“As some Montanans see it, when it comes to the thousands of animal carcasses that litter the state’s roads and highways each year, there is only one logical thing to do: Eat them.
Under a new state law, people who come across dead deer, elk, moose and antelope — or strike them with their vehicles — may now haul the animals home for dinner.…”
Click here.
From Lynn Kading
Two years ago I did a “1/4 acre homestead” talk at the Maker Faire at the San Mateo County (Calif.) Event Center). This time around, I have a lot more material, plus URLs on all the tools I’m going to show. I’ll be doing a presentation on the Maker Faire Stage, at 2 PM on Saturday, May 18th, and at 2 PM Sunday, May 19th. Information on the Faire: https://makerfaire.com/. Reviews of the Faire: https://www.yelp.com/biz/maker-faire-san-mateo.
I’ll be showing slides of our homestead, and the various tools we use around here in the kitchen, garden, and shop — from 40+ years’ experience. I’ve picked the tools I think are unique and maybe not so well known, and left off all the ones that I think people may already know about. We’ve posted the URLs on our website here: https://www.shelterpub.com/_homestead/tools.html and I’ll be passing out cards with a QR code so people in the audience so they can check out any of these tools when they get home. I’ll also have copies of our Tiny Homes mini book (2″ x 2″) to give out.
Lew and Evan will be manning a booth (#4925) in the Expo Hall. This is the largest hall, and our booth is at the back. We’ll be showing the process we use in producing books, including the first draft layout pages done with scissors and scotch tape. We’ll also be selling copies of our building books, and giving away mini books.
Photo: draining dish rack in our kitchen built (20 years ago) by Lew Lewandowski
Animal encounters in the last week:
-Dead skunk on road. Nice shiny winter pelt, no smell (it happens every once in a while). I left it there since I skinned a beautiful skunk a few weeks ago.
-Freshly killed deer. Passed this up if for no other reason than my shoulder is still in recovery period — all the more so because I tweaked it picking up oak firewood off road — dumb shit! So am taking a step backward and giving those tendons time to heal. Rly.
-2-3 foxes this week. Bushy tails. Stepping smartly. Foxes are back. About 20 years ago we had tons of small animals around, including many foxes, and some kind of disease got most of them: raccoons, skunks, foxes, possums — populations severely diminished. But now they’re on the rise. I love watching foxes — elegance of the Candidae family.
-A coyote who ran away, then stopped and looked back at me. Mischief in eyes.
–Salamanders ambling mindlessly across trails and fire roads — as soon as there’s moisture.
-Line of about 20 pelicans single-file, flying about a foot above the waves. They often get into the updraft of waves and fly without moving wings. Watched them from above, and they flew around a cove and circled a few times before settling.
Tiny Homes On the Move Getting photos in from all parts of the world is slow going. Right now we’re trying to get large enough photo files on the Vaka Moana sailing canoes from the South Pacific. Three of these 66′ catamarans sailed into our bay here in 2011, and we’re doing the story of our local fishermen going out to visit them, and of their mission with the Pacific Ocean. They’re navigating by the stars.
I’m also working on a story on The Moron Brothers, two good-ole-boy Kentucky bluegrass musicians who drift along the Kentucky River in a shantyboat, fishing, eating, telling jokes, and playing some really good bluegrass.
This morning I just put together two pages on a 54 sq. ft. gypsy vardo with beautiful wooden interior; it’s on a trailer and can be moved at speeds up to 60mph.
Right now we’ve done rough layout on about 40 nomadic units — on wheels or in the water. Slow moving, but the more days that pass, the better it gets.
The Half Acre Homestead I’m doing presentations on this subject at the Maker Faire in San Mateo this May and at the Mother Earth News Faire in Puyallup, Washington June 2nd. It will cover all the tools we’ve settled on after decades of building and raising and preparing food on a small piece of land. Also photos to give you ideas: kitchen setup, raised garden beds, bantam chickens, foraging, etc.
You needn’t own a piece of land to utilize some of these tools or techniques. You may live in a city and want to grind your own grain and make your own bread, or carve a wooden spoon, or grow chives in a window box.
These are tools for people wanting to use their own hands in crafts, or in providing some of their own food and/or shelter. Country, suburban, or urban. There are a lot of things you can do yourself.
We’re working on URLs for each tool or technique, and we’ll post them on our website. If I really get organized, I’ll pass out cards at my talk with the our website URL and QR code.
Lately I’ve been thinking of making this into a book. Right now I can’t see what form this one will take, but it should be smaller and cheaper than our color building books. Black & white? I’ve been looking at Sears and Wards catalogs from turn-of-century.
Music de Jour Marian Janes: “I Know a Good Time;” Magic Sam, “I Feel So Good.”
After doing the symposium at the Art Institute (Wednesday, 3/13), I took off for points north. I haven’t been up to my pal Louie’s for some time, but now with shouder recovered (partly) and new Honda Fit, I headed up Hwy. 101, then cut across to the Russian River, to Jenner, and up the coast. This vehicle is a wonder. Drives like a dream; nimble. Even good on country roads. And it’s like a clown car; you can get amazing amount of stuff in it. (You’re just going to have to bear with me when I rave about this car.)
Now the next part of this story is for country people, OK?
“Hello 🙂
I’m passionate about sustainable land design/management and live a low impact lifestyle with my partner Leo, in a yurt on an incredible Exmoor smallholding that is a mosaic of diverse habitats.…
We care for Shetland, Hebridean & Castlemilk moorit sheep, dairy goats, Cuckoo Maran hens and ex-battery hens, black indian runner ducks and a collie called Willow.
I’m co-founder and run www.saveourwoods.co.uk. Save Our Woods was central in stopping the public forest estate sell-off in 2011 and continues to work closely with government and organisations to achieve the best outcome for the woods and forests of England, public or private.
-hen”
Click here.
Sent us by Alan Whittle
In November I got an email from Peter Meehan, who, along with David Chang, is co-editor of Lucky Peach, a quarterly foodie magazine published by McSweeney’s. They were doing an “apocalypse” issue and wondered if I had off-the-grid photos they could use.
A few months later, Christine Boepple, an LA-based writer, came up and went through about 10,000 thumbnails (in binders) of my photos.
Here’s the result, just out in the magazine. Kinda strange for me, having someone else do layout of my photos. I ended up liking what they did. The shelter stuff they chose is all pretty funky. Also pics of food from the wild and garden, preserves, roadkill furs, and kitchens from both our homestead and other places I’ve been.
PDF of the 6-page article here.
Jeez, has this been a shitty week. And jeez, am I a big baby. Yes. Any body part goes wrong and I’m devastated. I look at friends like Sherm in his wheelchair, can’t move a muscle or talk these days and he perseveres, and gets a twinkle in his eye when I give him shit. Or a bunch of my high school friends, who I saw recently at a 60th reunion. I should not complain.
I had surgery to repair a rotator cuff repair a week ago,and it was only arthroscopic, for christsake, you know, “…minimally invasive.” Well I’ll tell you, my body does not like any kind of invasion. My arm’s been strapped to my side,with the bladder for an ice machine inside the bandage, all week. Can’t tie own shoes. Can barely sleep, have never slept on my back. After 3 days of the pain pills (oxy), I felt so groggy and shitty, I quit them. I don’t understand people taking oxy “recreationally”). Makes me feel like I’m in a hazy, fuzzy tunnel. I’ll deal with some pain in exchange for some mental clarity.
Anyway, just started getting into gear last night. I had given Lucky Peach magazine several hundred of my photos to do a story in their next issue, which is on “the apocalypse.” The angle on me being homemade shelter, gardening, foraging, stuff you can do for yrslf in tough times. They let me comment on the 6-page layout (turned out great, they used about 50 of my photos), and I went through it with them yesterday (Sunday), and this got me back into the communication groove. Issue will be out mid-Feb.
Photo shows fruits in bowl, skinned pads (nopales) in plate. I was defeated by this plant a few years ago, just could not get stickers out, especially from skins of fruit. This time, with help from Nature’s Gardens — Edible Wild Plants by Samuel Thayer, I got more serious. Used tongs to hold, scrubbed with stiff brush, used heavy duty potato peeler on pads. Still difficult, but was able to eat fruit without mouth punctured with stickers — nice mild sweet taste, lot of seeds — and last night sauteed the pads along with garlic and onions, pretty good.
Any one got tips on cleaning, eating? These are so abundant, at least on the West Coast.
Photographer Cliff Volpe sent us this info about Primitive Living Skills gatherings and some “stone age” projects Cliff may do next summer:
PRIMITIVE LIVING SKILLS GATHERINGS
These are week long events where instructors teach a variety of classes that focus on primitive technology, hunter-gather culture, and ancient ways. There are usually a very wide range of classes taught…from the more spiritual inclined to skills focused…such as primitive archery, atlatl manufacture, shelter building, wild edible plants, brain tanned buckskin, basket weaving, footwear/moccasins, felting, roadkill animal processing, diaper-less baby rearing, flint knapping, animal tracking, friction fire, primitive pottery, etc. Here’s a list of primitive living skills gatherings that happen on the west coast:
BUCKEYE GATHERING
https://buckeyegathering.net/
Summary: Held in May in California, about 500 people attend, I’ve never been but have heard great things about it. Registration filled up early last year.