Home Business Idea #1: Be a Toilet Repair Professional

In my previous essay I discussed the wisdom of developing a part-time home business as a financial safety cushion in the event of job loss. And the business can serve as a source of retirement income too.

Though I already happen to have an established part-time business (Whizbang Books) and it would help my family financially in the event of losing my job, I'd still have to find another job, or come up with another home business to help pay the bills.

My personal inclination would be to not find a job working for someone else as an employee. I would, instead, look to create my own opportunity with a relatively inexpensive-to-start business of my own.

Before I launch into the business idea that is the focus of this blog, I should point out that, were I to lose my job, I’m in a better position to get by than many others in this country. That isn’t to say that I have a lot of money squirreled away, because I sure don’t. There is, thank God, a small cushion of savings, but much more importantly I live simply and have relatively few expenses. My home is small and rural and paid for (though not completely finished). I have no credit card debt. I heat my home with a basic wood stove in the living room. We grow much of our own food and keep the larder stocked. Such things are essential aspects of our agrarian-based lifestyle (Read my essay titled An Agrarian-Style Economic Self Defense Plan for more talk along these lines).

I should also point out that if I were an engineer, or business management professional, or health care professional, or some other such well-educated professional, and I lost my job, I probably would look for a higher-paying job working for someone else. I might start looking for new employment opportunities in the newspaper or on the internet. I would spiff up my resume and start circulating it. But in my situation, I have no college degree. I barely have a few college credits. I am a lower-class person. So I tend to think in lower class ways about work, and home business ideas, as you will shortly see.

What I have going for me is that I am fairly skilled with my hands when it comes to home construction and repair. I worked in the building trades for more than 20 years, ten of which I was a self-employed remodeling contractor.

But at 50 years old, I would not become a contractor again. Been there. Done that. And I got the gray hairs to prove it. Besides, I would have to buy a truck, and some equipment that I no longer have, and deal with building code regulations (which irk me). So I would keep it simple and focus on a very specific home repair that there is a great demand for.

It has been my observation, from my lower-class perspective, that the best opportunities are in the most disagreeable jobs. That said, I would focus my small home repair business on flush toilets. That’s right, I would be a toilet repair professional.

Now, you may chuckle to yourself at the idea of being a toilet repair professional, but I’m serious about this. I happen to know for a fact that there is big demand for toilet professionals.

Many years ago, when I had a job working for a local remodeling contractor, I had this idea of fixing toilets as a part-time business, and I actually carried through with it. I placed an ad in the local Pennysaver newspaper. When the ad came out, my phone started to ring. I got far more calls than I ever expected. It so happened that a lot of people hereabouts had toilet problems. I was off and running, fixing toilets after work and on Saturdays.

You’re probably wondering why I’m still not in the toilet repair business. Well, I had a bad experience. I got a call from one of the churches in my area to fix their toilet. I installed a new flush/fill valve and the problem was solved. I was in and out in an hour. It was easy money.

But the following Monday I got a call from a man at the church. He informed me that they had to cancel church on Sunday because the well had run dry. I turns out that I had inadvertently installed the new valve such that, when I put the lid on the toilet tank, the valve got stuck and it remained open for a few days. The entire contents of the church’s well went down the drain and there was no water on Sunday.

The man was a friend and there was no problem. He simply readjusted the valve so it moved freely and the well recharged itself. No harm was done (fortunately the well pump did not burn out) other than church was canceled. Nevertheless, I felt badly and decided I had enough of toilet repair. I really had too much going otherwise.

Nevertheless, that experience convinced me that there is an untapped world of opportunity in toilet repair, and the idea of going into the business comes to the forefront of my mind often when I consider a job change.

I even have a name picked out for the business: “Dr. John’s Toilet Repair & Replacement.” My business card and advertising will have a side view of a toilet on it. Perhaps it would also have a cartoon likeness of me in a lab coat with a wrench in one hand and a stethoscope in the other, taking the heartbeat of a sad-looking toilet. That’s a name and a visual that people can remember.

I imagine that I would get all kinds of calls form frustrated homeowners with toilet woes. For example, the common complaint of poor flushing action.... I would listen intently and say with knowing confidence: “It sounds like a case of the laaaazy flush, Ma’am.” Then, after a brief phone consultation, I would probably be able to better pinpoint the diagnosis" “Yep, I’ll bet those rim jets are obstructed. Happens all the time.” And, of course, I would present the cure: “I can flush the system with muriatic acid, but you might want to just replace the whole unit.”

Toilet repair and replacement would also include the repair of rotted floors around the toilet, which is something I’ve done many times over the years. And I would do faucet and sink repairs, as well as other basic plumbing fixes. Around here you can repair and replace plumbing without any special license or permits.

Another evidence of the need for such a service is a guy I used to work with who had an after-work business fixing faucets for people. He ran a weekly ad and called himself “The Faucet Fixer.” This fellow was my inspiration to do toilet repair on the side. He was busy all the time fixing and replacing people’s faucets and drains. He eventually got more schooling and went full-time into the wider world of hydronic heating and professional plumbing.

In my overactive, Walter Mitty-like imagination, I have envisioned a “Dr. John" franchise, where I would teach other aspiring toilet repair professionals all across America how to troubleshoot toilets and do other basic plumbing repairs, with confidence.

Until then, if you are intrigued by this little-considered but amazingly good small business idea, you can take the bull by the horns and educate yourself at Toiletology 101 (a truly fascinating web site!).

In my next essay here I will share with you another small-scale moneymaking idea that maybe, just maybe, will inspire and encourage you.

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This essay is part of a series on home business ideas. CLICK HERE to go to an index of all essays in the series.

Losing One’s Job

I was disappointed to read Matthew Potter’s recent post wherein he reports that his father is now unemployed because of a mass layoff at the company where he worked. Matthew is upbeat about the situation, but that sort of thing can be difficult to deal with. I sincerely hope Mr. Potter soon finds himself another position, and one that suits his talents and abilities.

Losing one’s job is, of course, not uncommon, especially in these times of economic decline. After telling Marlene about Matthew’s news she asked me what I would do if I lost my job. I told her the first thing I would do is get my next Whizbang invention on the fast track to completion.

But I’ve got enough Whizbang ideas and inventions and how-to books under my belt to know that my next one is not likely to be so successful that I will be able to support my family off of it. Granted, that is my dream. But my ideas are usually so offbeat or narrowly focused that popular success is pretty much guaranteed not to happen.

Nevertheless, if I ever get it out of the gate, this next Whizbang product should be another step towards a home business that will support my family.

It’s worth noting that I was encouraged to develop a part-time home business several years ago after reading numerous essays by Gary North (back when they came via e-mail at no cost). One of Gary’s recurring themes was that, in this day and age, no job is secure. That being the case, it makes a lot of sense to establish a part time home business so you will have a supplemental stream of income in the event that you lose your job.

The other reason North encouraged his readers to begin establishing a home business is so they can have a source of income when they retire. Since Social Security is unlikely to be able to pay out enough to live on in another decade or so, and most people do not (and will not) have sufficient savings to support themselves in their old age, it is wise to get a small business going now to supplant your income then.

That kind of preparatory thinking resonated with me. I have an entrepreneurial bent anyway. And so it is that I write, self-publish books, and invent useful tools for down-to-earth folks like myself. The business suits me. But there are other businesses that would suit me. What kind of part-time home business suits you? If you don’t have one, it’s worth thinking about.

In my next three or four blog essays I will share with you a select few ideas for home businesses that have been on my mind ever since Marlene asked me what I would do if I lost my job. Everyone is different, with different talents and interests, so my ideas may not suit you. Then again, perhaps one of them will.

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This essay marks the beginning of a series on home business ideas. CLICK HERE to go to an index of all essays in the series.

Walter Prescott Webb's Boom Hypothesis of Modern History

1888–1963

Back in 1952, the University of Texas historian, Walter Prescott Webb, wrote a book titled The Great Frontier.  I do not think it is a well known book, but I was prompted to read it after it was mentioned in an old Mother Earth News magazine interview with John Shuttleworth, then editor of that publication.

Now that I have read it, I can tell you The Great Frontier is the most incredibly insightful history book I've ever read.  I will give you an overview here because Mr. Webb's understandings of history bear heavily on our current world situation, as well as the future of our nation.

The Great Frontier is, essentially, an explanation of Webb’s Boom Hypothesis of Modern History. This hypothesis is well worth reading about and understanding. It begins with what Webb calls The Metropolis, which is pre-1500 Western Europe. Apart from Asia, Western Europe was all the known world. The Metropolis was unified in culture, densely populated, and static. It was a civilization of well-defined classes and customs. It was a period in time and place that was defined by limitations. As Webb writes:

The population pressed hard on the means of subsistence. There was not much food, and practically no means of escape for the people living in a closed world. the idea of progress had not been born.

As a subsistence civilization, there were no corporations or joint stock companies. There were no banking institutions. Money was scarce. Work was limited to the tasks of subsistence... or war—plundering other nations was the time-honored way for kings to acquire more wealth.

Then came the miracle that was to change everything... Europe, the Metropolis, knocked on the door of the Great Frontier, and when the door was opened it was seen to be golden, for within, there was undreamed of treasure, enough to make the whole Metropolis rich. The long quest of a half-starved people had at last been rewarded with a prospect beyond human comprehension.

This Great Frontier was the newly discovered and almost vacant lands of North America, South America, Australia, and numerous smaller islands. These new lands were rich with natural resources and it was all an incredible boom for the Metropolis.

You can get everything of a material nature you want, more than you ever dreamed of having, from gold and silver to furs and foods, and in any quantity you want, provided only that you are willing to venture and work. And something you never had within your historical memory will come to you as a byproduct, and that is an extraordinary degree of freedom.

Did you catch that? Freedom. Personal freedom and democratic forms of government were one of the many fruits of the Great Frontier. In a static civilization, confronted with limitations, civil liberty and individual freedom for the masses was unheard of. But all that changed with the Great Frontier.

Here, in the following quotes from the book, Webb provides more insights into the Boom Hypothesis. Intimations of what it means to us in our current day begin to emerge:

When this great area was made available to the crowded and impoverished people of the Metropolis, they swarmed out like bees to suck up the nectar of wealth, much of which they brought home to the mother hive. This sudden, continuing, and ever-increasing flood of wealth precipitated on the Metropolis a business boom such as the whole world had never known before and probably can never know again.

This boom began when Columbus returned from his first voyage, rose slowly, and continued at an ever-accelerating pace until the frontier which fed it was no more. Assuming that the frontier closed in 1890 or 1900, it may be said that the boom lasted about four hundred years.

Assuming that there was a boom, and that it lasted four hundred years or more, it follows that a set of institutions, economic, political, and social, would in that time evolve to meet the needs of a world in boom.

Therefore, these boom-born institutions, economic systems, political systems, social systems—in short, the present superstructure of Western civilization—are today founded on boom conditions.

Wow. So the superstructure of Western civilization is founded on boom conditions. But, as is painfully obvious to anyone in Western civilization these days, the boom is over. Fact is, for the most part, it has been over for decades. We’ve been coasting on the momentum of the 400-year-old boom. 


Is the current economic recession/depression we are experiencing an indicator that we as a civilization are dangerously close to running out of momentum? What does the Boom Hypothesis “predict” for the future? In Chapter Thirteen of the book, titled Conclusion, Webb writes the following:

If there is no substitute boom-maker, or one that is much less effective than the Frontier was, then we are faced with radical changes indeed. The society we have would tend to go through a process of devolution and retrogression rather than evolution and progress. It would lose much of its dynamic character, just as a boom town does when fortunes are lost there and not made.... Rural life would tend to become more important, and city life less alluring. Theoretically, society might become somewhat medieval in character, and new ideals would have to be formulated to make that life tolerable.

Though there is much talk of new frontiers, a careful examination of those suggested reveals that most of them are trivial, and none will compare in magnitude or importance with the Great Frontier. The most plausible claims are made in the name of science and technology. There is no doubt that science has made and is making valuable contributions to the luxury and comfort of those who have the price, but the tendency is to overate what science can do.

The last two sentences of the book:

Our challenge consists in finding out what modifications should be made, and our opportunity will come in making them. Our inspiration may come from history, in looking back to the early 16th century when the lamp was lifted beside the golden door of the Great Frontier to change the destiny of mankind.

My translation (and I’ve said this before): The modern industrial age is drawing to a close. We are not necessarily heading back to the “dark ages.” But history is moving ahead to something very different. It will be a civilization without excess and ease and relative opulence, which modern man has grown accustomed to. In other words, the future will, of necessity, be far more agrarian-centered than it is now. And I don’t see that as a bad thing. But making the transition could be particularly difficult for many Moderns.

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Additional Information

Since writing the above I've found that Professor Webb was president of the American Historical Association in 1957. In that capacity, he delivered a speech to the Association's annual dinner in Washington , D.C. He spoke about his life and the four books he had written, the last of which was The Great Frontier. You can read the entire speech at this link, but I have posted his comments about The Great Frontier below.

The story of my fourth adventure in history is told in The Great Frontier, published in 1952. It, like The Great Plains, is based on a single idea, best expressed in the question: What effect did all the new lands discovered by Columbus and his associates around 1500 have on Western civilization during the following 450 years? What happened to 100,000,000 people shut up in the wedge of western Eurasia when they suddenly acquired title to six times the amount of land they had before, fresh land, thinly tenanted, loaded with resources too great to be comprehended? What did all this wealth and the act of appropriating it do to and for the 100,000,000 poverty-stricken people of Western Europe and their descendants?


Slowly the thesis emerged, the boom hypothesis, around which the story was to be told. The Great Frontier precipitated a boom on the Metropolis, a boom of gigantic proportions which began when Columbus returned from his first voyage and accelerated until all the new lands had been appropriated. This boom accompanied the rise of modern civilization and attended the birth of a set of new institutions and ideas designed to service a booming society, chief among them modern democracy and capitalism and the idea of progress. The small booms we know, based on oil or gold or soil, burst when that on which they are based is depleted. They have all been temporary, and the period in which they existed has been considered abnormal. But this big boom, based on all the resources of the Great Frontier, lasted so long that it was considered normal and its institutions permanent. By about 1900 the Great Frontier, of which the American frontier was a fragment, began to close, and as it closed the idea of progress and the efficacy of democracy and capitalism were questioned, put in strain, and since 1914 these boom-born ideas and institutions have been fighting a defensive action. Unless we find some means to restore the boom, future historians may look back on the period from 1500 to 1950 as the Age of the Great Frontier, the most abnormal period in the history of mankind. So ran the argument.


By the discoveries the sovereigns of Europe acquired title to all the lands of the Great Frontier. Unable to use so much land, these sovereigns began dispersing it to the people, letting it sift down in townships, leagues, and quarter sections, eventually to small people. This gigantic land dispersal went on constantly from 1600 to 1900, three booming centuries when wealth was moving vertically, from the sovereign downward to the people, making them economically independent and politically free. When the frontier closed, the sovereign had nothing more to give, and then he began the reverse process of taking, not from the frontier, but from some of the people in order to have something to give to others. In short, wealth began making a complete vertical circuit instead of flowing in one direction. This vertical circulation today supplements the horizontal circulation so precious to free enterprisers and keeps it going. If this idea of the dual movement of wealth is true--and it seems obvious once it is pointed out--it should, I thought, have far-reaching implications for the study of modern economics.


The journey through the Great Frontier was a mental adventure of the first magnitude. Many splendid vistas opened, and many things that were familiar took on new meaning. It was lonely there; many times I did not know which way to go, and I, like the boy driving the goats, would have been glad to go home.


As I look back on this program of work, I see in the four books a record of a mental adventure into an expanding world. The Texas Rangers was local, simple in structure, and involved little thought. The Great Plains was regional, based on a single idea. Divided We Stand was national. The Great Frontier was international, and, like The Great Plains, was the expansion of an idea. The common element in them all is the frontier, dominant in three and present in the fourth. Taken together they tell the story of the expansion of the mind from a hard-packed West Texas dooryard to the outer limits of the Western world.

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I invite you to read the following two essays which were inspired by the writings of Walter Prescott Webb:

The Dirty Little Secret of How Corporations became "Persons"

How Farmers Became Slaves To The Corporate Masters

Getting Back to Blogging...

Labor Day (today) marks the end of summer for another year, and the end of my blogging vacation. There are a few trees here and there now showing yellow and red in their leaves. The air is cooler in the evenings and mornings. But the humidity is gone. This is good working weather.

I kept a few notes during this past month so I would have a list of things to write about on this return-from-break. But I’ve misplaced the notes. I’m at a loss to recall what I did last month. Perhaps I’ll begin by noting what some other bloggers have been up to...

First, I am excited to see that Humble Amy and her family have moved out of Florida to the relative wilds of Kentucky. This is akin to my family leaving the crowded suburban housing project where we lived for ten years and moving to an old farmhouse with 25 acres of land in a rural community when I was in 9th grade. A rural community (with stocked fish ponds!) is, without a doubt, the best environment in which to raise children.

Christina Fuller, the Kansas Milkmaid has returned to blogging. I’m glad to know she is doing well.

Rick Sanez over at Dry Creek Chronicles has written about “Selling Eggs at a Loss.” Personally, we gave away our egg layers last year and now purchase our eggs from a local person who, undoubtedly, sells them at a loss. We will get some egg layers again, maybe next year. But we will keep the flock to a more manageable (and cheaper to feed) half dozen birds. Just enough to give us the eggs we need.

Tom Scepaniak over at Northern Farmer has preached his first public sermon and feels called to the ministry. Of course, he has already been preaching from his blog for the past few years. Best wishes Tom.

The Bartlett family (ND Homekeeper) up in North Dakota continues to amaze me. Their local newspaper has written a story about them. Jonathan Bartlett , the Turtle Mountain Hillbilly has been eating too many raspberries and gearing up to go into the pastured poultry business.

But the big news up in North Dakota is that Jim Bartlett is running for a seat in the North Dakota senate race. Mr. Bartlett is not just another politician, as you can clearly see from his campaign web site. Check out the web site here: James Bartlett for Senate 2008. God bless you Jim. I’m praying that you’ll prevail in this race!

Russ Nellis, over at Log Cabin Homestead in the North Woods of Wisconsin, found someone to drive his trash route for the summer and focused on establishing a CSA. You can read back over his blogs as he chronicles the CSA endeavor. I’m impressed!

Over at Potter Villa Academy young Matthew Potter’s chickens have started laying eggs (always an exciting event!). And, very sorry to say, his father has recently lost his job.

Michael Bunker, down in Texas, has posted a couple of blog essays guaranteed to make a lot of mainline Christians uncomfortable (or upset). The first is Separatism as a Fundamental Principle. Michael says:

“Separatism for God's people is a principle element and underlying truth found throughout all of Scripture and all of Prophecy. It exists in virtually every spiritual type and shadow given to us in the Bible.”

Then, in a Part 2 essay MB takes a look at The Great Commission as it relates to separation. I have read these essays very carefully, more than once. To a degree, they challenge my previously-held assumptions and understandings (misunderstandings?). I think it is good to be challenged in this regard.

Allen Shropshire and family have a truly fine Christian-agrarian blog. Allen has recently posted a personal recollection about his father, weeds, bugs, and chemical spraying, titled Struggles With Spraying. I recommend it to you.

Randall Gerard has blogged about selling his house and moving into a trailer. He respondes to the question: "But.. aren't you afraid of what people will think of you, now that you live in a trailer park?" You can read his response HERE.

I could go on but, like I said back in the beginning of this post, it is good working weather these days and today IS Labor Day. So I better get at it. Winter is coming.

Updating & Organizing

I am doing some updating and organizing of this blog in anticipation of returning to blogging next month.

One of the things I've done is create an index and titles for the 20-part series, Getting Started & Finding My Way, which I posted here earlier this year. If you are new to this blog, I invite you to peruse the story of my youthful struggles to find my way in the world.

Click HERE to get to the Index

See you in a week or so....

Summer Felicity 2008

Strawberries and blueberries and raspberries are all beautiful in their own way, but they just don’t compare to clusters of grapes on the vine.

I grew up in the suburbs eating supermarket grapes—the juicy, seedless kind grown somewhere other than around here. It would be sometime in my teen years before I experienced a New-York-grown grape right off the vine. The center was more slimy than juicy, and it had seeds. Ugh! Who would want to eat those dreadful things?

Well, my tastes have changed. Now I prefer a homegrown grape to those prissy storeboughts. And the earthy, undiluted, sweet juice from those berries is, in my opinion, the quintessence in fruit-of-the-vine beverages. Far better than wine.

The above picture is of my Concord grapes in July. They will ripen from green to blue-black and we will harvest every last grape. Not one will go to waste.



Summer delights here are more often than not, simple, like dill pickles in the making. The cukes are, of course, homegrown, as is the dill.



The ever changing interplay of earth and sky and sunlight is something that we here in the countryside notice and appreciate every day. There are times, when the sun is setting, that the light is especially rich. Such was the case when I took the above picture.

I grabbed my camera and ran outside, hoping to capture the scene of billowing cumulonimbus clouds in a blue sky, with golden hay stubble and big bales on the ground. My son was riding his four-wheeler in the field and I waved him over for a picture. He is a lean, tawny, country boy and a blessing to his parents. His name is Robert E. Lee Kimball (note the stars and bars by his knee).



Once again, summer hereabouts means little chickens in a “chicken tractor” on our lawn. These cute little featherweights will grow up to be plump roasters that we will harvest and load into the freezer.



We went to the New York State Pageant of Steam again this summer. I think it might turn into a family tradition. It was a good time. In addition to old tractors, and steam engines, and saw mills, and a flea market, and such, they had a few old pickups. I happen to like old pickups. When we saw the 1947 Ford in the above picture my son Robert said, “I’m going to buy you a truck like that someday, Dad!” I don’t need a truck like that but I liked hearing him say those words. The lad in the foreground is my 13-year-old, James—yet another blessing.



You never know what surprises you’ll find at the steam show. Last year there was a genuine Crosley Icy Ball ice box. It’s hard to beat a find like that. But this year’s surprise find was even better. That thing in the picture above is a Quadractor. I had never seen a Quadractor outside of a magazine picture. What a thrill.



Another part of summer that I enjoy is library book sales. Fifty cents for any paperback and a dollar for any hardcover. At the most recent sale in Moravia (my hometown) I spent an hour blissfully absorbed in searching the tables for books that interested me. I ended up spending five dollars for the books pictured above. They are:

How to Keep Hens For Profit (copyright 1913)

Virginians at Home: Family Life in the Eighteenth Century

George Washington’s Horse Slept Here
(about a family that bought an old barn in Long Island in 1950 and turned it into a house)

The Yankee Peddlers of Early America
(“An Affectionate History of Life and Commerce in the Developing colonies and the Young Republic”)

Letters of E. B. White

I have started reading the letters of EB White first. Elwyn Brooks White was born in 1899. Back then there was no e-mail. People communicated to far off family and friends by putting words on paper and sending the letters through the mail. Evidently they also saved the letters they received, at least they did the ones from EB White.

Back in 1976, as many letters as could be found were rounded up and put into the book. It is a 686-page compilation of White’s life story, along with so many personal letters, beginning with some from when he was nine years old. It makes for a surprisingly entertaining book that I am enjoying far more than I ever expected.

You may recall that E.B.White’s most famous book was “Charlotte’s Web.” Almost of equal popularity is “The Elements of Style,” a book about how to write well which he co-authored with his Cornell professor, William Strunk, Jr.

E.B was an entertaining writer, and I like his style. I am currently up to 1937. White had been working at the New Yorker magazine and yearned for the country. He didn’t like the city because “the pavements were hard and they didn’t have any broody hens.” So, at 38 years old, he decides to quit his job, take a year off, and live at his summer home in North Brooklin, Maine.

One of the first things EB does is go see the town smith, Mr. Allen, to have him make an ax head. Then he sets about making his own ash ax handle. In a letter to his wife, Katharine (who is still working at the New Yorker) he says: “I have had an entirely new feeling about life ever since making an ax handle.” He is also raising ten turkeys and various other animals.

I believe Katharine and their young son will join him shortly. And, of course, he will go on to achieve literary fame in the years ahead. I still have a lot of book to go.

Speaking of writing and taking time off, it is time for me to once again take leave of blogging, as I said I would a week or so back. This will be Phase II of my summer break from blogging. I would really like to head up to my summer home on the coast of Maine (which reminds me... E.B. White, feeling poorly in one letter, says that he would rather feel bad in Maine than good anywhere else in the world) but there is much too much to be done here.

I still have plenty to say and share with you about “Living the Good Life,” and whatever else strikes my fancy. I hope you will stop back.

See you then.....



The above picture is titled: "Overachiever"

A Missive on theProsperity-Driven Life

[Dateline: 8 August 2008]
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It has been an unusually good growing season here in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. We have had rainfall almost every day, with lots of sunshine and warmth. My garden is growing with tropical lushness.


That hasn’t always been the case. Take, for example, the summer of 1999. I remember it all too well. It was a drought year. The creek behind my house dried up. Then our well went dry and the pump motor burned out. The soil was parched like I had not seen before. It was terribly hot every day. My family faced considerable hardship as a result.


Marlene hauled our laundry to the laundromat. We took showers at her mother’s house in town. We even took dishes to her mom’s place to wash. Most memorable was the sawdust toilet I put together and we used for two months. It served the purpose remarkably well and we realized that life without a flush toilet is not so bad—just different.


Compounding the difficulties of having no water was the significant financial drought we also faced.


I had invested a lot of time and savings into launching a small business venture a year or so earlier and it had been a failure. The money was gone. Gone too was my drive to work. I had neglected my remodeling business to focus on the new venture and, having poured myself into it, all for naught, I was burnt out. I was depressed too. I found it difficult to motivate myself to do anything.


All the while, the bills continued to come due: insurances, phone, electric, food, gas, and so on. Our savings account dwindled to nothing. I borrowed and used all the money I could get on my life insurance policy. We withdrew everything that was in our modest IRA retirement account. The checking account was practically empty. And I, as the sole provider for my family of five, was faced with the full burden of our situation.


I have mentioned that time in my life in past essays here. It was not a good time for me. But, in retrospect, I dare say a taste of failure and poverty is a healthy thing for someone who thinks they are above and beyond such a state in life. It brings perspective. You can better relate to others who struggle with poverty, and there are many of them all around us.


And times like that can bring a person to their knees. Why is this happening to me Lord? What did I do to deserve this? I don’t know what to do. Please help me!


Oh yes, experiences like that burn themselves into a person’s memory. And experiences like that can be a powerful incentive to a change of attitude, to humility, to repentance, to spiritual renewal.

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When I was 14 years old, I stayed a couple summer-vacation weeks with my cousins in Springfield, Mass. I clearly recall an event that happened there one very hot day. We had come back to Springfield after a wonderful week at Cape Cod. The floor carpet in the station wagon was full of beach sand. My cousin Peter and I were given the job of vacuuming the carpet.


Like I said, it was a hot and humid day and we were unhappy about the work we had to do. We wanted to be back at Cape Cod, at the beach, in the water, having fun. To make matters worse, the house directly across the street had an in-ground swimming pool in the back yard. We could hear kids laughing, splashing in the water, and having a great time in the pool.


Peter and I griped about our sorry lot in life and wished we had a swimming pool. We decided right then and there that when we grew up we would each have in-ground swimming pools. We would have in-ground swimming pools because we would be rich. And then we made a pact.


We agreed that whichever one of us made a million dollars first would buy the other an in-ground swimming pool.


I’m still waiting. So is Peter.

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I have read recollections of some old timers who grew up on a farm before there was television and radio and all the modern conveniences we take for granted these days (i.e., flush toilets). Looking back on their early childhood, those people will often remark that they were poor, but they didn’t know it at the time.


They didn’t know it because they had plenty of food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over their head, and they were part of a loving family. What more could a child need?


Only as they grew up and were exposed to the urban culture beyond the shelter of their rural homes, exposed to automobiles, exposed to the influencing media of television, radio, movies, magazines, and so much clever advertising, did they come to realize how “poor” their childhoods had been.


I never had that problem. I knew full well that I was “poor” from a very young age. My needs as a child were met but, living in suburbia in the 1960s and 1970s, I was keenly aware that my family was not as well off as Beaver Cleaver’s family or The Brady Bunch. Just looking around, I could see that most everyone else was better off than us. And, undoubtedly, most everyone else was well aware that they were not as well off as everyone else they compared themselves to.


We were intentionally indocrtrinated by the media and the culture we lived in from a young age. We were cursed with that industrial-world plague of never being content, of never having enough, no matter how much we had. And so, we resolved to ourselves from a young age that we would grow up to be rich. It’s the “American Way,” don’t ya know.

=================

The desire to be rich, to have an abundance of possessions and money, is the keystone of our modern, neo-Babylonian culture. Everything seems to revolve around the acquisition of money and all the superfluous things that money can buy. It is, after all, money and things that bring us respect, validation, influence, and comfort.


Indeed, if someone does not at least aspire to be rich in the many material things our culture offers, they are looked upon as loosers and misfits. Pity the poor fools who don’t have the initiative to “make something of themselves” in this life.


Yes, we live in the midst of a culture that places great importance on the pursuit and acquisition of prosperity and all the pleasures that prosperity can buy. Many men and women forgo having families so they can pursue prosperity in its many alluring forms. Others do have families but neglect them as they strive to achieve a greater and greater measure of wealth.


People invest to get rich. People commit crimes to get rich. People go to casinos to get rich. People buy lottery tickets to get rich. People borrow money and buy what they cannot afford so they will at least have some semblance of being rich. It’s all about getting rich. And, from the standpoint of what the Bible has to say, it’s all wrong.


But how could it be wrong?


After all, there are preachers who preach that God wants His people to be rich and wealthy, that blessings and riches go hand in hand, that if we are right with God, if we tithe, if we give generously, we will receive more money in return. There are men who will testify to this truth in their lives. They are rich because God has blessed them. How could it be wrong to work to be rich if so many other Christians are rich?


What’s wrong with working to achieve such success? What’s wrong with encouragng and guiding our children into vocations that will help them to be rich? What could possibly be wrong with Christian men and women striving daily to build wealth within the world system?

Surely it is okay for Christians to aspire to acquire wealth on par with the rest of the culture around us!

===============

Last month I read the gospel of Luke, which has much to say about this subject of being rich.

But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Jesus Christ condemned the pursuit and acquisition of riches—in no uncertain terms. Scripture beyond the book of Luke supports this condemnation. Thus, I am left to conclude that the desire to be successful in the world’s terms, the desire to attain the trappings of success (to be rich) is not of God.


For me, the most compelling evidence of this fundamental truth is in Luke 8, which tells the parable of the sower.

A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Then Jesus Himself provides the interpretation of His parable:

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

Did you see it? Right there is a remarkable condemnation of the Prosperity-Driven life as it has been adopted by a great portion of the Christian church in our day and age. Cares and riches and pleasures are likened to thorns that choke out the fullness of life that God desires for His people. Such thorns need to be rooted out.


Is your life choked with the cares and concerns that come when riches and pleasure are pursued? Are you living beyond your means? Are you discontent because you do not have as much as those who you choose to compare yourselves to?


Or maybe you are a Christian so successful and comfortably wealthy that you’re convinced none of those verses can really mean what they say? Perhaps you are deluded into thinking you are not rich when, by most people’s standards, you are. The fact is, by historical standards, and even current worldwide circumstances, all of us in the industrialized West are materialistically very rich.


I don’t know where you are in your thinking about success and wealth and pursuing the so-called American Dream. It doesn’t matter to me. But if you are a Christian, and you take your Christianity seriously, it should matter to you.


Christians are called to separate from the ungodly aspirations of the world culture around us; to separate from Vanity Fair in it’s many manifestations. But when it comes to pursuing prosperity, the concept of separation is so contrary, and Christians are so syncretized into the financial Zeitgeist of our age,that we are hard pressed to implement something like this. We have been so indoctrinated by Babylonian culture that we have trouble getting our minds around the meaning of separation in this regard. Besides that, we love the pleasures and playthings that our money can buy.


So how does a Christian seeking truth and desiring to please the Lord effectively separate in this area?


I can not answer that question for you. I am trying to answer the question for myself. I am looking for the balance between properly providing and pursuing prosperity. It is a delicate balance.


I can tell you this much: I am closer to the answer than I was at 14 years old. And I am closer to the answer than I was during the drought of 1999.


I’m persuaded that the balance we need is found first within our attitude and focus; which is to say, within our heart’s desires. Second, I’m inclined to believe that our heart’s desires are clearly revealed in our actions—in how we make the money we need, in how greatly we strive for the acquisition of money and the things money can buy, in how we spend the money God has entrusted to us, in how freely we give to others in need, in how well we live within our means, in how content we are with little.

====================

I know a man who is an electrician. He flat out doesn’t like Christians. Why? It turns out that he once had a business partner who was a Christian. The partnership went sour. The Christian partner made sure he came out on top. at the expense of his non-Christian associate.


The modern business world celebrates getting the better part of a business deal. But Christianity does not condone oneupsmanship.

===================

My stepfather sold health and life insurance for 30 years. He once told me that he did not like to sell insurance to Christians. I was shocked. “Why not?” I asked. “Because they lie,” he replied.


Again, it came down to money. He had sold insurance to outwardly professing Christians who lied about their health history on the insurance forms. When it came to light, the insurance company took money away from my father.


Those people may have thought it was okay to lie to the big, impersonal insurance company if they could get away with it. But their actions affected my father’s finances, which were never that good.


Christians speak of witnessing to unbelievers, about how important it is to verbally tell them about eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. Yes, that is important. But actions speak louder than words.

===================

Years ago, Marlene and I got a call from a man at Focus on The Family, a Christian ministry that I’m sure you’ve heard of. He and another man from the ministry were going to be in our area and wanted to take Marlene and I out for breakfast. We were supporters of that ministry at that time, but relatively small supporters. How did they come to call us? What did they want? I was suspicious.


They said they typically visit with ministry supporters when they travel and happened to call us at random. We met them for breakfast and had a very nice visit. The only mention of money was when I brought it up.


I had heard that James Dobson, founder of the ministry, did not take any salary at all from it. I asked if that was true. Both men assurred me that it was true. They told me his primary source of income was from the books he has written. Then they explained that, because the ministry promoted his books, Dr. Dobson gave a sizeable portion of his book proceeds to the ministry.


Now there is a Christian man who is careful and conscientious about his witness. Actions speak louder than words.

====================

I could ramble on. But I’ve made my point—a point that, for some reason, I’ve felt strongly compelled to make here.


Before I close, I’d like to give you two guiding verses of scripture. The first is from Psalms:

Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.

Then there is King Solomon who, you may recall, was very rich and very wise (but fallibly human). He declared, looking back on his life, that all the work he had done was vanity and vexation of spirit. Then, in the book of Ecclesiasties, he says this:

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

Organic Weed Annihilation(any weed)

Dateline: 6 August 2008

Updated: 11 April 2013

Bindweed (photo link)

My friend Steve is a Christian-agrarian homesteader. He is the most resourceful person I know, bar none. He is also an organic gardener.

One day Steve and I were discussing bindweed. Also known as wild morning glory, bindweed is the most hellish weed I have ever known. Unhindered, it will grow lush and wrap itself around every other plant, entangling it, dominating it, destroying it.

Pull it out and bindweed grows back. Rototill through it and every chopped up piece will grow a new plant. Bindweed is so bad that, if faced with the scourge, even the most passionate of organic gardeners will consider using herbicide.

I know this because when I was a kid, my family had bindweed in our garden. It’s still there. We fought it for years. We fought the bindweed, and the bindweed won. It owns the land where the garden once was.

My friend Steve has bindweed on his land. He knows how bad it is. But he does not have a problem with it in his garden because he has devised a non-chemical technique for totally annihilating the weed from his garden. Now I’m going to tell you what that technique is.

Like I said, Steve is resourceful. For years, he has collected sheets of old steel roofing and siding. He has gotten this material for free for the hauling wherever and whenever he can. In most instances he has removed it off of old buildings himself, with the owners permission. Steve has piles of this old steel roofing and siding stacked by his garden. In the spring, he lays the sheets of steel on the ground over a large section of land where he intends to plant his garden next year (he rotates the placement of his garden from year to year). He weights the sheets of metal down with old tires, rocks, chunks of firewood. The metal “carpet” stays in place for an entire year.

Nothing grows under the steel. Bindweed roots die off. Dandelion roots and burdock and quack grass roots die off. Everything living plant under the metal is starved of sunlight and dies. it is a beautiful thing to contemplate, especially if you have a bindweed infestation.

When Steve removes the sheet metal the following spring, the ground is bare and the moist soil is soft and workable. Sometimes he tills the ground. Sometimes he just scratches the surface with a hoe and plants his crops.

Steve says the bindweed will eventually return into the garden from its perimeter positions. But he can get a good garden out of the plot without much weed problem for the one year.

The idea works. All you need is some old roofing or siding sheets. Start collecting scrap now for future gardens. Once you have it, the metal will last for many years.

This year I decided to use some sheet metal mulch in my wintersquash patch. Since my neighbor moved to Washington state last fall, I lost the use of his land to garden in. I needed to expand the garden space on my own small piece of land. That meant I would have to till up some lawn. Sod tills hard and it occurred to me that I could lay my small collection of salvaged sheet metal siding on the sod early in the spring to kill the grass. That’s what I did.

Then, when it came time to plant the squash, I separated the sheets about a foot apart and planted my squash. No rototilling was needed. I planted my squash as per my Whizbang Squash Planting Secret. Here’s a picture of my squash patch earlier this spring.

As you can see in the picture, the "Whizbang tire cloches" are in place. I have piled grass clippings between the metal sheets to keep weeds down there. I'd also like to point out that with sheet metal mulch you can push the lawnmower over the top of the metal and mow the lawn along the edge very nicely. Here's a picture of a healthy young squash plant with the cloche removed.



This next picture shows the squash bed a few weeks after the cloches have been removed. No cultivating around the squash is necessary. Weeds are no problem. the sheet metal and grass clippings take care of the weeds. On the left side of the squash patch I have continued to distribute a heavy layer of grass clippings, as they are available.


The picture below shows my squash patch at the end of July. It is a dense jungle of healthy, fruitful vines. The combination of my Whizbang Squash Planting Secret (click on link above for details) and sheet metal mulch is a winner. Recycle, reuse, and reap a bountiful harvest. Thanks for the great idea Steve!




P.S. To see a picture of Steve in his sheet-metal-mulched garden, with the most remarkable Blue Hubbard squash you've ever seen, ClickHere, and scroll a short way down the page.

Bifurcating Eschatology & My Nifty New Compost Sifter

Dateline: 4 August 2008

Updated: 26 April 2013

I’ve been an enthusiastic gardener since I was a teenager. My interest right from the beginning has been in organic gardening. One of the fundamental elements of organic gardening is compost.

Early on, as I learned about the wonders of using compost in the garden, I was discouraged by the fact that it takes so long to make the stuff. It can take up to a year for a pile of organic materials (i.e. weeds, kitchen scraps, & animal manure) to decompose into compost.

Teenagers are not known for their patience, and my patience was especially short because my family attended a fundamentalist Baptist church.

I didn’t expect to be around in a year. I had read Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth.” I had been to see that Billy Graham movie, A Thief in The Night. I listened to speakers proclaim that end times Bible prophecy was coming to pass. The rapture of the church was supposed to happen before the nation of Israel (founded in 1948) was a generation old (and a generation was defined as 30 years). Preachers assured their listeners that the Antichrist was in the wings, ready to assume his diabolical role in the Great Tribulation. There was a lot of speculation about exactly who the Antichrist might be. Henry Kissinger was a likely candidate.

I believed what the Biblical prognosticators prognosticated. Never would I have dreamed that I would remain here on this earth as long as I have. It’s a wonder I even took time to plant any seeds in the garden back then.

Now, half a century old, I’m a little bit more discerning. The hyper-dispensationalist beliefs of my younger days have been supplanted by the more orthodox postmillenial doctrines held by the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the Reformers before them.

When I compare the fruit of these bifurcating eschatological doctrines, I see anxiety, selfishness, defeatism, and denial of responsibility on the one hand, and selflessness, hopeful, responsible optimism on the other. Dispensationalists focus on what they see as satan’s sovereignty over this world, while the postmillenialists focus on God’s absolute sovereignty over all His creation, for all time. The one focus sustains a shallow, shortsighted faith, while the other cultivates faith with greater depth. I’ve seen it from both sides and that’s the way it appears to me.

Curiously, it turns out that this whole dispensational way of thinking is relatively new in the history of The Church. It rose to prominence, roughly paralleling the rise of the industrial revolution. I see it as a part of modernist Christian theology, which so often propagates the newest Christian fad-belief-movement, and profits financially from misleading the faithful.

Modern Christianity appears to lead modern Christians here and there like ancient Israel wandering in the wilderness, moving ahead, but in circles, never arriving in the promised land, being fed with manna from heaven, but never feasting on the milk and honey that is just over the border in Canaan. It is an analogy that fits the whole industrial movement itself.

Time will, of course, tell which branch of doctrine is correct (they can’t both be), and it could be that I am completely wrong. But I’ve had my fill of dispensationalist thinking, thank you.

Whatever the outcome, I am absolutely certain of one thing: Postmillenialists are theologically predisposed to making better compost than their dispensationalist brethren. There is just no question about it.

In addition to all of that, I can attest that the advancing of age brings a different perspective of time. After making it through fifty years, another one doesn’t seem so long to me. And so I now patiently and joyfully make compost piles each year to use on the following year’s garden. Which finally brings me to the subject of my nifty new compost sifter.

If you have read much of this blog, you already know that I’ve written and posted pictures telling about the unique mechanical compost sifter I made several years back. It’s a dandy machine. You can read all about it HERE.

The only drawback to that motor-driven contraption is that it’s big, heavy, and motor-driven. It also requires a modest investment of money and time to build. Then there is the matter of eventual maintenance and repair, not to mention the need for electricity to run the thing.

Don’t get me wrong. I like machines. they have their place. But I also like utter simplicity. There are plenty of times when I need only one garden cart full of sifted compost, or less. There are times when I don’t want to deal with the noise of a big machine and the hassle of running power cords. It is for such times that I invented the compost sifter shown in the picture below. It is utter simplicity coupled with ease and efficiency.



What you are looking at in the picture (taken from high atop the compost pile) is a Whizbang Garden Cart (anyone can build one). That cart is among the most versatile and useful tools on my little homestead!

On top of the cart is the nifty compost sifter. As you can see, the sifter rests on two 2x4 support pieces. Those pieces are screwed to the sifter box. And they have shallow notches on the bottoms that fit over the top sides of the garden cart. I rubbed some candle way on the top of the cart sides and the sifter box glides back and forth almost effortlessly.

Of course, if you heap the box up with unsifted compost, it requires some effort to shake it back and forth, but it is still relatively easy to do. The box measures 22” by 26” and is made of 1x8 pine boards. The bottom is 1/2” hardware cloth. The two handles are 1-1/2” by 1-1/2” pine screwed into the corners. I shaved down the top ends to get a comfortable handhold. Here’s a picture of me (taken over the top of the compost pile)shaking down a big load of compost.



Here’s a picture of my 17-year-old son, Robert, shaking down a load of compost.



Sifting compost is a great job for a teenage boy, especially if he is helping his mom or dad. Marlene can easily use the sifter too, but she will only want to sift two or three shovelfuls at a time. Actually, the less you fill the box, the faster it sifts out.

After sifting, the remaining unsiftables, like rocks, stones, missing kitchen cutlery, spent shotgun shells, and whatnot, can be disposed of. Here is another view of the sifter.




So there you go. That’s my utterly simple compost-sifter box.

Make a Whizbang Garden Cart. Make a sifter box. Make compost. Sift it. Use it to grow good food for yourself and your family. Such things are part of “the good life.” At least, they are for me.

And The Winner Is....

Dateline: 2 August 2008

It is time to announce the winner of the Peterson Coppertop Bluebird House Contest (Click Here for contest details and a picture of the Peterson). First, the contestants were as follows:

MG...Tacoma, WA
RS...Seattle, WA
AK...Beulah, MO
JK...Red Lake Falls, MN
PM...Sanbornville, NH
SM...Windsor, MA
CF...Williamsburg, MA
MH...Hampden, ME
RO...Woodlyn, PA
CB...Thief River Falls, MN
JK...Akley, MN
GT...newport, TN
KB...Kendall, WI
GR...Boyne City, MI
DH...Secor, IL
RLR...Logan, OH
T&SS...Union, SC
JS...Ashland, PA
WK...Willisburg, KY
ML...Shannon, IL
JD...Bristol, TN
RM...Bison, KS
BL...Marysville,OH
MS...Neenah, WI
DL...Greenbay, WI
BP...Lacey, WA
BW...Finlayson, MN
AH...Williamsville, MO
RA...Norfolk, MA
RM...Brookfield, VT
TM...Voluntown, CT
SC...Newbury, VT
SR...Jefferson, TX
KD...Truman, MN
TC...Leoma, TN
BC...Columbia, KY
JT...Albuquerque, NM
JS...Crescent, OK
DS...Colorado Springs, CO
RW...Equinunk, PA
DE...Fort Valley, PA

Some of those folks bought more than one Whizbang book from me and their name was entered more than once in the drawing. In all, there were 56 names in the hat.



That hat is my own Amish hat that we got on our vacation to Lancaster PA last year. I enlisted my son James to draw the winner. The location of the drawing was our back yard. James's brother Robert held the hat aloft. I assure you that James thoroughly scrambled the contents before picking the winner.



As per my instructions to James, he drew a single slip of paper with the winning name on it. I told him to have an excited and surprised look for the picture.



And the winner is...



Congratulations William in Kentucky. I will be mailing your Peterson Coppertop to you this week. I hope there are bluebirds in Kentucky. Thank you to everyone who entered this contest. I wish you could have all been winners.

One more thing...

After the official drawing was over, James said he should have done the drawing with his BillyBob teeth. Oh, what a grand idea! I suggested that we do a reenactment. This is how it turned out. What a good sport you are James!