Drs Malone you are an inspiration! Your hard work and persistence is inspiring. Modular homes are really well built so the builders can drive them down the road .
I was the general contractor for our house. I hired the sub contractors . We did a lot of the work ourselves. We roofed. I wired the house. I read books , looked at houses that were being built and asked a lot of questions. The city electrical inspector side I should become an electrician. We only sheet rocked part of the house. Time is money. My husband painted and I did the edging. He tiled and I grouted. We hung the doors and did the trim . It was so fun. A lot of work. I was told to put in an extra 10% of the cost of the house for emergency purchases. I picked everything out , ordered the sheet rock , and purchased everything. I came in right on budget. We had one piece of sheet rock left. Don’t be afraid to try new things.
My husband just fixed his one ton Duramax . He looked on line to figure out how to fix it. He says he saved us $2000. He is not a mechanic but he is very resourceful .
Wow to you too, Melanie! For someone who has described some physical limitations, you are a multi-talented person who didn't let your physical beauty or talent get in the way of a bigger life. AMEN to you.
We had an electrical engineer friend design the plan to code. The neat thing about wiring your house is you can have extra plugs where you want them. I put some above the kitchen cabinets for if I want to put lights up there. Also behind the toilet to plug in a bidet.
Melanie, I picked out right away when you said you looked at a lot of houses. One thing I always tell people to do is use your eyes when you want something built on your home. if you want a farmers porch look at other farmers porches. Right away you will see one’s that look correct and ones that don’t. Copy what looks good. It’s all been done before you just have to use your eyes and have the ability to copy. Scale is also very important.
These old stone farm buildings are magnificent, but the cost of bringing them up to a decent modern standard is horrendous, and of course many of them lack basic services and utilities and are off the beaten track. They are also far too big for modern use, (designed for large families and even servants) and very expensive to heat. I've found elderly couples living in one room, huddled by the AGA stove in the kitchen, whilst damp and mould gradually do their worst.
We did buy a lovely old listed red sandstone Victorian church in the Southern Uplands, near Dalmellington, overlooking the River Doon, and lived there very happily for 8 years raising our kids between 1991 and 1999. It was beautiful, very cheap, had vast space for our four generation family, including lots of ground floor space for my father in law, a WW2 veteran who was an amputee. But we found ourselves moving on in careers that demanded a lot of commuting, so it had to go.
Many people think they need the perfect land for a homestead. Not true. I live on a steep rocky and ledge ridden slope in NE VT. I terraced land for nut and fruit trees as well as annual vegetable gardens. I built up the soil with what was available on 'y own land and what neighbors offered me on their land ( I.e.they let me scythe their fields down and ai collect the hay for mulch and soil building). My water is well water but that is not secure enough for me. I installed a large cistern, enclosed it, and also use that space as a root cellar since water is such a good capacitor. That enclosure is underneath a small room we had added on and both the room and enclosure are fully insulated. We plumbed the cistern to be able to get water out with a hand pump should we need to do that and also,plumbed it to run into the pressurized system and through the filters. We don’t have suitable pasture for large livestock, but we can run pigs, goats, and chickens. We only heat with wood and in winter cook on the wood cook stove. We are developing coppicing stands to make firewood easier especially if we have to some day resort to hand saws only. We built carts that can be easily operated by hand to move heavy things like tree trunks and large rocks, one just has to understand the principals of leverage. We keep it simple, use what we have, make as many hand tools as possible ( a good skill ) and of course can, pressure can, dry food ( in the barn attic on racks, or in the greenhouse,mor on the rack system that fits over the wood stove - all of which we designed and built ourselves; each place takes the same standardized racks 2’x4’ that we built. So we turned hard scrapple land into productive land. The tractor was a big help in the initial stages when we were building terraces. We trade for raw milk and also have 900 tapped maple trees for maple sugar which we can also sell and trade, even though Vermont is now making that business very difficult because they do not want people using their diesel boilers due to “climate change”. Of course they would like the farmers to stop raising cows, beef cows…also due to the religious fervor promulgated by the climate fear mongers….
My grandma came over from Wales when she was 21. I love my Welsh heritage. She was from South Wales. Gelly and Ustrad My mom and my sisters and I went back to Wales in the early 90’s. We had a pot luck dinner with family. It was so fun to see our Welsh family. Her maiden name was Phillips. She married a Dane in America.
My wife is from North Wales - Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, and migrated to the States with me after meeting in London...some years back. We're over there fairly frequently....except during the C19 boondoggle.
What an inspiring post! I think you may encourage some folks ( if they have been considering it) to give homesteading a try. There is a lot of good information in this post.
You're delivering Truth! about making compromises with the homestead housing, and reducing debt load. You might be saving lives and marriages with this advice.
Very interesting! I'm happy that you and your father became close before his death. It gives me hope that perhaps my brother will decide he wants a relationship with me at some point, although after twenty plus years of strife, it doesn't seem likely.
Romans 12:18 is a comfort to me. "If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." I honestly feel I have done everything I can do and the ball is now in my brother's court. I also think he is mentally ill.
I had a hard time liking Your post; however Romans 12:18. 9 years in a chapel every day for 45 minutes for school. I probably have every personality disorder “they” have put a “label” on; but, I can have easy 10 Friends with Me to help someone in need. Dr. Malone has, yet again, Wise Words. Very Best Wishes, Ed
Nov 6, 2023·edited Nov 7, 2023Liked by Robert W Malone MD, MS
From those original pictures it’s like night and day. I know you both had to have much foresight when originally choosing that property to restore. I see a certain destiny in your picking that farm. Most people would have shied away from the immense work needed to get it to where you’ve gotten it too. As you had mentioned the positives to the community you have brought, but the physical change to the farm many times sparks neighbors to also fix up their property. I think that farm needed you both as much as you needed that farm, and it shows. One of the nicest things is that a historic property has been saved!!! Great job!!!! J.Goodrich
Farm Farm Farm. My wife and I saved a chickens life yesterday. A beautiful Red Tail Hawk swooped past my head and landed on one of our Easter egg Layers. I was able to scare the hawk off our sweet hen and scoop her up with feathers everywhere. She is ok but traumatized. All the hens as staying much closer to the Rooster "Gandolf" now. Life on the farm is grand. Thank you Robert for the breakdowns and encouragement for people to get back to the Land and take care and work with Creation. Many Blessings.
Funny…not funny…We run Akitas…An eagle tried to swoop a Young pup. Older Akita told it to get used to disappointment. Fast, Agile and Very Intelligent. I’m positive that eagle was freaked.. Imagine having a 105 lb. Pup, in the air, pissed off coming at you. 😁, Ed
We are homesteading as best we can on 50 acres in Iowa. I want to see what I can grow in a heated greenhouse in the winter. With daylight hours so short, not sure how well it will work.
Hi Mary--I find much integrity in Dr. Malone's newsletter. I follow much of his advice. I think we are a small minority of folks who take in his point of view. Are you a homesteader? We are in Fairfield. Where are you?
I live in Mount Pleasant and work in Fairfield. What a smell world it is. Yes, I enjoy Dr. MALONE very much, and yes I do as much homesteading as I can on our 50 acres of land. I hope to do more as I learn more. The world is crazy and we believe you need to be able to take care of yourself.
Nov 6, 2023·edited Nov 6, 2023Liked by Robert W Malone MD, MS
Reminds me of my maternal grandparents… Grandpa came from traditional German stock born just prior to the Depression. He actually built their home, installed the wiring, plumbing and water cooling system (Southern California)… they did a lot of the things you described except they lived in semi-desert… so lemon trees were all I remember, slightly protected by the clay tile roof. Horses, deep-pit cooking of beef, on premiss auto repair, income earning duplex he built. He had a professional job with the county as well. We lovingly referred to him as a ‘McGyver’. Grandma cooked, sewed everything, knit, etc. My parents were just the opposite… funny how that works.
My grandparents ran a fruit farm in Hungary--There arent many stories we made it to me. I never met them sad to say. I am first generation Romanian born in USA.
It is a life few know in the states… nor want to know. Farming is far from glamorous. I have relatives, by marriage, who have what is known as a 'century farm’…it’s been in the family for over a hundred years. It almost never makes a profit due to the costs of machinery and ‘red tape’. Corporate farming and the government seek to destroy these farms…and they’re being successful, for the most part.
Great information for those with talent and the drive! Unfortunately, we are becoming a society of dependents on the inefficient government who hands out dole to survive. Education is failing big time.
I agree. I wouldn’t have a clue where to start with this. You and Jill were both raised with this background and knowledge which goes a long way when you learned these skills as a child.
It was such a pleasure - reading this article. I envy you both your youth! I wish I was young again and just starting out, although I now am living my dream in my retirement years (but without the muscle and stamina to do much with my 11 acres). As a child and into my teen years my parents would pack us four kids in the car and drive 6 hours up 101 hwy from Thousand Oaks to Saratoga every year for Thanksgiving at my dad's sister's place. I would watch the landscape out the car window as we passed sheer openness displaying fields of gold, homesteads with old barns, brick silos, gravel roads, cows, horses, chickens . . . . My father would say as we would near an old weathered-grey barn, "If we didn't have so far to go, I would pull over and take a picture as this is a barn with painting. And later as we pasted another he would say "maybe on the way back". I always wanted to live on one of the farms with all those animals. Watch westerns as a child just to see how people lived back them – it was heaven.
I cannot believe the price on those properties. Places like those would have sold for those amounts outside of Overland Park KS in the late 1980s.
Now back outside to finish cleaning the fly leggings and face masks before packing away for next.year. BTW, I don't do well for about a week after the clock takes away my daylight.
what a lovely story from such a learned couple just showing how being grounded in the country is so important to keep us sane especially in the shambles that is now. your tales of starting out reminded me of my parents when my father after fighting in Burma, persuaded my very English upper lady mother to emigrate to Southern Rhodesia where the government was offering reduced price land to exservice people prepared help develop the Federation. She was brave enough to go with my half brother whose airman father had died in the desert in Libya, and me at 6 weeks old. He had no former farming experience and they developed a mixed farm of 100 acres with dairy, chickens, rabbits and fruit and vegetables which he mostly sold to local schools, lodgings and businesses in the town 10 miles away. My childhood was a paradise, freedom then as never possible now. The most dangerous things around were the Black Mamba snake in the irrigation pipes stack, the baboons in the ' Kopje' , sadly my father shot the only leopard in the farm - as it was taking live stock from us and the farm workers compound, but it made a superb sofa throw in days before we became more aware of options to move the animal on rather than kill it.
we left 10 years later at the breakup of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and moved to another farm in South Africa but the experience didn't match. Sadly I never matched up with someone to repeat the exercise, living in towns and suburbs in Uk and Europe since then. I see children playing in parks and feel sorry that they will never know the meaning of true Freedom.
thank you for reminding me of my good luck and I agree that opportunities to take an 'alternative ' route in life should not be turned down lightly. I look forward to more anecdotes from the farm and both of your continuing efforts to help enlighten the world to the scandalous experiment the human race has been through since 2020. Best of luck in the Romanian trip, i will e watching the Livestreams ICS 3 has given me so much information to pass on to the blinkered.
Wonderful article! We did this years ago and would like to try it again if our “older bones” can handle the grit I know it takes. We built a “healthy house” with all the particulars of land selection to healthy building materials and processes. We had a few acres and decided to raise Alpacas on the land. That was quite lucrative back in the early 2000’s.
Nov 6, 2023·edited Nov 6, 2023Liked by Robert W Malone MD, MS
All I can say is WOW! Such insight and fortitude. I love reading these kinds of posts from you, You could inspire a nation! And if only a few gain benefit from your lessons, it is well worth the effort. It sounds like many have been enriched by your commitment to community. I remember many of my father and mother's family leave the farm for "greener pastures" that were not so green after all. (The look on the dog's face says it all)
We have 400 year old farmhouses going to ruin here in much of rural Scotland... nobody wants the hassle or cost. But they are lovely.
I hand grow veg and fruit, I have raised hens, but the economics of it are shocking: this is a hobby, not a business.
Very much the same in North Wales.
Drs Malone you are an inspiration! Your hard work and persistence is inspiring. Modular homes are really well built so the builders can drive them down the road .
I was the general contractor for our house. I hired the sub contractors . We did a lot of the work ourselves. We roofed. I wired the house. I read books , looked at houses that were being built and asked a lot of questions. The city electrical inspector side I should become an electrician. We only sheet rocked part of the house. Time is money. My husband painted and I did the edging. He tiled and I grouted. We hung the doors and did the trim . It was so fun. A lot of work. I was told to put in an extra 10% of the cost of the house for emergency purchases. I picked everything out , ordered the sheet rock , and purchased everything. I came in right on budget. We had one piece of sheet rock left. Don’t be afraid to try new things.
My husband just fixed his one ton Duramax . He looked on line to figure out how to fix it. He says he saved us $2000. He is not a mechanic but he is very resourceful .
Wow to you too, Melanie! For someone who has described some physical limitations, you are a multi-talented person who didn't let your physical beauty or talent get in the way of a bigger life. AMEN to you.
I was able to do everything until
The car wreck. I’m not about to let it knock me down. I still have hope for a better future. I don’t give up.
We had an electrical engineer friend design the plan to code. The neat thing about wiring your house is you can have extra plugs where you want them. I put some above the kitchen cabinets for if I want to put lights up there. Also behind the toilet to plug in a bidet.
Melanie, I picked out right away when you said you looked at a lot of houses. One thing I always tell people to do is use your eyes when you want something built on your home. if you want a farmers porch look at other farmers porches. Right away you will see one’s that look correct and ones that don’t. Copy what looks good. It’s all been done before you just have to use your eyes and have the ability to copy. Scale is also very important.
Uhhh…You just described My life. Flooded basement…quote, $70k… I did it. 😂, Ed
These old stone farm buildings are magnificent, but the cost of bringing them up to a decent modern standard is horrendous, and of course many of them lack basic services and utilities and are off the beaten track. They are also far too big for modern use, (designed for large families and even servants) and very expensive to heat. I've found elderly couples living in one room, huddled by the AGA stove in the kitchen, whilst damp and mould gradually do their worst.
I imagine the cost and the Catagory A & B requirements make it very difficult. I’m sorry to hear they are going to ruin.
We did buy a lovely old listed red sandstone Victorian church in the Southern Uplands, near Dalmellington, overlooking the River Doon, and lived there very happily for 8 years raising our kids between 1991 and 1999. It was beautiful, very cheap, had vast space for our four generation family, including lots of ground floor space for my father in law, a WW2 veteran who was an amputee. But we found ourselves moving on in careers that demanded a lot of commuting, so it had to go.
It makes me sad that the church was no longer in use, but I’m glad you had the enjoyment you did with your family for those eight years.
It has changed hands two or three times since: we are not the only family who needed space and fresh air... at a sensible price. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/details/scotland-58284755-20022499?s=55ac60b072447be85630f7f404d3590bc1d380d82cc2033f791abf8223b39cbc#/
Many people think they need the perfect land for a homestead. Not true. I live on a steep rocky and ledge ridden slope in NE VT. I terraced land for nut and fruit trees as well as annual vegetable gardens. I built up the soil with what was available on 'y own land and what neighbors offered me on their land ( I.e.they let me scythe their fields down and ai collect the hay for mulch and soil building). My water is well water but that is not secure enough for me. I installed a large cistern, enclosed it, and also use that space as a root cellar since water is such a good capacitor. That enclosure is underneath a small room we had added on and both the room and enclosure are fully insulated. We plumbed the cistern to be able to get water out with a hand pump should we need to do that and also,plumbed it to run into the pressurized system and through the filters. We don’t have suitable pasture for large livestock, but we can run pigs, goats, and chickens. We only heat with wood and in winter cook on the wood cook stove. We are developing coppicing stands to make firewood easier especially if we have to some day resort to hand saws only. We built carts that can be easily operated by hand to move heavy things like tree trunks and large rocks, one just has to understand the principals of leverage. We keep it simple, use what we have, make as many hand tools as possible ( a good skill ) and of course can, pressure can, dry food ( in the barn attic on racks, or in the greenhouse,mor on the rack system that fits over the wood stove - all of which we designed and built ourselves; each place takes the same standardized racks 2’x4’ that we built. So we turned hard scrapple land into productive land. The tractor was a big help in the initial stages when we were building terraces. We trade for raw milk and also have 900 tapped maple trees for maple sugar which we can also sell and trade, even though Vermont is now making that business very difficult because they do not want people using their diesel boilers due to “climate change”. Of course they would like the farmers to stop raising cows, beef cows…also due to the religious fervor promulgated by the climate fear mongers….
Keep going, please. Buy more ammo for when the government climate nuts really start coming after you.
My grandma came over from Wales when she was 21. I love my Welsh heritage. She was from South Wales. Gelly and Ustrad My mom and my sisters and I went back to Wales in the early 90’s. We had a pot luck dinner with family. It was so fun to see our Welsh family. Her maiden name was Phillips. She married a Dane in America.
My wife is from North Wales - Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, and migrated to the States with me after meeting in London...some years back. We're over there fairly frequently....except during the C19 boondoggle.
What an inspiring post! I think you may encourage some folks ( if they have been considering it) to give homesteading a try. There is a lot of good information in this post.
You're delivering Truth! about making compromises with the homestead housing, and reducing debt load. You might be saving lives and marriages with this advice.
Very interesting! I'm happy that you and your father became close before his death. It gives me hope that perhaps my brother will decide he wants a relationship with me at some point, although after twenty plus years of strife, it doesn't seem likely.
All you can do is keep the door open and the porch light on.
Great philosophy!
Same with sister…I don’t understand. She is stuck in a different world. Very Best, Ed
Romans 12:18 is a comfort to me. "If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." I honestly feel I have done everything I can do and the ball is now in my brother's court. I also think he is mentally ill.
I had a hard time liking Your post; however Romans 12:18. 9 years in a chapel every day for 45 minutes for school. I probably have every personality disorder “they” have put a “label” on; but, I can have easy 10 Friends with Me to help someone in need. Dr. Malone has, yet again, Wise Words. Very Best Wishes, Ed
You sound quite rational and compassionate to me. Take care.
Thank You. What a Very kind Compliment, Ed
Love everything about this article.
From those original pictures it’s like night and day. I know you both had to have much foresight when originally choosing that property to restore. I see a certain destiny in your picking that farm. Most people would have shied away from the immense work needed to get it to where you’ve gotten it too. As you had mentioned the positives to the community you have brought, but the physical change to the farm many times sparks neighbors to also fix up their property. I think that farm needed you both as much as you needed that farm, and it shows. One of the nicest things is that a historic property has been saved!!! Great job!!!! J.Goodrich
Farm Farm Farm. My wife and I saved a chickens life yesterday. A beautiful Red Tail Hawk swooped past my head and landed on one of our Easter egg Layers. I was able to scare the hawk off our sweet hen and scoop her up with feathers everywhere. She is ok but traumatized. All the hens as staying much closer to the Rooster "Gandolf" now. Life on the farm is grand. Thank you Robert for the breakdowns and encouragement for people to get back to the Land and take care and work with Creation. Many Blessings.
Funny…not funny…We run Akitas…An eagle tried to swoop a Young pup. Older Akita told it to get used to disappointment. Fast, Agile and Very Intelligent. I’m positive that eagle was freaked.. Imagine having a 105 lb. Pup, in the air, pissed off coming at you. 😁, Ed
Amazing
We are homesteading as best we can on 50 acres in Iowa. I want to see what I can grow in a heated greenhouse in the winter. With daylight hours so short, not sure how well it will work.
Grow lights.
Robert, that's a good suggestion for what to grow. Any idea where to find the Light seeds?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZghkt5m1uY
This always intrigues me. I might try looking into here at some point.
Hi..We are in Iowa also--SE Iowa. We are winter gardening with vertical aeoponics.. Check this tech out..judy.towergarden.com..
This may help farmers thru out the winter season and families like us grow thruout the winter and eat fresh locally sourced food from our kitchen...
We are in SE Iowa as well. Thanks for the info.
Hi Mary--I find much integrity in Dr. Malone's newsletter. I follow much of his advice. I think we are a small minority of folks who take in his point of view. Are you a homesteader? We are in Fairfield. Where are you?
I live in Mount Pleasant and work in Fairfield. What a smell world it is. Yes, I enjoy Dr. MALONE very much, and yes I do as much homesteading as I can on our 50 acres of land. I hope to do more as I learn more. The world is crazy and we believe you need to be able to take care of yourself.
I hope you have a Happy Holiday! Somehow we lost rack of each other.
Google 'Tower Gardens'
they are in 40 countries around the world. Why not here? We have 3 towers-they work
Reminds me of my maternal grandparents… Grandpa came from traditional German stock born just prior to the Depression. He actually built their home, installed the wiring, plumbing and water cooling system (Southern California)… they did a lot of the things you described except they lived in semi-desert… so lemon trees were all I remember, slightly protected by the clay tile roof. Horses, deep-pit cooking of beef, on premiss auto repair, income earning duplex he built. He had a professional job with the county as well. We lovingly referred to him as a ‘McGyver’. Grandma cooked, sewed everything, knit, etc. My parents were just the opposite… funny how that works.
My grandparents ran a fruit farm in Hungary--There arent many stories we made it to me. I never met them sad to say. I am first generation Romanian born in USA.
It is a life few know in the states… nor want to know. Farming is far from glamorous. I have relatives, by marriage, who have what is known as a 'century farm’…it’s been in the family for over a hundred years. It almost never makes a profit due to the costs of machinery and ‘red tape’. Corporate farming and the government seek to destroy these farms…and they’re being successful, for the most part.
I know farming is not glamorous. Its hard work and I am just a 'inside' gardener!
I am illustrating a children's picture book about boar who lives on a farm. Are you making your acreage sustainable?
Great information for those with talent and the drive! Unfortunately, we are becoming a society of dependents on the inefficient government who hands out dole to survive. Education is failing big time.
I agree. I wouldn’t have a clue where to start with this. You and Jill were both raised with this background and knowledge which goes a long way when you learned these skills as a child.
It was such a pleasure - reading this article. I envy you both your youth! I wish I was young again and just starting out, although I now am living my dream in my retirement years (but without the muscle and stamina to do much with my 11 acres). As a child and into my teen years my parents would pack us four kids in the car and drive 6 hours up 101 hwy from Thousand Oaks to Saratoga every year for Thanksgiving at my dad's sister's place. I would watch the landscape out the car window as we passed sheer openness displaying fields of gold, homesteads with old barns, brick silos, gravel roads, cows, horses, chickens . . . . My father would say as we would near an old weathered-grey barn, "If we didn't have so far to go, I would pull over and take a picture as this is a barn with painting. And later as we pasted another he would say "maybe on the way back". I always wanted to live on one of the farms with all those animals. Watch westerns as a child just to see how people lived back them – it was heaven.
I cannot believe the price on those properties. Places like those would have sold for those amounts outside of Overland Park KS in the late 1980s.
Now back outside to finish cleaning the fly leggings and face masks before packing away for next.year. BTW, I don't do well for about a week after the clock takes away my daylight.
Miss daylight, too.
what a lovely story from such a learned couple just showing how being grounded in the country is so important to keep us sane especially in the shambles that is now. your tales of starting out reminded me of my parents when my father after fighting in Burma, persuaded my very English upper lady mother to emigrate to Southern Rhodesia where the government was offering reduced price land to exservice people prepared help develop the Federation. She was brave enough to go with my half brother whose airman father had died in the desert in Libya, and me at 6 weeks old. He had no former farming experience and they developed a mixed farm of 100 acres with dairy, chickens, rabbits and fruit and vegetables which he mostly sold to local schools, lodgings and businesses in the town 10 miles away. My childhood was a paradise, freedom then as never possible now. The most dangerous things around were the Black Mamba snake in the irrigation pipes stack, the baboons in the ' Kopje' , sadly my father shot the only leopard in the farm - as it was taking live stock from us and the farm workers compound, but it made a superb sofa throw in days before we became more aware of options to move the animal on rather than kill it.
we left 10 years later at the breakup of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and moved to another farm in South Africa but the experience didn't match. Sadly I never matched up with someone to repeat the exercise, living in towns and suburbs in Uk and Europe since then. I see children playing in parks and feel sorry that they will never know the meaning of true Freedom.
thank you for reminding me of my good luck and I agree that opportunities to take an 'alternative ' route in life should not be turned down lightly. I look forward to more anecdotes from the farm and both of your continuing efforts to help enlighten the world to the scandalous experiment the human race has been through since 2020. Best of luck in the Romanian trip, i will e watching the Livestreams ICS 3 has given me so much information to pass on to the blinkered.
Sounds like an amazing life Jennifer!!
It was more appreciated now than at the time sadly.tks.
Wonderful article! We did this years ago and would like to try it again if our “older bones” can handle the grit I know it takes. We built a “healthy house” with all the particulars of land selection to healthy building materials and processes. We had a few acres and decided to raise Alpacas on the land. That was quite lucrative back in the early 2000’s.
All I can say is WOW! Such insight and fortitude. I love reading these kinds of posts from you, You could inspire a nation! And if only a few gain benefit from your lessons, it is well worth the effort. It sounds like many have been enriched by your commitment to community. I remember many of my father and mother's family leave the farm for "greener pastures" that were not so green after all. (The look on the dog's face says it all)
Hi Dr. Ma-Lion/ess! I’m canning pickled beets from the garden today! Good work. Self sufficiency could save us from being exterminated by AI too, lol.