Big News!Allan C. Carlson Has WrittenAnother Agrarian Book

Dateline: 16 January 2014

Every so often I do a Google search to see if there are any new Allan C. Carlson articles,  interviews, or speeches. If you are a Christian agrarian, or interested in Christian agrarianism, and you aren't familiar with Mr. Carlson, you need to get reading. I have blogged about him Here and Here. That will get you started. 

I consider Allan Carlson to be one of the foremost Christian-agrarian advocates (though he probably doesn't think of himself in that term). And I am thrilled to see the newest book he has written.

There are not many books I will pre-order and pay a premium for, but this book is one of them. Here the book's description from it's page at Amazon.com…

Allan C. Carlson argues that agrarianism is alive and well in twenty-first-century America. He emphasizes the evident bond between the healthy, natural family and an agrarian-like household, where the sexual and the economic merge through marriage and child-bearing and where the family is defined in considerable measure by its material efforts. 

Carlson notes that natural households see parents as the educators of their young; they celebrate homes engaged in the care of young, aged, and infirm family members. Such a worldview points to the recreation of a family-centered economy and portends a renewal of the true democracy dreamed of by Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. 

This book has four parts. In the first, "The Natural Family at Home," Carlson provides an overview of this type of household as it existed in the past. The second part examines twentieth-century "displacements" from this normative order, examining the effects of capitalism, gender ideology, and war. Representative "dissents" from this transformation find expression in the third part. The voices identified here vary in discipline: some write in the language of literature and poetry; others use the constructs of economics. In the fourth and final part, Carlson describes "movements home": the rebirth of family-centered habitation; the reassertion of a "gendered" order; and the remarkable return of family-scale agriculture. Written by one of the most prestigious and respected scholars in the area, The Natural Family Where It Belongs will influence how today’s family life is viewed in America and abroad. This volume is the latest in Transaction’s Marriage and Family Studies series.

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On a related note, I was rereading my August 2010 Blogazine Post (also linked above) and saw that I had written an article titled, Focus On The Family Economy. I ended by saying…

I find it interesting that there are Christian organizations dedicated to preserving families, yet they miss the agrarian/home-economy connection. Can you imagine the well-known parachurch ministry Focus on the Family encouraging families to separate from industrial-world conformity; to return to the land, to grow their own food, to pursue domestic crafts and domestic production—in short to develop agrarian-based family economies? 

That’s not likely to happen.

But, maybe, someday, someone will catch the vision for a new ministry to families, and they will name it Focus on the Family Economy. Such a ministry would encourage families to develop self-reliant, agrarian-based economies where everyone—fathers, mothers, children, and even extended family members—deliberately pursue the wisdom of God’s order for the family.

Well, it turns out here is a Christian ministry that focuses on the family economy!  It's called Generations With Vision. And in March of this year, in Denver, Colorado, they will have a Family Economics Conference. Guess who one of the speakers is?  Allan C. Carlson!

I am delighted to see Generations With Vision teaming up with Allan Carlson and advancing the vision of Christian agrarianism. 

This is very good news.

Eric SloaneSelections#6

Dateline: 15 January 2014

Drawing by Eric Sloane

It takes a thousand men to get a load of fuel oil from the raw material to your furnace and probably as many to deliver a load of coal. It takes only one man, however, to make a pile of cordwood. Unlike a mess of oil or a heap of coal, a stack of wood is a living and gladdening thing to behold. It has long been the symbol of the double benefits of farm life, warming you twice—once when you cut it, another when you burn it. Actually, there is a third warming which is hard to define; and old almanac sys, "City homes are warmed by coal, but country hearths do warm the soul."

—Eric Sloane, 
From the book, American Yesterday (1956)

Eric SloaneSelections#5

Dateline: 13 January 2014

Painting by Eric Sloane

The early American had magnificent spirit and profound purpose. He created his homestead for future generations with sincere preparation for them to be independent people. He lived in an agrarian age of self-dependence and barter; money had not yet become the foundation of our national economy. Every American's trust was in God. The American knew his reason for being and he had that rare awareness of his past, his present and his future. All this seemed a gospel worthy of any painter's labor and this is what I have been trying to preach in oils all these years.

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God creates and man strives to re-create. My joy in writing or painting is experienced when I have re-created and brought to life some past consciousness, some profound instant, or some stirring sight that once aroused my emotion.

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Art is the reflection of its time and so modern art happens to be a true mirror of modern times. On the walls of any "modern museum" you will see all the variations of escape from the conglomeration and mad uncertainty known as today. You will sense the hostility toward tradition and the absence of purpose that prevails in today's life.

—Eric Sloane, 
From the book,  Legacy  (1979)

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Eric Sloane was a prolific artist. According to Forrest Fenn, who sold Sloane's paintings in his art gallery in Taos, New Mexico…

"[Eric Sloane] could produce a major painting in a few hours, go to lunch with me and to dinner that night with his wife. People don't believe me when I say that, but it's true. One time we had twelve of his paintings in my office waiting for them to dry so we could put them in the bins."

Mr. Fenn writes that back in the 1980's he sold Eric Sloane's oil-on-Masonite paintings for $17 a square inch. A 21" x 43" painting would sell for $15,000, and Sloane would get $10,000 of that. Fenn says his gallery sold 170 Sloane paintings in the three years between 1982 and 1984. Do the math. Then add in the paintings Sloane was selling  at the Hammer Gallery in New York City, and the profits from his many books. He was not only talented, he was a hard working, and very successful entrepreneur.

Eric Sloane died in 1985. Twenty-two years after his death, his paintings were selling for $81 a square inch.

This information is derived from This Online Excerpt of Forrest Fen's book, Seventeen Dollars A Square Inch.

You Can Make & SellWhizbang Garden Totes

Dateline: 13 January 2014

A Planet Whizbang wood-and-wire garden tote.

Hi Herrick!

I bought your gardener's book last spring and read it cover-to-cover the day I received it. However, I didn't have much opportunity to do anything with the information I learned because 2013 was nuts. Then, in a flash of what I oh-so-modestly call GENIUS, I got the idea to make my good friend a couple of garden totes for Christmas (she is one of those people who has everything and/or knows how to do everything, rendering her impossible to spoil at Christmas or birthdays). And while I was at it, I made a couple for me (if you're going to make 2, you might as well make 4, right?) so that when I'm working in her organic garden next summer, we will each have tools.

So I got together with her husband one afternoon last month in his workshop and we blitzed to get them together. Final verdict (and I don't think I can state this strongly enough):

I LOVE THESE THINGS. The guy at the hardware store who helped me loves these things. My friend's husband loves these things. My own husband loves these things. My friend loves these things (she said: "Oh, those are too nice to be used in the garden").

So yeah, they're awesome.

Which brings me to my question/request: I am newly self-employed (that sounds SO MUCH BETTER than "unemployed", doesn't it?) and I was thinking of making some of these to sell at our tiny farmer's market next summer. Would that be okay?

The above letter was sent to me by a woman in Canada. My reply:

Thanks for the great feedback on the Whizbang garden totes. I would love to see you make and sell the totes. Go for it! 

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Are you looking for an idea to make some extra money? If so, consider making and selling some of these totes. They're simple, attractive, durable, inexpensive to make, and can be put to a lot of different uses. 

I've long thought they would sell well at farm markets. If you sell produce, you can also display your wares in the totes, and that would make them even more appealing .

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Complete specifications for making the totes can be found in The Planet Whizbang Idea Book For Gardeners. If you want to purchase just the tote plans, they are available as an inexpensive ($1.50) pdf download At This Link. Here are some more pictures of the tote (click the pictures to see larger views)….

Eric SloaneSelections#4

Dateline: 12 January 2014

Reaping hooks, as drawn by Eric Sloane.

I have long admired the simple beautiful curve of the early American reaping hook. It is so delicate and precise that I find it nearly impossible to duplicate in a painting, so on several occasions I traced it from an original implement. Yet, to my amazement, all ancient hooks, though hand-forged by different early American farmers from Maine to the southlands, have the same exact, unique curve. This was a case of traditional acceptance, willingness to confess satisfaction, and man's decision to stay with perfection. Such a simple farm tool, in my belief, could be exhibited as fine American art with more meaning and reason for being in an American museum than most of the things you might see there.

—Eric Sloane,
From the book,  Legacy  (1979)

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Three classic old reaping hooks that I studied at length, and seriously considered buying, as reported last summer in my blog essay titled,  Agrarian Finds at the Bouckville Antique Extravaganza. The sweep of those blades is truly beautiful. (click to see a larger view) 

Legalizing Marijuana

Dateline: 11 January 2014

Last Thursday’s edition of the  Generations With Vision radio program was titled Legalization of Pot in Colorado. The first half of the show (15 minutes) wasn’t about pot. It was a realistic and sobering look at the evolving American police state, which appears to be setting the stage for increasing tyranny. 

Evidently, the FBI’s mission statement has recently changed from law enforcement to “national security.”  To which Kevin Swanson asks, “Does this mean the FBI has turned into the KGB?” And co-host Dave Buehner warns that "there is an evil tide coming upon us.”

As I’ve stated in the past, I appreciate Kevin and Dave and their biblically-based cultural analysis. Just this last week, they discussed everything from Katy Perry’s announcement that she isn’t a Christian, to the recent Mennonite church ordination of a lesbian woman pastor. In between that they talked about (in their own unique way)  feminism, patriarchy, the Girl Scouts, abortion, the increase in pre-teen sexting, modesty, contemporary  christian music, and so on.

Their program about of the legalization of pot in Colorado brought to mind my own experiences with marijuana... 

I graduated from high school in 1976. Pot-smoking was certainly prevalent in America back then, but it wasn’t any big deal in my small rural high school at that time. I suspected that a minority of hippie-like kids in the school smoked pot, but none of my friends were pot smokers. If they were, I don’t think they would have been my friends. 

I was a Christian in high school. My faith was important to me. I took Matthew 7:13 very seriously where it says:

 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it."

I understood that intoxication with mind-altering substances was something that Christians didn't do. With the narrow gate in mind, I had "purposed in my heart" (much like Daniel in Daniel 1:8) not to take drugs or alcohol.  I had predetermined that it was something I wasn’t going to do. 

I also had the viewpoint back then that people who smoked pot were losers. As a friend of mine recently remarked, “You can’t fly with the eagles if you run with the turkeys.” Well, I guess that was how I felt. I'm sure there was a measure of pride mixed in with my spiritual convictions, but my ethics as a teenager were, in retrospect, surprisingly solid.

After high school I went to the Sterling School in Vermont for a year. It was a small program with only around 75 kids. My roommate was a guy named Dave from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Dave and I got to know each other that first day of school by taking a long walk and talking about ourselves. 

One of the first things Dave asked me was if I smoked pot. I told him no. He wondered if I had ever tried it. I said no. He wondered if I wanted to try it. I said no. Dave told me his mother had smoked pot with him and his friends back in Ann Arbor. That shocked me.

Dave informed me on that first day that he had recently given up smoking pot. I was glad to hear it. Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before Dave was smoking pot in our room. When I expressed some disappointment at that, and said I thought he had quit, he got downright surly. He told me that I’d be smoking pot with him by the end of the year. 

I came to realize that several other kids at the school were pot smokers too, and Dave was supplying them. When I asked him where he got the stuff he frankly revealed to me that it came through the mail in “care packages” from a friend back in Ann Arbor. Upon further questioning, Dave told me his friend was a rich older gay man. 

That really shocked me, and it confused me too, because Dave was popular with girls. “So, are you gay?” I asked. He told me he was bisexual. I told him that was disgusting, He laughed.

A few months into the school year, Dave yelled out to another guy in the dormitory that he had gotten a new shipment of pot in the mail. The director of the school overheard him, and Dave was promptly expelled. 

I walked into our dorm room to find Dave packing up all his stuff. I asked what he was doing and he told me the story. He was crying. Despite our differences, I liked Dave, and I felt kind of bad that he was leaving. But I didn’t cry.

Two years later, I was attending the building trades program at Alfred State College in New York. There were a whole lot more students there, and a lot of wild parties. I managed to live within that culture, and be friendly with everyone, without being a part of the bacchanalian revelry. I was also, by then, less prone to being surprised by the immoral behavior of so many people. But one friend from my building trades class unwittingly shocked me one day...

Mark was a quintessential American boy. Close-cut hair. Nice smile. Handsome. Great personality. He told me he had won the national soapbox derby in Akron Ohio when he was younger. I was impressed. We got along well in building trades class. 

When Mark told me he smoked pot, I was a little surprised, but he was more surprised to learn that I didn’t. Then he said something that I’ve never forgotten… 

“You gotta stop by my dorm room sometime and see my bong.” 

I had never heard of a bong. I said, “Your what!?”

“My bong, man. I've got the biggest bong on campus. It’s almost five feet high. You gotta check it out!”

Well, I never did check out that bong.

My only other memorable experience with marijuana was also at Alfred State. I had a car of  my own by then and was driving a bunch of friends back to the main campus from a job site where we had been working. Three guys in the back seat and one in the front with me. The trip was maybe ten miles. Half way into it I smelled pot, looked in the rearview mirror, and saw they were lighting up a joint. 

I’m an easy-going guy. It takes a lot to upset me. But that upset me. And they knew it real quick. I don’t recall what I said, but I was saying it loud and fast and I’m sure my face was red. I pulled over and told the three of them to get out. They got rid of the joint and were real apologetic. I drove them back to school but it was a quiet ride the rest of the way.

As you can see, I’ve pretty much always been a square. I realize now that it was the grace of God that gave me the inner resolve to “purpose in my heart” that I would not do a lot of foolish and self-destructive things that so many young people do, like smoke pot.

Now, after having told you all of that, you might be surprised to know that I really don’t have any big objection to the legalization of marijuana. Maybe I should, but I don’t.

Obviously, there is a whole counterculture that is addicted to pot. Their lives revolve around pot. It owns them. There is a bad spiritual dimension to smoking pot. And it is obviously (unless you are hooked) not a healthy thing to do.

What might not be obvious is the political aspect of this. Anyone who has read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World may see similarities between pot and “soma.” Here is a description of soma from the Brave New World Wikipedia entry...

Beyond providing social engagement and distraction in the material realm of work or play, the need for transcendence, solitude and spiritual communion is addressed with the ubiquitous availability and universally endorsed consumption of the drug soma. In the book, soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free "holidays". It was developed by the World State to provide these inner-directed personal experiences within a socially managed context of State-run "religious" social clubs. The inculcated affinity for the State-[sanctioned] drug, as a self-medicating comfort mechanism in the face of stress or discomfort, thereby eliminates the need for religion or other personal allegiances outside or beyond the World State. 

Pretty wild, eh? 

In the final analysis, I see the widespread move to legalize pot as just another indication that America is in spiritual decline. 

Nevertheless, like I said, I have no big objections to legalizing pot (it appeals to my libertarian inclinations).  I’m not going to vote for legalization (if I ever get a chance to vote on it here in New York), but I’m also not going to expend a lot of energy working against it. It’s just not that big of a deal in my mind because there are so many other matters that strike me as more important. There are “bigger fish to fry” as the American empire collapses.

By the way, Kevin Swanson, seems to think pretty much the same way. Check out the radio program at: Legalization of Pot in California.

Eric SloaneSelections #3

Dateline: 10 January 2014

Painting by Eric Sloane
(click to see enlarged view)

When America was young, there were lofty creeds and absolute trust in God, but our pace has been fast. We have become spiritually tired and we are now experiencing spiritual exhaustion. Our responsibility to God is regarded as obsolete while the need to worship man and material wealth becomes overwhelming. 

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Rebirth starts with redeclaration, so in praying for a renaissance of the American creed, it seems appropriate to redeclare the original American convictions. Here are those beliefs:

I believe that the moral strength of the nation is exactly as strong as the moral strength of its individuals.

I believe that “In God We Trust” was a profound statement of national commitment and, therefore, democracy without that commitment to God is a departure from the original American concept. Early American patriots were also Christian patriots.

I believe that the same principles that rule the conscience and the economy of the individual also govern the conscience and the economy of the government: I therefore believe that waste in any form is intolerable, and just as no family can long spend more than it earns, neither can a government do so. As frugality is part of family economy, so must it be important to national revenue. The practice of thrift is insurance against greed. Greed has no part whatsoever in the original American philosophy and all evidence of greed now should be abhorred.

I believe that self-dependence produces self-respect. Helping a man to be self-dependent is an admirable pursuit, but helping a man while taking away his initiative and independence is degrading. Permanently doing for a man what he can do for himself is completely contrary and destructive to the original American tradition.

I believe the dignity of work and the foremost pursuit of excellence should be the primary challenge of labor instead of its present constant goal of more pay for fewer hours. That principle is not only decadent to workmanship and demoralizing to the worker but within time becomes logically and financially impossible.

—Eric Sloane,
From the book,  Legacy  (1979)

Eric SloaneSelections #2

Dateline: 9 January 2014

Painting by Eric Sloane
(click for larger view)

Once upon a time, believe it or not, America was frugal. While most nations of the world were setting sail in search of treasure and plundering foreign lands for gold, the New World countryside was developing a philosophical religion of not wasting and being satisfied with what God affords those who work for it. Being content with no more than was needed became an early American trait, almost a national creed. One ancient farm almanac said it in rhyme: “The devil damns the man who lives by greed, Jehovah loves the man who only fills his need.”

Without greed, the early American and his farmstead were a noble monument to thrift. It might not have appeared so to the average European because there was such evidence of wealth here; there were enormous well-stocked barns, some even larger than the European tithe-barns owned by the church and the lords who collected taxes in hay or grain. Simple outbuildings were built with massive beams to last for centuries and farm dwellings were overflowing with all the necessities of life. But there was nothing unnecessary, nothing not worth saving and not a thing was wasted. Every chair, each table and rug, every dish and each tiny household item was carefully chosen, well designed and made by hand to be saved for future generations. How unlike our life today!

Waste, which was once-upon-a-time deplorable, has now become almost fashionable as a national habit. We often waste more in one month than the average old-timer saved during his lifetime. Waste was once considered bad manners, the mark of a fool and something quite un-American. Some of us have been fooled into the theory that the more we waste, the more we need to buy and so waste therefore aids the national economy—a sort of economic pursuit.” 

Would you believe it, once-upon-a-time there was no such thing as garbage as we now know it: old dictionaries listed the word garbage as “the entrails of animals.” At the same time there was no such thing as junk as we now know it for old dictionaries listed the word junk as “adds and ends of rope.” George Washington would find it hard to believe that “the entrails of animals” would some day become varied waste matter costing the nation two thousand times more annually than what it cost him to run the whole country.”

—Eric Sloane
From the book, Once Upon a Time: The Way America Was (1982)

Announcing…The Planet Whizbang2014 Tomato Grow-Up

Dateline: 8 January 2014

Trellised tomatoes in my 2013 garden.
(click picture for larger view)

It is a bitterly cold January here in upstate New York, and much of the rest of North America is colder than usual. So what better time to think about next year's garden! 

It is with warm weather and gardening in mind that I'm announcing  the First Annual Planet Whizbang Tomato Grow-Up (click the link). It's a contest (of sorts) and everyone who enters will be a winner.

2014 is the year you will enjoy the best crop of eating tomatoes you have ever grown. I'll show you how to make a deluxe tomato grow-up trellis (that will last you for years) and you can get a tomato grow-up seed kit from Planet Whizbang for only $2.75.

This is the 2014 Tomato Grow-Up seed kit,
available at www.TomatoGrowUp.com

The Tomato Grow-Up is an online community gardening project. I'm hoping a lot of you will be inspired to participate and share your experiences.

Check out the 2014 Tomato Grow-Up web site at the link above.

Think spring. Think summer. Think tomatoes!

P.S. Please tell your gardening friends on Facebook and online discussion groups about this Tomato Grow-Up. Thanks.

The Definition of"Agrarian" and "Agrarianism"

Dateline: 4 January 2014

When I started this blog back in 2005 I listed one of my Blogger profile interests as "agrarianism" and looked for other bloggers with the same interest. I think there were 2 or 3. Now there are 89. That is an indication that more people are becoming aware of the agrarian worldview.

Another indication of this would be the e-mail I received from a writer who contacted me last November. He wanted to interview me for an article on agrarianism that he was pitching to a mainstream magazine. 

I politely declined the interview (I decline all interview requests). I told him I don't consider myself a leader in the "agrarian movement," and I don't want to be. I explained that this blog is the only media outlet I care to participate in.

He was okay with that but wondered why I felt so strongly about not being a leader in the agrarian movement. My exact reply…

"I see agrarianism and the agrarian movement as a bottom-up, decentralized, non-political phenomenon. No leader is needed."

Nevertheless, I do think somebody should step up to the plate and clearly define the words, "agrarian" and "agrarianism," and I feel compelled to do it.

Yes, those words are already defined in the dictionary. But it so happens that some words take on new meanings with the passage of time, and that has certainly been the case with "agrarian" and "agrarianism."

As an adjective, "agrarian" refers to the land; to a rural or agricultural context. That dictionary definition remains unchanged.

When it comes to "agrarian" as a noun, that's where all the dictionary definitions I've seen fall short. They define an agrarian as a person who advocates a redistribution of landed property, or a person who advocates more widespread ownership of productive land. That definition may be historically accurate, but it is inadequate for the current neo-agrarian impulse manifesting itself in the thoughts and lives of more and more people.

While the widespread ownership of productive land (as opposed to such land being owned by a privileged few) is, indeed, part of the agrarian ideal, it is now one small part of a much larger whole.

That said, I now propose that "agrarian," as a noun, be newly and more-properly defined as follows:

Agrarian (noun): A person who is ideologically and personally opposed to the exploitive, destructive and enslaving aspects of industrialism."

To be ideologically opposed means to see and understand. To be personally opposed means to take personal action based on what you see and understand.

The suffix of "ism" attached to a word typically denotes a system of belief or an attitude. Thus, "agrarianism" is the belief or attitude of agrarians.

More simply put, agrarianism is the antithesis (exact opposite) of industrialism. 

Personally, I like to think of agrarianism as the active pursuit of an agrarian (adjective) lifestyle, based on one's agrarian (noun) beliefs.

Agrarianism, per se, is not (or, in my opinion, should not be construed as) a religion. It is, however, an ideology that is motivated by concepts of right and wrong, which are ethical determinations, and are therefore based on religious beliefs.  Everyone who has opinions about right and wrong (and that is everyone) is expressing a religious belief, regardless of the organized religion they ascribe to, and even if they do not ascribe to any organized religion. 

So there are Christian-agrarians (like myself), Jewish-agrarians, pagan-agrarians, atheist-agrarians, agnostic agrarians, and so on.

As a Christian, I see industrialism as a worldly, Babylonian-like system that is continually centralizing and organizing for ever-greater efficiency, control, profit and power. I see industrialism as the destroyer of close-knit, interdependent families and family economies, as well as small, interdependent communities. I see agrarianism as a type of cultural repentance (turning away), and I believe that agrarianism meshes perfectly with my biblical worldview.   

So, there you have it….

Agrarian (noun): A person who is ideologically and personally opposed to the exploitive, destructive and enslaving aspects of industrialism.

Go now, and update your dictionary. Or, if you have a better definition, I'd like to hear it.

Eric SloaneSelections #1

Dateline: 3 January 2014

Painting by Eric Sloane
(click to see enlarged view)

"In the 1700's, the highest and most exalted pursuit of man (next to preaching the gospel) was the practice of farming. Gradually as the industrial revolution approached, and the farmer's sons left the farm to earn money in cities, the farmer, without help, became poor and isolated. He was soon regarded as a second rate citizen, and ridiculed as a country "hick." Nowadays only a few scattered family farms exist."

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"In the city, if access to food or heat ceases for only a few hours or days, there is chaos, and we think that God has not been a good provider; but cities were built by man, not designed by the Creator. In rural country where wood is always available and wind and water are plentiful, and food can be grown and stored for emergencies, you begin to realize how well nature provides for man. Once upon a time America was aware of God's providence but today in the metropolis, God's providence is not as evident and we easily overlook it."


—Eric Sloane
From the book, Once Upon a Time: The Way America Was (1982)

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Note: the above quotes have been slightly edited, but not to change what the author was saying. I will be posting more quotes (and paintings) by Eric Sloane on this blog through January and February.

A New Year...

Dateline: 1 January 2014

Well, I must say that I enjoyed my vacation from blogging all last month. It wasn't, however, a vacation in any other sense of the word. I stayed very busy with the demands of my Planet Whizbang business. Very busy, indeed.

I don't make resolutions at the start of a new year. I have plans, and goals, and visions for the future every single day. But I do like the idea of starting another year, and I welcome 2014 with hope for the future.

Yes, the American empire is still collapsing and, barring some economic miracle, the standard of living for most Americans will continue to decline from here on. But that's beside the point. If lived wisely, life can still be full of joy and satisfaction, even in the midst of economic collapse.

Old farmhouse of our dreams
(click to see enlarged view)

I wrote here back on November 13 about The Old Farmhouse of Our Dreams. Everything is in process for the purchase. Barring any unforeseen problems, we should close on the place before spring.

Marlene and I took a walk down to look our dream property over (again) on this brisk January day. That's Marlene all bundled up at the top of the page. Every time we go there, we get a better idea of what we're in for with this project.

I stopped by back in December when we had a thaw and rain. The inside of the house was leaking water like the Old Granville Place on George and Mary Bailey's honeymoon. The roof (without any roofing) will be the first challenge. All the OSB plywood will need to be removed. I will re-sheathe with plywood and then shingle.

When I built the house we now live in, our financial resources were such that I didn't put shingles on the roof for three years. We got by with heavy tarpaper, held in place with wood lath nailed over the edges. It did there job very well. 

We built the house with a $10,000 loan from my father-in-law and finished it little by slow, as we had the money. It was basically a little tarpapered house in the beginning. But we built a home with no bank loan and  minimal debt (which was soon paid off). I would do it the same way again if I had it to do again.

Well, come to think of it, I kind of am doing it again with this Old Farmhouse of Our Dreams. Planet Whizbang has earned us the money to buy the place for cash, much like when Marlene and I worked and saved when we were first married and paid cash to buy the 1.5 acre lot for our house. My father-in-law is not around to borrow money to get started, but the house (what there is of it) is already there. So now we will pay as we go to get it fixed up. If the home business continues to prosper, we might be able to have it done in ten years. I'll be 66 years old. That's my plan. 

I should point out that my plans don't always work out the way I want or expect them to. Sometimes God has other plans. And that's okay. In the final analysis, I trust in God's Providence (the outworking of His sovereign will in my daily life) more than I do in my own plans.

Future home of the Classic American Clothespin company?

Last fall I made two production runs of Classic American Clothespins in a 10ft x 10ft tent in my yard. One of the first things I'll do with the old house (aside from the new roof) is clean out the garage pictured above. The space will be put to use as a much needed place to make clothespins. There is even a saw already there….

If the clothespin idea takes off, I might just use the whole house as a manufacturing facility. Hey, check out this old wainscot in the garage….

What you're looking at in that picture is a horizontal board around 18" wide, with a beaded top edge, nailed on with cut nails. It is one of the only remaining bits of interior woodwork. Oh, how I wish I could have seen this old farmhouse back in the day.

The picture above shows the attic over the garage. The roof over the garage and mud room is metal and it is still doing a pretty good job. There is an enormous wasp nest directly over where I was standing to take the picture. I'll hoe that out  before spring comes.

That log structure in the picture above is in the back yard. I would classify it as "trapper cabin architecture." When Scott Terry tells stories on his Christian Farm and Homestead radio program about trapping in Alaska, I imagine he and Leah lived in a cabin just like that. :-)

My Thanks…

Thank you to Mrs. WaterBuck for posting A Review Of My Classic American Clothespins at the WaterBuck web site. The picture above shows two Classic Americans in a Granny's Clothespin Bag, which Mrs. WaterBuck makes from recycled denim britches. She also sells the bags for a downright reasonable price.

And thank you very much to "Canned Quilter" at Hickory Holler Farm for Such A Nice Review of my Planet Whizbang Idea Book For Gardeners!

While I'm at it, thanks also to those of you who sent me a Christmas card last year. And special thanks to David the Good down Florida way for sending me a genuine, original Planet Jr. wrench. That was quite a surprise.

Here's wishing all of you, my dear readers, a blessed New Year!