Indulging in an Extravagance

The economies of the world are in crisis. Gloom and doom predominate. It looks like it’s getting really serious. This may be “the big one.” To make matters worse, I find myself spending a lot of money on unexpected needs. Then, in the midst of it all, I have decided to take a vacation. Go figure.

Our family has never taken one of those two-weeks-across-the-country-and-see-the-Grand-Canyon vacations. We probably never will. And I don’t expect to ever take a cruise to some island. And I’ll surely not head off to some foreign country. We keep vacations simple and short. Nevertheless, even little vacations have always been something of an extravagance for us. And this one will be no exception.

The genesis of this vacation was a comment by my wife a couple weeks ago: “Why don’t you guys go on vacation and I’ll stay home. That’ll be a vacation for me too.”

Mothers of busy households can, I’m sure, relate. The never-ending daily demands of meal making, laundry doing, errand running, and dealing with three active boys, can wear a woman down. Marlene needs a break. Some time for herself. It was her idea.

Except for the expense, it’s a fine idea. At 14 and 17 years old, my two youngest sons are growing up. So, now, while we have this opportunity, while gasoline is still less than $5 a gallon, while our car is still mechanically dependable, while I still have a job, and our paper money still has a little value, now is the time to take a Men’s Vacation. We’re going to have us a little adventure. Hopefully, we’ll make some great memories together.

We three “adventurers” leave early tomorrow morning. Marlene will remain safe at home with three dogs and our oldest son (who has his truck-driving job to attend to). She can do as she pleases for the next few days. I think she has plans.

I’ll not be blogging while on vacation. But I’ll be sure to give a report when I return next week. Suffice it to say that our itinerary will include:

1. Early American history
2. Guns
3. Agrarian culture
4. An old-growth (300 years) forest.

Stay tuned.....

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To read the next essay in this series, Click Here
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People Like Audrey

I used to do business with an electrical supplier that had a sign behind the counter saying:

A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on our part.

Such a statement might apply for a small business but it doesn't hold water when it comes to family. A lack of planning and responsibility on the part of one family member affects the whole family.

This reality can come home to roost in a tangible way when the economy gets bad. And it is getting bad out there. What is most sobering is that I think we are only in the beginning stages of a deepening financial crisis. At times like this, I'm especially thankful for Whizbang Books, and chicken pluckers in particular. I hope it doesn't get so bad that everyone decides to just hand-pluck all their poultry! But I'm digressing....

A couple of other sayings come to mind:

There but for the grace of God go I.

and

The poor take care of the poor.

If you are poor, or even if you were once poor (truly poor) you can relate to the difficulties of others who are now poor (and getting poorer). And, unlike pandering politicians, you really do feel their pain. Which brings me to a remarkable story about a woman named Audrey.

This is a true story. It needs to be told.

I do not know Audrey. All I know of her is that she is an overweight black woman probably in her late 40s. She is from the South, perhaps Georgia. She worked as a bus driver but is currently out of a job. Audrey is single and lives in a city in Arizona.

My youngest sister (I have 2) is in her late 30s and works behind the counter at a gas station convenience store in Arizona. She has worked there for maybe a year. Audrey is a regular customer. My sister and Audrey have talked over the counter at the convenience store. It has been small talk. This "friendship" has been only at the store when Audrey stops in to buy something.

My sister is coming home from Arizona to New York. She has no car, no husband, virtually no money, and two dogs. She is coming home to care for our father, in his home. He is old, and sick, and feeble, and needs help, in many ways. Marlene and I are here to help him, but we need help. This is a good development. My sister is doing the right thing.

Knowing my sister is going back to New York, and why, Audrey asks when her last day at work is. My sister tells her "Tomorrow." Audrey leaves and returns a little later. She asks my sister how she spells her name. My sister tells her and Audrey leaves again. She comes back a little while later with a card and gives it to my sister. My sister opens the card and there is a check from Audrey for $100.

My sister is shocked. She says: "Audrey! That's a lot of money. You can't do this."

Audrey replies: "I can do it. You take it. I care about you and I love you and I want to help. God bless you."

There are four people in the line behind Audrey. My sister announces to everyone that they're going to have to wait while she gives Audrey a hug.

My sister has MS and walks with a limp. She makes her way from behind the counter. She hugs Audrey and thanks her. This short, skinny white girl hugs the overweight black woman right there in the convenience store while a line of people are waiting.

Picture it.

After what I'm sure was a tearful display, my sister goes back behind the counter and apologizes to those who are waiting in line. They tell her they don't mind waiting for something like that.

Oh, that there were more people in this world like Audrey. People who care enough to take a personal interest in relative strangers. People who are sensitive to the needs of others. People who are willing to give from what little they have, expecting nothing in return. People who love.

God bless you Audrey, wherever you are.


*

Donald Hall & Ox Cart Man

A down-to earth reader of this blog e-mailed me recently to say that he thought a children’s book titled Ox Cart Man by Donald Hall was an exceptional story. Furthermore, he believed a whole course in economics could be taught with the book as its text.

So I did some internet sleuthing and found that before it was a book, Ox Cart Man was a poem and it was first published in The New Yorker magazine in 1977. Here is the poem by Donald Hall:

In October of the year,
he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,
counting the seed, counting
the cellar’s portion out,
and bags the rest on the cart’s floor.

He packs wool sheared in April, honey
in combs, linen, leather
tanned from deerhide,
and vinegar in a barrel
hooped by hand at the forge’s fire.

He walks by his ox’s head, ten days
to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,
and the bag that carried potatoes,
flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose
feathers, yarn.

When the cart is empty he sells the cart.
When the cart is sold he sells the ox,
harness and yoke, and walks
home, his pockets heavy
with the year’s coin for salt and taxes,

and at home by fire’s light in November cold
stitches new harness
for next year’s ox in the barn,
and carves the yoke, and saws planks
building the cart again.

Ox Cart Man presents ancient (pre-industrial) themes of subsistence economy with it’s focus on home-based production, self-reliance, hard physical work, creativity, diversification, thrift, productivity, and simplicity. There is also the clear understanding that all wealth originates from the earth. Yes, you certainly could learn a lot about economics from this children’s book.

Enjoying this poem as I did, I decided to take a closer look at the author, Donald Hall. I went looking for more of his poetry on the internet. I found a couple of poems that I really like. I think you will too. Here is Names of Horses:

All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding
and steerhide over the ash hames, to haul
sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer,
for the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range.

In April you pulled cartloads of manure to spread on the fields,
dark manure of Holsteins, and knobs of your own clustered with oats.
All summer you mowed the grass in meadow and hayfield, the mowing machine
clacketing beside you, while the sun walked high in the morning;

and after noon’s heat, you pulled a clawed rake through the same acres,
gathering stacks, and dragged the wagon from stack to stack,
and the built hayrack back, uphill to the chaffy barn,
three loads of hay a day from standing grass in the morning.

Sundays you trotted the two miles to church with the light load
a leather quartertop buggy, and grazed in the sound of hymns.
Generation on generation, your neck rubbed the windowsill
of the stall, smoothing the wood as the sea smooths glass.

When you were old and lame, when your shoulders hurt bending to graze,
one October the man, who fed you and kept you, and harnessed you every morning,
led you through corn stubble to sandy ground above Eagle Pond,
and dug a hole beside you where you stood shuddering in your skin,

and lay the shotgun’s muzzle in the boneless hollow behind your ear,
and fired the slug into your brain, and felled you into your grave,
shoveling sand to cover you, setting goldenrod upright above you,
where by next summer a dent in the ground made your monument.

For a hundred and fifty years, in the Pasture of dead horses,
roots of pine trees pushed through the pale curves of your ribs,
yellow blossoms flourished above you in autumn, and in winter
frost heaved your bones in the ground - old toilers, soil makers:

O Roger, Mackerel, Riley, Ned, Nellie, Chester, Lady Ghost.

Another endearing bit of poetry from Donald Hall is this excerpt from, Kicking the Leaves:

Each fall in New Hampshire, on the farm
where my mother grew up, a girl in the country,
my grandfather and grandmother
finished the autumn work, taking the last vegetables in
from the cold fields, canning, storing roots and apples
in the cellar under the kitchen. Then my grandfather
raked leaves against the house
as the final chore of autumn.
One November I drove up from college to see them.
We pulled big rakes, as we did when we hayed in summer,
pulling the leaves against the granite foundations
around the house, on every side of the house,
and then, to keep them in place, we cut spruce boughs
and laid them across the leaves,
green on red, until the house
was tucked up, ready for snow
that would freeze the leaves in tight, like a stiff skirt.
Then we puffed through the shed door,
taking off boots and overcoats, slapping our hands,
and sat in the kitchen, rocking, and drank
black coffee my grandmother made,
three of us sitting together, silent, in gray November.

If those three poems were all I knew of Donald Hall’s work, I would rank him among the greatest of American poets. But, sad to say, I found some of Hall’s other poetry, which diverged from agrarian themes, to be confusing, bizarre and, in the case of one poem, downright vulgar. Such poetry is not the kind I want to read again. Fact is, I wish I’d never read some of it in the first place. My opinion of Hall as a great poet was tempered significantly by those poems of his that, frankly speaking, stink.

That is, of course, just my opinion. Others will disagree. I’ll be the first to admit that I am a simple bumpkin when it comes to understanding much of what those in the know consider to be good or worthy poetry. But I know what I like when I see it.

If there is any redeeming value in Donald Hall’s “lesser poetry,” it is found in the contrast, and this is a main point I want to make here...

When Hall’s poetry (or anyone else’s poetry, for that matter) is rooted in agrarian themes of creation (the natural world), working the land, rural community, faith, fidelity, family, and tradition, I see light and beauty (even in the midst of overshadowing darkness)—and beauty is always endearing. But when Hall uproots his poetry from the agrarian wellspring, it withers on the vine; it is good only for the compost heap.

To my way of thinking, It is that contrast, that antithesis between beauty and the lack thereof, that separates good poetry from bad. I am attracted to the beauty. That is the poetry I want to read and know.

This distinction holds a clear lesson for us as individuals and as a culture. Modernism (the separation from agrarianism) in it’s many forms (poetry being but one example) is just not beautiful.

Is Your Bank In Trouble?

Numerous banks have "gone under" this year already. Many more are expected to in the days ahead. I recently read this blog article which states that about 200 banks in Illinios are in danger of failing.

That led me to wonder how you can find out what kind of financial shape a bank is in. Maybe it is common knowledge where on the internet you can go to find bank ratings. If so, would someone please point me in the right direction?

In the meantime, I found this web page at Bauer Financial. The page allows you to look up all the banks or credit unions in any state and check out their "star" ratings. The rating is from zero to five stars. Bauer recommends that people use only four and five star institutions, "because peace of mind matters."

It is amazing how many banks are rated less than four stars.

**********

On another note, Franklin Sanders had this to say in his most recent daily commentary:

[T]he US constitution has been officially junked & the economy openly transformed into a fascism for benefit of the banks & well-connected. Probably not the death of the system, but pretty much the end of y'all's economic hopes, if you remain inside that system. Whether the outcome is a hyperinflation or slow-burn, whether it arrives sooner or later, makes no difference. The Tapeworm is consuming its host. You either swallow the worm medicine, or die.

It's what John Milton called "Necessity, the tyrant's plea" when he put the words in Satan's mouth in Paradise Lost. 9/11 ended the personal rights under the constitution & bill of rights, the bailout will end economic rights. It has happened. Be a man, face it, stop living in your dream world.

The bright side is that events are confirming the death throes of the monster, even though he might thrash around for several more decades. It's time to get you & yours outside his usurious economy. Revive the local economies long ago gutted to feed the Tapeworm. First, secure your ongoing livelihood. If you don't have a business that produces or sells something people need, get one. If you have no business or farm, make yourself indispensable in your job.

Contact InformationFor Herrick Kimball

By: Herrick Kimball
Updated: 16 May 2015

Yours truly, with my grandson,
and some homegrown radishes.

My life revolves around my family, seasonal homestead work, and my home-based Planet Whizbang mail-order business. This way of life is an integrated, full-time pursuit. It leaves me little time for interacting with people outside of my family, and local community. Bearing that in mind, if you wish to contact me, please read the following information. 

E-Mail

The best way to contact me is by e-mail at Herrick@PlanetWhizbang.com 

If you have a question about a Planet Whizbang order you have placed, I will answer your e-mail immediatley. If you have a question about any of the products I sell, I will answer you promptly. 

Other e-mails will get answered as time permits. If your e-mail requires a lot of answers or in-depth thought, I may not be able to get back to you.

If you want to send me links to articles or products that you think I (or my blog readers) might enjoy knowing about, please do so.

Phone Calls

I discontinued my business phone years ago because I had it set up to take messages and did not have time to answer all the messages I got. I have put a LOT of information about the products I sell on the internet. I can answer brief questions by e-mail (see above), or I will direct you to an appropriate web page with information that will answer your question(s).

Media Requests

My blog and business writings are the only way I care to promote myself or be any better known that I already am. Therefore, I’m not interested in doing any public speaking,  audio interviews (Read This for more details), movies, and etc. I’m also not interested in having any in-depth magazine or newspaper stories done about me.

If you want to write about any of the products I make and sell, that's different. Send me an e-mail with any questions you have. I'll do my best to provide information, photos, or whatever else you may need. 

If you would like permission to use a photo, or quote from my books or blog, just go ahead. All I ask is that you give me credit where credit is due (not all the pictures I use are mine—ask me if need be), and provide web links to whatever web site(s) of mine that are appropriate. 

Visits

I do not sell Planet Whizbang products from my home. Please do not visit me. It is an inconvenience for me and my family to entertain visitors. I wish this was not the case, but it is—at least it is for now.

Thank you.

An Exemplary Farm

From the Dictionary
Exemplary: Serving as a pattern. Deserving imitation because of excellence. Commendable.

*****

Back in 1978, Marlene and I attended Alfred State college here in New York. I was in the building trades program. She was in landscape design. On our first day of school we saw a notice posted in the dorm about a weekly Bible study.

We made it a point to go and discovered that the Bible study was led by Robert Love, an older man who happened to be the school’s Dean of Allied Health. Dean Love took it upon himself to initiate and lead a Bible study for students every year. It was an informal, private, evening gathering at a comfortable lounge in one of the school’s buildings.

Very few students showed up for the Bible study and even fewer attended regularly through the year. There was, however, a core group of five or six of us. Those times of nondenominational, Christian fellowship were an important part of our State College experience. Indeed, they were a refreshing countercultural refuge in the midst of a dominant social culture dedicated to typical college bacchanalian revelry.

We found Dean Love to be a man of wisdom, sincerity, warmth and integrity. He was an encourager, and a friend. In short, he was a literal Godsend. And we loved him dearly.

One of the other students in our close little core group was a girl named Dotty, who was going to school to be a nurse. She became involved with a church and Christian coffeehouse there in the town of Alfred and that’s how she came to meet Jerry Snyder. Jerry was a local dairy farmer and had recently graduated from Alfred’s Ag Program.

A couple years out of college, Jerry & Dotty married, settled into Jerry’s family’s farmstead and started a family of their own. Over the years we lost touch with the Snyders, but they have always been special to us.

Well, I was recently browsing through the Northeast Organic Farming Association’s new York directory of farms. I saw a few other farms I am familiar with, including Scott Terry's. Then Marlene suggested that I look and see if maybe the Snyder’s farm was in there.

Lo and behold, there was Gerald & Dorothy Snyder and their Sunny Cove Farm in Alfred Station, New York. And they had a web site. I wasted no time in checking out their site and I discovered An Exemplary Farm.

To my way of thinking, an exemplary farm is a family farm, meaning it is operated by a whole family working together. Beyond that, the exemplary farm is small and diversified in its production, and it focuses on marketing its goods direct to the community around it. The exemplary farm would also employ sustainable farming practices.

I saw all of this in Sunny Cove Farm. Jerry & Dotty and their seven children produce organic raw milk, organic maple syrup, organic grassfed beef, and organic apples on their farm. It was exciting and inspiring to see what our old friends have done in the last 25 years.

I invite you to stop by their web site and see what I mean. Be sure to check out all the links at the top of their home page: Sunny Cove Farm

Also, for those of you who are diary farmers, you will want to read the Rodale Institute article about Jerry and his quest for the best quality raw milk. According to the article, Jerry started his grass based dairy back in 1978. I find that remarkable. I wasn’t aware that anyone was focusing on grass-based dairy farming back then. I think Jerry is one smart farmer!

Here are a couple excerpts from the Rodale article:

“I don’t dip teats” after milking, as is usually done with a disinfectant to prevent infection that can lead to mastitis. “Hot water and organic soap keeps the udder soft and supple, and that’s the best protection,” says Snyder.

“I don’t know much [about fixing sick cows], but I don’t have to know much because my cows are healthy – and I just want to keep it that way,” he says.

"Jerry Snyder, with his wife, Dorothy, say seeing milk leave the farm in jars and cars rather than a tanker truck has added more than dollars per hundredweight to the farm’s income. It’s put the family in relationship with customers who value them as providers of high-quality food."

*****
The Snyder family is just one of many exemplary small farms all across America. They are what professor John Ikerd calls the New American Farmers. I have written of this kind of farming in a previous essay titled: Broken Limbs & Grant Gibbs
*****

700 Billion Divided By 300 Million

[Dateline 24 September 2008]

I know everyone else in the country is talking about this latest bailout plan. I guess I’ll weigh in.

Hank Paulson & Ben Bernarke are saying they need 700 billion bucks in order to stave off a financial crisis. They want the money now, meaning by the end of this week. They want virtually no congressional oversight about how they spend the money.

My simple understanding is that they are going to buy bad debt from banks & lending institutions. In other words, they are going to bail out the bankers. The moneylenders of the nation are licking their chops over the prospect of this kind of money coming to them.

To the credit of some members of Congress, they are balking at this request. or, so it appears. But I think we all know that in the end they will give the 700 billion.

In the words of Patrick Henry, “I smell a rat.”

Hank & Ben are using fear to manipulate and get this unprecedented amount of money, not to mention concentrated power. Perhaps the fear is justified. Perhaps the economy will crash & burn if this quick fix is not implemented. I really don’t know. But my advice to congress is Just say NO.

And let the chips fall where they may.

What think you?

**********

By the way, 700 billion divided by 300 million people is $2,333.00 for every man, woman, & child in the country. If they are going to throw away that much money, why should the bankers get it all? Send me my "share." Is this insanity or what?

**********

P.S. Is your bank in trouble? Click Here to read my blog on this subject.

Vacuum Bottle (Thermos) Cooking: Cheap, Wholesome Meals

[Dateline 22 September 2008]

We all know that the cost of everything is going up, including food. As a result, lower income households are hurting and middle class households are experiencing financial concern, if not yet hardship. People are looking for ways to save money. In this blog essay I’m going to introduce you to a remarkably simple, almost unheard of method of cooking. And I’m, going to tell you how to utilize this idea to make a very wholesome meal for very little money. I present this idea as a brilliant solution to a serious problem.

I wish I had thought of this idea myself, but I didn’t. I learned about it several years ago on the internet from a man named Kurt Saxon. Mr. Saxon has a reputation as being something of an athiest-anarchist-survivalist. Personally I am not an atheist, nor an anarchist. And though I do have some survivalist tendencies, I’m not so highly focused on the subject that I would term myself a survivalist. Nevertheless, I learned this idea from Kurt Saxon and, like I said, I think it is brilliant.

In fact, this is such a practical idea that I use it often even though my financial situation is not hurting (yet). Now for some specifics....

This cooking method begins with a good quality vacuum bottle (a.k.a., Thermos). And the specific “recipe” I'm going to explain begins with whole grain oats, which are also known as oat groats. I’m going to tell you how to prepare a delectable bowl of oat groats with five minutes of effort on your part and very minimal energy input. This cooking idea can be applied to other foods, which I’ll mention later.

I have cooked whole grains in a Stanley vacuum bottle, the green metal kind that many construction workers use for their coffee. It has an unbreakable stainless steel liner. It is a fine vacuum bottle but it is not the best for cooking because it is not the best at holding heat.

I year or so back I bought myself a 1-liter Nissan vacuum bottle. Like the classic Stanley, the Nissan has an unbreakable stainless steel liner. But it has a much better form of insulation. I don’t know the specifics, but I know my Nissan holds in the heat far, far better than my Stanley.

I noticed a guy at my work one day who had a Nissan vacuum bottle and asked him how he liked it. He verified what I already knew. The Nissan is superior when it comes to holding heat. Here’s a link to the 1-liter bottle: Nissan Stainless Steel Vacuum Bottle

You can cook any whole grain in a Nissan vacuum bottle: oats, rice, wheat, lentils, and others can be cooked with this simple technique I’m going to tell you about. I even think it is possible to cook beans if they are first run through a grinder and cracked, but I have not tried cooking beans this way yet.

Oat groats are what I have cooked in my vacuum bottle the most. Among grains, I believe oats are the nutritional king. Do a little research on this subject and you will find oats (whole oats) are loaded with vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber. They are remarkably good for you. You can’t go wrong incorporating oats into your diet—especially oat groats. I always feel better if I start my day with some form of oats.

Oat groats are nothing more and nothing less than the whole oat kernel, including the bran. The more common rolled oats, on the other hand, are oak kernels that have been stripped of their outer bran covering, steamed, flattened with a roller, and dried. Instant oats are the same as rolled oats except they are rolled flatter and chopped in small pieces.

Cooked oatmeal from rolled or instant oats is a fine food, but cooked groats are nutritionally superior. The less you process a whole grain, the better it is for you. And better yet, a big bag of whole oat groats is comparatively cheap to buy. What’s more, if you store the whole kernels properly, they will keep just fine for years. Oatmeal will not keep as long.

The disadvantage to oat groats, and the reason many people have never eaten them in their whole oatmeal-eating life, is that they take so long to prepare. The usual instructions call for soaking the grain in water overnight, then bring them to boil in a pan of water before simmering for 45 minutes to an hour. Expending that kind of time and effort for a bowl of hot cereal is not something most people are willing to do. Besides that, think about all the energy consumed to cook that bowl of food!

Now this is where the vacuum bottle comes into play. You can prepare yourself (or your whole family) a bowl of oat groats in five minutes, at most. It’s true! Here’s how I do it in five easy steps:

Step 1: Heat water to boiling in a teakettle on the stove.

Step 2: While the water is heating, put oat groats in the vacuum bottle. 1/3 of a cup (level, not heaping) makes a good serving. If you have a big appetite, put 1/2 cup of the groats in the bottle. A funnel helps considerably with this task.

Step 3: Add a pinch or two of sea salt.

Step 4: When the water in the teakettle has come to a rolling boil, add three measuring cups (1/3 or 1/2, whichever you measured your grain with) of hot water to the vacuum bottle.

Step 5: Screw the lid on the vacuum bottle, swish the contents around a couple times, set the bottle aside, and let it be.

That’s it. You have just made a batch of cooked oat groats with minimum of time and fuss.

I make a batch of oat groats like I just explained before I go to bed at night (around 9:00). When I get up in the morning (around 5:30) the groats are cooked to perfection. I simply open the vacuum bottle, tip it upside down and shake the cooked groats into a bowl. Here’s a picture of the Nissan vacuum bottle and a bowl of groats:



Here’s a close-up of the groats:



With an exact 3 to 1 ratio of water to groats, the cereal is just the consistency I like. You might like it with a bit more water.

To the steaming hot dish of cooked grain I typically add some maple syrup and a little milk. Chopped apple and walnuts are real good with groats too. Anything you would add to oatmeal can be added to groats. It’s the same thing—just better.

Beyond Groats

Once you’ve made yourself a bowl of groats using this method, you can expand your vacuum bottle cooking exploits into other wholesome foods. Here’s a picture of wheat berries cooked the same as groats.





Cooked wheat berries can be eaten just like groats, with maple syrup and fruit (a pear is in the picture). or, you can let the cooked berries cool down and make a cold wheat berry salad. Do a Google search of “wheat berry salad” and you’ll get some recipes. I love wheat berry salad.

One winter I used my Nissan vacuum bottle to make different soups to take to work for my lunch. I added boiling water to barley, wild rice, dried kale from my garden, and some spices. If we had leftover chicken in the fridge, I added some of that. I made the soups before bed and they were just right at lunchtime the next day.

On Mr. Saxon’s web site (which I can no longer find) he gave a recipe for making rice pudding in the Thermos.

There are so many possibilities for inexpensive, convenient, wholesome, simple, vacuum-bottle-cooked meals that I think someone should come up with a whole recipe book centered around this idea. Believe me, I’ve considered it, and I might do it yet. But I have a feeling someone else out there is better geared for this idea.

Thermos cooking would be well-suited to campers, backpackers, retirees, frugal college students (are college students still frugal?), and anyone looking to eat well for less. All that is needed is dry ingredients and boiling water. You could have two vacuum bottles, each cooking a different meal.

The only drawback to vacuum bottle cookery is that the bottle can be hard to clean. It helps considerably to rinse the inside out immediately after emptying it of its contents. I see that Nissan makes a wide mouth bottle. That might be a better idea. I also noticed that they have a two quart (family size) bottle.

So, I ask you... is there an easier, more convenient, more economical method of cooking than this?

Morning Glories in September 2008

I just read that our government has come up with a plan to spend a whopping 700 billion dollars to try to save our economy. Desperate times require desperate measures. Nobody is saying much about the future ramifications of this kind of unprecedented intervention and deepening of national debt. "Solving" this crisis with this kind of spending may (or may not) delay immediate collapse, but it lays the groundwork for even greater problems in the future. I know this and I'm not that smart. So I suspect the government men know this too.

While the world financial markets have been going down the toilet, I have been painting the front of my house. That was one of my goals this year. I had also planned to build an outdoor earth oven but that will have to wait. Getting the front of the house painted is, I decided, more important. I bought the paint two years ago. The cedar shingles have weathered for over 20 years. So I had to wire-brush them before painting on the solid-color stain. Two coats. I'm about 3/4 done. Our place will look a little more respectable with two sides painted. Then I'll have two more to do.Maybe I'll get another side painted next year. Maybe not.

In any event, it turns out that September is a good month for Morning Glories. They are Marlene's favorite flower and she plants them around the house. Marlene's homemade soap company is called "Morning Glory Soapworks." The label on each bar bears this Bible verse: "And in the morning then shall ye see the glory of the Lord." (Exodus 16:7).

If we ever have a farm (or something akin to one) she wants to name it "Morning Glory Farm." I want to name it "Strong Arm Farm."

Here are some pictures I took of Marlene's Morning Glories as they look around our home this time of year. The entrance is on the side of our house—the one side that is completely sided and painted:







So I've been painting the house, and Marlene has been canning salsa, tomato sauce, and stewed tomatoes. She says she has canned over 175 quarts of various fruits and vegetables this year. That's more than usual. She still has applesauce and grape juice ahead of her.

While I was painting the front of our house, our neighboring farmer was cutting hay. Then he had my son James ted it. Here are a couple pictures of James tedding hay in the field across from our house. He's thoroughly enjoying himself.

Working Boys

Up here in the northeastern part of the country, a sense of urgency begins to set in when the nights turn cool. It is time to step up the winter preparations.

I purchased firewood from my bachelor diary farmer neighbor again this year, just as I have done for so many previous years. I usually get ten face cords but decided to get fifteen this year. He delivered the split, seasoned hardwood to our side yard for $45 a cord. That $675 worth of wood will heat our house all winter, heat my work shop as needed, provide fuel for backyard maple sugaring next spring, and leave a few cords extra for the next year.

A neighbor of ours recently told Marlene that they spent $5,000 for propane to heat their house last winter. It is a big old house. I like big old houses. But I wouldn’t want a heating bill like that. Small houses have their advantages.

The only thing better than getting wood from my neighbor would be getting it ourselves. Cutting and bringing in a year’s supply of firewood can be a great family project, if you have the woodland. When I was a teenager, my stepfather and I worked together to cut firewood in our woods and get it hauled back to the house. We had an old Farmall F20 tractor and a wagon. The tractor started with a hand crank in the front. Cutting the wood was a lot of work. But it was good work. We split it all by hand with a maul. The harder-to-split chunks called for a sledge hammer and splitting wedge. We never used a hydraulic splitter.

We have friends who have woods and two teenage sons. They had their wood lot logged two years ago and have been working together as a family to cut the tops left by the loggers. They use the wood to heat their home and are selling the rest. I would love to be able to do that with my boys.

But we still manage to get some firewood work in. The wood we buy is split but many of the chunks are too big for our wood stove. So we re-split much of it. In previous years we have rented a log splitter and worked together over a weekend to re-split and stack the wood. Then my 17-year-old son, Robert, wanted to do the job himself, by hand, with a maul, and I paid him what it would have cost for renting a hydraulic splitter. He did that for two years. Last year my 13-year-old, James, took over the job of resplitting the wood. And he is again doing it this year.

I’m of the mind that every healthy boy needs physical work to do. They have a lot of energy and a physical challenge suits them. Splitting firewood is ideal work for a teenager. And it’s not “make-work.” It’s necessary work. It’s important work.

Another beneficial job for boys is helping with hay. I’ve written of this numerous times in the past, and here I go again....

One day last month I came home from work and Marlene told me that James was helping a neighboring farmer with his hay. A short while later he rode into the driveway on his bike. He was seriously filthy. Green hay chaff was plastered to his arms, neck and forehead. he was home only for a few minutes to refill his water jug. It was an exceptionally hot day. He was tired and grumpy. We didn’t have much of a conversation. He had to get back to work.

A couple days later James told me he had been working that day on the hay wagon, which was being towed behind the baler, which was being pulled through the field by the farmer on his tractor. Typically, when there are a lot of people helping to get the hay in, the farmer kicks the bales into the wagon with its tall sides, and they end up in a jumble. Then the wagon is unhitched, an empty is hooked up behind the baler, and the full wagon is taken back to the barn where several helpers help to unload it into the barn.

But on that day, James was the only helper. So he stood in the wagon as it was being towed behind the baler. He grabbed each bale as it was kicked into the wagon. He packed the bales tightly, layer after layer until the wagon was full.

It is something of a trick to ride a jouncing wagon and pack it full as the bales come flying back at you. It’s also hard work, especially when you are the only one doing the work and it is very hot. James packed two wagons tight and high on that day.

What pleases me most about this story is that James told me he was so hot he felt sick. He thought he was going to throw up and pass out. Those are two symptoms of heat exhaustion. But the bales kept coming. There was no stopping. The farmer needed him, and he stuck with it. That kind of work is for men, and he did the work like a man. I’m quite certain I could not have done that at 13 years old.

Robert has done less farm work this year because he has been working 40+ hours a week since early spring for a local building contractor. It has been a learning experience for him. It has not been without discouragements, but he has stuck with the job, and his employer told me he was pleased with Robert’s effort. That is what a father likes to hear.

Now, with summer over, it’s time for these working boys to refocus their energies into school work. James can continue to split firewood while homeschooling, but Robert will stop the carpentry work in October. His goal is to get his high school diploma (as a homeschooler) by next spring. Getting his own car (which he has saved the money to buy) is contingent on getting that diploma.

The car is the “carrot on a stick.” Boys need work and they need a tangible goal to work towards.

Our 2008 Chicken Harvest

We butchered this year's crop of 51 Cornish-X chickens last weekend. I set up the equipment in our backyard in the morning and we started "processing" right after lunch.

My son James gathered the birds, hung them upside down, cut their necks so they bled out, then scalded and plucked them, two at a time, before handing them off to me. He's an old pro at 13 years old. I eviscerated every bird and cleaned them up before depositing each one in a big cooler of cold spring water. Marlene took care of bagging the birds for the freezer. My 16-year-old son, Robert, stayed busy in different capacities helping as needed. It was a team effort and an excellent example of the "family economy" in action.

We finished up the final chicken just before 8:00. James rigged up a light so I could see to process the last few.

That translates into one butchered-and-packaged critter about every ten minutes. But we were not trying to break any records. We just plodded along, and took our share of little breaks.

The next morning Marlene finished canning 18 quarts of good chicken stock while the boys and I cleaned up our processing area and put the equipment away.

So, after nine weeks of raising chickens in the front yard, and a day of processing, we once again have enough chickens in the freezer for another year. It's a good feeling to have that job done!

Ten years ago, when we raised and processed meat birds for the first time, it was new and difficult, and more than a little offensive. But with the proper equipment and some experience, we've discovered that butchering your own chickens can be as simple as picking strawberries and making jam. Well, almost.

I no longer mind the act of harvesting chickens. In fact, I look at every chicken as an opportunity to become better skilled and more proficient at the task of butchering. Such work is, ultimately, a rural craft that I take satisfaction in doing. I have come a long way to make a statement like that.

If you would like to see a photo essay of how we backyard-process our chicken crop each year, check out this link: Backyard Poultry Processing With My 11-Year-Old Son

The pictures at that essay show my homemade Whizbang Chicken Plucker, and my homemade Whizbang Chicken Scalder. I could certainly process chickens without these devices, but it would not be nearly as fast, easy, and efficient (not to mention FUN) to do.

If you have never eviscerated a chicken, I have posted a step-by-step, detailed, how-to photo essay on the subject at this link: How to Butcher a Chicken. That link will also take you to information about how Marlene makes and cans chicken stock.

My point in relating all of this is that if I and my family can learn to raise and butcher our own meat birds, so can you. Once you've gotten through the learning curve, and have some good tools to help you, it's not difficult to do and, like I said, it's a good feeling to be stocked up for the year.

You can find all my poultry-related essays at this link: Raising & Processing Poultry

Creeps!

Dateline: 16 September 2008

Brains Benton and Jimmy Carson

From An Old Dictionary

The Creeps: 
a feeling of fear or repugnance.

Repugnance: 
extreme dislike or distaste; strong aversion

*****

Every so often there is a news report about some poor schmuck who was on some railroad track and got hit by a train. The train ran right into the guy. And that was the end of him.

I always wondered how such a thing could happen. I figured the person must have been drunk or determined to commit suicide. But now I realize a person can be in their right mind and just not see the train coming—believe it or not. That was how it happened with me. Or, I should say, that’s how it almost happened.

I walk over train tracks every day when I go to work. The tracks run between the parking lot and the entrance to my work. I work in a maximum security prison (it’s the kind of place that can give a person the creeps). I have seen the train and had to wait for it many times in the last eight years. But last week was different.

I got out of work late that day. The usual crowd of employees (which usually includes me) had already left. I was alone, walking to my car, intent on getting out of town, away from the asphalt and concrete and convicted felons, back to the sanity of my family and the refuge of our home on a green hillside, surrounded by fields and woods. As I was stepping over the train tracks, I caught sight of a bright light off to my left, and turned my head.

The bright light was the headlight of a train engine. It was bearing down on me and only about 25 feet away. I hustled across those tracks fast and turned around to watch the train go by. It was only an engine and a caboose. I never heard a whistle. I never saw it coming. It didn’t try to slow down for me. Now, a week later, the thought of that incident gives me the creeps.

Speaking of the creeps, I went to WalMart yesterday. I rarely go to WalMart. But Marlene and I were in town (I took her to lunch for her birthday) and I needed a few things.

When I got inside the store, I forgot what I thought I needed. All I could think is that “Nobody needs all the crap they’re selling in this place!” I ended up getting a toothbrush and heading for the checkout line.

I hate to use the tired old analogy of “another planet” but, really, I felt like I was in an alien civilization. Everybody looked strange to me. It seemed surreal. Maybe it was the artificial lighting. Maybe it was the shock of so much mass marketing. Maybe it was all the needless crap. Whatever it was, I felt like I was on “another planet.” The planet Circus. It was a dehumanizing place. I didn’t feel like I should be there. I wanted to go home.

“Must.... get.....out....now.... Scotty. Scotty! Beam us up!”

So there I was, waiting in the WalMart checkout line, toothbrush in hand, looking at the magazines. Who are all those people? Why should I care about Brad Pitt. The John McCain family was pictured on the cover of People magazine. They looked like aliens too.

And then I realized something I never realized before...... they changed the gum.

What happened to the packages of gum with the flat sticks like I have known all my life? It wasn’t there. There was alien modern gum packaging. Why can’t they leave well enough alone?

So then it came to me that I’ll bet people are selling old fashioned stick gum on Ebay.

When I got home my kids asurred me that I could still buy gum in stick form. But I checked it out on Ebay anyway.

Yep. You can buy “vintage” gum on Ebay. I saw a three-pack of unopened Chicklets from the 1960’s sell for more than $15. A “wax lips” Halloween whistle from the 1970’s (in the original wrapper) was selling for over $90. I remember buying one of those things when I was a kid. I ended up eating it. That was the whole idea behind it. You blow the whistle for awhile and then you eat it. They probably cost a dime.

If you act fast, you can go to Ebay right now and bid on a single stick of Wrigley’s Doublemint chewing gum, circa 1930 (with some minor staining of the wrapper). The bidding is up to $5 (plus $3.50 for shipping) and there are two days of bidding left. Or how about this: four pieces of Banana Splits (1970s) chewing gum with tattoo transfers. That’s currently going for $11.72.

Yesterday the fourth largest investment firm in the world filed for bankruptcy. The largest insurance company in the world was on the brink of folding. The stock market was taking a dive. And people were paying big bucks for vintage gum on Ebay. Do they know something we don’t know? It begs the question... Will vintage gum be the next big investment bubble?

All of which (somehow) leads me to the favorite books of my youth. Long before WalMart wiped out the diversity of little hometown department stores with creaky wooden floors and smiling neighbors. Back then I read Hardy Boys mysteries. But better than the Hardy Boys was Brains Benton mysteries. I loved those Brains Benton mysteries! Only six were written and oh how I yearned for more.

Barclay “Brains” Benton and his sidekick Jimmy Carson were jr. high school buddies in the little town of Crestwood. They were an Americanized boy-version of Sherlock Holmes and Watson. They had some great adventures.

My favorite story was “The Case of The Counterfeit Coin,” which begins in Chapter 1 (The Crawling Hand) like this:

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that bottle of soda pop. Not as long as I live.

That’s how the whole thing started—with a drink of ice-cold cherry soda. But before it was over—brother!—I was up to here in a genuine Grade-A detective mystery, complete with guns, knives, screams in the night and a bumper crop of goose pimples.

That’s Jimmy Carson doing the narrating. Jimmy’s favorite expression (which he usually thought, rather than spoke) was, “Creeps!” Chapter 5 of the same book quoted above ends with this situation:

Looming over us was a scowling, unshaven face with two beady eyes—a man with the bald head, scrawny neck and huge nose-beak of a vulture!

And in his hand he held a hammer!

Creeps!

Now what kid could put a book like that down without seeing what happens next? Yeah, I really liked those books. When I think of that expression, “the creeps,” I always think of Jimmy Carson.

And when I look around me at the world as it has become, with it’s strange modern situations and circumstances, with dangers looming, and the hammer about to come down, and I realize it's not some innocent fiction mystery book, I think like Jimmy...."Creeps!"