Member Blogs
TO TRADE OR NOT TO TRADE? - 15 APRIL 2012 Featured
Written by Little OwlOver time we’ve tried it all. The trickiest is selling it. By the time we’ve packaged it or arranged a selling place (for us this is the local farmers market) we’ve already spent valuable time and resources (in the form of petrol, paper bags etc), and the money we get doesn’t cover those costs. It’s just not worth it for us for small amounts of produce.
WAR AND PEACE - 11 APRIL 2012 Featured
Written by Chris Fields-JohnsonI finished Tolstoy's War and Peace yesterday sitting by the fire on the farm at Merrimac. From beginning to end I was so taken by it that I wondered why we didn't throw out all those bad books in 9th grade world literature class and spend a year reading and discussing this one great master epic.
Obviously I was born in 1942, and at the time my parents’ home was in the East End of London. I sat down to watch the DVD and after twenty minutes or so of looking at newsreels of World War 2, started to wonder when some other topic would be broached. I t never did. With hindsight I realised that for the first three years of my life...
BEWARE, JOSEPH KONY SIGHTING - 4 APRIL 2012 Featured
Written by Hilary HodgeIn the past few days, social networking sites have been inundated with one particular video, a video about Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. The video has gotten so many hits that internationally syndicated radio shows and television programs are picking up the issue and discussing it.
For a number of years, my purchasing power somewhat agreed with my self-worth. There was a time when I didn’t have to think too much about the clothes I was purchasing, the restaurant where I was dining or the couch that I was buying. I had a fairly new car, a nice apartment with furniture and a decent job that allowed me those things.
I’ve come to believe that the single most important thing you can do for your food security is to learn to make fermented, or cultured, foods. These nourishing and vital foods were once a large part of our daily diet before refrigeration. We’ve not had electricity a whole lot longer than we have...
HOW TO MAKE A ROCKET STOVE II - 27 MARCH 2012 Featured
Written by Madam OhIf you are too busy with other preparations, do what you can to acquire the materials and tools, and print out my instructions for when you really need them. If you are new to working with metals, getting together with a veteran metalworker would be helpful, but I hope my instructions are clear enough that even a novice with enough patience can produce a useful, practical heating unit.
NEIGHBORHOOD ORANGES - 21 MARCH 2012 Featured
Written by Hilary HodgeMost people who live in the suburbs have at least one or two people on their street with fruit trees in the front yard. My parents happen to have an orange tree that they share with their next door neighbor. As I’ve noted in a previous blog, the tree hangs over their yard. They pick the fruit that grows on their side.
My Mother’s people hail from Western Kentucky and their farmland has been in the family for eight generations now. Their life was rich but they didn’t know. Mom’s family was nearly 100% self-sufficient. Like everyone else in the USA, they wanted more riches and less hard labor.
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS SCAM - 13 MARCH 2012 Featured
Written by The Unrepentant CowboySo today I sit at 7AM, my time, and for that matter the time of the chickens and cows accustomed to my arrival, typing on this computer. In a couple of minutes people will begin to arrive and I will ignore them, silently cussing our collective stupidity, until eventually the will of the masses bends my own.
