Innholdsfortegnelse for #261 i The New Pioneer

JC DESCLOS had this to say about the lifestyle he has chosen.“It’s is the only life I dreamed about as a kid so therefore I’m discontented living any other way. Living discontented by choice makes no sense to me. My cabin life has enabled me to live on my own terms and not on someone else’s schedule. I lived the ‘normal life’ until I moved to my first cabin, and I hated it—and couldn’t afford it. I chose the lifestyle I wanted and stayed with it. “Everything about this lifestyle is rewarding. It’s physical and demanding, but adversity and adventure go hand in hand. Adverse conditions like what we deal with during the winter up here and the challenges we faced with the garden venture and the restoration of this…

Along with caring for the family and the farm, Lydia continues to practice her art. As a teen, she learned how to transform soft balls of wool into small dolls, elves and forest creatures, using a technique called needle felting. Later, as she worked toward her degree in fine arts and art education, she showcased her needle-felting skills in her final project by creating a gallery show of her work. “It’s just something I really enjoy,” she says of needle felting. She is also a painter with a portfolio of wildlife and nature themes. “My dad was an artist who really believed in the beauty of the natural world and community, especially in regard to the area where we live now,” Lydia says. “I hope to carry that on.” To…

If there’s anything better on a hot, homemade biscuit than butter and fresh, raw honey, I haven’t figured out what it is yet. And trust me, I’ve been trying for a long time! For some rural Americans, the only thing better than tasting honey on a biscuit is actually making that honey themselves—more accurately, raising and keeping bees to make that honey. Beekeeping is quite popular throughout the United States, and producing honey for yourself, family and friends is a satisfying act of self-sufficiency that is quite appealing to many. Besides, bees are important for pollinating garden plants and crops. James Deming of Tulsa, Oklahoma, knows more about bees and making honey than anyone else I know. After starting as a hobbyist who just wanted to have bees around to…

ACCORDING TO MEYER HATCHERY, “Cross beak (also called scissor beak or crossed beak) is a condition found in chickens where the upper beak and lower beak are not correctly aligned, and they overlap each other. This malformation prohibits the bird from closing its mouth properly, which makes it difficult for the bird to eat and drink. In most cases, a chick with cross beak can live a full, happy life but may need a few special considerations so that it may thrive.” Cross beak is the result of a skull deformity caused either by hatching conditions or injury. It may not be apparent right away, developing around four to 12 weeks of age. On a personal note, I have a cross-beak chicken and was able to see the cross beak…

“MY GRANDFATHER [William House] started out peddling tool handles in 1929,” began Chris House of House Handles, located in the small Southwest Missouri town of Cassville. “He bought handles from three area handle manufacturers. He would load the handles on his truck and take off down the road, peddling handles just like a farmer would peddle fruits and vegetables.” When Chris’ dad was old enough, he joined the business. They bought handles and had a route established throughout the South and Midwest, selling wood handles to mom-and-pop hardware stores and foundries. “In 1964, Dad got tired of all that traveling and decided to go into the business of making handles,” Chris continued. His father and grandfather purchased two old lathes from a local farmer. As his father, Kenny House, recalled,…

CANOEING MISSISSIPPI by Ernest Herndon offers a seasonal guide to the river region’s sandy and swampy shores. Springtime brings a huge variety of berries; wild blueberries line the riverbanks while the mayhaw, a tart red berry used for jelly, prefers swampy areas. Dewberries are popular with locals and prolific along sandbars, but watch out for their thorny vines! Muscadine grapes are plentiful in late August and early September along the Black Creek sandbars. Grapevines climb the trees along the riverside; when harvesting, it’s best to shake the vines over a bedsheet on the ground. Pawpaws ripen at the same time and thrive in the shade of tall hardwoods along the riverside. The oblong fruit delivers a tasty mix between a pear and a banana. Quince and hardy oranges are ripe…

Spring is right around the corner and it’s time to celebrate a new season by finding new ways to make life easier. To jump-start the gardening year, try a few of these practical ideas, from making your own low-cost seed mats to being proactive against garden pests and invasive weeds. PLANT A TRAP CROP ONE METHOD TO DEAL with pests without resorting to the spray bottle is to plant a trap crop, drawing the offending insect away from the desired vegetables toward the decoy that can be destroyed. This might involve cutting and disposing of the trap-crop plants or using a less-harsh method of eliminating them, such as hand-picking or vacuuming up pests. Even if you don’t destroy the trap crop, chances are good that using this technique will reduce…

SOLAR POWER: JC installed the photovolatic panels and hooked up the solar power system at the cabin. WOOD HEAT: JC and Lori heat their home and cook much of their food with a Kitchen Queen wood cook stove. REFRIGERATION: JC created a well-insulated icebox in the kitchen that’s kept cold through a screened vent that lets the outside winter air enter but can be opened and closed as necessary. During the summer months, they utilize a propane refrigerator salvaged from an old camper. WATER: JC devised a homemade water purifier. By choice he carries buckets of water from the original well to the house. “I carry 4- to 5-gallon pails the hundred yards every other day and I enjoy the task, even on snowshoes. I carry them home and up…

With supply chain issues and lags in the grocery system, more of us want to plant enough food to feed our families regardless of what happens in the greater scheme of things. To do so requires planning, along with a little trial and error, but it’s amazing how much can be grown even in small spaces. Many of us remember our grandmothers’ or great-grandmothers’ enormous gardens to feed the family. It’s a running joke to share memories of endlessly weeding or picking beans, yet it’s often difficult to remember exactly how much was planted or the precise measurements of the garden. Truthfully, the size of the garden depends a lot upon your planting style. Books and articles from decades ago often recommend utilizing at least a couple of acres to…

In my much younger years, when gardening season arrived, I picked through a bin in my garage searching for my most worn pair of sneakers. Once chosen, these became my official garden sneakers for the season. Inevitably, these sneakers ended up covered in silty dirt or mud. To clean them, I sprayed them off with a hose and left them outside to dry. The problem was that the next time I wanted to use them, they were still wet, and mud was now caked in the laces. As you may have guessed, this meant finding another pair of sneakers to eventually destroy. By fall, I had at least four pairs of “official” garden sneakers. When a day arrived where I struggled to find a clean pair of sneakers, I decided…

I COULD HAVE FORMED the rough blank into its final peel form with just chisels and a mallet. The cuts made by chisels are appealing in themselves if you don’t mind the rougher finish. If you choose this option, just be sure that the blank is clamped down tightly and supported underneath so you don’t split it while pounding away. I used shellac, an insect derivative, to finish the peel. Not exactly appetizing, but being a natural product, shellac is food safe and provides a warm, baked-bread-colored finish. I had a tip of a whitetail deer antler left over from another project, so I placed it on the peel handle just to gauge its decorative potential. As it turned out, the antler tip not only was a snug fitin my…

When Catherine Britt fancied up a T-shirt pocket with embroidered flowers, she had no idea what those colorful stitches were setting in motion. “Every time I wore the shirt, someone would ask me about it and then ask me to make them one,” says Catherine. “People thought it was so cute.” She embroidered more pocket-sized wildflowers, sunflowers, cacti, stars and planets and taught herself more embroidery stitches. She experimented with which stitches would hold up best on cotton T-shirts in repeated washings. “I decided I would make a few shirts to sell at the holiday market my workplace has every year,” says Catherine, who works full-time as operations manager at a screen-printing shop in Harrisonburg, Virginia. “I ended up selling all of them and got a few orders for custom…

Chickens are like children. To thrive, they need proper nutrition, exercise and stimulation. Over the last 10,000 years, we humans have domesticated chickens, dragging them along with us as we populated savannahs, grasslands, alpine valleys, forests and deserts. We have made them dependent on us for food, limiting their diet to mash, scratch, table scraps and treats. We have confined them for protection from predators and for our own convenience in gathering their eggs and rounding them up for slaughter. In doing so, we have restricted their exercise and introduced boredom and the need for stimulation into their lives. Even our most beneficent attempts to let them “free range” fall well short of the active, busy life that chickens need for optimum health and well-being. Poorly nourished chickens lay eggs…

There it was: a genuine Red Wing vase in mint condition and marked at only $6. I snapped it up immediately, knowing that I could resell it for far more money than I paid for it. My family and I were at a “shop” sale when I encountered the too-good-to-be-true deal. It took me no more than two minutes after arriving home to photograph and list the vase for sale on eBay. Concluding the week long auction-style listing, the vase sold for $67. Did I strike gold? No. Did I make a generous profit? You bet I did! I have a saying that goes, “Whenever you can double your money with minimal effort, you’ve done well.” On that sale, I recovered the money I spent many times over. Deals like…

FOR JEFF AND ANNA BOESCH, it took a journey to find their new home and life on a small southwestern Oregon farm. More specifically, it was an educational journey for Jeff, originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, and Anna, who grew up in California and Washington State towns. But it was a journey with a vision. “I enjoy watching things grow,” Jeff says when asked to explain the root of his farming dream. “I wanted to do something that would bring a sustainable future.” To hone their farming skills, the couple worked at a few West Coast farms, learning the basics of growing and marketing food. While interning at a small farm south of San Francisco, they learned the ins and outs of producing food for a subscription-based food-box program. By their…

As a child JC Desclos dreamed of living in the woods and building a cabin much like the one at his dad’s hunting camp in New Hampshire. At the age of 18, he went against his family’s expectations and bought his first piece of property. He earned enough from various jobs to meet his expenses, including a $100 per month mortgage. When he started his cabin build, he had no carpentry skills and used a chainsaw and whatever lumber he could scrounge. JC moved into his unfinished cabin in 1984 at the age of 21, and got a job at a campground, where he learned to run a backhoe and drive a dump truck. He was able to use the showers and laundry facilities at the campground and bring home…

It’s easy to understand why parsley has been named 2021’s Herb of the Year by the International Herb Association; after all, it’s one of the most versatile and recognizable of herbs. If you’ve been to a restaurant, you’ve probably been served curly parsley as a garnish. Parsley, however, is much more than a garnish, and it can be an important herb to grow if you’re selling herbs and produce for profit. STARTING PARSLEY FROM SEED: Over time, herbs such as parsley have gathered lore that’s passed from generation to generation. It is said that parsley is the property of the devil and travels to him seven times before it can grow. This lore most likely sprung up because parsley takes a long time to germinate. At Turner Farm, a certified…

Every gardener has his or her favorite garden tasks. For me, it’s planting: Putting things in the ground always makes me happy. Even when I helped a friend plant 3,000 gladiolus bulbs, I wasn’t deterred. With that said, sometimes the number of plants is daunting, or you have to squeeze a new addition into a tight area where it’s difficult to dig with a bulky shovel. Using a tool like the RotoShovel, the hand-held automated auger-type shovel, makes the process a breeze. I learned about this handy new gadget last fall just in time to plant garlic and daffodil bulbs. We experienced weeks of dry conditions baking the soil to either the consistency of concrete or, in the part of the garden that I turned over with a shovel, a…

It started with the purchase of a 20-acre farm in California and turned into the Funky Chicken Rescue specializing in saving farm animals, especially those with deformities such as missing limbs, blindness and chickens with a cross beak. The list of animals is varied and continues to grow, but each rescue animal is given the ability to live its life to the fullest. Here’s the story of the chicken that inspired it all. Funky The Chicken It’s funny how life sometines pushes you in a specific direction. It definitely pushed the Smith family (Darcy, Eric and daughter, Jessalyn) after they bought their farm. Not negotiated in the sale price, but greeting them upon arrival, were four chickens and a pregnant cat that were left behind by the previous owner to…

If you’re a craft beer lover, you’ve likely tried many variations of the same style. While each beer certainly differs from brewery to brewery, you pretty much know what to expect when you pick up an IPA, a stout or one of the many other popular styles. Each of these is brewed with variations of malted grains, hops, yeast and sometimes other ingredients and mostly follow a similar blueprint. Paul Arney of Ale Apothecary in Bend, Oregon, started his brewery in his garage along with his wife, Staci, with the goal of completely turning this notion on its head. They wanted to go back to how brewing has been done through most of history, brewing place-based beers using what was available at the time in the surrounding land. Place-Based Defined…

UPON RETIRING TO NEW MEXICO, we knew we wanted to purchase a small, low-maintenance house in the country. What we found that fit those requirements was about 10 miles from the city center, but it was in an HOA (deed-restricted homeowner’s association) development. The backyard was 34 feet by 34 feet, which would support our absolutely necessary vegetable, fruit and herb gardens. A search of the HOA contract showed that we could not alter the landscaping in the front yard, but the backyard was virtually our own as long as nothing could be seen from the street in front of the house. We decided that we could observe those restrictions. Our first challenge was having an existing backyard covered with decorative stones under which was a black landscape fabric. We…

SOMETIMES, TRADING AN ITEM for another can prove to be highly beneficial to both parties. Once, I purchased a pickup truck that came with an ugly topper. I had no use for it, and after putting it on craigslist and Facebook pages, the only interest came from a gentleman who wanted the topper but didn’t have enough money to buy it. He did, however, have two compound bows that he was willing to trade for the topper. I didn’t want to spend any additional time trying to sell the topper, and I knew I could sell the bows on eBay. I made the trade, moved the topper out of my life and sold the bows on eBay. Everybody won.…