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.