Homestead Food Preserving

This is a great way to vacuum pack your foods because you don't need special bags or containers - Pump and Seal food saver vacuum sealer  

Here's a video of a simpler, and cheaper, way to construct a soil block maker.

Here's yet another description of a easy-to-make soil block maker.

Seeed Starting! - Soil Block Maker

Give your seeds an early start.  Instructables has a nifty Soil Block Maker that you can make.

Is it a Big Funnel or Are We Just Going Down The Drain?

Not only have we have seen big box retailers displace thousands of small, locally operated stores, but big agriculture has been key to the loss of thousands of vegetable varieties. Consequently our ability to buy items that best fit our needs, and vegetables that make our meals more enjoyable, and nutritious, have been diminished.  While we can do without many "things" we cannot be truly healthy without good nutrition.  Since mono-culture agriculture is more profitable, some varieties which may hold valuable nutritional and genetic traits are neglected and lost.

It would be a shame to lose the ability to save our own seeds and grow delicious and sometimes just beautiful crops, such as this Glass Gem corn that is not commercially feasible for big corporations.

It has been quite warm here until this week but we may be seeing unusually  warmer weather for our area as The Old Farmer's Almanac explains:

 "If the upcoming solar max of Cycle 24 is normal or robust, and especially if an El Niño follows it 2 years later (as often happens), then the middle of this decade will be the hottest period since humans arrived on Earth."

A warmer climate might allow us to grow more food and reduce heating bills but there are the problems of higher air conditioning costs and crop failures due to heat and droughts which also drive up food costs.   
Perhaps more serious is the northerly advance of new species and diseases though. In the South there is an insect called the Kissing Bug that transmits a tropical disease called the Chagas disease.  In the northern U.S. deer are dying from Black Tongue disease which is becoming more prevalent in the northern Whitetail populations that lack natural immunity.   In northern states hikers and campers are finding that a variety of ticks are becoming more prevalent than in previous years.  Of course, there is the enormous economic cost of severe weather events like Hurricane Sandy.  

A Super Early Spring or Hoax on Nature and People?

While woods walking yesterday I noticed that the leeks (ramps) were poking up.   So I returned today and dug a few for soup.

Never before have I ever seen leeks growing in December although I did harvest a few a few ears ago, during a very warm spell in January.  
Long gone are the traditional "killing frosts" of early September here in North Western Pennsylvania - we haven't seen them for about 25 years.  Then there are those who have predicted a "long hard winter" for several years because we have had such hot summers.  Those predictions are often followed by a prediction of "a cold wet summer" that hasn't happened either.
I wouldn't doubt that the drought affecting areas of the mid-west and plains states  is here to stay also.
All this climate changing will ultimately force a huge change in the way food is grown in the U.S.

The Highwire Act of Genetically Modified Organisms and Technology

When a performer does a highwire act they endanger themselves, but when cooperations decide to alter food, compounds and lifeforms they endanger those far beyond their act. Take, for example, DDT, trans-fats and medical drugs like the sedative drug Thalidomide. These were all approved as safe but found to be harmful. Now we have some that tell us that genetically altered organisms, that may contain antibiotic properties, new lifeforms and viruses and/or funguses pose no problems for us – what could go wrong!

Corporate scientists SAY that they know what they are doing – again. At least a highwire performers only endanger their own lives. Why don't GMO developers experiment on themselves to see if they are correct? The answer is in the amount of money they will get by foisting unknown technology on an ill-informed public.

There are many who know nothing about genetics. Some of these people embrace the technology while others shun it for whatever reason they have - these people really just follow whatever sounds best to them. Then there are the scientists who know how to splice genes and create new lifeforms and many of them believe that because they can do this they understand the process and deem it safe - they don't. The problem with these people is that just because you can get on a highwire does not mean you can go through the act without killing yourself – you really need to be an expert or you are in trouble. That is the current problem with GMO's today – there are those who claim to be experts who, in reality, are merely just able to grasp the basic mechanics of the process - it's much more complicated.

To get to the bottom of the GMO controversy you need to go to the people who live there and find the real experts – the ones who aren't tied to the economic profits of their positions.

New Kid in the Woods

Took my usual walk a few days ago and Chase, my dog who loves to tree everything, chased this little Fisher up a tall tree. The Fisher wasn't a bit happy and barked down at us but stayed up high.

Nutrition and Essential Trace Elements

Looks like the Pot-o-gold is right in my garden - taken during a sunny rainstorm.

Some call them trace minerals or nutrients, but they are on the periodic chart of elements - over 100 of them. Weather you know them as elements, minerals or nutrients they are vitally important to our health. We previously knew that calcium was essential for our bones. Recently we have learned that Zinc is essential to our immune system and Chromium, Selenium, Potassium and Copper are, to name a few that we are currently aware of, essential to our heart function. Some believe that sixteen minerals are required to support human biochemical processes. Those may indeed be essential for life but not necessarily sufficient for optimum health, furthermore, today’s understanding reveals much of what we took for granted a few years ago was not the end of the story; the importance of macro elements, and trace elements is growing. Then too, there is now an awareness that too much of a nutrient or vitamin can cause deficiencies of others. The challenge we face results from taking a simple solution to a complex process and making it a complex solution.
Since humans were on earth they consumed plants grown on generally nutrient-rich soil and the animals that consumed those nutrient rich plants. Humans survived directly or indirectly on the nutrient rich plants for thousands of years, until modern food processing began to remove many vitamins and minerals; to compensate for that vitamin and mineral supplements were developed. The problem with that is we don’t know precisely how much of what our bodies really need. However, if we would eat as nourishing food our ancestors did a few thousand years ago we wouldn’t need supplements at all.
Our dilemma is to find a way to obtain food with high nutritional value in a commercial world that doesn’t recognize food's valuable relationship to one’s health. To be nutrient healthy a person must either obtain their food directly from the wild or consciously seek out food grown in nutrient rich soil.

Links for additional information:
The Role of Elements in Life Processes

Answers.com - Columbia Encyclopedia: dietary mineral

How well do you eat?

We assume that if we eat some fruits and vegetables we are getting good nutrition. That is probably not the case for over 90% of the population. You have to realize that commercial growers are paid by the grocery store’s corporate buyers. They are paid to produce large quantities of nice looking produce not nutritionally superior food. The incentive is NOT in your nutritional welfare but in favor of PROFIT. The prime objectives are to raise a visually attractive product that will entice the customer to hand over their money for the product. If the buyer does not know what is nutritional and what is not, that is not a care of the grocer and if you are not well because of lack of nutritionally adequate food, your problem is passed on to the medical profession. It should be the concern of every individual that the food they eat is good for them.
So, how do you determine if that tomato is good or not? This is not rocket science folks - nutrient dense produce maintains its quality more readily than nutrient deficient ones and it tastes really good. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, it was when plants grew on their own but that is not true today with the modern NPK method of farming today. You have probably, at some time, eaten a delicious home-grown tomato or cantaloupe and thought that it was great. You assumed that the commercial ones were just not as fresh or ripened quite as long due to the trucking time. In reality your sense of taste was telling you what good food is. The full bodied and sweet taste is a result of nutrients in the produce. Commercial Brussels-sprouts are bitter and I refuse to eat them, however after a fall frost we eagerly gather them from my garden; they are sweet and packed with flavor.
Another interesting trait of nutritionally dense food is it’s ability to resist rotting; take a organically home-grown cucumber and place it in a refrigeration along a commercially grown one and see the commercial one turn to a moldy, mushy mess in a few days while the home-grown one will just start to shrivel up as it looses moisture. No doubt, the commercial produce begins its deterioration as it goes through you digestive system. If tasty produce were only a mater of taste there really wouldn’t be much harm in tasteless food, however, we have the sense of taste for a very essential survival reason; we need proper nutrition and taste leads us to it! Our bodies need food for fuel, yes, but bodies need minerals and trace minerals to build and operate properly; you might think of carbs as fuel and the trace minerals as the oil and grease for your system. Without essential nutrients our system cannot develop immune responses or maintain optimum cellular health; our system won’t operate at peak efficiency, if it can even function adequately. Lack of calcium, we are now aware, can cause bones to break. Lack of Magnesium can cause sleeplessness or anxiety. It would be a simple mater to add these to our diet is a pill but we do not know enough yet. Too much, or the wrong form of calcium may deplete essential magnesium levels causing health problems. The interaction between nutrients in food just is not understood well enough. As we learn of one aspect of nutrition, we uncover a dozen new connections and relationships of nutrients in our bodies. The one fact that we can rely is that we have been eating naturally grown food until the recent advent of “modern” farming practices. Plants naturally take in the right size, combination, quantity and form of minerals that our bodies need; since man has been on earth plants and animal that ate wild plants have been man’s source of nutrition. A deviation utilizing refined food like white sugars, flours, and stabilized oils does not meet our established nutritional pattern which can contribute to negative health consequences.
There is an undeniable fact that our food production has made an unhealthy choice in favor of profit over nutrition and it is up to the consumers to set them on the right path.
The simple solution is, well, simple; eat tasty food similar to what our ancestors ate - but that is not so simple today given our modern day population, habits, economy and logistics in general. It IS ironic, however that those plain, simple people of our society have returned to nutritionally dense food similar to that which our great grandparents enjoyed. The Amish are developing nutrient dense farming practices that fit their plain lifestyle.
Some might think of them as backwards, however their methods are rather cutting edge compared to current farming techniques. They use soil analysis to determine the nutrient composition of their soil. Then they add the appropriate minerals to achieve a healthy soil composition. Their crops, grown in healthy soil grow faster and do nor suffer from insect or disease nearly as much as conventionally grown crops - it seems pests, like the mold on the cucumbers, prefer less healthy plants. The progress is checked with
refractometers to ensure total dissolved solids (or Brix). A pH tester is used to check for proper alkaline/acid balance. Plant temperature stress, measured with an IR (InfraRed) Sensor. EC (Electrical conductivity) meters are used to determine nutrients not yet complexed into sugars.
Plants grown on nutrient dense soil resist disease and insects thereby eliminating most sprays and chemicals, they grow faster, produce more without costly annual applications of chemical fertilizers. Some spraying is still done, however, it is mostly foliar fish emulsion or mineral nutrient sprays while utilizing chemical sprays as minimally as possible.
Nutrient dense makes sense on many levels. Once grown, the produce has a remarkable ability to resist rotting due to the nutrients they contain; this allows a much longer shelf life. Your food is not contaminated with unnecessary chemicals or pesticides. The food is nutritionally matched to you body’s needs. It is more economical to raise for many. It is most like the diet of our ancestors since man set foot on earth until relatively recent changes in agricultural practices. Finally, the food tastes wonderful.

No Knead Bread

I saw this easy bread recipe for no knead bread in the Mother Earth News, (Its a great magazine that I recommend). When it costs more to go to the store than it would to buy bread you might want to consider making you own!

No Knead, Dutch Oven Bread

1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting. You may use white, whole wheat or a combination of the two.
1 1/2 tsp salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran for dusting

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at least 8 hours, preferably 12 to 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently shape it into a ball. Generously coat a clean dish towel with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal. Put the seam side of the dough down on the towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another towel and let rise for about 1 to 2 hours. When it’s ready, the dough will have doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least 20 minutes before the dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven and lift off the lid. Slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. The dough will lose its shape a bit in the process, but that’s OK. Give the pan a firm shake or two to help distribute the dough evenly, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect; it will straighten out as it bakes.
5. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned. Remove the bread from the Dutch oven and let it cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.

Yield: One 1 1/2-pound loaf.
Adapted from The New York Times.

Sunset in America

Enron and the subprime meltdown are wake-up calls for Americans. Our time as the world leader appears to be setting as we struggle with a materialistic and dishonest administration. Having a corporate compromised media has complicated people’s ability to make the best decisions.
Yet, there is hope. After the sunset there will come a dawn. While there are those who seek to dictate the lives of Americans the powers that be may delay but cannot prevent truth or superior paths from emerging any more than they can prevent their sun to set or a new dawn.



Tower Sunset

RELIGION Gone Wrong

I had thought about writing about the direction of religion today but this article sums it up. It appears our mainstream religion that passes for spirituality today has become, as Carl Rove puts it, a useful tool of the corporate beast that runs counter to Biblical teachings.

"Many Christians outside the right-wing camps have hidden their identity as Christians because of embarrassment and shame that fundamentalists and evangelicals have brought upon the Name of Christ."

Read more here.

Just like doing the back stroke?

You Think, You Decide:

Via: Think Progress

Waterboarding is not “simulated drowning.” It is drowning. As Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and William Delahunt (D-MA) explained, “The victim’s lungs fill with water until the procedure is stopped or the victim dies.” Former Navy survival instruction Malcolm Wrightson Nance explained to Congress:

In my case, the technique was so fast and professional that I didn’t know what was happening until the water entered my nose and throat. … It then pushes down into the trachea and starts the process of respiratory degradation. It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured.

Read more here ...... http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/12/comedian-waterboarding/

Politicians at Work?

This bunch couldn't do worse than our current leader and his yes-men!

Then again, they would probably be better than our Mainstream "Managed Media" who wait around for their managed news handouts.

Maybe this group would be better shoppers than our current compliant consumers.

Might Black Friday shoppers be wise to consider - What Would Jesus Buy?

The possibilities abound!

Thanksgiving Endangered

Here's an Eagle that I photographed the other day near my house. I never saw one when I was growing up here but they are fairly common sights now.

Today we celebrate Thanksgiving but maybe we could do a better job of creating healthier citizens by producing better, not poorer food!

As I mentioned before the beneficial Omega-3 oil is derived by animals eating living food. Animals raised in pens have a very low ratio of Omega-3 to potentially harmful Omega-6.

Pick up the November copy of AcresUSA and see what I mean or do a search on the internet.

History (DELIBERATELY) Forgotten

Our freedoms are in danger because the people do not follow or understand politics or the methods politicians and corporations employ. Perhaps we are too busy, but the cost of remaining uninformed is too great. Every individual should read these words!


War Is A Racket
By Major General Smedley Butler
Contents
Chapter 1: War Is A Racket
Chapter 2: Who Makes The Profits?
Chapter 3: Who Pays The Bills?
Chapter 4: How To Smash This Racket!
Chapter 5: To Hell With War!

CHAPTER ONE

War Is A Racket

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?


Link

Free Food

Recent rains brought out this choice Chicken-of-the-woods, or Sulphur-shelf growing on an old oak stump. This mushroom is not to be confused with the also orange, and very poisonous, gilled Jack O'Lantern. The Sulphurshelf is a choice edible, however up to 50% of the population can have an allergic reaction so even if you positively identify this one, only try a very small bite to determine if you are allergic to them. Do not consume any mushroom unless you are 100% positive of its identity!

In the Woods

I took a walk today to check out the woods. Blackberries are ripe, Ginseng berries are red and some good mushrooms are out after the recent rain.

nO gLOBAL wARMING - REALLY?

So we don't have Global warming?

A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could
dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.
Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of
permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany
combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years
ago at the end of the last ice age.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1546824,00.html


But that's waay over there - right? ...Ummm, not exactly. Via the Suburban Guerrilla:

FAIRBANKS -- Interior Alaska's permafrost has warmed in some places to the
highest level since the ice age ended 10,000 years ago, its temperature now
within a degree or two of thawing.
Earth frozen since woolly mammoths and
bison wandered Interior steppes has been turning to mush. Lakes have been
shrinking. Trees are stressed. Prehistoric ice has melted underground, leaving
voids that collapse into sinkholes.

http://www.adn.com/news/environment/story/6815494p-6707211c.html

As the permafrost melts it releases methane, a gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. The faster the permafrost melts the faster methane heats up the earth. That is sure to really boost the non-existant global warming. Talk about cooking your goose!

What is the real price of greed, stupidity and corruption? ...we may find out sooner than we want!

Want To Save Hundred Bucks And The Environment?

You can cut the amount of gasoline that you use by simply checking your tire pressure regularly . Check out this site and this one.

Statistics compiled by the American Automobile Association (AAA), show that fuel economy is compromised by 10 percent when tires are under inflated by only two psi (pounds per square inch.) So if you spend $80 a month for gasoline, this can cost you almost $100 a year. Now wouldn't you rather have that hundred bucks in your wallet?

Making Your Own Newspaper Seedling Pots

Why pay a lot of money for pots for plants? Here are 1, 2, 3, 4 ideas to make your own.

-------- Okay where's the PICTURE??

Why Garden?

In case you need them to convince your neighbor or friend here are some good reasons - of course I have already mentioned the quality of food is enough alone!

Gardening is the world's best-kept exercise secret, as I found out (albeit the hard way). But that's changing. Recent medical studies have documented what backyard enthusiasts have known for years: gardening is good for us. More @ Garden.org

Zone Finder

If you garden you'll need to know your zone. Find it here at Garden.org.

USDA Hardiness Zone Finder

The Measure of a Successful Lifestyle

You would think that if we were the most powerful and advanced nation in the world we would have the best health too, but this is not the case. Perhaps we should rethink our priorities. Perhaps having a healthy and satisfying life is better than having material “stuff” and a living a short unsatisfying life - ya think? First we might look at a lifestyle that promotes a longer, healthier life. AskMen.com has some information you should read:

"Notorious for their longevity, the average life expectancy of the Japanese is 81.6 years, compared to the 77.1 years expected for Americans (and only 74.5 years for men). This puts America at par with Cuba on the human durability scale."

Global Warming? You Be The Judge

The peak of Mt Kilimanjaro as it has not been seen for 11,000 years ....but now you can see it!!

Alternate Refreshments

The drink of choice today is common at our nation's fast food stops - 32 ounces of liquid candy. Pop has taken over the United States as our source of liquid intake. There are more than one or two reasons besides tooth decay to remove sodas or colas from your everyday beverages.
Considering that a can of pop has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, any drink that you create with two teaspoons has five times fewer calories! But it is not only the sugar that is the health culprit. Women who drink diet pop increase their of risk bone breakage.
Besides coffee and tea there are better alternatives. For instance, tea mixed with real peach or apricot juice makes a tasty relatively low calorie drink. You can buy cherry concentrate at health food stores and mix your own flavored water- you can always add a bit sugar. The old standby, lemon water, with or with out sugar, makes a satisfying drink.
Switchel is old-time thirst quencher from the hayfields: mix a half cup of brown sugar, half a teaspoon of ground ginger, a quarter cup of molasses with three-fourths a cup of cider vinegar and two quarts of water. There are many variations of this recipe too. Then again, good old water should be a major source of your liquid intake.
It’s a matter of taste and it may take awhile to develop a pop free lifestyle but your health will thank you.

Food As Medicine As Food

The possibility of an outbreak of avian flue is in the news. A new strain of flue is always unwelcome news, however this strain could be one of the worst in years.
Among the steps people can take to avoid or minimize the effects of this potential killer are: getting plenty of rest, washing ones hands with an effective virus killing alcohol hand cleaner, wearing a good quality mask and avoiding groups of people as much as possible. Another powerful preventative is our food. See here, here and here.
In our world of “meds” we forget that people relied on food as their medicine for centuries. Granted modern medicines can be more effective than diet. However knowledge of nutrition can keep us from becoming unhealthy enough to need medications that are often detrimental to our kidneys or liver and produce undesirable side effects.
Several studies and doctors now advocate food alternatives as safer cures for illnesses.

Lazy Chef

I've got to be the laziest cook! Picked up a cheap cut of pork shoulder steak and threw it into a covered fry pan with 3/4 cup of apricot juice and sliced up that leftover onion I found in the frig. Put it on the woodstove and went back to the internet. Three hours later the smell called me off the web and I had green beans and tender, absolutely delicious pork for dinner. Only thing, I forgot to add the organic rice. Well, I didn't starve without the rice.

Tomatoes For 2005

Since last year was a great year for a tomato crop disaster I have decided to try two varieties with more disease resistance. Although the web is littered with sites that say there are no late blight resistant tomatoes I have decided to try a couple I spotted at Tomato Growers Supply. They should be better than last year's anyway. One is an early variety and the other is a mid-season tomato. However neither is a paste tomato which is a bummer. Here they are:

Legend - Introduced by Dr. James Baggett at Oregon State University, this very early variety sets large fruit that are glossy red and round with a very good flavor that is a nice blend of sugars and acids. What is also exciting about Legend is its strong resistance against the late blight fungus, a problem that has thwarted many a tomato gardener. It sets fruit well under cool temperatures, and contains few seeds. We think this combination of great taste, earliness, and strong disease resistance makes Legend truly memorable.

Floralina VFFFA Hybrid - A cooperative effort between the breeding programs at North Carolina State and University of Florida, this variety is the first available to homeowners with resistance to all 3 races of fusarium wilt. It produces beautiful, smooth 8 to 10 oz. round red tomatoes with very good flavor. Even though it was developed in the South, Floralina grows equally well in other regions.

My theory is that where consumers spend their money businesses will pay attention. Maybe we can have disease resistant tomatoes without having genetically altered ones.

Cucumber Crop for 2005

I'm going through my list of varieties for the 2005 planting season. Starting with cucumbers I plan to plant Country Fair a pickler that was a great success for me last year with all the rain and those cool nights. Country Fair is the only cucumber resistant to bacterial wilt (the last I checked), and is fairly resistant to many other diseases. Normally my cucumbers produce for a while and then die. Last year I actually ate a fresh vine picked cucumber in November! While the cool summer temperatures delayed the start of the crop, production, once started never stopped until the heavy frosts of winter killed them. Another plus for these cucumbers is they also have the bitter-free burpless gene. I would rank their taste as good.
Our cool moist area near the Great Lakes is a haven for plant diseases, especially bacterial wilt, and this variety has proven its place in my garden.

Inert My Dog Fleas!

The October/November National Wildlife Magazine has some interesting information for pet owners. It seems that the “inert” ingredients in dog flea control medicines may actually be petrochemicals! All the more reason to go organic for your pet’s health too. If you are like me, you may wonder what else in hidden by the "inert" lable!

Manufacturers do list active ingredients on packaging, but trademark laws allow them to keep secret so-called “inert” ingredients—dangerous petrochemicals and solvents such as benzene, toluene and xylene—even though they can make up 90 percent of the product. “Inert ingredients are not necessarily safe, nontoxic or even chemically inert,” says Maria Mergel of the Washington Toxics Coalition, a nonprofit organization in Seattle. “The term usually means only that these ingredients are not intended to kill fleas.”

They suggest using citrus oil extracts containing D-limonene and linalool - both are some of the many natural alternatives to chemicals.

Neat Feet

Those who works in boots will appreciate these tips:

For persistent athletes feet soak feet in warm water with 6-8 teabags - almost any kind will do.
For smelly feet soak feet in Kool-Aid.
For sweaty feet and to prevent athletes feet use cornstarch.
For toenail fungus use Vicks Vap-O-Rub.

Windy Project

Wind generators are actually more efficient energy producers than solar cells, and although they require more cost and maintenance, their output is greater. OTHERPOWER.COM is an indespensable source with great information on making you own wind power and they even some energy saving tips for lighting. They have comparison on types of generators and information on how to build them yourself. The three-phase altenator looks like a project I would consider.

Check out their site. They even show how making wind generator blades is not as difficult as one might expect:

The Dark Side Of Lighting

From the folks at REPP (Renewable Energy Policy Project):
How much do you think it costs to have one 100 watt light bulb on? If left on 24/7 it probably costs about $85 dollars a year! Now, add up all your lights. If you were using a Florescent light instead the cost would be about $17, or a $68 savings per light.

“(I)t doesn't cost a whole lot of energy to have a light bulb turned on. A 100-watt bulb, in a home paying about 9 cents per kilowatt-hour, costs about a penny an hour to operate. But leave that bulb on needlessly for 12 hours a day and you just spent an extra $3.50 or so a month for that bulb—about $40 per year. And how many light bulbs do you have in your house right now? Count them—I'll bet your surprised at how many there are. That penny an hour for one bulb can quickly become hundreds of dollars per year for all the bulbs in your home.”

Better Beef

Eat Wild has some interesting nutritional information on feedlot beef:
Mass produced feedlot beef lacks the nutrition of pastured beef. Switching to higher quality food can result in a higher quality life.

Because meat from grass-fed animals is lower in fat than meat from grain-fed animals, it is also lower in calories. (Fat has 9 calories per gram, compared with only 4 calories for protein and carbohydrates. The greater the fat content, the greater the number of calories.) As an example, a 6-ounce steak from a grass-finished steer can have 100 fewer calories than a 6-ounce steak from a grain-fed steer. If you eat a typical amount of beef (66.5 pounds a year), switching to lean grassfed beef will save you 17,733 calories a year—without requiring any willpower or change in your eating habits. If everything else in your diet remains constant, you'll lose about six pounds a year. If all Americans switched to grassfed meat, our national epidemic of obesity might diminish.

Omega-3s are most abundant in seafood and certain nuts and seeds such as flaxseeds and walnuts, but they are also found in animals raised on pasture. The reason is simple. Omega-3s are formed in the chloroplasts of green leaves and algae. Sixty percent of the fatty acids in grass are omega-3s. When cattle are taken off omega-3 rich grass and shipped to a feedlot to be fattened on omega-3 poor grain, they begin losing their store of this beneficial fat. Each day that an animal spends in the feedlot, its supply of omega-3s is diminished.[8] The graph below illustrates this steady decline.

Just A Matter Of A Few Degrees

“Glaciers are melting in the Alps at an unprecedented rate. The polar ice caps are rapidly disappearing. Worst-case scenarios from scientists predict a dramatic increase in temperatures across much of the globe. For parts of the Northern Hemisphere, however, some scientists warn that ocean-current changes could produce radical cooling. Our world, so go such arguments, is about to change radically for the worse.”

Catastrophic floods, hurricanes and heat waves are not figments of our imagination. Record rainfall and cold temperatures throughout the world aren't either. One might suggest that these are normal climatic trends that the earth moves through, but increasingly the skeptics are falling by the wayside. Serious science is gravitating to the global warming theory. On the other hand, Joe Average is just plain confused. A fellow at a country store recently chirped that the seventeen below temperature proved that global warming was nonsense. What he doesn't think about is that heat drives our weather and global warming causes abnormal weather. This poor fellow can't comprehend the South Sea Islander who watches his land disappearing beneath the sea, nor can he fathom why global warming could possibly cause an ice age.
Global warming is about extremes. Insurance companies and some farmers are experiencing deep financial losses caused by extreme weather. Sure we have roller-coaster cycles in our weather, but global warming is like bungee jumping while riding on a roller coaster. Heat flow can suck artic air further into the south or drown the driest deserts in floods.
In reality global warming threat is not about a few degrees in temperature, it's about hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, drought, disease and famine.

Insuring Incompetence

At the Post Office today, I mailed a package to a friend. After I decided to mail the package by regular parcel post the clerk asked if I wanted to insure it. Figuring it would cost just a few cents I said, “sure”- that shows how often I mail via USPS - of course it wasn’t “a few cents”.
Insuring that a parcel delivery service doesn’t damage or lose my package is like insuring the auto mechanic’s brake job. Why pay for a service and pay to insure that they do the job correctly. I actually have a policy about that myself.
When I buy an appliances clerks usually ask if I want an extended policy to cover any failures or breakdowns. I always tell them that if the item doesn’t perform as expected I would be purchasing a different brand that did. A delivery service that loses or damages a package I mail would not see any more of my business.
These service insurance policies aren’t accident policies - they are incompetentancy policies - insurance that they should pay themselves! I might insure myself but I refuse to insure the whole world!

Winter seems to remove the color from the landscape 

Deer Alert Whistles

Tonight, on the way home, just after dark, I noticed a nice whitetail deer standing on a knoll just beside the road. It didn’t move and I passed without incident. Luckily I didn’t have a deer alert whistle on my car. The sudden noise would likely have spooked the deer into jumping. I know about the claims made by the whistle manufacturers but my experience with them has not been good.
When my work required me to drive late at night through an area of high deer population I used deer alerts but not with much success. I noticed that horses and deer would often react to the high pitched whistle by running. On a straight level stretch that was fine, but when rounding a bend or cresting a hill the whistle would often spook deer into running across the road as often as it caused them to run away. Unfortunately my deer kill with the alerts was much higher than without them. I had never hit a deer prior to my late night driving through this area and the deer alerts didn’t help at all - I hit three or four deer, bumped several, not counting the many near misses! In fact, I quit using alerts and have not hit a deer since. Of course, I do not travel through that area at night either.
If you drive on straight level roads alerts may work for you but don’t expect them to work on hilly or winding roads.

Monkeying Around With Disease

According to E-The Environmental Magazine (Connecting The Dots - November/December 2004 issue)- Humans may be the enemy of virtually all species including ourselves!
Ever hear of Monkey Pox? This disease was introduced (As in: Hi, Mom. Meet my date - umm, Death), in to the Midwest by pet traders who brought in a rat infected with monkey pox from Gambia. It infected some prairie dogs who were sold at a “pet swap”
The prairie dogs in turn infected 37 people, some of which died. But it works the other way too.
In Rwanda around the late 1980s a high death rate of mountain gorillas was attributed to measles contracted because they had more contact with humans due to their popularity given to them by the mountain gorilla researcher, Diane Fossey.
More locally rabies is on the increase thanks to human tinkering. As reported by the CDC:

Rabies in raccoons was first described in Florida in the 1950s and spread slowly during the next three decades into Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. Through translocation of infected animals, raccoon rabies was unintentionally introduced in the mid-Atlantic states. In 1977, near the Virginia-West Virginia border, reports of a single, rabid raccoon in Hardy County, West Virginia, and three more rabid raccoons in the adjoining counties of Virginia in 1978 initially drew little attention. Since then, this unremarkable focus of rabies in raccoons expanded to form the most intensive rabies outbreak in the United States. More than 45,000 raccoons have died of rabies, as well as over 4,200 cats and nearly 3,000 dogs. Moreover, with the close association of raccoons and humans in suburban settings, an increased number of people have been exposed to potentially rabid animals and have needed post-exposure rabies prophylaxis. At present, an estimated 20,000-40,000 people are exposed to rabies each year in the United States. Raccoon rabies now extends throughout approximately 1 million square km along the eastern states from Florida to Maine, and is now invading the midwest at the Pennsylvania-Ohio border.

Weather it is our activities affecting climate through increased CO2 , pollution, environmental destruction, translocation of animals or just simple travel it appears that humans are a disease’s best friend!

Mice travel under a fallen tree because it is easier and the hawks can't dive in for dinner. 

Why Homegrown Vegetables Taste Better

I read about a blind study that showed organically grown vegetables could be recognized by their superior taste but can not find it. However there is plenty of information around to show why this is the case. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that a plant raised on soil rich in numerous minerals and trace elements would uptake them while plants grown on barren soil containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potash would not. We can taste the difference because our bodies know good food is better and tells us by its superior taste! While I could not find the taste test article, I did find information every person ought to consider. The debate between organic and agribusiness food is no longer a debate. With the arrival of lower cost, and higher accuracy testing available almost anyone can see for themselves.
The June/July issue of Mother Earth News has an article on the nutrition of food.
Another study reported by Vista Magazine finds the same conclusion:

A study by Firman E. Baer of Rutger’s University compared the mineral content of organically-grown foods with non-organically grown foods. The study showed significant differences in the mineral content of these foods. Organically grown snap beans had over 22 times more iron than their commercial counterpart, while organically grown spinach provided 80 times more iron than the non-organic variety. Organically grown food has at least twice as much mineral content in many cases.

If that doesn’t convince the skeptics they can send their own samples to be tested.

If this discussion were just about good tasting food it would be trivial compared to the benefits of nutrient rich food:

….a 1992 USDA report estimated the following potential health benefits if everyone in the United States could be convinced to eat a diet containing the recommended daily amounts of primary nutrients shown in the table:
20 percent reduction in cancer
25 percent reduction in heart and vascular conditions
50 percent reduction in arthritis
20 percent reduction in respiratory and infectious diseases
50 percent reduction in infant and maternal deaths

So while big businesses may have the money to persuade people that there is no difference in their food homesteaders know and understand the difference because they live closer to the earth and reality - not profits.

Gravity As Medicine

If gravity could patented and prescribed it would probably be used more by the medical industry today. However gravity can and does alleviate medical problems. Take, for instance, the Amish cure of climbing down stairs head-first on hands and knees for an appendicitis attack. Since your appendix are sort of a pocket, the motion and effects of gravity when crawling down a flight of stairs head-first can help the body remove infected material, much like dumping a water-filled boot.
Another gravity remedy used for hiatal hernias is to jump off a chair after a meal. The gravity will tend to pull the stomach, and contents, down to relieve the pressure on diaphragm and upper portion of the stomach.
I do not advocate or recommend these home remedy but offer them as examples of what some people have found to work for them. Obviously, you can break a leg jumping off a chair or tumble down the stairs while performing a folk remedy. Furthermore, these remedies came about when there were fewer options for medical cures. It would be foolish to not utilize modern medical treatments for ailments today.

Deep Winter Reading

This is the time of the year for reading and thinking. Here are a five books, by three authors, worth reading while it is cold and snowy. Masanobu Fukuoka and Ruth Stout tell you how successful gardening can be accomplished without toiling in the fields. Amy Dacyczyn tells you how to live on less while engaging your brain more. You may be able to get them at your library or buy them used online:

The One Straw Revolution : An Introduction to Natural Farming (1978) by: Masanobu Fukuoka

The Natural Way of Farming : The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy (1985) by: Masanobu Fukuoka

The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book (1971) by: Ruth & Clemence, Richard Stout.

How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back : A New Method of Mulch Gardening (1990) by: Leta MacLeod Brunckhorst, Ruth Stout

The Complete Tightwad Gazette : Promoting Thrift As a Viable Alternative Lifestyle (1999) by: Amy Dacyczyn

Winter Project

Now is a great time to get a jump on growing season projects. These neat folding tomato cages over at The Mother Earth News are easily built and store compactly.

Smartly Saving Money While Saving The Planet

Ultimately, those who learn to conserve and use earth friendly alternate energy strategies will emerge as the leaders of the future. Even though big business rules the mainstream marketing in the US today some people arel finding cheaper and smarter ways to live. Currently there arebetter approaches to energy usage emerging that are clearly the path of the future, both economically and politically. Clearly some are working to insure this country remains a progressive world example.

One example of a smarter approach to our energy consumption can be found in the recent issue of The Mother Earth News magazine. There potential new home builders will find information on super efficient energy wise homes that the average person can afford today. In fact they are looking for participants.

“Super-efficient (“Net-zero”) solar homes are now available that reduce monthly energy bills 50 percent to 70 percent compared to comparable conventional homes. Today, anyone can have a zero-energy home by paying, upfront, roughly 10 percent to 20 percent more than the cost of a traditional home for renewable-energy technology, which generally has a payback in energy bill savings of about 20 to 30 years.”
“Net-zero-energy means the homes are super-efficient, with much of their electricity produced by rooftop solar panels; they draw electricity from the grid at night or on cloudy days, but overall they generate at least as much energy as they consume each year.”

“Jeff Christian, director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Buildings Technology Center, has been studying energy efficiency in homes for more than 30 years, and he wants to make zero-energy homes affordable for everyone. To do so, he needs real-life data from homeowners so his team can refine and improve the homes’ engineering and cost efficiencies. To that end, he hopes to organize a mass purchase of these types of houses: “If we can get a few thousand people who will all order houses at the same time — not all with the same size and floor plan, but the same efficiency principles and materials applied to each, it would add some economies of scale and help us bring the unit cost down,” Christian says. “From a research standpoint, it would be immensely valuable to get the feedback about what works and what doesn’t work from homeowners who really care about these issues.”
If you would like to learn more, send an e-mail to Jeff Christian.

You might want to consider an efficient, money saving, new home like the ones mentioned above before rising energy prices get out of hand.

Cataloging

It’s zero degrees out right now and after snowblowing the drive out it’s nice to be inside and warm.
This is a good time of the year to read and plan so I am using the winter lull to look for new vegetable varieties and plants that produce earlier or later to extend fresh garden cuisine. The South Carolina Nursery & Landscape Association has a website with garden related links and information on new vegetables worthy of checking out. Also, the Cornell Cooperative Extension has some information on plant varieties that can aid the gardener in deciding on a particular variety.

Garden Web is another great gardening resource to include in the gardener's cabin fever surfing.

Toss another log on the fire and soak up the information.

Finding Pipes

While this post may seem far out, it is true:

Years ago, when working for an electric-line construction company I watched Dub, our foreman, walking around with two coat-hangers bent into a L-shape, pointing straight ahead and held parallel about six inches apart. The men on constructions crews are a great bunch and always enjoyed joking with us younger guys, so I figured they were trying to bait me into a gag. This, however, was not a time for a joke because we were putting a pole into the ground and nobody fooled around during this hazardous stage. I asked Dub about the wires later, and in private, so as not to be embarrassed. He told me he was looking for a gas line that might be nearby. Well, he didn’t seem to find one and we didn’t hit a line so I chalked it up to an old wives’ tale.
A few weeks later we were putting new electric poles in for a refinery and our foreman was using the wires again. During our lunch break I asked a serious journeyman lineman if the wire things worked. He was a little put off at my doubt, and said, “Try it. Take them and walk across the lot”. I started walking with the bent welding rods held out straight in front of me and was quite surprised when they turned right in my hands! I asked him how would I know if a pipe was under the ground there. He said, “ Look over that dirt mound.” Sure enough just feet away there were two six inch lines running beneath the spot where the wires crossed - I was amazed. He told me that it was a magnetic reaction to the hole in the earth the pipes made, and it would work with metal, plastic, tile or even a wooden line that had rotted away as long as the earth void remained.
Several years later when I was married and working for a steel mill I was called home because of a septic-tank problem. I had to uncover the septic tank cover so it could be pumped and although I thought I knew its location, six inches of fresh snow confused me. After digging a few holes and not finding the cover I thought of the wires. It didn’t take long to snip a couple of coat hangers and bend them into L shapes. On the first trip across the lawn they crossed! I dug and found the plastic line and could then find the cover.
Several years later a John, a co-worker, who I worked with and had relayed the incident about finding pipes with wires asked me to stop by because he needed to find a drain line near his house. He had dug where he thought the line was but couldn’t find it. I fashioned a couple of wires up and went to his place. As I passed over the hole he had dug the wires crossed. This baffled me. I tried it again and the wires crossed again just past the center of the hole. Thinking the line must be just beside the hole I started to dig a large smooth rock out of the side of the hole and, discovered the “rock” was the the line! John had found the line but dug past it thinking it was a boulder.
While I have never found a reasonable scientific explanation and never really believe this “wire divining” should work - it does!

Home Remedy Fun With Warts And Cracked Hands

Actually warts are not fun, but removing them can be a lot more pleasant than having them cut off. In fact, the latest medical breakthrough suggests using duct tape to remove them. Just put tape on the wart and keep it on until they are gone. But sometimes using duct tape is really inconvenient, especially if the wart is on a knuckle or on the web between fingers. In that case super glue may work just as effectively. Use the glue the same as duct tape - keep the wart covered at all times until it is gone.
Super glue has become my winter companion too, and not because of warts. Working outside and getting my hands wet caused my hands to crack. I use super glue to stop the pain and heal cracked hands. I used to tape areas where the skin cracked on my hands but tape was inconvenient and was always falling off. Then I heard a nurse recommend superglue for cracked nails and hangnails. This sure works great for me on cracks due to chapping.
There's another home remedy for cracked hands worth mentioning: I read that rubbing your hands with carrot tops would prevent cracked hands. I tried this in the summer when I had carrot tops and found that this seemed to work also.
The best remedy, of course would be to keep ones hands out of water, but that isn't always possible .
These two simple, effective home remedies worked far better than all the commercial creams and lotions I have tried.

Proof Organic Is Better

I was reading some pros and cons about organic food this morning and was struck by a statement to this effect: “Since no preservatives or other chemicals to prolong freshness are used organic food tends to spoil faster.” This could only be true in a few cases such as the practice of gassing a hard, green tasteless tomato to look ripe and shipping it across the country. Moreover, given equal stages of ripeness, organic food more than holds its own.

A simple experiment can be done by anyone: Take a supermarket mass produced cucumber and a fresh picked homegrown organic cucumber and place both on a plate, way back in your refrigerator, for a week. My experience has been that the supermarket cucumber will be covered with mold while the homegrown cucumber may be starting to shrivel a bit - this also shows the kind of nutritional protection mass produced fruits and vegetables lend to your body.

Because commercial produce must be picked “firm” for the rigors of shipping they are not allowed to develop sugars normally produced in the ripe stage. Commercial produce is designed to look good, last on the shelves and yield a much profit as possible while the purpose of organic food is to be nutritious and tasty. Only a hard core urbanite does not know the difference in taste of store tomatoes versus homegrown tomatoes! This is true for fruit as well as vegetables although a poorly produced organic item may not taste better than an exceptionally well produced commercial item.

As in marketing and politics, commercial interests have the money to influence most people’s perceptions but you should check out the information over at the Organic Consumers Association site and decide yourself.

LEDs and Batteries

During these short daylight winter days I use flashlights quite a bit, in fact almost every day. The cold weather of winter is hard on batteries. Furthermore, while a small pocket flashlight is a great convince, the battery life, I have found, is not so wonderful. Over the years I have used many compact lights and was never really satisfied with them until the LED (light emitting diode) flashlights arrived. Since the current crop of LED lights, by in large, use the smaller AAA or AA batteries I wondered which was the more economical. That was not hard to figure out. Web sources show that an alkaline triple-A battery has an energy capacity of about 1150 Mah (Milli-amp hours) while the double-A batteries have around 2850 Mah. There is not much to debate about here. The double-A battery has almost two and a half times more energy than the triple-A cells. While the energy is much greater for the double-A battery the cost is about equal, or sometimes even less. Needless to say, I purchased a LED light that uses double-A batteries - actually one that uses a single double-A battery. You might think that a single battery light would be dim but LED’s are very different light sources. Led bulbs use around 3% - 5% of the energy to provide the same amount of light as the incandescent lights, which produce more heat than light. LED lights produce almost all light and very little heat. Furthermore the LED light bulbs generally last much longer than the filaments of the incandescent bulbs and can be purchased with a 1.5-volt bulb grouping that is as bright, or brighter as a 3 volt or 4.5 volt bulb grouping.
These are amazing, energy efficient compact lights but don’t over power them! A slight voltage increase, over the designated voltage, will easily ruin a LED bulb - they are very sensitive to over-voltage so don’t try to get more output by hooking a 1.5 volt LED to a 3 volt supply - you will only fry the LED.
Finally, some people do not like the LED’s bluish light cast but they are increasingly developing whiter light as LED technology improves. I find them to produce less harsh shadows than my old Maglight, possibly because the light source comes from several bulbs. This improves my vision in the dark. LED lights are definitely a landmark item for people who live in the country and use a flashlight often.

Lazy Leftovers are Luscious

Woodstove cooking can transform laziness and leftovers into luscious meals if you give it a chance. The lazy part is the cooking. You just put the pan on the stove and leave. The food can cook two hours or whenever you get hungry. Leftovers are the best ingredients to start with because they are the easiest to find. Luscious is the taste when you can’t stand the wonderful smell and just have to chow down on your creation.
Here’s how I do it: Open the refrigerator and grab some leftovers that look good - about a half or three quarters of a pound of chicken, beef, or ham is a great starter. Dump a couple cans of chicken broth into a two-quart pan and add a cup of organic rice, lentils or beans - usually the beans should have soaked first. I like organic rice best - white rice doesn’t work nearly as well. Add some frozen mixed vegetables, kale, or cauliflower. Add onions, and a dash of garlic if the mood strikes. Actually, all ingredients are optional! I’m guilty of never stirring but it works if you do. The pan is then placed on a firebrick or soapstone located in a zone on the stovetop hot enough to boil water. You can leave this simmer until you are ready for a hot delicious meal - usually 3 - 6 hours. Sometimes the wonderful aroma makes lunch or dinner arrive sooner than planned. This is so easy and spontaneous, but people actually ask for my recipe. Since this a lot like crock-pot cooking you could use crock-pot recipes if your imagination needs a little help.

Full Wolf Moon

On January 25th we will move into the Wolf Moon lunar phase for the year. While almost everyone has heard of the Harvest Moon we seldom hear about the Snow moons of February or the Strawberry moons of June. Actually there are many names given to the moon phases but the Farmers Almanac, (you might want to bookmark it) lists the more traditional names for American seasonal moons. I found some other moon names too. Since the full moon dates shift around over the years it can get a little tricky assigning a name so there is some overlap and sometimes an extra moon is thrown in to the year.
The moon was instrumental in planning for early man and naming them was a way to describe or plan for the time of the year. It’s too bad that we have lost touch with these colorful and descriptive lunar assignments.

Chopping Wood

The art and science of burning wood is rare today because relatively few people heat with wood and information is not handily passed around. To be sure, woodstoves can be hazardous when improperly operated. On the other hand, there is the warm heat and the comfort of knowing you will be warm despite any power outages, not to mention those great stovetop stews and boiled dinners. I'll get to the food later but here’s my woodburning routine:
I do not like to handle wood any more that necessary so it is brought in whole and piled undercover. Wood is not split or stacked until I am ready to use it.
I enjoy splitting wood on a cold winter’s day when there is not much else to do, it is cold, and I need the exercise. I used to split wood with a double bit axe but now use a six or eight pound splitting maul - power wood splitters just deprive me of a good workout. When splitting big or knotty rounds of wood I work around the round taking six inch pieces off the edges, unless I feel lucky enough to go for the middle. Usually a wedge is not needed using this method, although I keep one nearby. Tough rounds get the wedge. Really tough ones get set aside for zero degree weather splitting and super tough ones get cut with a chainsaw - these are very rare. The wood is then ready for the stove so I haul it to the house in a wheelbarrow.
The fire is started, first with paper followed by very dry twigs or wood chips from the splitting process then one or two inch diameter sticks. Larger pieces of wood are added as the fire progresses. Once started the fire is given as much draft as possible to get a blazing hot fire going. It is important to have a hot fire to combust the wood gas so it doesn’t form flammable creosote in the chimney. I modified my older stove slightly by adding a steel plate to force combustion gasses to flow to the top of the stove where it is hotter and the gasses burn more readily before going out to the chimney. Cold smokey fires are inefficient because the unburned wood gasses go up the chimney and distill into dangerous chimney clogging creosote instead of burning and producing heat. If you do not need much heat on a warmer day burn a small hot fire by keeping wood in one section of the stove rather than shutting off the draft. At night after the fire dies just a bit, a large whole wood round is placed over a couple of smaller pieces of wood to keep fire for the night.