Here
are some of my opinions and experiences from the past year.
Worst roads and most potholes - Pennsylvania.
Craziest drivers - Within 25 miles of New York City.
Hardest city to find your way out of - San Francisco.
The town that managed to stay in 1910 - Elk Falls, Kansas.
Area in which I spent the most hours lost - the urban sprawl west of Pittsburgh.
City with the most controlled, and controllable, highway access - Oklahoma City.
Highest point - 11,000+ feet on freeway near Aspen, Colorado.
Lowest point - near Death Valley, California.
Hottest moment - In Las Vegas, Nevada (114 F). I was shopping for a new car as my old one had melted.
Coldest moment - In late March in Northern Minnesota (-14 F).
Most highway patrolmen - About 15 patrol cars working the same section of a Kentucky freeway. (I didn’t get stopped.)
Most welcome sights of flashing lights - I was sitting, out of gas, beside the freeway just out of Washington, D.C., about 11:00. A highway patrolman pulled up behind me, then came to my window. I said, “I am so glad to see you!” He called a towtruck, told me it would arrive within 15 minutes, and went on down the road. In California, another patrolman pulled me over because I was wobbling onto the shoulder. I admitted I was very tired. He said I could get off the freeway in about seven miles and suggested that I take a nap. I gratefully agreed.
Scariest driving moment - Going SIDEWAYS down a freeway 65 miles an hour in Kentucky just south of Cincinnati. It was not yet my time. I drove out of that situation (across a mowed strip and onto two-lane oncoming feeder lanes), drove up the feeder lane and back onto the freeway.
Accidents - I had two minor crashes. In Michigan, a lady lost control on ice and bumped my front fender. In North Carolina, another lady lost control on ice and bumped into the side of my car twice. Nothing but minor dents for me in either case. The second lady, however, slid on and totalled the next car she hit.
Most moving nature scene - California’s redwood forests.
Most thrilling high spot - Sequoia National Park’s rock promontory.
Purest, best-tasting water - From Indian Valley, VA, south to the Western corners of NC/SC.
Biggest garden - Brother James’s kitchen garden for the Blue Cloud Abbey, Marvin, SD.
Most profitable two-acre garden - Earns $35,000 per year selling produce alongside a Southern California freeway.
Most deer in a herd - 400+ counted in one field in Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Potatoes most resistant to blight - Buy from Ronniger’s (address in my potato section).
Most politically active gardeners - Maine Organic Gardeners and Farmers fight the bad chemicals wherever they can.
Largest percentage of family food is home-grown - The Byers family in Elk Falls, Kansas.
Oldest dairy cows - A farm in Southern Wisconsin which feeds only grass in summer (strip-grazing), and only hay in winter has cows 13, 15, and 18. (In modern agribusiness dairy herds, it is rare for a cow to survive to the age of 6. Their systems are pushed so hard and they live on concrete. Eventually, a leg splays outward and the cow can’t get up again. Then the bucket loader arrives and she’s off to become hamburger.)Favorite dairy breed - Most folks I visited favor the Jersey breed as most efficient, healthy, and gentle.
Most goats in smallest space and biggest town - Joyce and Don Schroeder have 75 registered Nubian goats on a fourth acre (the house and yard are on their other fourth acre) in the absolute midst of urban St. Petersburg, Florida! Their right to keep the animals is grandfathered in. The animals are happy and healthy, eating grain and hay every day, and grooming their coats by rubbing against the bristles of a retired street sweeper brush that Don brought home for them! Joyce earns hundreds of dollars in championship prizes at every fair at which she shows her animals. (Joys Half Acre, 813-526-9524)
Biggest, boldest cockroach - Closely observed in a Deland area, Florida, dining room.
Best oldtime general homesteading magazine - No doubt, Jerry Bellanger’s Countryside and Small Stock Journal is now number one!
First tick of 1998 - Found it walking up my leg in Newman County, Arkansas, April 10.
Most dramatic evidence of warming climate - Bayfield,
Wisconsin, is on the shore of a large lake. An offshore island houses
70 families year-round, more in the summer. Ever since records have been
kept in Bayfield, that ferry has carried folks to and from the island
in the summer. Every past winter the water has frozen several feet deep.
Then folks drive back and forth on top of it. (Their ice-commuting cars
tend to be clunkers with all doors removed on both sides. In case the
rig starts to sink, passengers can scramble out onto safer ice.) The winter
of 1997-8, for the first time in their memory, the water never froze.
The ferry went back and forth all winter.
Classiest composting toilet - A county judge in central Ohio has a Clivus composting toilet in his bathroom. A fan runs constantly, so there is NO odor. He says he only empties the solids once a year, and the humanure is basically already composted when he does so. The well-aged liquid is emptied more often and given to the eager plants of his large garden. He lets the solids age another year or so on the edge of the garden. No toxics in his fertilizer!
