No Plow, No Till, and Hardly Any Weeding - You Say?

I will have to add photos later, but my no plow, no till and hardly any weeding style of gardening eliminates much cost and time for gardeners.  Most of my inspiration comes from super gardeners Masanobu Fukuoka and Ruth Stout.  I just adapted some of their ideas to fit my location and available resources.  
Here's how I do it:  First I just clear and mow an area.  Then I put some wood ashes down followed by some compost or manure to start healthy bio-activity.  Because of my clay soil, I put about 3-4 inches of crushed sand on the whole garden.  Planting is done by making a furrow that touches the compost/manure level.  Seeds are covered to appropriate depths, or a little more.  Unless it is very wet, I lightly mulch with some very old or rotting hay that I get from local farmers - they discard them.  As plants grow I add mulch as needed.  If there are weeds, I add a heavy mulch layer.  If weeds grow through the mulch I use  a five-tine fork to lift the mulch up and set it back on the weeds - they eventually become very spindly and weak.  The sand tends to be dry and keeps new weed seeds from germinating.  Also, the sharp dry sand seems to discourage slugs.  When the hay rots into the sand it creates a nice loamy soil condition.  The garden, and produce, stay mud free and there is no need to till because sand does not compact.  The key is to keep refreshing the sand layer to keep the weeds at bay.  Sometimes I need to water if the plants aren't big enough to reach the moisture holding dirt level .  Planting vertical loving varieties makes the process even easier too.  

The Many Causes of Modern Diseases

Everything we breath, every bite of food and anything we put on our skin has positive or negative potential.  These often work together to cause our modern diseases.  Eating nutrient poor, food with antibiotics, or preservatives can destroy natural protein processing digestive bacteria.  Our body's system is remarkable but eventually one factor can tip us into a health disaster.  We tend to blame the resulting sickness on one cause when actually there are many reasons that contribute, but just one may trigger the tipping point into disease, or death.

Is the Use of Antiperspirant a Cancer Risk?

Everything we breath, everything we are exposed to and everything we eat has potential to benefit or harm our well being.  A wonderful new science, Epigenetics, may help us sort out it out soon.  We are starting to see there is compelling evidence that substances we are exposed to, and the substances (much of what we eat today is not food) we eat influence cancer, allergies and our children's , grandchildren's, and even our great-grandchildren's lives .  We do know that antibiotics destroy essential protein processing bacteria that leads to allergies.  There are many factors and it is quite complicated, but, antiperspirants are likely disease contributing substances.   As mentioned, it is extremely complex but it is also incredibly simple if people learn how to stick to living as they were before man's "improvements".

Those "Healthy Grains"

Earl“Rusty” Butz, secretary of the USDA under Nixon decreed that we would be a - highly profitable for big Ag - grain eating nation. We have been told to eat grains ever since.
If grains are consumed for more than several weeks the grains begin to have a detrimental effect on digestive systems - this is a plant protection mechanism that insures the plant species will not be eaten out of existence. It is also part of the reason we lose our "taste" for foods after continuously eating them. 
No animal has evolved that eats grains all year long but there is good reason that animals ate the high carb fall foods - they needed to fatten up to survive the winters. 
Grains can be tolerated, but greens should dominate diets in the spring and summer months.

What's Different About Our Food Today?

Some say that we have always been exposed to poisons and toxic sprays.
Yes, years ago we were exposed to DDT, asbestos and lead but not on the level and frequency that we experience toxins and adulterated food today.  Most people still had home cooked food and there were many small farms that grew decent food.  
We now have fructose in everything instead of sugar and poorly grown food, from huge corporate farms that care only about profits, that is preserved with massive amounts of toxins and preservatives.  Today food is produced for their wealth, not your health.  GMO foods were created to withstand huge amounts of herbicides and still thrive and produce profits - they weren't created to make us healthier.  
Antibiotic use in animal production is used to allow overcrowding and make animals fatter, again, for more money.  
All these "tricks" to produce faster more profitable food has had a negative impact of the health of U.S. citizens.  Collectively the unnatural food and toxins we are exposed to have caused incurable diseases today because the illnesses are due to our system's inability to tolerate it.  
It is complex but if you eat natural food it is vary simple - we are of organic origins and require organic food.  

Time for Another Wood Stove Post

Wood heat is great but most people do not understand how to use a wood stove. 
Start your fire with newspaper, then kindling which you can shave off your firewood if need be. Use progressively larger wood as the fire heats up. Most people do not burn a fire hot enough. You can burn a small hot fire if necessary but burn a hot fire. A hot fire will burn most volatile gases that cause creosote buildup in your chimney - if you burn the fuel, you get heat from it and it won't wind up in your chimney. 
Once you have a sustainable fire have the bottom, and maybe the top draft intakes wide open. When the fire is roaring and hot you can close the bottom intake some, but leave it open a bit. Keep the top draft wide open unless  the fire is really raging.  The idea is to keep the top draft open to burn the wood gases. 
If it gets too hot use smaller lengths, and some bigger diameter pieces of wood - essentially use half of your wood stove's burn area.
Most chimney fires start after a period of warmer weather when people have been burning a smoldering fire, then, when it turns cold they burn a hot fire which drys and ignites the deposited creosote in the chimney. Because of my set-up and method of burning wood, I have never had to clean my chimney in 35 years - a small amount of creosote does dry and falls to the bottom clean-out however
Since a lot of heat and fuel go up a conventional stove's chimney the most efficient stove would be a rocket mass heater, but few have been UL approved. 
BTW, wood stoves should not have a chimney damper - they help slow and cool the gases causing creosote to deposit in the chimney.

Are Flu Vaccinations a Good Route?

For children and people with compromised immune system, other illnesses, or generally unhealthy, Flu shots are probably a good idea, however, vaccination immunity is less vigorous and declines in effectiveness much faster than a natural immunity.  
Contracting a particular influenza virus imparts lifetime immunity, even to similar strains. For instance, during the 1918 pandemic, also known as the Spanish flu, many older adults likely had partial protection caused by exposure to the 1889–1890 flu pandemic, also known as the Russian flu. Even so, an immune compromised person could become susceptible though. 
Because vaccination responses are at low levels, immunity is less vigerous and they decline in effectiveness much faster than a natural immunity.