Subject: Re: Self sufficient

From: "bonni brooks" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 11:01:04 EST

On 02/21/95 at 14:53:06 [email-masked] said:
>	Homesteading as we seem to have defined it is one of those things I have
>been watching for several years.  The idea of moving to the country and
>fighting for our substance from the very soil under our feet has real
>appeal.  Clean air, wholesome food and complete control of our destiny offer
                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Complete control of our destiny?  Ain't no such thing!

The wholesome food part depends upon lots of things we can't control -
mostly the weather.  For instance, last summer I had a dozen tomato
plants and got a half dozen tomatoes, because fall came early and nearly
all the tomatoes never ripened.  There are also rats with hooves (most
people call them deer) who share your opinion on the tastiness of fresh
garden vegetables.  There are plant diseases and plant pests.

If you keep livestock, you can do your best but a disease could wipe
out most of animals, or your favorite ewe could die lambing, or your
chickens could turn out to be egg-eaters, or the inevitable foxes and
weasels will get to the meat cockerels before you do, or a stray dog
could kill your sheep or goats or chickens.  OOH, I HATE DOGS!!!  (Don't
get me started on dogs!)  Oh yeah, and hawks just love fresh chicken too.
If you have hawks and don't cover the chicken run, you've just built a
nice hawk feeder.  Yes, hawks can and do fly off with chickens in their
grubby talons.

Don't forget the tax man.  Fail to pay your taxes, and the county can
sell your land out from under you for the cost of the back taxes.

Complete control of your destiny?  Sure, if the sun shines, the weather
cooperates, the pests, predators and diseases stay away......

:->
bonni

  IC | XC  |     bonni brooks "The Lone Quilter"          |  "We speak
  ---+---  |         [email-masked]                |   Byzantine
  NI | KA  | Kelly's Creek Homestead, Maidsville, WV  USA |   Catholic
           |   http://wvnvm.wvnet.edu/~u6ed4/bonni.html   |   here."

---

From: [email-masked] (Jeff Owens)
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 15:20:38 -0500

> cooperates, the pests, predators and diseases stay away......

Hey Bonni,  you forgot about the well running dry, the pump breaking,
someone getting sick, the soil losing fertility, aches and pains,
the family refusing to eat another leek,  the root cellar leaking,
and about a thousand other things.  Aren't you a little over
optimistic <grin>.

Jeff (vote with your lifestyle)

---

From: Sal Schettino <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 17:08:39 -0800 (PST)

Its not all bad!  Every year your garden is getting better and better 
than the next because you have been building a great soil.  The trees are 
getting bigger and bigger and you getting more and more fruit.  Your 
heard of livestock should have grown.  You should have extra males to eat 
and females to help build you stock.  you may have learn a little more 
each year and it may get easyer.  I let the hawks and owls take a chicken 
every once in a while but they also eat squriles and gophers and even 
rats and I like seeing them around.  Red tail hawk are not to bad but 
those darn copper hawks are snikky but they also take out those birds 
that have been eating the peaches.  I love hearing the hoot owls  and barn 
and 
horn owl are nice to have around.  Yeah old horn owl may eat one of the 
cats or a chicken but just think a barn owl has to eat a rat or gopher 
every night a pair two and if they have babys add 5 or so mice for each 
baby.  thats 7 days a week. Yeah I seen a hawk pick up a chicken and fly 
off just clearing the trees with such a heavy load but count my self luck 
to be there to see it.  Some thing money can't buy.  and thats good 
because money is hard to come by.  Where else can you start with just a 
seed and get a crop.  from one plant can come 1000s and 1000s.  nobody 
know how many eggs are in a chicken and from a trio you could have a big 
flock in no time. I bought 1 Macadamia nut and planted it and took 
cuttings and not have about 70. so from one tree can come 1000s.  I have 
been to Cal. Rare Fruit Growers meeting and gotten sion wood from so 
many apples,plums,pears,etc. free (graft wood exchanges).  Some plants 
you can just stick a branch in the grown and walla next year you have a 
tree.  Sure there are floods and droughts and freezes but if you have 
the land in good health its one of the few places where you can borrow 
seed money and your off again.  I'm a cheerleader for homesteading and 
feel living off the earth is a honest way to go.  Well got to go put the 
chickens up tonight so they don't get eat.  Chickens out side at least 
roost its those darn ducks that get eat easy  i have to lock them up at 
night.   it takes time to put them away at night but you may still have 
them in the morning.  ever notice how pale a store bought egg looks the 
orange yoke is yellow and the taste is gone.  I wounder is many people 
ever get to taste a range feed real egg or chicken.Or a vineripen anything.  

> >appeal.  Clean air, wholesome food and complete control of our destiny offer

Sal Schettino,Organic Farmer,don't panic eat organic,[email-masked]
or check out my homepage:            http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html

---

From: Sal Schettino <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 17:08:39 -0800 (PST)