c) Pay off your old debt and avoid taking on new debt.
d) Save 10 percent, or more, of all your income.
e) Invest part of that savings in the means to produce products for sale, or buy goods wholesale to sell retail, or ?.
f) Put wants / needs on a list. When shopping, buy only what has been previously considered and is already on that list. This avoids impulse buying.
g) Pay with cash and look for bargains (fixer-upper house, used car, etc.). This way, you will obtain your needs with one fourth the expenditure you would use if buying all new products, on credit.
h) It is good to own land (as distinguished from "house.") Avoid renting; your money is just going down the toilet. Paying cash for land is better than buying it on mortgage. Buying it on mortgage is better than not having it. Buying on a direct-from-owner contract is better than buying through a bank. If you buy with a mortage, use only the old-fashioned kind of mortgage, and refuse a variable interest rate.

2. Stay Healthy.
a) Get rid of your aluminum and plastic (Teflon) cooking pans and utensils. Instead, use stainless steel, unchipped enamel, glass, ceramic, or--you'll never be anemic!--cast iron. Use no plastic in the microwave, nor in the oven, nor exposed to heat on the stovetop.
b) Whenever possible, just say no to chemicals. It helps if you avoid drug store, grooming, and store-bought cleaning products.
c) Prefer commercial beverages in glass rather than in aluminum or plastic containers. When away from home, carry your (probably home-filtered) water in one or more glass containers. (We use a gallon jug (formerly a wine bottle), plus smaller bottles to pour it into for drinking (formerly Sobe containers).
d) Be an independent-minded health consumer. Know that the final decisions regarding your health care should belong to you, because nobody can understand your body better than the person who lives in it. It's up to you whether you visit a health-care professional or not. You don't have to fill every prescription you're handed; you don't need to take every pill; you don't need to refill every prescription. Use your own best judgement regarding all that. Research has demonstrated (to the surprise of the M.D. professionals) that "independent-minded" clients who behave in this way stay healthier and live longer than the "obedient" health clients who always go to the doctor when they're supposed to, fill every prescription they're handed, and swallow every pill or potion they're offered.
e) Eat food that has been grown without use of herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, and other noxious chemicals. Choose home-grown, neighbor-grown, or "organic."
f) You need some fat in your diet every day; the brain is a fatty organ and this fat nourishes it (especially important for pregnant ladies and children). It matters a LOT for your best health which fats you choose. The purest, healthiest vegetable fat is extra virgin olive oil. "Extra virgin" means that it has been cold pressed--no heat, no chemicals. Butter and lard are your healthiest animal fats. Avoid margarine!
g) Maintain your weight at no more than 30 pounds over normal. That 30 lb. line is the point at which health problems start to be triggered by excess weight. Exercise more. Spend more time outdoors.
h) Cook from scratch. Prefer fresh, naturally grown ingredients. Use your grain grinder to grind your own cereal and flour, as needed.

3. Choose a Sustainable Lifestyle. That's Health for the Planet!
a) Take responsibility to care for and propagate (including annual seed saving) at least one legume variety, one lettuce variety, one Cucurbit variety, and one Brassica variety--all heirloom types. (The last two will be the challenging ones.)
b) Take responsibility to care for and propagate (including keeping male and female, natural breeding, and care of young) at least one heirloom variety of livestock. Urban homesteaders might consider installing bees, or a rabbit variety, Coturnix quail (small, indoor, caged poultry or some other small quail species, useful for both meat and eggs), a variety of Bantam chicken, or pigeons.
c) Investigate the options; then create a long-range plan to install your choice of a private power system: water, wind, or solar to generate the electricity your family uses.
d) Use your family's humanure (both solid and liquid) to nourish your food-growing soil. Carefully retain and spread as much livestock manure as possible to nourish your food-growing soil.
e) Make soap the old-fashioned way (no store stuff); tan hides with bark, eggs, or brain, and other such from-scratch and non-polluting manufacturing processes.
f) Outfit your rooftops to collect and filter rainwater. Install a storage container--something from a small cistern to a 10,000 gallon stainless steel underground tank to hold that water. Or, if you have a well, install a solar or wind-powered pump, plus storage tank. You MUST have water.
g) Feed all your table scraps and kitchen waste to livestock or compost them. Feed garden weeds, leaves, clippings, and prunings to livestock, or compost them. Use compost to nourish your food-growing soil.
h) Use only very mild, non-detergent soaps, and very little of that. Install a grey-water recycling system that keeps your sink and laundry water out of the sewer system and sends it instead to water plants outside your house.

4. Be Self-reliant.
a) Turn 75 percent of your lawn into "edible landscaping." Grow as much as possible of the food that your family and your livestock will require.
b) Consider switching to wood-fired cooking and heating options if you can obtain or plant at least a 4-acre wood lot. That size woodlot can be regularly harvested of enough blow-downs, thinnings, and prunings to meet household cooking and heating needs without depleting it.
c) Preserve any surplus garden and field food production for later use by humans and animals. Store additional food, especially grains.
d) Learn to build it yourself; fix it yourself--not as a rule, but as an option.
e) Buy or make a solar cooker and learn to use it.
f) Eskimos survived in ice houses (igloos); in large sections of China today people manage with NO winter heating. Prepare so you could do the same, if necessary. Obtain warm boots, socks, thermal underwear, caps, and other warm clothing--plus a big heap of warm bedding for every member of your family. When you can sleep warm, you can endure a cold day. If you get really cold in the daytime, you can crawl back under that wonderful warm heap of blankets and warm up again. (Read the section in the Encyclopedia of Country Living on what to do when it's very cold.)
g) Choose goats or a cow and begin to produce and process your own dairy foods: milk, butter (if you have a cow), cheese, and yogurt.

5. Be Neighborly.
a) Join a local church and / or club.
b) When possible, shop and sell in the neighborhood.
c) Be watchful for somebody who needs help. When you discover that person, offer assistance.
d) At least once a month, go watch somebody do something or talk to somebody with the intent of learning from them.
e) At least once a month, take the time to teach somebody who wants to learn something that you have already managed to learn.
f) At least once a month, spend an entire day helping a neighbor accomplish hard work such as building fence, cutting firewood, weeding, building an outbuilding, or cleaning up a mess.
g) At least once a month, visit a neighbor, bringing a gift of something you grew or made.
h) Once a month, feast ("potluck") with your friends. If you can get a cheerful, social bellyfull once a month, you can endure lean times the rest of it.

II. Your Family Food Production Check List

Even if you choose to begin with, or to focusonly on goals related to family food production, just that will help your budget, your health, your world's sustainability, and your self-reliance.  Plus, you can carry a gift of home-grown whatevers to the neighbor when you go to meet him or her!   So...how does your ability to feed yourself and your family measure by old-time standards? There are no right or wrong answers. Just evaluate where you are now, and think about where you might want to get.

Do you grow your own vegetables? Yes ____ No ____ Percent___

Do you produce and process dairy foods? Yes ___No ___Percent___

Milk?___Butter?___Cheese?__Yogurt?___

Do you grow your own meat? Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

Do you grow fruit, berries, honey, and sorghum syrup or maple sugar? Do you use these for the sweets in your diet?

Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

Do you grow your own cereal and bread grains?

Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

Do you save your own seed from garden and grain patch?

Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

Do you have males for breeding or easy neighborly access to them?

Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

Do your orchard, nut and berry patches include young plants?

Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

Do you replace trees you harvest? Yes ____No ____ Percent ____

Is the land on which you grow food:

Borrowed? ___Rented? ___On contract? ___Paid for? ___

Do you preserve vegetables for year-round use?

Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

Do you preserve your family's food supply...

By salting? Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

By drying? Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

By freezing? Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

By canning? Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

By root cellar storage? Yes ____ No ____ Percent ____

Do you prolong your gardening season?

Cloches____Row covers____ Cold frame____Greenhouse?

Do you have enough food stored to feed your family 3 days? ______

1 week? ____ 2 weeks? ____ 1 month? ____ 3 months? ____

6 months?____ 9 months? ____ 1 year?____how long?____

Do you have next year's garden seeds? Yes___No___Percent___

III. News and Links

a) Discovery Channel Producer Seeks New Homesteaders

My friends, I don't normally push TV, but I'm excited about this one. It's a great opportunity for us to reach and teach! And... These folks have invited Don and I to host and mentor the homesteading families on this show. So, if you apply and are accepted, we'll be coming to visit and advise! I'm not sure where the company is going to find an "American wilderness," but for sure they're looking for newbies. If you're poised to make the great leap, why not give it a try! Here's their ad, followed by the first letter to Don and me.

ARE YOU SELLING, LEAVING THE CITY, AND MOVING YOUR FAMILY TO A HOMESTEAD IN THE AMERICAN WILDERNESS? LEAVING THE DESK JOB TO PURSUE A DREAM OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS? SEEKING A BACK-TO-BASICS LIFESTYLE IN A WILD OR OFF-THE-GRID REGION OF THE STATES?

_________________________

DISCOVERY CHANNEL IS MAKING A NEW SERIES AND IS LOOKING FOR FAMILIES WHO ARE MOVING TO THE WILDERNESS TO START A NEW LIFE.
Does this sound like you ’Äì or anyone you know?
For further information, please contact James at Ricochet Films on 011 44 207 251 6966 (UK) or e-mail: james.christiemiller@ricochet.co.uk

Dear Carla and Don,

Ricochet Films are the producers of the successful ABC series Super Nanny. We’Äôre now making a new documentary series for Discovery US, which will follow American families as they set up a new life on a remote homestead. We’Äôre looking for families who are planning to make the move to the country this fall, with ambitious plans on self-sufficient living in a remote part of the States. I was wondering if any of your clients might fit the brief that we’Äôre looking for. And I’Äôd really appreciate it if you were able to forward the attached flyer to any clients that are making this kind of move from the city, or include our appeal in your next newsletter, or even post it on your website.

We do have an office in LA, but our initial research for this project is coming from our London office. If you have any queries, please do call me on 011 44 207 251 6966. In the meanwhile, you can view all of our productions at www.ricochet.co.uk

Many thanks for your help. Best regards, James Christie-Miller, Development Produce, Ricochet Films, Cairo Studios, 4 Nile Street, London N1 7RF, 011 44 207 251 6966; www.ricochet.co.uk.

b) How to Make Links in Your Newsletter Work
Hi, In the newsletter, the URL is broken over two lines, like this:

http://icdb.org/show.php?r=obedriverhomestead

... so if you just click on that your browser probably won't get it. You'd have to copy the URL and paste it into your address bar so that the whole thing gets in there.
Erik

Answer: Erik, that's not the way I put it into the newsletter. I think that's the way it opened up on the viewer's screen. Depending on what width your viewing box is set at, the type adjusts accordingly.

c) Eat...Lard?
Say, "Yes!" to butter, extra-virgin olive oil -- and lard?! http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/opinion/12kummer.html?th&emc=th

d) U.S. Economy Based on Selling Real Estate?

"I used to live next door to a Russian ˆ©migrˆ©. One day he asked me to explain something that puzzled him about his new country. 'This place seems very rich,' he said, 'but I never see anyone making anything. How does the country earn its money?' The answer, these days, is that we make a living selling each other houses..." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/opinion/12krugman.html?th&emc=th

IV. Letters from Readers

a) About Homemade Shampoo...and Laundry Soap

Hi Carla,
Please let Ms. McClelland know that some of the best shampoo is made as a bar soap. Don't get hung up on liquid shampoo. Take any favorite soap recipe that uses castor oil in it and you will get great lather for hair soap. Commercial shampoo bars are available by such companies as Burt's Bees; she might want to look at them for inspiration for scents, etc. Personally, I use any of my soap bars as shampoo bars. They are milder and more effective than cheap liquid shampoos.
Anne Martin, West Virginia Healthytouch101@aol.com

Hi. We use 2 Tbsp of baking soda dissolved in 2 cups warm water. Work it through your hair. Works great, but it will strip the color from tinted hair. We use an apple cider vinegar/water rinse. This really leaves your hair clean, but there won't be any lather. I use Fels Napatha laundry soap. I use a combination of soda and vinegar for fabric softener, and it also works great. Sometimes, I add essential oils for their smell and to help disinfect.
Blessings, Cheryl (in Oklahoma)

Carla,
I use a baking soda-based laundry detergent, and still feel "bad" about the use itself, but especially about the excessive use of harsh, harmful, often allergic-reaction causing detergents. Still grateful for your continued inspiration.
Cindy

b) Selling Wild Plants, "Wildcrafting"

Carla-- In your newsletter, there was a article abot wildcrafting. I would like to know more about it, and who are the buyers of these herbs and roots? The letter said to contact HillBillyBob, but I see no address for him. I live on 118 acre farm with about forty acres in woods. Love your news letters. Thanks so much.

Indiana Country Frien, Jack Bunyard bunyard@cnz.com

Answer: HillBillyBob asked not to be contacted by readers. But, he says he mostly sells to these two outfits: Duncan's Botanical Products, 1231 E. Smithville Rd., Bloomington, IN 47401; 812-824-9856. And American Botanicals at Eola, MO. You'll find more information at The Herb Growing & Marketing Network, PO Box 245, Silver Spring, PA 17575-0245, 717-393-0245; fax 717-393-9261; herbworld@aol.com.

c) More on Monsanto

About the Monsanto thing. I asked a guy that is doing research for Monsanto in their swine department. He said they are trying to get a patent for the way they are doing inseminations. He really couldn't go in to detail about the procedure yet. Monsanto will never own all the pigs in the world. They are just doing a new insemination procedure that they want the credit for since they have put in tons of time and money for it.
Jenn in KS

’ÄúWhy did Monsanto file a patent application on the reproductive activity of pigs?’Äù The Food Chain with Michael Olson hosted Greenpeace Europe researcher Christoph Then, author Jeffrey Smith, and a representative from Monsanto (they hoped for) for a conversation about the effort to own the reproductive activities of animals. Listen live, or delayed, on your computer at www.metrofarm.com

d) Lead Shot?

Carla, I have enjoyed reading your book. It is a great reference for many things. However, I did notice something I don't agree with in the ninth edition. You instruct readers not to hunt birds with a shotgun because of lead poisoning. The federal government outlawed hunting waterfowl with lead shot in 1978. Most states have additional restrictions on lead shot. Here in MN, I can only shoot lead if it is on my own property, and I am hunting upland game without shooting over water. I typically hunt with steel shot anyway. Thanks, Aaron T. Shinkle

Answer: I wrote that in 1974, and wasn't aware when I created the text portion of the latest edition (in 1992-3) that it needed to be updated. Since then, many folks have given me this same info. If I am ever able to persuade my publisher to release my new text edition (the 10th), that info is already changed!

e) Are Snakes Edible?

Would you let me know what snakes are good to eat. I like rattlesnake meat, but here in Arkansas water moccasins are more plentiful. My e-mail address is william.cooley@gbronline.com.

Answer: I think...that all the snakes are edible. Unless you're keeping kosher. In which case, I think they're forbidden. Kind of a dangerous meal to catch. Don't eat a poison-containing head. And please know that a snake's head can bite even after it has been severed from the body a while and seems to be "dead." Of the poisonous snake bites that have happened in Arizona, a portion are usually caused by handling severed snake heads.
Carla,

f) Move into a Grain Bin?

I was very excited to see the link about housing in a round, metal grain bin. I live in northern Illinois and we are just this week breaking ground for an addition to our house. We own 5 acres which came with two grain bins that we would have never used. Last month I had the "bright idea" to move the grain bin, add a foyer between the existing house and the grain bin and make the bin into our new kitchen. I applied for the building permit and finally received permission to begin. I will be taking pictures on a regular basis and would love to share with your readers the progress that we are making. Thanks for sharing this link!
Vicki GG4you4170@aol.com