Winter? Is It Here Yet?

Well, down here in the Central Florida area, it's raining...and raining and raining. Grass is still green, not a good sign that winter is here, but it does feel a little cooler out, around 60 degrees. I know its been a while since I have written. I've taken on more work related responsibilities. I have just completed a new site where I am designing original art and selling hats, t-shirts, banners and magnetic signs. I know it sounds a little hokey for me. I haven't even finished writing that mystery murder novel I have been working on for the past two years. Almost there, but stuck on one detail that will send that final 'surprise ending' to the readers eyes. The new business website is http://snappeas.deco-apparel.com/ . The funny thing is, the first week up, I sold three customized magnetic signs for a furniture repair business and have an order for a banner, not related to the work I am showcasing on the site. Along with this, I have also been designing over twenty brochures for a commercial printer who had been looking for a designer, but not enough work to hire one for inhouse, as of yet. That's the update on what has been happening around me, but about life on this land....

About three weeks ago, one of my younger cats, I have four now, brought me a present. The tiniest baby rabbit, about two inches long. I followed all the proper ways to raise it, by feeding it with an eye dropper and a formula of whipping cream, condensed milk and Kayo corn syrup, but the poor baby was too young and injured to make it. I have raised to maturity, at least 24 baby squirrels during hurricane season successfully, but this was my first try with a baby rabbit. 

My garden is in winter mode, mostly. The squash is done for and has been removed. I waited on removing the tomatoes. I am still getting ripe tomatoes off these plants. Leaves are starting to turn, but the tomatoes keep forming and no pests to bother them. They are Roma tomatoes and I still have to find time to make sauce from them. I have been using them mostly in salads and in dishes with chicken and noodles and cream sauce, yum! We have a lot of Kale coming out strong now and I recommend planting these leafy greens. Both are delicious in either salads or cook them up like spinach. Collards, Mustard Greens and Kale are great for your heart and is a great fighter to ward off cancer. The Oranges and Grapefruit are very strong and juicy now. Great timing in defense against the flu and cold season. The variegated tangerine-tangelos are not quite ripe yet. They are due around late December to early February. I'm looking forward, believe it or not, for one cold snap to sweeten the fruit on the trees. Not too cold, 50 degrees will do. It has gotten there a couple of times, but some of the fruit is still a little too tart. My favorite will always be the Ruby Red Grapefruit and the Naval Oranges. This brings to mind another story.

My parents moved to the Winter Park area back in 1957 when the great Temple Orange grove covered most of the area near Genius Drive. When the houses in their development were being built, the developer left about six trees from the original grove per homestead. Something that does not happen nowadays. I live out in the Clermont area where there is a sea of houses with no trees planted in the yards at all, all developed close to the Citrus Tower. Very sad that the total orange groves of the 1950s-1970s, were destroyed completely out here. But, at my parents house, there is still one orange tree left in the back yard, producing fruit. The tree is over 93 years old. It has a hollow opening in the main trunk, but no sour root stock. Oranges are still sweet, but smaller and mostly seeds. My Mom wanted to cut it down to save it from falling. I convinced her to let it stay and die naturally. It deserved that much. That was five years ago. I believe it will make 100 and maybe get listed in some Winter Park paper for it. We'll see.

What is Happening Here?

The world is a mess. That's an understatement. It always has been. Another understatement, I'm sure, but what has happened in just the last two days is incomprehensible. Why when the economy is in such a shambles, unemployment so low, that people feel a need to attack others without cause? How does barging in and killing employees in an office building who have no relation to you being laid off or a killing spree at a military base of soldiers that are facing the same deployment conditions you are, justify your act of violence? Is this the future for us? When things get tough, we attack others around us? The man who walked in and shot at employees yesterday in Orlando, which just turned out to be 25 miles from me, smiled as he strolled out of the building. Yes, smiled! Of course, later on the news stated he had mental issues, but why when we need to support each other are we attacking each other? I blame some of this on the news channels and crazy reporters, if you can call them that on some of the radical right stations, pushing for the public to threaten the Congressmen, White House, the gays, the Democrats, and whoever does not look or think exactly like they do. If you listen to your local news, do you notice how many bad reports they air compared to the good reports? Maybe its true about 2012. Maybe its irreversible. Instead of a meteor, an ice age, or atomic war, or disease, it will be random acts of violence like we have witnessed in the last two days. 

Times were a lot tougher during the Depression and yes, I'm sure there was violence, but still people helped people. (Check out 3rd paragraph of my listing below in Mama Bess and her Garden.) People need to get back to the land, simple life. More electronic gadgets and credit cards and fancy cars will not save us. We lose our job and instantly are dumped into a Depression. We can't handle it, we're spoiled. Theres too much violence in the world. Maybe its a sign of the times and a sign of the future to come or maybe, its just a very strong full moon. I vote for the moon.

Finally!

Available now! The 60 page 'Old & Forgotten' calendar/planner with information on old wisdom garden techniques and rural living that I have learned from my grandmother and from my own experience of  living off the land. $15 donation payable through Paypal only please, which includes shipping and handling. For more information or when you are ready to order, email stormhillstudio@earthlink.net with your address and quantity. Allow up to 2-3 weeks shipping. Order yours today! 

Help is Needed

I know it’s been a while since my last writing, but my internet has been down until now. Donations on this blog pays my internet service, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, then I am down. Hopefully you will find this information on my blog useful and will donate to save it. Only $5. a donation by way of Paypal is needed. I am hoping to put out a calendar planner with more gardening and saving tips before the end of the year. If that sounds interesting to you, leave a comment on my blog. I would like to get a reading on how many of my readers out there will be interested. It’s all set up and ready to go to press as a spiral bound 60 pager, size 5 x 7 to fit neatly in anyone’s carrying bag. I hope to sell them at a reasonable price, but still haven’t decided if $15. which includes postage in the US territory, will be too much or not. Again, I am trying to squeeze the money pouch for spare change to afford the printing. I plan to advertise on Facebook and Amazon. It will be top quality of course. If it goes well, by next year I may offer my services for custom family photo, calendar planners as well. Feel free to leave me a comment about this and any subject you are interested in as it relates to gardening, ways to save, bartering experiences you may have had and Depression era or the, what I call for people out there like me, ‘the new era Depression’ experiences.

Back to my garden...
For some reason, even though tomatoes are out of season in my area of the state of Florida, I have more tomatoes than leaves on my plants. Also what surprises me is the amount of okra and squash. Hate to say, my kale and collards are true to form in the month of September and are not gaining any growth at all. I finished fertilizing the citrus trees and pruning back the sour root stock. I am the lone caretaker of the grove and it takes me a while to get through it all, only 3 acres worth. But, this is not my workload. This is playtime. My workload is on the computer. I am a graphic designer by trade and have completed my second catalog for a major bus parts company, a national seminar brochure and various logos for different businesses who need my help. This is the work that pays my electric bill, rent and provides the food I don’t grow, on the table. Please donate and keep this blog alive and if interested in a 2010 calendar with more tidbits of living off the land, please leave a comment. Thank you.

Propagating a Wood Plant

A term commonly known as budding. Usually done between late summer to early autumn, budding is a great method when you wish to variegate a new species of woody plant. To achieve this, follow the steps below:

1- Make a T-shape slit in the bark of the plant you will be adding the bud to.

2- Cut a bud from the plant you will be propagating.

3-Insert the bud under the loosened bark.

4- Tie the bud in place with raffia

5-After the bud has taken and you see sufficient growth, say abut 2-4 laves, tie it in place a little higher. After a year in place (a) cut off the branch above the shoot.

You can bud anywhere on the main trunk of the plant, about 2-3 inches above ground level to mid-trunk. I normally add root tone to the cutting before inserting to give it a boost in growth.

Four Steps in Air-Layering a Plant

1. Knock most of the bottom out of  2 1/2 or 3 inch pot.

2. Fold up the leaves of the tall “leggy” plant after notching the stem (see arrow) where roots are desired.

3. Place pot at that point, fill it with sphagnum or peat moss and tie it in place – a stake will help support it.

4. When roots fill the pot, break and remove it, cut the new plant from the old stem and pot it in a new pot with more sphagnum or peat moss.

This technique and the old drawings above, came from an old book my Mama Bess used, The Wise Garden Encyclopedia, but I have added a more up-to-date version. I find it easier to use peat planting pots and also rub Root Tone on the notches as mentioned in step 2. 

Sometimes, you can save money by gathering seeds from a good harvest, and then there are times you may want to try an actual layering of a favorite woody plant such as a favorite rose or gardenia to make multiple plants. Try this technique as mentioned above and in my next writing I will explain how to propagate a woody plant.

Mama Bess and her Garden

Mama Bess said “Everyone and their brother too,” often enough to make me wonder what it actually meant until I realized how crowded this old planet seems. The job market is slim pickings now a days. My state alone is over 10% unemployed and I happen to be one of them. I spend a good 16 hours a day doing whatever odd jobs I can to bring food into this house. My grandmother Mama Bess had to do the same thing during the Great Depression. After Daddy Tank sold the bus company, (see article below, Daddy Tank and his Busline, dated August 19), he found a job lasting a year, with one of his brothers in Winfield, Louisiana pumping gas at a filling station. It wasn’t much, but the job was more than what most people had during that time.  He would send his earnings by Western Union back to his wife, Mama Bess. They had moved out of their home and rented a smaller house on 3 acres, two miles out of Monroe with a white picket fence around the front and a barn with pasture in the back. Rent was a good $5. a month back then. About the time of the worst part of the Depression, the landlord increased it to $10. which sounds like a drop in the bucket compared to now. But comparing now to back then, that was probably equal to $1000. a month.  

Mama Bess, was best known for growing anything under the Sun. She could make a desert bloom and had so many flowers in her garden, that there were stepping stones placed as paths to get through it to the front gate. Word got around and she started making money by selling straight out of her garden to seven different florists; two in Monroe and five others in Charlotte. She even set up a small shop in the front parlor of her house and sold Gladiolus, Poppies (legal back then), Dahlias, Snapdragons, and others. Her yard also produced a massive amount of vegetables and I even had heard that if the vegetables or flowers were not in season, she still would have plenty of healthy plants producing what she needed. To this day, I feel she is helping me out, in spirit with my garden. Here it is, early September and 90 degrees out, I have tomatoes and squash completely out of season. I plant seeds and even though the package says it takes 10 days to germinate, my seeds are an inch tall in less than 2 days. I don’t have magic soil or fertilizer, just my Mama Bess’s hand from heaven.

Back in the Great Depression, there were a lot of hobos getting off the freight trains and passing through town. Mama Bess, raising 4 young children alone, would invite one or two in to shower, shave and stay for supper, if they would do some work for her around the house. Sometimes they would patch the roof, mend the fence or barn out back or paint the house, and repair the plumbing. After the repairs were done, and they ended their stays, they would move on. Word had gotten around about her generosity and one of the receivers of her goodwill, etched a triangle in the left post by her gate. This was a sign to other hobos passing through that a good Christian woman lived there offering shelter and food for a good, honest days work. The funny part about this story is that there was one man who arrived at her house and helped with the heaviest of chores, very polite and well educated. It wasn’t long after he had left, that she found out he was an escape convict from a prison from out of state. No one ever did her any harm, but nowadays, no one would think of inviting strangers into their homes.

With memories of that, I try to raise my kids to be helpful to others less fortunate then themselves. I never thought this would be so embedded into them as when my oldest son at the age of 17 bought an old Caravan with a bad transmission for $300. He purchased a transmission from an auto recycling place, fixed the van and then drove it over to a house of someone he met a few months earlier. The man he had met, was without a job and had an old two passenger car. His family of five consisting of his wife, who had a job, and three small children under the age of 8. My son drove the van over to their house, handed the title and keys to this man and walked away. 

On the receiving side, my youngest son ran out of gas 20 miles from home and found out he had lost his wallet. A stranger drove up and asked if he was okay. When my son told him about being out of gas, no wallet or way to get home, the stranger handed him $10 for gas. Of course my son thanked him, but the man said no thanks needed, just pass the goodwill along to others who need it.

Will we ever get back to the days of helping each other through tough times as well as good times, or are we always going to be ‘every man for themselves’? I don’t know. I like to think so. In today’s economy, I hope we can all group together and offer help to those less fortunate than ourselves. If you have good news about sharing and receiving help from others, please add a comment below. Would love to hear from you.

The Art of Bartering

Bartering is a great tool to have if you want to acquire something you need while ridding yourself of something that you don’t need, but someone else may want. There are three methods of bartering. One is bartering an object or service for another object or service. The second way is you barter, plus offer partial payment, for another object or service. The third, you list what you need and offer to buy it outright or directly sell what you have outright. I noticed by checking online that there are a few websites that you can do this directly. Most, you join with a fee, others are listed as join for free. Two sites I noticed that looked promising are www.u-exchange.com and www.trashbank.com. There are others out there. You will need to read through them carefully to see what they require and what they offer you, as far as how much traffic their site generates and what fees or percentage they require, if any. As of now, I am listing a barter deal on Craigslist which is totally free, of course. I need to have 5 acres bush hogged and will pay for it by designing door hangers or flyers for their business and also pay for gas. Graphic design has been my business for over 20 years.

In the past, around 20 years ago, I bartered with a farmer to bush hog 5 acres of hay, twice a year. He then baled it up in about 30 round bales of hay and removed it. Later he felt like he needed to pay us back for the hay. He graveled our driveway, over 2 acres in length and fertilized the 5 acres for us. This went on for 12 years. One year he was kind enough to pay us with a small hog, that when full grown, fed us well over 6 months with very tender pork and ribs. We never asked for this, but were pleased to have it mowed for free and have our driveway graveled. That would have been enough for us. I am offering basically the same deal, but throwing in the graphic design and payment for gas. I know times have changed. People nowadays are out of work and don’t consider this as extra money or deal, on the side. They are desperate for money to pay their bills. I’m there too. I’ve had offers to bush hog the property for $200.-$300. which I can not afford right now. So bartering is my way to go. Hopefully, I’ll run into another farmer who will need the hay. 

I do recommend the barter system. Sometimes you can barter repair work for dental work or antique furniture for a good working car. And sometimes it can might actually lead to future employment. There is no limit. You should really check out bartering on the sites I mentioned or if you need more information about how to go about it, then check out www.howstuffworks.com or www.answers.com.

Small Garden & Rural Living Tidbits:

• Do you know you can protect young cabbage and tomato plants from cutworms by cutting both ends off tin cans and setting them about 2” deep in the soil around each stem of your plants?

• Summertime bug bites. Ouch! Did you know mosquitoes are more attracted to wet clothing than they are to dry? Also bet you didn’t know they love the color blue.

• Next time you go camping and you forget the charcoal, try pinecones, but be careful. Only use the open pinecones. The closed ones will explode. The open ones burn just like charcoal and last a long time.

• Most parks and campgrounds, nowadays, will not allow you to use the wood you find on the ground around your campsite. You have to bring in your own campfire wood. Reason: Preserving the natural habitat. If everyone removed the sticks and limbs for campfires, the land would be more barren leading to erosion. This will cause tree roots to dry out and their lifespan to shorten. Strange sounding but true. 

• Also, on a camping trip in the southern states, realize moss does not grow on the north side of trees. It grows all around the trees. But if you are unlucky to discover you did not bring a scouring pad to clean that greasy frying pan, use Spanish Moss. Works just as well.

• If you have an old work glove and can’t find its mate, don’t throw it away. Here’s an idea for another use. Cut a slit in two places on the front to run your belt through. Cut off the finger and thumb tips. Use it as a handy way to carry your pliers and screwdrivers for your next fix-it job.

• A strange sounding medical remedy for cuts and scrapes. Now this goes back to my grandmother Mama Bess. She used kerosene on that wound. It heals faster, very little sting and leaves no scar. I know someone in the medical profession is going to come after me on this one, but it does work and some members of my family still use this method. 

• Next time you go on a family vacation, fill the areas in the back seat where the kid’s feet go with luggage or what ever you have, making it level with the seat and spread blankets and pillows on top. It’s easier for the kids to spread out and maybe they will sleep instead of asking, “are we there yet?” My family used this method on many of a vacation and sister Cindy, if you are reading this, you hogged way too much room.

• To unstick a glass from the inside of another glass, lower the bottom into hot water and fill the stuck one, with cold water. They’ll will separate instantly.

• To keep from hitting your thumb with a hammer when hammering small, thin nails, use a bobby pin to hold the nail upright.

• A traditional cold remedy is a hot tea made with equal parts of cinnamon sage, and bay leaves with a little lemon juice. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

• Remember: Always cut up the plastic rings from you soda packs, recycle all cans and plastic bottles and newspapers. Never burn newspapers in a fireplace or campfire because of toxic fumes. Use natural cleansers to save money and the environment such as vinegar and water for windows. Always use vinegar or bleach or baking soda in your daily cleaning. Better than most store bought cleansers.

Some of the above information I acquired and used from my rural living Bible, Mother Earth News Almanac. Some information was handed down from my Grandmother and Mother and the camping information is from half my life spent in Scouting-Girls and Boys. 

Next: The Art of Bartering

Daddy Tank and his Busline

In late 1923 or early 1924, Clarence H. Martin, “Tank”  and his wife, Beth C. Martin “Bess”, sold their farm in Anson County, North Carolina and moved to a small town, in Union County, North Carolina. There they opened a bus station, on Franklin Street in Monroe, North Carolina. Clarence H. Martin, came from a family of nine siblings, seven of them brothers. He got his name by one of his younger brothers who could not pronounce Clarence. When his brother called his name, it sounded like ‘Tanes’ and eventually stuck as “Tank”.  “Tank” had suffered an accident as a child which developed a disease in his hip, causing his left leg to be 1 1/2” shorter than his right. He wore a heavy, wooden lift in his shoe and walked with a cane. Every step had to be painful, but as I remember him, he never complained. “Tank” was the bus driver and Bess worked the ticket sales and food counter. The bus station was in the same building just below the Monroe Hotel, now demolished, and a half block from the old Court House. Franklin Street was, at that time, Route 74, a very busy main highway, which ran from Monroe west to Charlotte and east to Wadesboro. This became the first busline in this region and one of the first to operate in the state of North Carolina.

My Mom used to spend a lot of her childhood there after school and on weekends, remembering remarkable, vivid details of the inside of the station. The bus station faced Franklin Street. It was a good size with glass windows across the front and with a door in the middle. In the station, on the left side was a large desk and a long glass front counter. Behind the counter was a tall cabinet with front glass sliding doors in the top. There were three drawers and three storage cabinets below. Sandwiches, candy, pie, cakes, coffee, tea, soft drinks and cigarettes were sold there for the waiting passengers. There were also several Captain chairs for the waiting passengers to relax and wait for their trip.  The station also had a center back door. As my mother tells me, she believed that the passengers caught the bus in the back, remembering them going out the back door where Daddy Tank parked his bus. The first bus my Granddad had was a soft top Buick and his route traveled from Monroe to Wadesboro.  Daddy “Tank” was the only driver, driving to and from. During the summer, he would drive a busload of teachers to the Blue Ridge mountains to a school for their courses on teaching and drive them home again each night.

By 1928, Tank decided to retire the old soft top Buick and bought a new hard top Buick bus, increasing his busline distance to include Lumberton. But by 1929, the world changed. The Great Depression hit hard and the only two banks in Monroe, closed their doors. Daddy Tank had lost more than earnings from his busline, he lost quarter ownership of a gold mine from a Charlotte mining company, half ownership of a barbershop on Franklin Street and shares of a working local electric company.

All he had left was the busline.

At that time, one of “Tanks” brothers, James Flake Martin, who was sheriff of Anson County,  teamed up with two outside businessmen, Frank Lowder and a Mr. L.A. Love, from Queen City Busline. They offered to buy the busline from “Tank” for $1000. “Tank” refused at that time and the three businessmen said “fine, but we plan on adding more new buses to our line, travel your line 10 minutes ahead of you. We will force you out of business.” “Tank” finally agreed to sell, still during the Depression, for $1000. Queen City Busline later was bought out by Trailways and later, my Granddads original line, was merged in with Greyhound’s expansion sometime in the 1940s.. 

To add more to the family history, one of “Tank” Martin’s brothers, J. Flake Martin was sheriff of Anson County from 1926 to 1932; his father, my mothers grandfather Samuel P. Martin was sheriff of Anson County from 1906 to 1911. 

After the sale of the busline; “Tank” left to work as a gas station attendant in another one of his brothers’ business, a gas station in Louisiana. Bess and their children stayed in Monroe and Tank would send money home to her. It was still the Depression, but Daddy “Tank” was fortunate to find any work at all. My mother has told me that during the time of the Depression, her mother Mama Bess grew flowers in her small garden and sold them to area florists. She would sew flour sacks together to make dresses and shirts for her children to wear. My mother never tells me about any of the bad times she endured, but only hints now and then, of how truly hard life had become. At 86, she has a fond memory of her life back then and a wonderful outlook on life now. It amazed me how clear her memory was of the sights and sounds of that old bus station.

Reprinted in part from Buick Club of America magazine, April 2005.

Pesky Pests

Ants in your pantry? There are two natural ways to rid your kitchen counters and pantries of ants. One is to attract them and destroy. The other is to repel them so they won’t want to come in. The attract and rid involves a moist sponge with sugar. Set on the counter in an area out of your way. When the ants gather on it for a feast, take it to the sink and rinse them off in boiling hot water. The repel way is to spread salt in areas they travel in from and in corners of the pantry. For grubs and worms in your garden, there’s always a jar lid filled with beer. They’re attracted to the flavor, get drunk and drown. Always plant marigolds around your garden to ward off vegetable eating pests. Eucalyptus leaves under your house or mobile homes, I heard will warn off roaches, although I may use the sevin dust for them. I don’t spread it inside the house or my garden, but under and around the outside works for me. That’s probably the only chemical I use. Someone mentioned to me that Confederate Jasmine blooms wards off mosquitoes. I hope that’s true. If you know it is, let me know and I will be planting a lot of it soon. Any new or unknown remedies you have for getting rid of pests that really work, please leave a comment and I will include it here with a credit to you. After writing this at 6AM this morning, I sat down to read the local Sunday paper, and low and behold, another natural pesky pest remedy in the paper. To rid your yard of fire ants, rub your shovel handle with baby powder or oil to keep the ants from crawling up to you. Dig up the entire mound when you know the ants are not wandering around looking for food and dump the whole mound in a large bucket. Then pour boiling water into the bucket. It’s the best way to actually get rid of those pests and uses no chemicals. What perfect timing to find that bit of information in the local paper. Sometimes it helps to cut out articles like that. You never know when you might need them.

My next article will be a piece of family history. It will be about my Granddad, Daddy Tank's bus service. Stay with me on this.

Allergies and Autism? Is there a link?

Our oldest son, when born, was allergic to almost everything. He was allergic to milk, cow and goat, soy, and breast milk. We adopted him at 3 days old and had no idea what the poor guy was in for. We started him out on juice and cereal just to bring up his weight until we found out he was also allergic to wheat, yeast, corn, peanuts, and apple. Apple and corn syrup are the base for all juices whether grape or cranberry. He was also allergic to sugar and chocolate. What kid can go through life without chocolate? 

But that’s not all. He also was allergic to scents in cologne, air fresheners, laundry detergents, soaps, glycerin, oil based chemicals. The biggest discovery was formaldehyde which is in new carpet, floor tiles, ceiling tiles, drywall and surprise, Magic Markers. Yes, the brand name Magic Markers!. His reaction to this chemical is he becomes autistic. You can’t reach him, he doesn’t know you. He’s in his own world not touchable, reachable, will not respond. So my question is...has the medical community out there ever tested autistic children for chemical allergies. From personal experience, I truly believe there is a connection. 

Please, please...if you have an autistic child, forward this to your child’s doctor. I know there is not enough research for a cure to autism and should be. My son is now 22, has a very high IQ, but still has the same reaction to Magic Markers and formaldehyde as he did when he was young.

Any comments to this would be greatly appreciated.

Soil

If you ever wonder about the property you want to purchase or want to know what will grow well on the property you now own, here’s a few common sense suggestions you may not have thought of. First, look around and see what properties are around yours. Are they owned by other farmers or are they raw land, undeveloped. Notice if their gardens are producing any vegetables or if it’s swampy, wooded, or pasture land. Next walk on the property and in your mind, divide it into quarters. Grab a handful of dirt approximately 1-2” deep from middle of each quarter of property, and put into separate small paper bags, making four bags of dirt. Mark the outside with your name, phone number and where the dirt came from. North quarter, Northeast section or in some way you can identify where it came from. For added recognition, take a picture of the area where the dirt came from. Then head out to your county agriculture center. You can find the location in the phone book or on the web for your county. They will test the soil, tell you what its made of and what will be best to grow there. Also they will tell you what you need to add to increase productivity. The agriculture center is a very important place to get information, take classes on being a better farmer or just to take classes on anything related to agriculture and nature conservancy. You will be amazed on what you resources are there, from flower arranging, wildflower study, hiking, to solar and wind energy.

Grapevine Supports

Out on the 5 acres I’m renting, I came across an area where it looks like someone once had planted grapevines. The weird thing was, there were holes nearby where posts must have once stood, but now all that’s left are these healthy vines growing on the ground waiting for whoever it was that planted them to come back and support them. I drove to the nearest hardware and lumber supply store to purchase posts, wire and eye hooks. I decided not to use recycled posts like the lumber I used for the garden boxes. These will need to be strong, treated and at least 10’ in length. The wire can be a recycled satellite cable, telephone cable or a medium gauge wire depending on, if you have it on hand or need to go out and purchase it. The large size eye hooks, well you’ll see how that works. My Mother has used cattle fencing and chicken wire, but I find that its awkward, heavy and doesn’t always stand as straight under the weight of the vine like it should. I placed my posts 2’ deep and 6-8’ apart. Across the top I nail in a 2’ x 4’  x 8’ for added support. Approximately 2’ from the ground on both posts, I tap in the hooks with a hammer to get it started and then handscrew the eye hooks in partway facing each other. I repeat this 2’ up from them and then 2’ above the second pair. So you should have three eye hooks 2’ apart on both posts, facing each other. Then I string my wire across from one hook to the other as tight as I can, making a straight line of wire between posts. There should be three wires across when you are done. After that I grab a long handled screwdriver, insert it in the eye hooks and turn it until each hook is fully into the post. That’s my simple secret for tightening the wire when you are the only one there to do it. After that, I use the little wire ties that come with the bread I buy at the store to tie the vines in place on the wire. Save those ties, they come in real handy for all kinds of vines; tomato, grapes, peas, you name it. They’re handy and free so don’t throw them out.

Back to My Roots Part 2

To finish up my story, or lame excuse for not posting in a while, we moved into a new place to rent June 1st. Moving is so expensive as I'm sure all of you out there know. But harder when you have to do it within 6 months of the last move. Only good thing is the forced Spring cleaning that comes with it. And we are getting down to bare bones of collected stuff. 

Our new place is a smaller modular home on another 5 acres. I search for these places because of the stress-free environment living in such quiet solitude. The house itself sits in the middle of a sad, dying orange grove. Most of the dead trees were removed, the others left to fend for themselves. First thing I did, was go from tree to tree and trim off the sour root stock from the trunk, clean out the brush around them and trim back the dead branches. There are approximately 45-50 trees left on this property and after one month living here, with the Florida rainy season upon us daily, I see young, green fruit on the trees coming out in massive amounts. As soon, as finances permit, I will be buying the fertilizer needed to fertilize each tree. But, first things first. The new owner of the property does not want me to plow up the land. Not sure why, but she told me that I can put in small box gardens. So the next thing I did, was make four 8' by 8' box planters for my vegetables. I used roofing paper for the flooring of the planters to keep weeds out, and 2 x 6 x 8s for the sides making two boxes on top of each other or 12" thick. The width of the boards can vary and since they are expensive at your neighborhood hardware and lumber supply stores, I came across it cheap. I drove around and asked contractors who were replacing old decking on mobile homes in the area if I could have the old boards. 90% of lumber from old decking are rot and termite free and still in great shape, enough for siding on a barn or planters. 

Even though its late in the season for vegetables, I did manage to grow tomatoes, squash, collards which grow like there's no tomorrow, and cantalopes. I never used that topsy turpy thing for tomatoes so I can't recommend it. What I did use, was two old truck tires. I went down to a tire repair shop and just asked. Simple as that! They had two worn, but good truck tires and gave them to me. I set them up, filled with rich, black topsoil and planted, simple. My topsoil came from a landscape company who sells gravel, black topsoil and fill by the yard. Its cheaper than bags at the hardware or garden center. I found that a Ford F-150 or Chevy Silverado can carry a yard of dirt easily. Figure on one yard of dirt can fill a 10' by 10' planter 3" deep, so of course after 2 yards, I still had enough for the tires and more. So if you are wondering if your truck or a borrowed neighbor's truck can do it, it can. Barter with your neighbor by offering to wash it or fill the tank if you do borrow their truck. There's always a way. Barter works.

In future posts, I will explain more about planting, living simple and the big goldmine of bartering and living within your means. If you have any comments or suggestions, please add them to my posts. Useful suggestions will be added with name recognition and a link or web address to your site. Let's share our experiences. 

Long Absent Away From My Roots

I know you may have noticed, it's been a long time, actually, over a year since I added any words to this blog. I have gone through so many changes since then. How naive I was. Like, probably 75% of this country, we all are going through a second Depression. For those who don't believe we are, you may be struggling some but still have a job, a home, and maybe some money left in the bank. Where as the group I belong to, have met some major challenges. Sounds almost like a club thing, but instead it's a very, very scary reality. 

No, this is not like the Great Depression and hopefully never will be. But it is still a Depression. In the last few months, I have met a family with two young boys, who have lost everything and are living in an old rundown motel off a major highway. They wash clothes in their bathroom. The kids play in the room where they can keep an eye on them and everyday, the husband walks to the 'Workforce Community Center' looking for employment, if only for a day. 

I also met another family. The husband was a well paid ITT employee. Well enough to have moved into a very plush mobile home on 5 acres, hoping to build his dream house in the future. Only with his wife, himself and one younger son living there. As of today, his older daughter, older son, and another daughter with husband and child have moved in. He lost his job and no one in this massive household has a job right now. He has been served his third foreclosure notice.

Also, I have talked to a homeless man with a bike and a dog, who lives in the woods. And for some reason I envy him. Maybe, it's because he has no debts.

I count myself lucky. I am an optimist and a realist. Sounds like a battle of the brain here, but it works for me. Times were getting tough, my work hours were sliced and diced to a point I was calling in to see if I should even go into work each day. It's an hour drive for me and one day it happened. I was trying to put $5 of gas in the old car with just change, no bills, just to get to work. When I got there, I was told there was only a half hours worth of work at the most. Why I wasn't told when I called in, I don't know. Yep, I got angry but didn't raise a fuss like I should have. With my job as bad as it was, we also were going though mortgage and credit card woes. 

My husband, son and I had tried to work it out with our mortgage company to save our home. We qualified for a loan modification. What a joke. If we were struggling to make the payment each month, what reasoning did the mortgage company have, to come up with a payment costing us $140. more a month? So we decided to try a short sale.  We listed and moved to an old mobile home out in the country, hoping that selling an empty house would move faster than one with our furniture in it. No water or sewer bills, no phone bills or cable bills. Cell phone and satellite TV only. We were that far out. In fact we had to go outside to use the cell phone. That's the day, November 1st, 2008, I lost my job of 8 years.

Luckily, after a massive layoff where my husband works, he was able to count himself one of the lucky ones to keep his job of 12 years. I collected unemployment and looked for work everywhere, even the Workforce. Nothing out there. The day we moved into that place, I started a 1/4 acre garden, depending on Mama Bess, my grandmother from above, for guidance and it worked. I had a ton of vegetables. Delivering fresh vegetables and fruit from the orange trees on the property, helped mend fences with credit holders who demanded payment now. They seemed more willing to work out deals and pay back plans. I sold some vegetables, but mostly we lived off them and canned what we couldn't eat. I say we became semi-vegetarians out there. Internet was a no go for a few months. We couldn't afford satellite internet and connection way out there was near impossible, which will explain why past messages on this blog are so old. 

All was working out fairly well, until 2 weeks in May when our landlord informed us, he was losing his house and 2 of his other rental houses to foreclosure. He was going to have to move his family of 4 with very young children, back into the place we were living in, since it was the only place he owned that was paid off. We managed to find another place fairly quickly for $50. less a month and moved out leaving him the 1/4 acre garden.

I know my story is long and hopefully, not boring. Part 2 in the next coming days. It's weed the garden time.