Why I do study self-reliance, alternate gardening, homesteading, or what ever you want to call it?

I was chatting with a friend earlier and she said there is nothing good going on, I had to strongly disagree. You and I, my Chicken Little friends are very positive. We are doing and learning things everyday. We study how to grown fresh vegetables in the dead of winter, with only the heat of our compost; making our own dirt. We put up food so when things go wrong we can give a hand up instead of needing a hand out, be it a lost job or a flood. Some of us believe like our mascot “Chicken Little” the sky is falling, but until then we will plant our gardens, convert to solar and wind power, put up our food, and learn a million things that are positive and we will make Mother Earth a better place.

So my wild eyed friends remember when you pick that fruit off your tree, help that child plant his/her first tomato plant, pick that salad out of your garden, or sharing the extra from your garden with someone in need. YOU are being positive and have the right to smile about it.

Thank You for Your time,

Mike Saucer

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Just had to comment on this article in the September/October 2010 issue: it is not really necessary to use two-by-x lumber; one-by-x will do nicely if it’s braced properly and there is no more than a four-foot span between supports. I always add at lest a 1″ x 2″ support edge at the front and back of each pantry shelf. I have also built shelves using front-to-back bracing but I have to admit that doesn’t seem as good.

The author experienced a collapse of a set of metal shelving. I have to wonder what gage the metal happened to be. I have had great success with the heavier-duty metal shelf units, and with office-type storage cabinets. The light-duty metal shelving sold in many hardware and discount stores is weak and flimsy; as a 67-year-young disabled veteran I do not have much strength in my hands, but even I can bend one of those 18-gage shelves!

Currently, our “pantry” consists of a built-in closet-style shelf set about 28 inches wide by 24 inches deep, where we keep the canned meats and sauces; a nice tan steel office cabinet with a locking door where I keep boxes of cereal, pasta, and other goods (I cover the bottom of this one and the backs of each shelf with fresh bay leaves each spring), and a nice 24″ x 36″ Edsal industrial shelving unit that holds canned goods, jellies, jams, and jugs and bottles of water and juices. The metal units have flanged shelves and are 12-gage steel. Over the years I have collected gallon jars and popcorn tins to hold wheat, barley, millet, whole oats, tapioca — and of course sugar. We do not store flour; in our climate even with the best of care it tends to turn rancid. We swap for or buy honey at the farmers markets as we need it. We have two chest-style deep freezers: an 18-cubic-foot in the barn and a smaller five-cube here in the house. Excess non-perishable foods that won’t be affected by heat and cold are stored outside in an old mobile home in four more office cabinets and two sets of shelves built of 1″ x 6″ and 1″ x 10″ lumber. We use the deep-mulch method to preserve cabbage, potatoes, rutabagas, and turnips over the winter, and simply rake back the straw covering or the snow when we need a root vegetable or a head of cabbage for a meal. We have a cold frame for spinach, chard, and other hardy, leafy greens.

All that works for us. We’ve been here for 22 years, most of those as subscribers to Backwoods Home. We appreciate the articles and the letters from readers, and always get a chuckle out of the Irreverent Jokes page.

Your faithful subscriber,

Joyce Eikenberry
Ohio

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Howdy Claire,

I pray this finds you well and healthy.

I always enjoy your articles whenever I run across them and this was no exception.

I was thinking about the value of nickel and copper when you mentioned it. I usually roll my coins stashing the nickels and pennies in an ammo box and trading the rolled dimes and quarters for rolls of more nickels and pennies at the bank to throw into the ammo can. I always pay for things with a larger bill and try to never spend coinage but add it to my collection. I like your idea about stashing the smaller bills in envelopes for the various and sundry expenses that arise. Thank you.

Since the fed has been putting the RFID strips in [Federal Reserve Notes] you can be tracked by any store with a reader at the entrances and exits. This isn’t universal yet but I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes so. I like to withdraw a large sum of cash from the bank, go home and send the bills six or  seven at a time for a minute or two through the microwave oven. It fries the RFID chip and renders the bills useless for tracking my comings and goings and expenditures. I realize many products have RFID chips in or on them somewhere but at least it is now more difficult to trace the purchases to me. I have also purchased reader proof insulated envelopes for my debit cards. I even use them for reloadable Dollar General, grocery and restaurant cards. While it doesn’t make me completely invisible at least it gives me the satisfaction of knowing I’m doing SOMETHING to stay under the radar.

Thanks again and God bless,

Dick Crockett

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Editor:

The three-part series on Emergency and backwoods water treatment was excellent! [ Emergency and backwoods water treatment: Part 1 - Issue 122, Mar/Apr 2010; Emergency and backwoods water treatment: Part 2 — "The practice" - Issue 124, Jul/Aug 2010; Emergency and backwoods water treatment: Part 3 — "Taking it to the field" - Issue 125, Sept/Oct 2010 ]

Tim Thorstonson is to be commended for its preparation, as it is so comprehensive and so useful in these times.

William R. Rick-Brigham

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Hi there.

I wanted to let you know that I absolutely LOVED the article by Jackie Clay on acorns. It is the most thorough piece I’ve found on acorns! I am now so psyched about my ‘volunteer’ oak tree and can’t wait to leach.  ;)

So happy I happened upon your website. I’m looking forward to exploring it more!

Eve
North Hollywood, CA

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Just read your article [The art of living in small spaces by Claire Wolfe] and getting lots of good ideas. I just purchased, The small house book, by Jay Shafer.

I am impressed that you share this space with your loving pets too. I feel if I try one of these small spaces, I will have to start out with it being a weekend place. I don’t think I could convince my husband to live that small and I don’t think I would want to live in too tight of quarters with him. LOL. Maybe we should have a his and hers and join them in the hallways.

Thanks again. Also pics say a thousand words.

Eileen Janes

Colorado

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I appreciated the article in the current issue of BWH about tub gardening.

I purchased three 18-gallon tubs, added potting soil, and am very pleased with the results: tomatoes, bush beans, assorted peppers, lettuce & sorrel. Excellent recommendation for those of us with small urban garden space. Plus the barrels are inaccessible to digging by our puppies.

Thanks again!

Julia Morgan
Pasadena, CA

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I just wanted to say thank you to all of the writers and staff of Backwoods Home Magazine.  You have inspired me to finally get off my duff and create a website and a new business.  I was disappointed in the writing and opinion of other magazines that promote independent living.  Sorry, but if I have to surrender my Second Amendment rights or be told I can’t criticize an entrenched politician, then I don’t care how far off the grid you are, you are not living free.

I know there are those who want you to drop your political views.  But to what end?  America has been and always will be political.  It’s part of who we are and what made us so great.  But it’s always a SMALL group who stand up and actually shout their opposition to tyranny and ultimately take action.  The majority either side with the tyrants out of fear and wanting to be on the “winning” side or, like the vast majority of Americans, they simply don’t care and don’t want to hear about it.  Like a child, they believe all that is necessary for evil to stop is to close your eyes and ignore it.  This was very much like the American Revolution, when a relatively small handful of citizens actually participated on the side of the Revolution.

BHM is doing it right.  You may not be as slick as the big money magazine (I’ll denote here as M.E.N). but you are far better, far more down-to-earth and serve a real and growing group of Americans who have come to the realization that America does not reside in Washington D.C., it resides in the hearts and souls of those who can reach across time and touch the meaning of what our founders really wanted.

Americans should be free to live quietly.  To raise those chickens and goats.  To have a garden.  To tap energy from flowing water, the wind or the sun.  They should also be happy in the knowledge that their government is working with them in their endeavors and not singling them out for heavy handed fines, threats, or worse, an armed attack to seize their property.

I am going to recommend  BHM to those who will be coming to my website.  I also intend to become an advertiser.  Thanks again for inspiring me to stand up and start using those rights that we all talk about, but few actually use.

Jim Harris

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Ms. Ainsworth,

I’m writing a fast note to you while I’m getting dressed to go explain to the county engineer that I want to build my own house out in the country. I have no clue what to expect but judging by the phone conversations, perhaps he’s going to gently try to guide this 54 year old woman to pulling a mobile home on the property or just contracting a builder. I’ve been studying & drawing up my plans & using your dreams are goals with deadlines motto to push through just a little bit more every day. By the end of the month I think I’ll have all the kinks worked out. Today’s visit to the permit people is asking them specifics and for guidelines.

I’ve read everything you’ve written that I can get my hands on and wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your stories. Since 1980 I’ve wanted to build my own place but  have found excuses not to move forward. Finally I have the land and thanks to stories from you and Dave Duffy, am beginning to believe that I can pull this off. Personally I don’t subscribe to being a victim thus gotta keep going forward.

You need to know that I’ve enjoyed every article you’ve written and if you have any books out there point to them!  I’ll go after those too!

I’ll write more later but wanted you to know that your motto of ‘if not me then who, if now now then when’ was the catalyst that woke me up.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Marylynn Brooks
Mississippi

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Greetings!

I used to get your magazine and loved it! However, I can no longer afford to subscribe.

I read your article about tapping maple trees and I have to let you know that I have a Norway Maple in my back yard, I am sure the person that planted it just wanted it for an ornamental tree as it is beautiful.

Well, this year I decided to tap it and try to make maple syrup. After I gathered some sap I read from a different source that Norway trees shouldn’t be tapped because of their “milky” sap. I boiled it down anyways and that is the best maple syrup I have ever tasted! I am glad that you mention the Norway maple as a tapper because it really is good.

Your friend,

Dee Dee G.

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Among your other fine articles, I’ve been following the construction of “Eric’s House” with interest. It appears that he will have a beautiful house when finished, at a fraction of the cost of hiring it done.

Of course, the pride of doing it yourself is inestimable.

Since I bought an old farmhouse on 145 acres in rural West Virginia in 1989, I have had to learn all of the skills involved here. While I have formal training in commercial carpentry, nothing in that prepared me for working on these old “Jenny Lind” houses.

I’ve done plumbing from the well, wiring from the service connection, gas piping from the wellhead or city meter, and septic systems from where you don’t want to know.

When severe summer or winter weather knocks out the power for weeks at a time, those less prepared can visit me for a hot shower and some TV, because I’m prepared for that.

I have also acquired four rental properties, and have had to replumb all of them, rewire most of them, and fix roofing, windows, doors, and things too numerous to mention.

I love where I live, and also your magazine. I have only one question.

Uh…What’s a “Building Inspector?”

John Dillon
West Virginia

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Just found this via some other blogs and wanted to say, Kudos! Outstanding!

Especially “When we have sufficient free individuals, political, social, and institutional freedoms will follow. They will arise not through revolution or politically driven reform, but from who we are and the choices we make every day.”

Appreciatively,

Diana

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Hey, Claire,

Your otherwise excellent article has a couple of important omissions. The schematic diagram shows two deep-cycle storage batteries connected in parallel, but neglects  isolation diodes and fusible links, and there is no mention of either one in the text.

An isolation diode prevents one battery from discharging the other, while still allowing both batteries to be charged from a single +12VDC connection.  In actuality, as long as all batteries in a storage bank are diode-isolated, any number of batteries may be connected safely.

In a worst-case situation, and if directly connected to another, one battery (for whatever reason) could present itself as a dead short to the remaining battery(ies), draining all the ‘juice’ quickly enough to start a nasty fire and/or explosion.

I would also install a fusible link at each battery’s positive terminal, just in case… it would act as a high-current fuse, preventing the sort of massive current drain that could really heat things up in  a heartbeat.

In what I would consider a safe setup, each battery is contained within its own plastic battery box (vented to prevent the buildup of hydrogen gas) to catch acid leakage, connected to its respective fusible link, to a high-current conductor ‘manifold’ (I have used flattened copper pipe with holes drilled for connector bolt/nut/washer assemblies), each battery with its own isolation diode connected in series with its fusible link.

If a catastrophic failure were to occur, the fusible link would blow, removing the defective battery from the circuit altogether.

Talk to an RV dealer for more details, but the practice of directly connecting two or more high-energy storage components, without fusible links and isolation diodes is a potentially dangerous one.  I’m surprised the schematic diagram didn’t catch fire on its own.

Keith Savoy

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How does one buy a copy of this book?   It is not listed on Amazon.

Thanks

NativeWay

“The Art of Living In Small Spaces” is not a book but an article that was published in Backwoods Home Magazine.

Click the title to read it.

–Editor

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Hello!

I just wanted to send you a little note and let you know how much I appreciate your magazine!

We live here on Cape Cod in Massachusetts and my husband and myself have been living  simply for a long time.

Thanks to all the great info from your magazine we are striving for total self sufficiency!

In these times of a bad economy,your magazine has become our bible.

Thanks for giving us a shot at the good life!

Julie & Don Goulart

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Mr. Dave Duffy,

I want to take this time to thank you for working on and/or creating this website.  I am a currently a stay at home mother of two toddlers with a third baby on the way. My husband and I are a young couple with mature dreams of owning our own property, living off the land, and helping others.

Currently we are finding it hard to make money and thinking on what we can do different. We moved to NC from NY in hopes of a better economy after we graduated college. With his degree in Anthropology and mine in English we somehow found ourselves unemployed and more mouths to feed. After researching ways to make money and coming across your website my hope and dream have been replenished. I want to thank you for doing what you do. I am blessed to have come across it.

The story of the couple making money from home and homeschooling there children touched my heart. I want that and am not going to give up.

Sincerely,

Mindy L. Scott

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It appears Jim Duke read Claire Wolfe’s article, Build a trail, and sent along a photo of a bridge he built.

Nice bridge, Jim!

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Hello BWH!

I just had to drop you a line and let you know how much my hubby and I love your magazine. We have been subscibers for only a couple of years now, but have learned so much! In our plight for self sufficiency, your magazine has been so valuable to us-when we receive it…we actually flip a coin to see who gets to read it first! Cover to cover I might add! We always find a project that sounds good, so we put it on the to-do list. And we love the letters from the other folks who also are faithful readers.

Since subscribing, we have managed to put in an even larger garden than we had, and grow and can almost all of our veggies. Anything we need to supplement, it’s farmers’ markets and local farmers only.

We are surrounded by ocean so we do a lot of fishing, as we love fish…I doesnt cost us a dime and its healthy for us..and we love to go fishing!

We also built our own greenhouse from mostly recycled materials! We have a flock chickens for eggs and looking into getting a couple of cows for milk and meat and a few goats for milk for us and also to use in my soaps! Yes soaps!!!

My Hubby is looking into material to make some solar panels to use while we save up to get enough panels to go completely off grid.

We quit our jobs and are now self-employed. Not letting others profit off our labor is liberating!

We live on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. I was wondering if there are any other readers around my parts. I saw BWH for the first time a few moths ago and with the self-sufficiency movement catching on…it would be a benefit and education for all who read!

We are so grateful to you for all the great info. You have been so helpful!!!!!

We look forward to many more years with you!!!

Julie & Don Goulart
Mashpee, MA

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Thank goodness there are still a few men that realize women with guns is not a “male” thing.

Being the oldest of four children, my father elected to teach me to hunt and use guns in a responsible manner. I am a petite woman that has lived in Alaska for six years, brought down moose, caribou, elk, deer and even bear that was maruading my homestead.

I carry a .270 Manlicher with custom stock using 110 to 150 gr. ammon (depending on intended targets) and a .38 police special. I can put three rounds the size of a 50 cent piece at 100 yards off hand with the .270.

Would I hesitate to use a gun to protect myself or someone else if necessary? No qualms here! And freshly killed game on the table beats beef, pork or chicken any day.

Thanks,

Linda Alexander
Gold Beach, Oregon

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Dear friends at Backwoods Home:

Kudos to Emily Chadwick (Call Me Plumber Jan/Feb.2010 issue).  I hope her toddler was smart enough to be impressed by Mom’s spunk and self reliance.

When I was a young lad, I accidentally dropped a quarter into the toilet after finishing my business, but before flushing.  Oh No!  25 cents was a lot of money to a young one in a poor family in the 1960′s.  My mom instantly transformed into a superhero and plunged her hand into the toilet bowl.  Feeling around under the brown floaters, she pulled the money from the drain of doom.  I could not have been more impressed by Wonder Woman charging into machine gun fire!  Washing her hands and my money, she explained that it’s not always pleasant, but we do what must be done.  It was one of many incidents proving her to be the strongest, bravest woman I knew.

I am now older than she was then.  When I need strength and courage in the face of adversity, I still look to her for inspiration.  I expect Mrs. Chadwick’s daughter will feel the same way.

Paul Miller
Hannibal, MO

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