Home gardening offers ways to trim grocery costs [Survival Today, an on going thread]

CROCK POT NO PEEK STEW

2 lbs. chuck or stew meat, cubed
2 c. potatoes, cut up
2 c. carrots, cut up
2 c. celery, cut up
1 lg. onion
1 c. each frozen green beans, peas, corn
1 can Campbell’s tomato soup
1 can water
2 tbsp. Minute Tapioca
1 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. parsley flakes
1 tsp. salt and salt substitute
1 tsp. Lawry’s seasoned salt

1. Mix all ingredients together in crockpot. Cover and cook on low for

10 to 12 hours.

This is one of my husband’s and my favorite dishes. I use the mild red
enchilada sauce. I also use about 2 pounds of ground beef, about 2
cups of cheese in the filling. I also use more sauce than the recipe
says. I put almost a whole can of sauce in the filling and use enough
sauce to top the whole thing. I just eye-ball it and eye-ball the
cheese on top. I also like to put sliced black olives on top of all
that. Sometimes I make Zatarain’s spanish rice and add that to the
filling as well.

Easy Beef Enchiladas
Serves: 12
Source: Back of Old El Paso Enchilada Sauce can

Ingredients:

1 pound Lean ground beef
2 (10 oz.) cans Old El Paso Enchilada Sauce (any variety)
1 1/2 cups Shredded cheddar cheese
1 (10.5 oz) package Old El Paso flour tortillas (6 inch)

Instructions:

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease 13x9-inch glass baking
dish. In 10-inch skillet, cook beef over medium-high heat, stirring
occasionally, until thoroughly cooked; drain. Stir in 3/4 cup of
enchilada sauce and 1 cup of the cheese.

2. Spoon enchilada filling onto tortillas; roll up and place seam
sides down in baking dish.

3. Pour remaining enchilada sauce over top; sprinkle with remaining
1/2 cup cheese. Bake 15-20 minutes or until hot.

Granny note:

I don’t roll these, I layer them, some of this and that, including whole corn, green chilies, onions and ? stewed tomatoes, celery, even slices of squash, a large pan, about 4 inches deep, lots of layers.....

One of my brothers favorite dishes, mine too.

[Note: prepare and freeze]

Lasagna Style Casserole
Serves: 6
Source: Betty Crocker

Love lasagna? Here’s a version that’s only 15 minutes away from the
oven!

Ingredients:

1 pound bulk Italian pork sausage
1 cup tomato pasta sauce
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg
1 cup Original Bisquick® mix
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (4 oz)

Instructions:

1. Heat oven to 400°F. In 10-inch skillet, cook sausage over
medium-high heat 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until no
longer pink; drain. Stir in pasta sauce. Spoon into 8-inch square
glass baking dish.

2. In small bowl, stir ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and 1 egg until
mixed. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto sausage mixture.

3. In small bowl, stir Bisquick mix, milk and 1 egg with fork until
blended. Pour over cheese and sausage mixtures.

4. Spray sheet of foil large enough to cover baking dish with cooking
spray. Place sprayed side down on dish; seal tightly. Bake 23 to 28
minutes or until light golden brown. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
Bake uncovered 5 to 10 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.

To Freeze and Bake: Spray sheet of foil large enough to cover baking
dish with cooking spray. Place sprayed side down on unbaked casserole;
seal tightly. Freeze up to 2 months. Bake covered at 400ºF for 1 hour
to 1 hour 15 minutes or until golden brown. Sprinkle with mozzarella
cheese. Bake uncovered 5 to 10 minutes longer or until cheese is
melted.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Increase first bake time to 33 to 38
minutes. For frozen casserole, bake 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20
minutes.

Vegetarian Lentil Casserole

1 pound lentils — cooked
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup sliced carrot
1/2 cup sliced celery
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
8 cups cooked white rice

Place lentils in 2 1/2-quart casserole. Combine honey, soy sauce,
mustard, pepper and ginger in small bowl. Gently stir into lentils. Cook and
stir onion, carrot and celery in oil in small skillet over medium-high
heat until onion is translucent. Add to lentils. Cover and bake at
350°F 45 minutes. Uncover and bake 15 minutes more. Serve over rice.
Makes 8 servings.

Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and impossible to
forget.

Thanks. It’s looking good for now. It’s iffy about some potential frosts. Our last day of frost is between May 15 and Memorial day, although frosts have caught us later.

If we can get through the next month, that’ll be great, because July/August usually tends to be pretty dry and there’s no guarantees. An early crop would be great.

My garden is not huge, BTW, but the resources around us are good.

Rice keeps forever, but not the brown rice as it has oil that goes rancid.

I like to store nuts and whole grains in canning jars in the freezer. The glass prevents freezer burn and the freezing keeps the quality.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/simplyoffgrid/files/Food%20Storage/

http://www.seedsofknowledge.com/rootcellar.html

A Root Cellar for Your Homestead

by Victoria Ries
Long before the first light bulb, “miraculously” illuminated our
lives-almost everyone owned a root cellar. The root cellar kept apples,
carrots, turnips, potatoes and squash, through the winter, sustaining
the family through those cold and bleak months. Salt pork and smoked
meats, milk, cream, butter and cheese were also kept in the root cellar
to stay cool and fresh, ready for use.

It is thought that the first root cellars originated in the United
Kingdom before colonial times. Immigrants then brought with them their
country skills, including the functional and practical root cellar.

An earth-friendly, root cellar is the natural choice for the
homesteader, whether or not you’re, “on the grid.” The low-tech root
cellar, will keep your harvest fresh for two months or longer,
depending on what you store, without ozone-depleting refrigeration, or
electricity. In addition to the above mentioned foods, you can store
your canned tomatoes, peaches, pears, green beans, peas, fish and meat,
in fact, any type of canned foods in your root cellar. They will
provide a pleasing array of natural colors; the result of a summer’s
hard work and patience, all neatly lined up on shelves.

There are several types of root cellar and different ways in which to
construct one. There’s the Hatch Cellar, Hillside Cellar and the Above
Ground Cellar.

The Hatch Cellar usually consists of a large hole dug into the ground
then lined with rocks. The floor is left in its natural state, just
plain dirt. Beams and plywood sheets are securely laid over the hole,
with a hatch door incorporated into the ceiling/floor, along with the
installation of a ladder for safe and easy access. A shed is then built
over the top of the cellar, overlapping the walls by about three feet
each side.

The Hillside Cellar is dug out of a hillside, lined with rocks, and
then a plywood ceiling is attached to overhead support beams. This type
of cellar has a regular insulated door to walk through.

The Above Ground Cellar is made from a wood frame, covered thickly
with sod on the outside, lined inside with rocks, with a regular
insulated door at the front.

Shelves are installed in each type of cellar, three inches away from
the walls, to allow air to circulate freely and inhibit the growth of
molds. An exhaust pipe is installed through the ceiling to allow hot
air to escape from the cellar. Installation of an intake pipe ensures
fresh, cold air to enter, forcing the hot air to escape from the
exhaust pipe. You must try to maintain an ideal temperature and
humidity ratio to provide optimum freshness for your bountiful harvest.

Humidity is a major factor in your root cellar, whatever type you
decide to install. Humidity will vary, depending on which part of the
world you’re located. If you’re located in the arid, southwestern area
of the United States for instance, you will experience high
temperatures and low humidity. This will need adjusting with a pan of
water on the floor of your cellar and possibly damp towels over your
bushel baskets, to raise the humidity and prevent your harvest from
shriveling. If, on the other hand, you live in the tropical regions of
Australia, you will be faced with both high temperatures and high
humidity. These extremes call for a deep, insulated root cellar with
steps leading down to an insulated entrance door. As most of the
harvest in your root cellar, will stay fresh in moderate temperatures
and humidity—it will spoil quickly, given too high temperatures and
humidity.

Preparing your Harvest for the Root Cellar
FRUITS AND ETHYLENE GAS

Fruits like apples, plums, pears, peaches and tomatoes release
ethylene gas in storage, and while small amounts will not affect other
stored foods; it speeds their aging process, and makes some vegetables
like carrots, bitter.

To store fruit successfully, only pick the best of the bunch; neither
too ripe, nor under ripe. Use the bruised fruits for sauces and for
stewing or fruit salad. Wrap individually, each piece of fruit and
place carefully in cardboard or wooden boxes. An alternative method
would be to bury the fruit in boxes filled with sand. Be gentle, as one
bad apple will spoil the whole bunch!

IN GARDEN, EXTENDED STORAGE

Mulching root vegetables thickly with pine needles, straw or other
suitable mulching materials whilst they’re still in the garden, will
stop them from freezing and keep them for up to a month. At which time,
such veggies as carrots, can be transferred to your root cellar.

POTATOES

When the green tops on your potatoes die off, the potatoes can be
harvested. If you are experiencing hot weather at this time, you may
want to keep them in the ground for a few weeks longer, until
temperatures go down to 60-70F. The potatoes can then be dug up and
cured in the shade for two weeks. Do not cure in the sun, as this will
produce toxic, solanines (nightshade). This will turn your tubers
green, and harmful to eat-especially for babies and pregnant or nursing
moms; so please cure in shade only. Just remove excess dirt from the
potatoes, as a layer of dirt helps extend their life; on NO account,
wash them! When your potatoes are cured, you can move them to the root
cellar. They keep best with high humidity of 90%, in a temperature of
38-40F. This temperature slows respiration, delay their sprouting, and
will ensure the starch doesn’t convert to sugar. Store them in a bin or
a pile covered with straw or burlap—NOT plastic, to stop water
condensing on the potatoes. These potatoes will now keep from four to
six months in your handy root cellar.

PUMPKINS

Pumpkins should be harvested with a few inches of stem attached to
help prevent pathogens from entering the pumpkin through the cut scar.
Pumpkins should be left to sit outside for a few days to harden their
shells. They will then be ready for the cellar. 65-70% humidity is
perfect for these vegetables and cool temperatures, above freezing are
ideal. Your pumpkins will now keep for up to six months.

ONIONS AND GARLIC

Onions and garlic are ready to pull out of your garden, when the tops
are dead and brown. They need to be cured, however, by tying or
braiding their tops together, and hanging them up outside to cure. The
porch or a handy tree can be used to serve this purpose. A few weeks of
curing and they will be ready to hang up in your root cellar or
somewhere cool-ideally 60-70% humidity with a temperature of 35- 40F.

APPROXIMATE STORAGE TIMES:

Cabbage.......3-4 months
Brussels Sprouts.....3-5 weeks
Jerusalem Artichokes..1-2 months
Carrots........4-6 months
Chinese Cabbage...1-2 months
Eggplant........1-2 weeks
Parsnips........1-2 months
Rutabagas......2-4 months
Squash........4-6months
Radishes........2-3 months
Tomatoes.......1-2 months
Cauliflower......2-4 weeks
Broccoli.........1-2 weeks
Beets........4-5 months
Pumpkins......5-6 months
Potatoes.........4-6 months
Turnips.......4-6 months

Although the above stated storage times are approximate, check
periodically for spoilage.
Copyright 2001 © Victoria Ries All Rights Reserved

About the Author
Victoria Ries is a freelance writer living in the rural mountains of
Arizona. She has been writing since age nine and has been multi
published in print and online. Her newsletter, Rural Country Living, is
especially for country folk. Subscribe by sending a blank email to:
Rural_Country_Living_eZine-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or visit

http://ruralcountryliving.homestead.com

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/oEYNSFX-INMuW6AqX3RdyasJZQA6RkG4T1YDnCEAWrBqjUXWkNrC0uhE6hvK5YCz1gMqvNn6KaBEAw8lifhPfzLFKI1HZ8z6/Food%20Storage/Off%20Grid%20Water%20Systems%20by%20John%20Vivian

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I shan’t be gone long. - You come too
Robert Frost: The Pasture

Issue # 180 - June/July 2000
Off-Grid Water Systems

Locating and Tapping
Native Water Sources

By John Vivian
apping a spring as Frost did is, like all of
humankind’s water-exploitation efforts, a temporary interruption in the planetary water-
purification and recycling system: the global, solar-powered water cycle. Rain water or
melted snow flows constantly downhill, some on top of the soil in rivers and lakes as easily
contaminated “surface water,” some trickling through the upper layers of soil and rock as “ground
water” and some sinking gradually - often taking centuries to settle into the depths of the Earth’s
crust to reside in “deep-water” aquifers. Much of America’s dry, western farmlands are being
irrigated today with Pleistocene-era, 10,000-year-old “fossil water” from 1,500-foot-deep aquifers
that took thousands of years to fill but are being emptied in a matter of decades. If left alone, they
might refill by the next millennium. More probably it’ll take 2,000 to 5,000 more years.

Waylaying a flowing spring and running it through a homestead is a minor hitch in the cycle
compared to humankind’s truly heroic efforts. We all know of world water misallocation and
pollution problems (and must cheer such progress as the cleanup of the Cuyahoga, Hudson and
many other formerly toxic water sources). But despite scattered improvements, our environmental
transgressions over the years are beginning to have damaging effects on nature. Too often, surface
and groundwater must flow through wars, famines, dumps and dunghills and be diverted to carry
away the poison effluent of an increasingly industrialized, urbanized and overpopulated human
society.

To do our bit, we need to provide working examples of action in progress by adopting water-
conserving policies on our own country places. These policies should be as stringent as any
organic gardening practice aimed at conserving and rebuilding topsoil (feeding the land, for
example, with composted plant materials, rather than feeding the plants with chemicals). We
should determine to:

1. Tap into the water cycle as soon as possible in its trip from the clouds to the ocean deeps,
leaving the deeper aquifers to farms, industries and urban centers not as fortunate as we to be able
to tap in early.

2. Divert as little water as possible from the natural water-cycle processes - only so much as is
needed for a healthy, clean and sustainable lifestyle.

3. Minimize our own water contamination by doing our best to assure that when water leaves our
place, it is as clean (or cleaner if we inherit pollution from another source) as when we got it.

But before you can conserve water, you gotta find it.

Finding Water

The conventional way to supply water to a country place is to bring in a huge drilling rig to raise a
derrick and sink a 250’-deep or greater, 6”- or 8”-diameter well to an aquifer so far below the
surface it cannot be contaminated by any surface life.

Then bury a 3,000- to 5,000-gallon septic tank with a 100’, multiple-pipe leach field to drain partially treated effluent into the groundwater.
Then build a house that uses a conventional water-carry system to drain harmless effluent (from
clothes and dishwashers, baths and showers, kitchen sink, dog and car washes, and rain from the
driveway) and contaminate it with just a few ounces of bacteria-packed, potentially disease-
carrying human waste. This insignificant amount of waste renders hundreds of gallons of water
unusable each day.

It is not necessary to squander so much drinking water when we can get by with less. A more
conservative water supply of as little as five gallons a day can serve a household and eliminate the
need to waste the thousands of dollars it takes to tap a deep aquifer and to treat a whole-house,
water-carry disposal system.

Boxing a spring: First, identify water “pipes,”
then clear rock fractures, debris and dark
surface soil. Dig down a few feet and excavate a
small pool.

This water is obtainable cheaply from many sources that can be located “off-grid,” miles from the
highways and electric highlines.

If you are so fortunate as to live on a lake, pond or year-round flowing stream, you can take your
water from there by gravity, gravity/siphon or with a pump powered by hand, wind, water or
engine.

Springs

A spring is an upwelling that reveals itself at the surface. It can occur as shallow seepage from a
nearby lake or stream (or a neighbor’s overloaded cesspool or hog-lot manure lagoon), from an
underground stream or unorganized water migration through the soil (or leakage from a distant
toxic waste dump), or as artesian flow from a deep aquifer. You won’t know until you have the
water tested at a lab. In relatively unpopulated countryside, all water should test out fine. Unless
grossly overloaded, natural populations of soil microorganisms expand to do a good job of
consuming most natural, organic pollutants within a few months to a year’s time. Even overloads
can be mitigated, given enough time. (Case in point: Eleven years after the fact, petroleum
remaining from the Exxon Valdez crude-oil spill in Alaska’s wildlife-rich Prince William Sound is
being consumed by bacteria at an unexpectedly rapid rate, and the otters, seals and sea bird
populations are beginning to regenerate.) Of course, if the pollutants are constantly resupplied,
nature’s self-cleansing system can be overwhelmed.
In a heavily populated, industrial or agricultural area, mineral-rich, pesticide/pollutant-free spring
water will likely come from deep underground. Presence of E. coli bacteria or phosphates (from
detergents) indicates household sewage or septic outflow; solvents come from industrial pollution,
pesticides from agriculture. But despite these potential insults, most North American groundwater
remains potable; half the population drinks it still.

Look for springs early in the year while they are still (over)flowing from snowmelt or spring rains.

Patrol the roads and look for small runnels flowing into roadside ditches. Trace them to their
source, then check back monthly even if the running streamlet dries up. If the source area remains
marshy till fall, you have a year-round spring.

Walk the woods above the house and trace linear dips in the ground. They may indicate where an
underground stream has worn a channel through the soil. Many springs don’t flow, but pool out
and flood an area to make a minimarsh. If soil around is black and smelly (but not green with
algae ...a sign of nutrients, possibly from raw sewage), and if watercress or a few cattails, rushes,
reeds, horsetails or other marsh plants grow there, you have a perpetual spring that can be cleaned
out, boxed and tapped.

To tap a spring, wait till it is at its driest, usually in the fall before late-season rains begin. Dig out
the sulphur-smelling, stagnant black soil and trace water to upflows from “pipes”-vertical
channels in the subsoil or cracks in bedrock or tiny rivulets flowing through miniarteries in the
subsoil. Cut out marsh soil till you locate where water is springing from clean soil. Then, dig out
as large a pool as you want and line it with rocks up to the surface. Build a ground-level apron of
concrete, rocks or good rot-resistant wood such as cedar. Build a raised box with a secure top over
the spring and dig an outflow to carry excess water where you want it. Cut a channel deep and
long enough so that water will leave the area. (see illustrations below).

The boxed spring can be expanded to a covered spring house that will serve as a 40°F refrigerator
for much of the year.

Clockwise from top, left: Once the pool has been cut, make drainage channel, then line the pool with rocks up to
its surface. Build a ground-level apron around the pool, using rocks or a rot-resistant wood. Top with a raised,
covered box to keep debris and large animals away from the water supply.

Easiest is to extend the spring pool beyond its original one- or two-square-foot area to form a
shallow sink, perhaps 6’ long by 2’ or 3’ wide. (Some old-timers sank an old tin stock tank or iron
bath tub in the soil.) Dig it so water level stands 1’ deep above a flat rock bottom. Cover with
heavy (varmint-proof) planks or surround with beams supporting a hinge-topped shed roof and set
in watermelons, bottles of milk and other perishables.

More elaborate is to build a stand-up roofed shed
over an even larger shallow pool. You will need
stone or poured - concrete curbs around the
perimeter to contain the water, and flat-topped
stepping stones, wood or poured-concrete walkways
in the pool to get around with dry feet (see
illustration, above right).

Cleaning a spring is a magic chore, particularly in
summer and early fall when it plops with frogs and
hosts a miniature water world of tadpoles,
waterbugs, newts, freshwater shrimp and tiny fish
(sculpins or rainbow darters). As you watch the water clear, you can see a lot deeper than the
bottom of the spring ...if, like Frost, you are inclined to look beyond the surface of things.

Springs can be tapped by the bucketful for
household use. If located above the house,
spring water can be run through pipes in a
gravity-flow system to a cistern, an elevated
water tank or a font inside the house (and
from its drain back out to the streambed),
providing indoor plumbing under even the
most rustic off-grid conditions. If spring and
pipes are insulated with earth or hay bales,
and the spring is let flow full-time, a gravity
spring can supply water to the house through
the winter in even the coldest climates. Flow
friction heated water will not freeze up
unless temperatures stay well below 0°F for
days at a time. You’ll have to design your
own spring-fed system, following local
topography, but the illustrations on these
pages will give you a head start.

An expanded spring pool housed in a small shed will
provide year-round cooling and storage.

Wells

If land is high enough or the local area dry enough that springs and water bodies are not in
evidence, you must dig down to the local water table - the level below ground where soil and rock
is saturated with water. You may have to dig down to an aquifer - a layer of gravel or porous rock
that carries a vein of water through an otherwise relatively dry topography.

Asking around neighboring farms and old homes will reveal the best well-drilling strategy for the
local geology. You are in luck if your land overlays a shallow (15’- to 22’-deep) water table and a
deep loam/clay or sand/clay soil containing few large rocks and no solid rock formations for many
hundreds of feet down.

You can sink a pipe well by hand. Locate the well as near the house as possible to reduce
length of draw (and thus the work your pumping arm or an electric pump must do to get water
into the house). Make sure the site is at least 100’ from and uphill of a privy, animal lot or
septic system outflow.

Simplest is to get (from a hardware store or one of the homestead suppliers listed in Sources)
a well point - a 4’ length of 1 “-, 2”- or 3”-diameter steel pipe with a hardened point and
hollow interior. At the bottom is a brass screen covering holes drilled into the interior hollow
core. The drill point is abandoned, and the pipe serves as well casing when it reaches depth.

Thread a soft-metal hammering cap on the up-end of the pipe and simply bull it down into the
soil with a maul. The cap is removed and new sections of pipe screwed on tight with a pair of
large monkey wrenches and a little nontoxic plumber’s joint compound in the threads as the
well point goes down. Some soils will let you hammer in a complete well. If artesian pressure
below ground is sufficient, the well may begin to produce water by itself, prompting a
“gusher” through the drill pipe at the wellhead. Otherwise, screw on a pump fitting and attach
a suction pump to see if you have water.

A modern well point can be driven by hand through relatively loose soil.

If the going gets rough, you can attach a garden hose or high-pressure pump to the wellhead and
force water into the hole. It will flow out of the point and into the soil, soaking and loosening it
and carrying loose spoil to the surface just like a professional drilling rig.

A cut above a driven-point well is a bored well. You can find huge hand-turned earth augers with
a pile of rusty drive-rod extensions at farm antique sales. But it takes a lot of drive rod, muscle
and determination to bore a well. You must drill down a foot or so, pull the auger by hand, levers
or a winch, dump the spoil and go back down again; otherwise loose spoil can lodge in the bore
above the auger and you’ll have to reverse-drill out and redrill back in again. When water is
reached, the ground softens, drilling becomes easier and spoil becomes moist, then wet. Usually,
the bore is extended 6’ into the water-bearing material to provide a sump or reservoir. Then, the
auger is pulled and lengths of hollow pipe casing - threaded at both ends,with sections joined by a
threaded nipple - go into the hole to prevent collapse. Your choice of pump is attached at the
surface. Easiest is to connect pump to well through black plastic semi-flex pipe with a spring-
loaded footvalve on the well end. The valve opens when suction is applied to let water in, and
closes after the stroke to keep it in. In the old days, a tall standing pitcher pump was fitted atop a
wooden platform built over the well. In more modern homes, the pump was moved to the kitchen
counter beside the sink. My grandmother and great-aunts all had them a good 50 years after
municipal water lines had been installed.

You can use power to sink an auger well by investing in a Deep-Rock®-type well driller. Using a
posthole-auger power head with a geared-down gas engine on a miniature derrick, and a portable
high-pressure pump to send spoil-clearing water into the bore, it drills like a mini-oil rig and can
do a fine job to reasonable depths in soil that’s free of hard rocks.

Cost is about the same as a drilled well, but you can use it to sink wells for all the neighbors and
make money doing it.

Do not expect to use a suction pump to draw water that is farther down than 22’. At just over 21’,
the force of gravity overwhelms the vacuum that a surface-located pitcher pump can generate. For
deeper wells you will need a submerged push-type pump that can be operated by motor or
windmill. This arrangement will pull water up from as deep as 600’. Below that you need a
submerged jet pump, which will demand electricity.

Since the abortive Y2K scare, several catalogs have begun featuring hand-lever-operated pumps
that can be lowered into drilled well casings - sometimes without your having to remove the
submerged electric pump. Hand-pumping water from several hundred feet down would take a lot
of time and muscle, and we’d prefer using a portable electric generator to power the submerged
pump. It’s good to know that if the fuel runs out, you can still access the water table.

Catalogs also sell long, tubular stenciled-tin “drilled-well buckets” with a spring-loaded, in-only
flapper valve at the bottom. Lowered on long ropes, they can get water out of drilled-well casings.

And they make neat decorations on the barn wall when not in use. You’ll find them for selling for
just around $50 (rope and arm muscle not included).

The old-time way to sink a well was to hand-dig a 3’- to 4’-wide shaft and build a roofed
wishing well with a bucket on a windlass over it. A raised platform or curb was built to
cover the open pit, and a box built on that to prevent fall-ins. Ancient civilizations hand-
dug wells hundreds of feet deep, and there are reports of 70’ bucket wells in some parts of
North America. However, hand-dug wells are most practical for under-22’ water tables in
firm and undisturbed soils.

Collapse of the shaft on the miner is always a possibility; hand-well digging should not be
attempted by a novice. You need someone in attendance who knows what’s underground
in your area, plus well-conditioned shovelers and a big windlass over the hole to bring up
buckets of spoil and to raise and lower the miners. A crane can be used to lower a simple
miner’s caisson, made from sections of corrugated water conduit, down around the diggers
to protect them from cave-ins. Diggers have to scratch out circumferential soil from under
the tube’s lower margin - not easy work.

Modified well buckets can maximize water draw from narrow wells.

Catchments

Catchments of many kinds are used to capture and hold
rainwater in areas of low rainfall, where wells are difficult to
bring in and in parts of the West where water is too deep and/or
is contaminated with brine or alkali. Easiest and most common
is a big wooden rain barrel, fed from a downspout leading from
gutters at the roof eaves. Several firms have begun
Components for wells drawing from
less than 200’ can be operated by
hand.

manufacturing 40- or 50-gallon plastic rain barrels that come
with moulded-plastic, roof-cleaner diverters to fit any
downspout; the diverters deflect flow till the roof is clean, then
are rotated to fill the barrel.

A roof-gathering system can be used to fill buried or above-
ground cisterns of any practical size. We know of homes in the
naturally fresh-waterless Florida Keys (water from the
Everglades is piped all the way to Key West) with precast
concrete cisterns that hold 3,000 gallons. They can be filled
during a single tropical storm and supply cooking, drinking and
wash water for months till the next storm comes along. They are
typically fitted with roof-cleaners and a pump.

Inland, too, rain can be caught off roofs or captured from gullies
or washes and stored in cisterns or s in dammed reservoirs.
Controlling the brief but powerful flood waters and minimizing
mud buildup in reservoirs are major problems. Some catchments
are lined with mud-reducing sheet plastic, but the sheeting is
quickly destroyed by UV rays from the sun. Though this is low-
tech water gathering, you’re advised to enlist expert assistance, especially if building a dam and
impoundment upstream of a town, campground or highway.
Proper terms for the above described methods are “surface water containment,” or “rain and storm
water harvesting” or “runoff catchments.” Unfortunately, written resources are scarce and most are
concerned with water supplies for arid outback Australia, ground-waterless ocean islands and
desert areas in Third World countries.

Test Before You Taste

In most of rural North America the water will be good, but you must test any wild water before
drinking it untreated.

Half of the North American populace drinks surface and groundwater (even though 25% live
within a quarter mile of an EPA-recognized toxic dump).
Treat any untested water with iodine tablets or chlorine bleach (1 teaspoon per 10 gallons), or boil
it for ten minutes to kill off undesirables, then pour through a PUR® filter (available at grocery or
hardware stores) to eliminate chemicals and hazardous minerals such as mercury, lead and arsenic.

Checking on domestic water safety is your local government’s responsibility, and is typically
under the purview of your area’s public health or zoning authorities. Try your town clerk or go to
the county seat and badger the public health office for a government-subsidized test.

If that doesn’t work, you can finance your own
water tests. Water test kits are available from
most of the alternative-energy suppliers that
advertise in MOTHER (they act as agents for the
same accredited labs used by your extension
service). Such tests are conducted by mail,
though, and are best for persistent chemical
pollutants. The lab must have fresh water for a
reliable count of fragile bacteria and unstable
chemicals (and it must be no more than 24 hours

SOURCES
CATALOGS
Real Goods: 200 Clara St., Ukiah, CA
95482; 800-762-7325 www.realgoods.com
Lehman’s non-Electric Catalog: PO Box
41, Kidron, OH 44636; 877-438-5346
http://hearth.com/lehmans/lehmans.html
Cumberland General Store: #1 Highway
68, Crossville, TN 38555; 800-334-4640
www.cumberlandgeneral.com
BOOKS
Rainwater Harvesting: The Collection
of Rainfall and Runoff in Rural Areas
by Arnold Pacey, Paperback (December
1986) Intermediate Technology; ISBN:
0946688222 This noted rural development
guru and philosopher provides a rare and
comprehensive guide.
Foxfire 4: Fiddle Making,
Springhouses, Horse Trading, Sassafras
Tea, Berry Buckets, Gardening, and
Further Affairs of Plain Living by Eliot
Wiggington (Editor), Paperback-496
pages (November 4, 1977) Anchor
Publishing (MD); ISBN: 0385120877
old to conduct the float test for tiny giardia
cysts). The local farm coop or any well driller
can aim you toward a nearby testing service, or
they may do their own testing. If so, see what
they charge. Plan on spending $150 to $250 for a
really thorough test.
Our preferred method is to send samples off for
chemical-testing, but also to invest in a school
microscope, lab manual, slides and petrie dishes,
a little agar-agar and a dye kit and do our own
testing for bacteria, parasites and other live
critters.
One lab that you can deal with directly is
Suburban Water Testing Labs, Inc. at
www.h2otest.com. It offers a selection of the most popular tests in easy-order kits. You send in an
order and a check, and in return receive a sampling kit; you fill the water vials and send them in
(follow directions; don’t get your fingers in the sample) and the lab immediately responds with test
results and recommended cures. For prices ranging from under $100 to $500, Suburban will test
for your choice from a long list of troublesome microorganisms, heavy metals, pesticides, solvents
and generally harmful chemicals like polyvinyl chlorides (PVCs) and asbestos.

If coliform bacteria (E. coli and others) are detected, you
can find out what kind it is for another few dollars.
Thousands of species live naturally in soil and water and in
the guts of most living creatures. A lab culture will tell if it
is a fecal variety from human waste or farm-animal
feedlots. E. coli species are usually harmless, but their
presence in drinking water is a red alert that human disease
organisms might also appear at any time (including newly
evolved pathogenic strains of E. coli). Patrol your
watershed. You may find a raccoon carcass, bat tree, bear
den or a hiker’s latrine draining into your spring; remove
the polluter and clean up your water. Any source of human
coliform found in the water supply should be traced,
located and eradicated - a job demanding the resources and
enforcement clout of public health offices or your state’s
EPA.

If faced with an unsolvable problem, you can always drill a
deeper well (for $2,500 to $5,000 to start) or have an
automatic filtering/chlorine-application system installed at
the wellhead (for about $1,000). Or you can install a whole-
house water purifying system (see your Yellow Pages) in
your cellar. You can also purchase stills or lot purifiers to
install on or near drinking water faucets (see catalogs listed
under Sources). Select your purifier carefully. Few remove
all possible contaminants, so be sure to select one that treats
your specific water problems. And know going in that it ain
cheap; most high-tech purifiers use electricity, and all
require replacement of semi-permeable membranes, filter
elements and/or UV-bulb bacteria-killers, plus periodic
Cottage Water Systems: An Out-Of-
The-City Guide to Pumps, Plumbing
Water Purification, and Privies by Max
Burns Paperback- 160 pages (August
1993) Cottage Life Books; ISBN:
096969220X
The Home Water Supply: How to Find,
Filter, Store and Conserve It by Stu
Campbell, Roger Griffith (Editor)
Paperback - 240 pages (October 1983)
Storey Books; ISBN: 0882663240

ADDITIONAL SOURCES

www.lifewater.org/wfw/wfwindex.htm
Here you’ll find USAID’s Water for the
World Technical Notes, a short but
comprehensive treatise on all aspects of
surface water use. Contact Lifewater
International at 15854 Business Center
Drive, Irwindale, CA 91706, 888-LIFE-
H20 (888-543-3426) or e-mail
Lifewater@xc.org.
Finally, consult your local Cooperative
Extension Service (USDA). Texas,
Arizona and New Mexico residents have
been impounding rain and flood waters
since the days of the ancient Anasazi. The
states have area-specific resources you
won’t find elsewhere.

and condense the steam, but demand close attention and
stove fuel.
To minimize cost and hassle, we suggest that you test and,
if need be, clean up your own water supply. If you get the
authorities involved, you can have yourself regulated out of
your water source on the whim of some clerk. We know of
a small community with 30-year-old water and plumbing
systems, where broken underground pipes potentially allow
cross-contamination between systems. In a mandatory
periodic test, the state found coliform bacteria (of unknown
variety and source) in the drinking water and issued a
mandatory “boil water” dictate to residents. An automatic
chlorinator was installed at the wellhead, but owners failed
to hire the right engineer to propitiate the regulators. Thus,
the “boil-water” rule is being kept in force till such time
that the contamination source can be found and corrected to
the bureaucrat’s satisfaction (which hasn’t happened in a
year’s time). Park residents complain that the water reeks of
chlorine periodically and bleaches everything, but is still
officially unsafe. Many are now having to make a large
investment in drinking water.

Poor water headaches like this are becoming a standard
irritation of living in an increasingly populated countryside
- all the more reason, then, to declare independence from
county restrictions and find the water you need ... yourself.
Browse through a collection of our best Do-It-Yourself and Building
stories. Go to our web site! www.motherearthnews.com now offers
archived articles, an “Ask Mother” section and more.
Related info:
Water Contaminants To Test For
Sifting Through The Filter Jargon
Please note: All articles in the archive are reprinted just as they were published on the date indicated. Source
listings, addresses and prices have not been updated; some details may have changed and terminology may be
outmoded.

PerkinElmer - TurboMatrix
Headspace Trap VOC Concentrator
meets EPA monitoring requirements
UNESCO-IHE, Holland
Surface Water Hydrology Apply for
specialisation

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Grit Magazine • Cappers Magazine • Good Things to Eat • Brave Hearts
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http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/oEYNSD2yUJQuW6AqzXBV9t9LBPeGy_8edbEaFp0w6OgDshQZu69b_0jCCvjv_2PAK9JhAqF5xNwKmWWNbVSnFHlxGuOqGzo_/Disaster%20Prepardness/Cooking%20%26%20Foods

this is for disaster preparedness, but I think it could spark a lot of
ideas for simple living :D

http://www.justpeace.org/printfoodcooking.htm

EMERGENCY COOKING

SAFETY NOTES: Emergency cooking will involve an open flame. You must
have proper ventilation: a window or door open 1” will provide
sufficient fresh air if the open flame cooking device is placed in
front of (or very close to) the opening (this keeps exhaust fumes from
spreading through the room). DO NOT leave a propane camp stove, or the
burners on a natural gas stove, burning while you sleep. DO NOT use
charcoal briquets inside for cooking — doing this has killed people.
DO NOT use wood inside at house for cooking unless you have a fireplace
or properly installed wood stove. If you need a campfire, build it in a
safe place outside. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include
headache, lethargy, blurry vision, room feels “stuffy”. If symptoms
occur, get fresh air into the room immediately or move everybody out
fast. Pregnant women and unborn babies are particularly at risk. A box
of baking soda is a good emergency fire extinguisher.

+ Wood stoves, fireplaces, Dutch ovens, charcoal briquets, gas grills,
camp stoves. Use bricks to make a stand for a pot or to hold a grill in
an open fireplace. Dutch ovens can be cooked in fires outside in the
yard or in the fireplace. Charcoal briquets can be used with cast iron
skillets, Dutch ovens, and other pots and pans, but such cooking must
be done outside. Small 1 to 3 burner propane camp stoves can be used
indoors (with adequate ventilation), liquid coleman/unleaded/white gas
fuel stoves and gas grills must be used outdoors. Most kerosene heaters
get hot enough on top to cook food.

+ Baking on top of a camp stove. (1) Place a cast iron skillet or
cookie sheet on top of the burner(s). (2) Put something on top of this
to raise the cooking pan up and allow air to circulate underneath. This
could be a low cake pan, or empty tuna cans, or the trivet from your
gas range. (3) Put the food to be baked in a covered pan on top of the
“risers”. (4) Make a tent from several layers of foil over the cake
pan, so that air can circulate beneath it, and put a small vent hole in
the top of the aluminum foil. Large cans or pot lids also work. Keep an
eye on the food as it is baking. You may have to flip biscuits so that
they brown on top.

+ Chafing Dish cooking. Chafing dishes come in many different sizes
and use small cans of jelled fuel for heat, some use candles or
denatured alcohol burners. A fondue pot is a type of chafing dish. The
small stand supporting the chafing dish can be used with a skillet or
omelet pan, or a pot for soup or stew. It takes up to a half hour to
warm a can of food with a candle. Buddy burners can also be used with
chafing dishes. “Buddy burners” and candles can be used wit chafing
dishes.

+ Solar cookers. Solar cookers are made with cardboard boxes,
aluminum foil, duct tape, and glass. Such ovens can get to 350 degrees,
hot enough to bake meats and casseroles. A solar cooker works by
reflecting light onto a dark pot through a clear transparent cover such
as glass or an oven baking bag, and insulating the pot so that the heat
does not radiate out but rather cooks the food. Crockpot recipes will
generally work in a solar cooker. Work with materials you have at hand
to create an insulated container with a clear top that sun can be
reflected upon.

+ Non-electric crockpot. Use a box or bucket big enough to pack 4
inches of insulating material on all sides, top and bottom. Line the
inside with aluminum foil, and put insulating material on the bottom
(such as newspapers, cloth, sawdust, hay). Bring the food to a boil,
cover the pot (3 - 6 quarts) and put it in the container. Pack the top
and the spaces between the pot and the sides of the box or bucket with
insulating material, and put the lid on. Good for up to 4 hours
cooking..

+ Remember: Food cooks faster in covered pots. Be thrifty with scarce
fuels, combine methods (such as using a camp stove to bring beans to a
boil, and then the non-electric crockpot to finish the job). Consult
Scout manuals for other methods of cooking over open fires. Work with
your neighbors to ensure community food security.

FOOD SAFETY IN A DISASTER

Cold foods must be kept cold (below 45 degrees F.) to prevent spoilage.
If the power goes off, open your refrigerator and freezer as little as
possible. Wrap them in blankets or newspapers, or stack bags of clothes
or mattresses against the walls & on the tops. Shield them from direct
sunlight, and don’t heat the rooms they are in. Eat the items in the
refrigerator first, the same day the power goes off. (Invite the
neighbors for a disasterbuffet potluck.) If you are frugal in opening
the freezer, the food inside will stay below 45 degrees for 3-5 days.
Be careful about storing prepared foods without refrigeration. If it is
cold winter, put food in an insulated box (such as an ice chest) in an
unheated room or porch. Pack it with snow or ice (if available). Put a
thermometer in the room and check it several times a day to make sure
it is staying below 45 degrees. Protect the cold box from sunlight.
When cooking, estimate food portions carefully, as you may not be able
to refrigerate the leftovers. Spoiled foods may not have an offensive
odor, so while the presence of a bad odor is a sure indicator of
spoilage, its absence may not be an assurance of safety. Don’t take
chances with food safety! If in doubt, throw it out.

Creamed foods, soft cheeses (cream cheese, spreads, cottage cheese),
gravy, mayonnaise, salad dressings, pork, & poultry spoil quickly.
Dispose of them if the refrigerator has been without power for 12
hours. Seafood, chopped meat, and poultry sandwich fillings are not
safe after 4 hours without refrigeration. Hard cheeses will be fine at
room temperature for several days. To preserve for longer periods: Dip
the cheese into a salt solution (salty enough that an egg floats) and
place on a rack to dry overnight. On the 2nd day, rub with salt and
leave on the rack. Do this again a 3rd day. By this time a rind should
be developing. If it feels dry and smooth, continue to the waxing; if
not, rub with salt and let dry another day. Waxing: Apply 3 or 4 coats
of wax (either with a brush, or by dipping into melted wax, melt the
wax in a double boiler, which is a pot of water with a smaller pot
inside), let the wax dry between each coat. Wrap with cheese cloth, and
continue the process of dipping and drying until several layers later
the cheese is completely covered with a smooth wax exterior. It will
continue to age inside, but remain good. If you do find mold on hard
cheese, simply scrape or cut it off and use the rest of the cheese.

Sour milk can be used in baking (corn bread, pancakes, waffles,
biscuits, sour dough starter). Butter will keep for several days, and
clarified butter will keep for months without refrigeration: To
clarify butter: melt it slowly over low heat, boil slowly until the
solids collect together in the bottom of the pan. The butter oil will
be clear and golden. Sometimes a bit of scum floats up to the top; skim
that off. Ladle off the clarified butter, leaving the solids in the
bottom of the pan (you can pour the remaining bits of butter oil and
solids through a cheese cloth to extract all the butter and leave all
the solids behind). Salt cured smoked hams will keep without
refrigeration, but “store hams” should be treated as other meats. Whole
uncracked eggs will keep for a few days at a cool room temperature.

EMERGENCY FOODS

If there are problems with the food distribution system, work together
with your neighbors to ensure community food security during the
emergency. Set up soup kitchens in homes or public buildings. Organize
potluck meals and community kitchens; food may be available, but fuel
for cooking may be in short supply. For many people it will be safer to
prepare food in community kitchens than to use emergency cooking
methods in homes or apartments. Anticipate the needs of spring and
summer by building greenhouses (depending on local climate) and
preparing for community gardens: use sheets of plastic, PVC pipe,
poles, lumber or windows scavenged from houses to build greenhouses,
egg cartons and other small containers can be seed starters, buckets
can be planters. Start compost piles for fertilizer. Learn new skills
and teach others. Network with groups such as gardening associations
and government agriculture and extension agencies.

Authorities may distribute emergency foods such as wheat and soybeans.
Emergency processing of whole grains is labor intensive, so organize
community processing centers. In an emergency, people may refuse to eat
unfamiliar food; encourage people to eat, even if the food is
unfamiliar to them.

To make an emergency grain grinder: cut 3, 30” lengths of 3/4” steel
pipe (such as water pipes), wrap each pipe with duct tape. Tape the 3
pipes together, so there is a “working end” where the pipes are level
with each other and smooth. Cut the top out of a large can (a large
juice can is ideal). Put 1” of clean, dry grain in the can, put the can
on a smooth hard surface (such as concrete). Sit with the can between
your feet, and put the bundle pipes in the can. Move the pipes up and
down about 3 inches, with rapid strokes. It takes about 4 minutes of
pounding to make 1 cup of flour. You can sift this using window screen
(thus providing cracked wheat and flour) or thin nylon or cheesecloth.
The finer the grind, the easier the digestion. Beans can also be ground
with this procedure. Wheat may be “parched” before grinding. Heat in a
dry skillet, until slightly puffy (this can then be cooked with water
and eaten as a porridge, or ground into flour for baking.) Sprouting
the wheat or the beans makes grinding easier and enhances taste and
nutrition.

Soybeans must be cooked before grinding for flour or grits. To make
soy flour: (1) Dissolve a pinch of baking soda in five cups of boiling
water, add 1 cup dried soybeans. Simmer over low heat for 25 minutes.
Drain, rinse with cold water. Dry in the sun or in an oven at low heat
until dry (sun drying will take a day or so). Grind to a fine flour.
Soy flour may be substituted for up to 25% of the wheat (or other
grain) flour in quick breads, and for up to 15% of the grain flour in
yeast-raised breads. It increases the nutritional value of the recipe.
To enhance its nutty flavor, toast it lightly in a dry skillet over
moderate heat, stirring occasionally. To make soy grits: Coarsely grind
3 cups soybeans. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil, add a pinch of
baking soda and the ground soybeans. Simmer 5 minutes, drain and bring
fresh water to boil (2 quarts), add a pinch of baking soda and the
soybeans, simmer for 25 minutes over low heat. Drain and rinse with
cold water, grind again (not as fine as flour). Use immediately or keep
refrigerated. Use in a casserole, or as a substitute for rice. Use
spices, the flavor is rather bland. If water is scarce, instead of
using the boiling/blanching methods, prepare as in “soynuts” below
before grinding for grits or flour.

To make roasted whole soybeans (”soynuts”): Soak in water for 8 hours,
drain, spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet, bake at 350 degrees
for 15 minutes, stir, bake again for another 10 minutes, stirring every
5 minutes. To make soy milk: Bring 3 cups water to a boil, then slowly
add 1 cup soy flour (do not use toasted soy flour), stirring constantly
with a whisk to prevent lumps. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes,
stirring occasionally. Line a colander with cheesecloth or nylon mesh
(a nylon stocking works well) and place over a large bowl or pot.
Strain the soy flour mixture through the lined colander. Stir sweetener
or other flavoring into the strained soy milk and use immediately or
refrigerate. Use as a substitute for milk..To make a weaning food for
small children: Mix cooked finely ground soy grits with cooked rice and
reconstituted powdered milk (30% soy grits, 60% rice, 10% milk powder).

Text (c) 1999, 2001 by Robert Waldrop, Oscar Romero Catholic Worker
House, Oklahoma City. Permission is given to reproduce for free
distribution. The information is compiled from sources deemed credible,
but readers use it at their own risk. “The time to build the cellar is
before the tornado hits.” http://www.bettertimesinfo.org,
rmwj@soonernet.com.

The $8.16 Do-It-Yourself Garden Irrigator
By Bruce Andis

Our half-acre lot in the ’burbs is shaded by nine mature silver
maples. The only spot that gets decent sun is the gravel drive that
runs to our pole barn. Even an inexperienced gardener like me
suspected veggies might have a tough time growing in gravel, so I
built three 4x8 raised beds. I decided to water the beds by draping
them with a soaker hose, but the hose wound among the beds in a
serpentine trail that left me high-stepping through the garden like a
middle-aged drum major.

Figuring there had to be a better way to water a garden than
tossing hose like spaghetti, I came up with my $8.16 (sales tax not
included) irrigation system. I combined soaker hose, ½-inch PVC pipe,
and connectors to make an irrigator that works in either raised or
standard gardens. It’s a cinch to put the feeder pipes under ground
(or gravel, in our case), which keeps everything tidy and impresses
the daylights out of visitors.

What’s more, these plans can be adapted for additional beds or
extended to fit a standard garden. After I show you how to build an
irrigator for one bed or two standard garden rows, I’ll explain how
to slap on more modules.

Parts
Go to a home center or hardware store and get a length of half-inch
PVC pipe. (The standard length is ten feet.) While you’re there, grab
a tee connector, three 90° elbow connectors, one 90º street elbow
(threaded on one end) two ½-inch threaded male adapters (“red” may
appear in the part description), two hose end caps, and a brass ¾-
inch hose connector. You’ll also need small cans of primer cleaner
and PVC cement. A parts list appears at the end of this article.

It makes sense in a 48-inch wide raised bed to run two sections of
soaker hose with equal space between each hose and the walls of the
bed – in other words, 16 inches apart. (If you’re building this for a
garden, adjust the distance to fit your rows.) Cut the PVC pipe so
that you have four pieces that are each 2½ inches long and two pieces
that are each seven inches long.

Assembly – The Front End
I designed my irrigator to go through the end of the raised bed. That
meant I couldn’t glue up the parts of the irrigator until I ran the
pipe through the hole I bored in the wall of the raised bed. In case
you want to do the same thing, we’ll assemble the irrigator in two
sections – the front end and the back end. Let’s first tackle the
front end, the part that connects up to the soaker hose that will
water your garden.

1. Using the swab that came with the can of PVC primer, swab the
outside ends of each piece of pipe and the inside ends of each
connector. The primer cleans off dirt and film left on the pipe
during manufacture that might keep the cement from doing its job.

2. Swab the inside of one end of the tee connector with the PVC
cement. Then, swab the outside of a 7-inch piece of pipe with cement.
Stick the pipe into the connector, give it a twist, and hold it for a
few seconds. The cement I use recommends holding the parts in place
for 30 seconds to prevent pipe push-out, but I found ten seconds long
enough for a solid hold. Repeat the process on the other end of the
tee connector with the other 7-inch pipe.

3. Glue a 90º elbow connector (the kind without threads) to the
other end of each 7-inch pipe. Make sure the elbow is on the same
plane as the tee connector. Otherwise, you’ll have some pretty funky
angles for attaching hose.

4. Glue a 2½-inch piece of pipe to each elbow connector. To each of
those pieces of pipe, glue a threaded male adapter, to which you’ll
later screw a length of soaker hose.

5. Head back to the ‘upright’ of the tee connector, and glue a 2½-
inch piece of pipe in that open socket.

Assembly – The Back End

6. Glue a 2½-inch pipe to one end of an ordinary elbow connector.
Glue the other end of the pipe to the socket end of the ½-inch, 90º,
street elbow connector (the elbow with threads on one end). Point the
threads toward the water supply.

7. Screw the brass swivel connector to the threaded end of the
street elbow connector. The swivel connector will be the “interface,”
if you will, to the garden hose that supplies the water.

Connecting The Assemblies

8. Use a spade bit to drill a hole through the end of the raised bed.
I made mine about 7/8ths of an inch in diameter – large enough to
insert the front end assembly.

9. Then it’s a simple matter of cementing the open elbow connector
of the back end to the open pipe of the front end.

Connecting The Soaker Hose

Okay, I confess: This project will run a tad more than eight bucks
and change if you don’t already have a soaker hose. They’re nearly
$12 new at a home center. Still, if you’re cheap – I mean, self-
reliant – use an awl to punch a bunch of tiny holes in an already
leaky garden hose, and voilá: do-it-yourself soaker hose.

Regardless of what you use, you still have to connect the hose to
your tinker toy assemblage. Relax, it’s easy.

1. Figure out how long you want the hose. My raised beds are eight
feet long. I guessed seven feet would work.

2. Cut the hose with a utility knife. To one end attach a female
hose coupler; to the other end attach a male hose coupler. Screw a
hose end cap to the male coupler, then screw the end of the hose with
female coupler to the male adapter on the front assembly. Repeat the
process for the other arm.

And you’re done! Well, except for the fine-tuning. Hook up your
water supply, turn it on, and tighten the leaks. (They’re inevitable,
I’ve decided.) Okay, now you’re done.

Adding modules

Have more than one raised bed? Trying to irrigate a garden with more
than three rows? No problem. Adding on is simplicity itself. (Of
course, you’ll need to pick up a few more connectors.)

1. Find the the ½-inch, 90º, street elbow connector at the bottom
of the back assembly, the one to which you’ll attach the garden hose.
Substitute a tee connector for that threaded elbow connector, gluing
the tee connector at one of the ‘crossbars’ of the tee. Aim the tee’s
‘upright’ toward your garden hose.

2. Glue a a 2½-inch pipe to the ‘upright’ socket, then cement the
pipe to the 90º street elbow. (I suggest you point the threaded end
toward the ground; attaching the hose from below won’t put as much
stress on the assembly than if you were to attach it from above.)

3. To the socket on the other end of the ‘crossbar’ of the tee,
cement a length of pipe long enough to reach about half an inch from
the ground. Then cement an ordinary elbow connector to the pipe,
pointing to the next bed or garden row.

4. Attach a length of pipe long enough to reach the middle of the
end of the raised bed and attach another assembly, using the same
steps and parts described above. Keep adding modules as you add
raised beds – I’m up to three so far.

The same approach works for a garden: Replace the bottom elbow with a
tee, add pipe, attach an assembly, and repeat until you run out of rows.

Water Wonderland

With the slightest twist of your wrist you can now drench your garden
with a gentle drip of moisture. Throw grass clippings or mulch on top
of the hose to ensure the water stays where you put it.

Careful, though; don’t make it invisible. You’ll still want to
impress the daylights out of your visitors.

note from Lindy
These baskets can be picked up at the dollar store for $1 if you shop around!!!

from The Mother Earth News
Issue No. 39 - May/June 1976

Last spring, my wife and, I were faced with a problem that I suppose most folks run into sooner or later: We wanted a garden—in fact, we desperately needed a garden?but we didn’t have any place to put one.

At the time, I had just left the Army and was out of work, so the idea of spending my hard-to-come-by cash on overpriced supermarket produce wasn’t all that attractive. Unfortunately, our landlord didn’t like the notion of us digging a vegetable patch in the backyard any better . . . and even if he had, we would’ve hesitated.

You see, we hoped to move to a small farm sometime before the end of the growing season, and we didn’t want to have to leave a still thriving garden behind. Besides, we’d already learned from experience that “we’d have to get up early in the morning” to protect a vegetable patch from our two mixed terriers. The “devilish duo” would get under or over any kind of fence we put in their way, and proceed to mangle whatever plants they could find.

So. We used a little ingenuity and came up with a different kind of garden that was portable and pet-proof and productive all at once. In short, we grew piles of tall-topped carrots, juicy tomatoes, and a bevy of other fresh fruits and vegetables . . . in baskets!

Now, I know that some dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists will turn their noses up at any garden not rooted deep in Mother Earth herself. But if your problems are similar to what ours were, or if you live in a small city apartment, or if you can’t do all the stooping and bending that ground-level planting and weeding requires . . . well, then a basket garden can be a pretty good way to go!

To start one, all you’ll need is several containers large enough to hold a sufficient amount of soil to support living vegetation. In our case, we couldn’t spend a fortune on oversized ceramic pots, and we didn’t have any good “recyclables” (such as paint buckets or gallon-size plastic milk jugs). So we scouted a local discount store, where we discovered that ordinary clothes baskets were just fine for our purposes (and inexpensive to boot). The bushel size cost only 57¢ apiece, and the half-bushel just 37¢ . . . so we brought home three large and seventeen small baskets for a total price of just $8.00!

Next, we lined the containers with plain old “Hefty type” trash bags, and then filled the bottom of each with two inches of coarse gravel for drainage. On top of that we placed a layer of newspaper to keep the soil from washing down into the stones.
Then we added the growing’ medium itself. Gardening books call for a 1: 1: 1 ratio of peat moss, loam, and sand . . . and advise that rotted manure, leaves, grass clippings, and other well-shredded vegetation can also be mixed in. We, however, simply used three parts slightly, sandy (and rocky) soil from an empty field, combined with one part grass clippings judging from the way our plants thrived, I’d say just about any reasonably rich blend of natural materials that’s light and loose enough to provide good aeration will work OK.

Finally, we poked a few small holes in the base of the lined containers to allow extra drainage, and placed stakes in the baskets in which we intended to grow tomatoes and peas.
A friend of ours had access to a number of wooden pallets that some local factories wanted to dispose of so he gave us two of the skids, from which we constructed a platform that kept our “garden” well above the reach of canine claws, but at just the right height for easy weeding. One of the discards made an “instant tabletop”, and a few minutes’ work with a crowbar and hammer gave us enough usable lumber from the other to build supporting legs and braces. (Incidentally, homesteaders might take note of the fact that throwaway pallets are a good source of free wood for rough construction. They can be used either disassembled or as whole “prefab” sections in any number of projects.)

The final step in establishing our vegetable patch, of course, was the actual planting . . . but before jumping in “seeds first”, we referred to three books which were especially helpful: [1] Raise Vegetables Without a Garden by Doc and Katy Abraham (Countryside Books, 1974, $2.95); [2] All About Vegetables edited by Walter Doty (regionally oriented editions, published by Chevron Chemical Company, 1973, $2.95); and [3] The Mother Earth News® Almanac (THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS®, Inc., 1973, $1.95).

This information?particularly the guides to natural pest control and companion planting in MOTHER’S Almanac—helped us choose the kinds of vegetables and fruits we felt would be most productive and best suited to our own needs and tastes.
We put two large-variety tomato plants (such as “Heinz” and “Country Fair”) in each bushel basket, and found that a half-bushel container could accommodate either a pair of small tomato vines (such as Burpee’s “Early Girl”) or four good?size pepper plants. Our remaining baskets were seeded with radishes, onions, carrots, peas, miniature corn, strawberries, and cucumbers. We planted relatively early in the season, kept the containers out in the sun on warm days, and simply carried them back into the house whenever a chill threatened. (My poor ole Dad lost two successive sets of tomatoes to late frosts in his regular garden . . . but our portable vegetables stayed cozy and warm—and healthy?the whole time.)

Obviously, there’s much less moisture?retaining soil in a “container garden” than in a conventional plot, so we did have to give our “babies” frequent waterings. (One possible solution might be to fold the tops of the trash bag liners over the soil, punch holes in the sacks, and then let the plants grow through. We haven’t tried it yet, but suspect the plastic would act as a good water?holding, weed?stifling mulch.) We also had to add extra dirt occasionally as the original material settled but aside from those two minor measures and a little careful bug-watching and ?squashing, and cultivating (none of which ever required bending our backs) our food practically grew by itself!

All that summer and fall, we enjoyed a vast and abundant variety of fresh produce straight from one table (the plants’) to another (ours). And we never so much as picked up stake the whole year!

I don’t dye my hair, but this came in on the Everythinghomemade list
and I though someone might want to try it.
Norma

Subject: RHUBARB HAIR COLOR

Caveat: I have not tried this, as I am a brunette with my own natural
highlights. I recommend a patch test..... on a small lock of hair,
first. Several shampoos will make this fade gradually over time. The
final
results depend on the shade of your hair.

~~KL in N TX

RHUBARB HAIR COLOR
(for bright lights in fair hair)

3/4 oz. rhubarb root
4 C. pure water

Simmer rhubarb root in water
in a covered non-metal pot
for one hour. After cooling
and filtering out solids,
apply to the hair as a final rinse.

Hang your head in a downward position
over a bowl. Saturate hair with
the color rinse making sure the
excess drains into the bowl.

Pour the color over your
head again and again.

Until you reach the desired color .

Corn husk dolls have been around for centuries. Early arrivals to the United States admired the beautiful, simplistic dolls that Native American children made from corn and fashioned to resemble members of their tribe. Some of the first Americans were taught how to construct these tiny, colorful playmates at the first ever Thanksgiving dinner. Since then, thousands use corn husk dolls for decoration and play. They’re a perfect craft and activity for children of all ages, and make for unique and lively decorations.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED
9-12 pieces of green corn husk

String or twine
Decorative pieces
Scissors
Bowl of water
Glue

A WORD ABOUT CORN HUSK
The corn husk you use to construct your doll should be green and not dried. Green corn husk can be purchased from any craft store. You can also use green corn husk you peel from a corn cob yourself. If you must use dried husks, before beginning the construction phase, soak all corn husks in a large bowl of warm water to make them more pliable. Corn husks which are purchased or fresh can be treated in this manner also, though it isn’t usually necessary.

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Take a small handful of husks and bunch them together so that they are of equal length. Once this is done, use twine or string to hold them together. Approximately 1/2 inch from the top of your husks, wrap two layers of twine and knot tightly. This will serve as the body for your doll. Once you’ve completed this step, set aside.

2. Take 1 or 2 small pieces of husks and roll them together to form a ball. (If husks are too dry or stiff, soak them for about 30-minutes in a large bowl of warm water.) This “ball” will serve as your doll’s head, so you can play with its size until you are satisfied you’ve created the look you want.

3. Once you have the right size for your head, take a single piece of husk and drape it over your head, gathering the two loose ends at the base of the head. Pull the single piece of husk tightly around your ball (so that you can draw or design a face on it later), and twist the loose ends once and tie tightly with a single piece of twine. Set aside.

4. It’s time to make arms. Grab your first group of husks (which you’ve already tied together on one end in step 1). From the loose end, gather one husk and pull upward (as if peeling a banana). Cut two small pieces of twine. Use one piece of twine to tie the arm off near the center stalk of husks. (This will help to keep it separated from the body of your doll.) Use the other piece of twine or string to tie the loose end of the husk, forming a wrist for your doll. Repeat on the other side so that you have two distinct arms on your doll. If the arms appear too long or disproportionate, cut the husk to the proper size or find a husk more to your liking.

5. Take your dolls head and position it on top of the body so that your two loose pieces of twine drape themselves over the neck of the doll. Using a small piece of string or twine, attach the head to the body. (If the head does not seem to want to stay in place, you may dribble a small amount of glue on the underside of the head before securing it with twine to the body or add a pipe cleaner to it. Allow glue to dry completely before proceeding.)

6. Take a small piece of twine and tie a waist on your doll. It will be located near the center of your stalk of husks. Tightly knot the string or twine.

7. To make the legs for your doll, split the husks which have not yet been tied off, in half. (Right below the waistline you’ve just made.) Use several small pieces of twine to tie off the legs on each side. Make one knot just below where the legs separate and a second knot near the foot of your doll. Repeat on the other side until you have formed two distinct legs.

DECORATING AND DRESSING
Your new corn husk doll can be decorated to your liking. Small children will be able to decorate with colored construction paper, crayons and markers. You can attach paper clothing, jewelry, facial features and other items with a small dot of household glue. Older children and adults can make clothing from fabric, additional pieces of corn husk or many other items.

Facial features, such as eyes, ears, noses, and mouths can be drawn on with permanent markers or crayons. Craft eyes, yarn mouths, and more can also be attached to your doll with glue.

TIPS, TRICKS, AND HINTS
MAKE A SKIRT for your corn husk doll out of a fresh piece of husk. Simply wrap around the waistline and tie off with a piece of twine or colored yarn. You can decorate your skirt beforehand with markers or crayons.

COLORED yarn can be bent in the shape of a smile or ears and glued into place for instant facial features.

CORN HUSKS can be soaked in food coloring to make colored clothing or skin. Soak husks for 30-minutes in a large bowl containing warm water and several drops of your desired color. To make vibrant browns, soak husks in a large bowl of coffee or tea.

DIP the feet of your doll into a small bowl of acrylic paint to make brown or black shoes. Allow to air dry and repeat, if necessary.

USE small doll clothes to decorate your corn husk doll.

SEQUINS, buttons, glitter and other craft supplies can be glued to your corn husk doll to make jewelry, eyes, colored clothing and more.

INSERT a pipe cleaner into the back of your doll to put them on display, help them bend into a variety of positions, or hang them.

MAKE instant hair for your doll with corn silk, yarn, or twine. Attach with glue.

WATERCOLOR paints will soak into corn husks, and give a deep, rich color to your doll.

USE a plastic bottle cap for a doll hat.

YOU can make a perfectly round head for your doll by placing a few cotton balls inside a piece of husk, instead of rolling husks. Decorate first, and then attach to the body using the above instructions.

Mother Earth News
Issue #171 - December/January 1999
BACKCOUNTRY SKILLS

I thought I was all for going completely wild and hiking ...into the mountains with nothing but a backpack and an ax,” I scribbled in 1968 (a bad year all-around for America), when my wife Louise and I quit the big city and went in pursuit of the “Good Life:” a low-tech, low-impact, hand-built, self-sufficiency on the land. Our half-baked, Thoreauesque dream of total rustic independence worked for a while in our new home, but was gradually compromised over 30 years in a flurry of family, farm, big dogs, and community life. Now ...with children grown, our little farmstead community consumed by suburban sprawl, and the homestead hounds passed on to wherever good dogs go, I can once again go as wild as I care to, ax still in hand, but with little other baggage. And it seems that I’m leaving at exactly the right time. The “Good Life-2000” may well permit (perhaps, force) us to exercise the highest degree of personal freedom that is possible today in a modern, urbanized, economically-interdependent republic. We’ll remain subject to taxes, laws, and civic duty, but we will thrive best if located completely free of paved roads and sidewalks, water lines, and the myriad self-serving institutions that accompany the power lines, each of them intent on legislating, lobbying, or levying urban-oriented protective tariffs or restrictive codes and regulations that would unreasonably circumscribe our freedom: the combined right and responsibility to provide for ourselves.

The popular term “off-grid” presumes to define all of country life in terms of the absence of a plug into the interconnected network of generating plants and power lines that supply commercial power for a bargain rate of 8¢ to 10¢ per kilowatt/hour. That’s if your land already has electric lines out front. If it doesn’t, you’ll pay the utility up to $35,000 per mile to get them there, and an electrician $1,000 to $2,500 to run a dropline from the pole to the house. If you need to run your line much over 100 feet, you’ll need to sink your own poles at $1,000 a pop ...all of which makes independent power-generating systems economically feasible — even if the power they generate ends up costing several times the commercial rates — when the original investment and operating costs are prorated over the eight- to ten-year working life of most systems. The cost is higher in virtually every kind of offgrid system: solar, hydromechanical or hydroelectric, wind or diesel-electric. Or, prospectively, hydrogen fuel cell ...when that rapidly-evolving, zero-emissions technology, now restricted to experimental prototypes, becomes affordable.

If you love the gadgetry and meters, and have no problem making a permanent investment in time and money for an offgrid solar, hydro, or wind system, then Godspeed. Regardless of your choice, it might be better to learn enough to install and maintain your own low-tech systems before signing the check for a new one.

Nuts!

Modem humankind did fine without electricity for at least 10,000 years. The Lascaux cave artists, Socrates, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare worked nights by oil lamp; Abe Lincoln studied law by fireplace light; and Edison invented the electric incandescent lamp by gaslight. Bear with me while — based on my own experience living in places ranging from a camper van, a commercial fishing boat, a camp on the Bay of Fundy, a variety of old houses, and, now, rigging a log cabin in the New England woods — I suggest the range of simple and economical ways to run a complete homestead using handmade power, miles from the power lines.

You may find that you can get along just fine with a hand water pump and solar battery charger plus (grudgingly) a little gas powered generator to run the TV during the World Series or the Three Tenors concerts, and never have to finance and manage that fancy whole-house-powering solar-panel array. One of the best things about alternative energy systems is that you can always add more capacity — buy more solar panels, more battery storage, or a bigger hydra mill or generator. Some of the equipment suppliers will even take trade-ins of outgrown equipment as you upgrade.

But let’s begin with the basics.
Water

Backwoods Solar: (208) 263-4290
Kansas Windpower: (785) 365 - 4407
Real Goods Renewables: 800-919-2400
Sierra Solar: 800-517-6527

Wood Burning Stoves
Four-Dog Stove: (612) 444 - 9587

Off-Grid Suppliers/Designers in the Northeast
New England Solar Electric Inc.: 800-914-4131
Talmage Solar Engineering, Inc.: (207) 967-5945

Anyway, summer drinking water should come from a traditional rain barrel. I have a pair of old wooden gutters that I’ll rig under the eaves of the generator shed roof; I’ll run the downspout into a big oak barrel set up on bricks with a roof-cleaner bypass and wooden top to keep out pine needles and mosquitoes. Lehman’s sells new barrels up to 30-gallon size and Cumberland Farms offers a 40-gallon oak model. In time, a mossy lip will grow around the edge, and maybe a little peeper frog will move in. If mosquito larvae get in as well, I’ll catch a few dragonfly nymphs from the stream and sic ‘em on the wigglers. Naturally soft and pure, water from a mossy-lipped rain barrel offers the best drink there is, and it is unmatched for making crystal-clear jelly and for washing little girl’s hair literally squeaky clean. I already have an old-time speckled-porcelain Grannyware ladle I’ll hang alongside to dip water out with.

For deep winter, the barrel is emptied better than halfway, a log is floated in the water that’s left, and the whole is wrapped in a plastic tarp. I suppose that, back on the grid, it would be quicker and easier to sink an electric heater or a bubbler in the water to keep it from freezing. But a power outage might get you a burst barrel.

Heat

In the forested parts of the continent or over the vast stretches of flatland and low hills where marginal farmland is returning to woods, I can see no justification for heating and cooking with anything but wood. It does generate CO2 — a primary greenhouse gas. But if trees are selectively harvested at the rate of one cord per acre, you are burning no more wood than would rot naturally over time, releasing as much CO2 as when burned. It is an environmental wash.

You can add the ashes to the garden for their potash, content or steep them in rainwater to make mild lye for converting corn to hominy, treating hides, or making soap.

The EPA requires new heating stoves sold in America to burn clean. EPA-compliant high-output (whole-house-heating) new-model heating stoves contain catalytic smoke cleaners, weigh a half-ton, burn cold, and cost $1,000 and up. But the economy-minded can still get smaller EPA-compliant “high-tech” stoves, non-airtight heaters, used pre-EPA models, and all-new cookstoves and outdoor heater/cookers at reasonable prices.

Look in the want ads for used stoves; look in country hardware stores, stove shops, and mail-order catalogs for new ones (see Sources).

For the preliminary stages of moving off-grid, many of us will be living in temporary structures, tents, or trailers. You can find little folding tin stoves for such places. In the hands of inexperienced wood-burners, though, these can overheat and burn through or collapse.

A better choice in our view — and one that can move inside to heat and cook for you indefinitely — are the welded-steel box stoves from Don Kevilus’s Four-Dog Stove Company in St. Francis, Minnesota (where they do have four-dog nights). Patterned on the Jotul box stove that Eva Horton imported from Norway to Portland, Maine, and that reintroduced America to wood heat back in the 70s, the Four-Dog and its smaller Three- and Two-Dog littermates are made of safe but relatively lightweight 3/32” hot-rolled steel, have an airtight gasketed door with a secure latch, and a heat-retaining/spark-arresting smoke baffle in the firebox. Beautifully made with elegant welds and priced well under $200 (a bargain), they can be ordered with removable side shelves and a 12” riser with damper and a four-part, 5”-diameter telescoping stovepipe for easy portability. Legs are easily removed, but stay in when attached. Mine sports an optional removable cook lid for quick-cooking heat.
When I put in a laundry and shower house (perhaps with a hot tub), I will have to build a much larger dry well with a leach line running parallel to the stream bed and at last 30 feet from the water.

As washwater is “greywater,” human waste is called “blackwater” in the plumber’s trade. But close to a stream, excrement has no business being mixed with water and drained off — even through a full-sized septic system. For a toilet in summer-only use, the generator shed sports a closet containing a chemical toilet: a one-holer outhouse built high over a plastic tub holding a shallow few gallons of strong caustic disinfectant. The holding tank is ignored over winter, pulled every spring, and the remaining slurry, sterile and neutralized by time, is buried in the woods at least 100 feet from the water.

For indoor use, I curtained off — then built a cubicle on — the front porch (that is heated by blown-in house air), and put in a Porta-Potti: a compact, hand-portable chemical toilet that goes for $100 at any camping equipment outlet. It has an upper chamber that contains the bowl and is filled with water and a blue powder sanitizing/flushing solution that is activated by a hand-pump of marginal utility. The system functions best if used with biodegradable toilet issue. The lower holding tank seals well and can be detached so that the sterile, odorless, liquefied contents can be taken away to be buried, emptied in any flush toilet (on a septic tank or sewer), or at a marine or RV pumpout station.

I will replace the Porta-Potti with a full-size composing toilet when I get up the $1,000 price tag. All established brands have been use-tested and improved for decades. With no self-cleaning water bowl needed and a rake or drum type agitator periodically mixing waste with peat moss or other organic matter, they need cleaning less often than a flusher, and produce a bucket of finished compost every few months to go on the ornamental plants in your front yard. Some high-usage models use small electric fans or heaters to speed the composting process and evacuate any fumes. But the best-sellers work fine by letting nature take its course; all you need do is vent the composting chamber and crank the agitator now and then.

All these toilets make you get closer to your own by-products than a flush-and-pretend-it-never-happened water-waster, but all of life off-grid gets you closer to reality. That may be its primary benefit.

Kitchen

During the winter and most spring and fall mornings and evenings in the mountains, temperatures fall enough to need a wood fire. Except during hot spells, all cooking can be done on the wood stove. For those hot summer days, any propane-fueled camp cooker will make coffee and cook quick hot meals.

The outdoor catalogs offer a variety of propane cookers that I have found nowhere else. For shop chores as well as summer cooking, I use a $60, medium-high-output two-burner cast iron cooktop fueled from a large outdoor propane tank and intended for outdoor use. A trivet will tame a single burner to a slow simmer, while both burners roaring at full power will heat oil for tempering steel, a chickenfeather scalding kettle or the Four-Dog water font in minutes. In an emergency, it can heat the cabin. You light it with a match or barbecue spark lighter; there’s no pilot light or piezoelectric lighter to waste fuel or go on the fritz. If a pot of stew boils over and bums, the whole thing can be soaked in the stream till the burned-on mess loosens. After a good wire-brushing, it has to be oiled before the cast iron begins to rust.

Refrigeration is the great bugaboo of offgrid living. The refrigerator, warn the experts, is the single greatest electricity-user in a modem home. And who but a large family with ever-hungry kids really needs a huge modern refrigerator? I sure don’t. Mine was always full of ancient leftovers and partly empty jars of pickles. When first planning to move off-grid, I logged my visits to the fridge. More than 90% were for coffee creamer. I ate maybe one pickle a month.

Last summer, I had no electric cooling but made an ad hoc spring house by arranging a crib of rocks in the stream so stuff wouldn’t roll downstream and kept watermelons, coffee creamer, bottled drinks and sealed food containers at 40°F the easy, natural way. When weather gets cold, I have an old-fashioned oak-and-brass icebox that I’ll back up to a hole drilled through a cold wall and pull cold outside air through with a tiny fan running on a solar cell. (It came from a surplus outlet, made originally to go on a funny hat with a solar-powered cooling fan that you’ve probably seen for sale in catalogs.)

See “Fridge-less Living” in MEN #169 for a variety of low-tech cooling techniques.

For more assured refrigeration, I have one of those solid-state holding-plate cooler/heaters in an insulated chest. From Real Goods, mine uses a fraction of the power of a conventional cooler. (And the coolers use a fraction of the power of any compressor-cooled fridge.) It opens from the top, so all the cold doesn’t cascade out as with a front-opener. It will hold a month’s worth of coffee creamer and a week’s supply of fresh meat, eggs, and cheese. I’ve learned to cook smaller meals, and to use one jar of pickles before opening another.

If I ever need a really big fridge, I’ll follow J. E. Lehman’s own example and get a Servel from him — though I’ll take the kerosene model (he has used a gasburner since before World War II). The kero-burner uses dirt-simple Aladdin lamp parts and uses about a gallon-and-a-half of fuel a week. When I am settled in, I’ll save up and order a kerosene freezer to store garden produce; I’ll keep it in the generator/wood shed.

Illumination

In three decades of depending on country-grid-power systems that are liable to outages with every wind storm, I’ve cooked and eaten supper on many a night by the light of a Dietz kerosene lantern. From a time-tested 18th-century railroad signalman’s design, they are simple, sturdy, and better quality by far than the ornamental kerosene lamps you find in stores. Ordinary kerosene, even #1 jet fuel, stinks. Lamp-grade costs a bit more but is worth it, and you will use surprisingly little.

Going into a hay-filled barn at night with a burning gas or kerosene lantern is asking for a conflagration, so every country place needs a supply of flashlights and battery lanterns. But you no longer have to waste money and clog the landfills with throwaway batteries. Rechargeable NiCads are sold in every drugstore. For area lighting, I have a $25 twin-bulb fluorescent lantern. It will function for ages on eight “D” cells.

The trouble with Ni-Cads, of whatever size, is that they are expensive, discharge quickly, and rarely equal the voltage of their alkaline counterparts. There are rechargeable alkalines out there however (also pretty pricey), as well as rechargers that will take even your old-fashioned alkalines. You still have to plug the charger into something, though. So you may well want to consider ...

...Getting a Bit More Modern

There are some things that kerosene or dry cells can’t run: electronics in particular. In this first stage off-grid living, I have two higher-power power sources.

One is the truck’s engine, alternator, and battery. I use a $50 Whistler autotype inverter that produces 800 watts of crude AC from two outlets. With the engine set on fast idle, it can run power tools, appliances, or an auto-type battery charger. I use it to charge batteries for cordless tools and to operate circular saws and such. The inverter attaches to the vehicle battery with a pair of clamps so any car, truck, or tractor can serve as an emergency electricity generator.

For now, my main power source is a, two-cycle engine powering a 350 watt AC/DC generator. It came with a full set of rebuilt parts. I use its AC to power direct-satellite (DSS) TV, lights, and radio from conventional sockets on the single circuit of electrical wiring in the cabin. The DC is used directly and to charge up a “Power-to-Go” battery pack normally carried in vehicles to jump start the engine if the battery dies. In the cabin, I hook the Power-to-Go unit to an Xeltech true sinewave inverter ($225) and power-sensitive electronics (including the cooler). From Radio Shack, I got jumper cables and an autotype cigarette-lighter socket to use in experimenting with battery-powered DC lights and appliances.

I do want to operate my 500-watt hydroponics lights, an air conditioner, and a wood and metal shop, and (with expert advice) plan to install a hydroelectric plant and solar panels, a diesel-electric auxiliary generator, and a full set of storage batteries, controllers, etc., to make them go.

But as a first step in off-grid living, we’re having a great deal of fun — and learning the basics of alternative power — by meeting the needs of day-to-day life using hand-power or simple-tech. I urge you to consider doing the same. You may never need anything more elaborate.

for illustrations go to this site:
http://www.rain.org/~philfear/how2solar.html

I am always *afraid* that websites will disappear and the information
on them will become unavailable. So, I have put the info from the
above url here and taken out the pictures.

I know that this is the “simply off grid” list... this is as simple as
I have ever seen a pv system set up.

How to Make a Solar Power Generator for Less Than $300

Using parts easily available from your local stores, you can make a
small solar power generator for $250 to $300. Great for power failures
and life outside the power grid. Power your computer, modem, vcr, tv,
cameras, lights, or DC appliances anywhere you go. Use in cabins,
boats, tents, archaeological digs, or while travelling throughout the
third world. Have one in the office store room in case of power
failures in your highrise. I keep mine in my bedroom where it powers my
cd player, turntable, lights, modem, laptop, and (ahem) a back
massager. I run a line out the window to an 8” x 24” panel on the roof.

1. Buy yourself a small solar panel. For about $100 you should be able
to get one rated at 12 volts or better (look for 16 volts) at an RV or
marine supplies store.

2. Buy yourself a battery. Get any size deep cycle 12 volt lead/acid
battery. You need the deep cycle battery for continuous use. The kind
in your car is a cranking battery—just for starting an engine. Look
for bargains, it should cost about $50-60.

3. Get a battery box to put it in for $10. (This is good for covering
up the exposed terminals in case there are children about If you going
to install the system in a pump shed, cabin, or boat, skip this.)

3. Buy a 12 volt DC meter. Radio Shack has them for about $25.

4. Buy a DC input. I like the triple inlet model which you can find at
a car parts store in the cigarette lighter parts section for about $10.
This is enough to power DC appliances, and there are many commercially
available, like fans, one-pint water boilers, lights, hair dryers, baby
bottle warmers, and vacuum cleaners. Many cassette players, answering
machines, and other electrical appliances are DC already and with the
right cable will run straight off the box.

5. But if you want to run AC appliances, you will have to invest in an
inverter. This will convert the stored DC power in the battery into AC
power for most of your household appliances. I bought a 115 volt 140
watt inverter made by Power-to-Go at Pep Boys for $50. More powerful
inverters are available by mail. Count up the number of watts you’ll be
using (e.g., a small color television(=60 watts) with a VCR(=22 watts),
you’ll need 82 watts).

6. Use a drill to attach the meter and DC input to the top of the box.

7. Use insulated wire to attach the meter to the wingnut terminals on
the battery. Connect the negative (-) pole first. Only handle one wire
at a time. Connect the DC inlet to the battery in the same way. Connect
the solar panel to the battery in the same way.

8. Close the lid (I use a bungee cord to keep it tight). Put the solar
panel in the sun. It takes 5-8 hours to charge a dead battery; 1-3
hours to top off a weak one. It will run radios, fans, and small
wattage lights all night, or give you about 5 hours of continuous use
at 115 volt AC, or about an hour boiling water. This system may be
added on to with larger panels, inverters, and batteries.
Options: A pop-up circuit breaker may be added between the positive
treminal and the volt meter. Some of you will want an ampmeter as well.
The panels I recommend have built-in bypass diodes, but I recommend
charge controllers for people who have panels without diodes. Another
option is a voltage regulator, which is not necessary for a system this
small, but a larger system would require one.

http://www.northerntool.com/

Typical Uses and Types of Generators

Portable Generators for Emergency Power

A lower-cost alternative to home standby systems is to use a portable generator of the appropriate wattage for your needs (at least 4000 Watts for starters) and run extension cords into the house to power chosen appliances. A safer system is to install a power transfer switch, connected to the house’s main electrical panel. Just fire up the generator, run a single extension cord into the transfer switch and power the circuits you need through the main circuit breaker. This eliminates the risk of electrical “back feed” injuring utility workers repairing downed power lines.

A small portable gasoline-powered electric generator can provide power for TVs, small kitchen appliances, hair dryers, power tools, lights and other comforts of civilization when you are out roughing it in the woods.
er portable generators can be put to work on construction sites that have no electrical service, providing clean, reliable power to operate saws, drills, air compressors, heaters, paint sprayers and other AC-powered tools. Most are gasoline-powered, a few run on diesel, and some models have multi-fuel capabilities, running on gasoline, propane or natural gas. These are generally full-featured machines with engine idle control, GFCI receptacles and 120 Volt full power switch.

Residential Standby Systems

An emergency home standby generator system can automatically restore power to your house in about 20 seconds. When the power goes out, the generator automatically starts and continues to run until power is restored. You can choose a generator that delivers enough power for the entire house (including air conditioning) or go with a smaller unit and power a few selected circuits, like the refrigerator, sump pump, furnace fan and several lights for basic survival.

These all-weather generators are installed outside the home and are wired through an automatic transfer switch (sold separately) to the main electrical panel. The use of an automatic transfer switch is required when generators are connected to home wiring.

Home standby systems can be fueled by natural gas, LP gas or diesel fuel. Many models can be connected to the home’s natural gas line, eliminating the need to fill fuel tanks. Standby system capacities range from 6,000 Watts up to 40,000 Watts and more, and start automatically-even if you are not home.

Commercial Standby Systems

If you have a business that simply can’t be without power or you have no existing source of electrical power for your home or business, you will need an industrial generator. These are typically stationary, heavy-duty units that generate single (120 Volt) or three-phase (120, 240 or 480 Volt) power. These massive systems are powered by water-cooled diesel engines, with some models generating up to 200 KW (200,000 Watts) of power. With the use of an automatic transfer switch, these generators can serve as backup power for large commercial or industrial operations, such as nursing homes, refrigeration operations, farms, large buildings and other businesses that can’t go without power due to an outage.

RV Generators

Quiet, powerful gasoline, diesel or LP-powered generators can be installed in your RV, 5th wheel trailer, truck camper, tent trailer or travel trailer to provide electrical power.

PTO and Belt-Drive Generators

Create power on demand by attaching a generator to the PTO on your tractor or construction equipment. Belt-driven generator heads work with your existing gas engines. They are less expensive because the engine is not included.

How Many Watts Will Your Generator Need to Produce?

You first need to determine the electrical load that your generator will need to supply. There are resistive loads (like lights and heaters) that don’t require extra power to start. Reactive loads (like electric motors) have starting requirements that can be double or triple the normal running wattage requirement. You will want to use the starting requirement in your calculations.
Generator power is measured in Watts: Watts = Volts x Amps
Most home appliances and power tools are 120 Volts; larger appliances like electric stoves and clothes dryers may be 240 Volts. For reactive load devices that have higher starting requirements, multiply the Amps x Volts x 3 (starting requirement) = Watts

EXAMPLE: 1 HP Motor requires 13.3 Amps at 120 Volts to run, plus 3x load factor for starting 13.3 Amps x 120 Volts x 3 (starting requirement) = 4,788 Watts
You can use our Wattage Chart below to estimate the wattages of the tools, appliances and motors you will be operating at the same time. Add up the wattage of the tools, appliances and motors you will be running at the same time. Then, select the generator with the continuous wattage rating that meets or exceeds your total load.

Electric motors require at least three times more wattage when first starting than when running.

Finally, add together the wattage requirements for all the electrical devices that you want to run or start at the same time. This is the minimum continuous wattage you will need from a generator.

When in doubt, remember that bigger is better!

Fuel Types: What to Consider
Generators use either gasoline, diesel, natural gas or propane. Here are the advantages of each fuel type.

Gasoline
Most common fuel source and is easily obtained; has short shelf life Increases portability of smaller generators

Propane
Long shelf life Clean burning Easily stored in both large tanks or smaller 5-10 gallon cylinders Obtainable during power outages Home delivery available for large tanks

Natural Gas
Unlimited fuel source, no refilling required Clean burning Available during power outages
Diesel
Least flammable fuel source Easily obtained Fuel delivery available

We have put together a series of guides to help folks live more sustainably.

Check them out at
http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/ and the Living / Wiring for 12 volts at

http://www.green-trust.org/products/

Steve - List Owner

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/sFQNSH-_KD8a4SLrfuZKbP6s-K81RcqvPjOO9qtd0_HXpIJhO6oHDNUesVZFhuZNd1ybNMM5ampoOD1B7LFyQzZgiU_Idh-I/CitySurvival.txt

Surviving in the City

author unknown

Introduction
While we all want to do our best to prepare for a coming crisis, and
many of us realize the city is perhaps the worst place to live, very
few people are really prepared to pack up the old Winnebago and head
for the hills. Most Americans, whether they’re aware or not, are
going to stay in the cities.

This is not a hasty decision for most people. Most of us depend on
the city for our livelihood, and we can be better prepared by
continuing to live in the city, earn a good income, and make
preparations for exiting the city at the appropriate time or by
staying in the city and living off existing supplies.

This special report explains some of the most critical dangers of
living in a city and presents some solutions to surviving them. If
you are one of the people who has decided to stay in the city, you’ll
benefit greatly from this information.

Cities are artificial
Every city is an artificial construct. Cities formed as people came
together to conduct business, participate in social interaction, and
benefit from efficiencies in public services (such as schools,
sewers, water, etc.) and a common defense. Yet cities cannot survive
alone. They need resources from the country; most notably, food,
water and electricity. While electricity and water can sometimes be
created or found within city limits, the acreage requirements of food
dictate that no city could possibly feed its own people.

Read that last phrase carefully: No city can feed its own people. Not
one. Cities are, by their very nature, dependent on the importation
of food. The advent of just-in-time delivery systems to our grocery
stores means that most cities would run out of food within a week if
supplies were for some reason disrupted.

Remember, cities are not self-sufficient. Although they may seem to
be in 2005, they have for a long time been entirely dependent on the
American farmer for their support, something almost all Americans
take for granted (except the farmer, of course.)

Risks in the City
The city presents some serious risks during a crisis. The four most
serious ones are:
1. the collapse of social order (riots),
2. the failure of the water treatment and delivery systems,
3. the depletion of food supplies and
4. the failure of the power grid.

While not every situation will appear in every city, every situation
will most certainly appear in some cities. Will that include yours?
We’ll tackle these one at a time:

1. The Collapse of Social Order
“Social order” is a delicate thing, and it exists as a psychological
barrier that could easily collapse under the right conditions. We all
saw this during the L. A. Riots following the Rodney King trial
verdict as citizens of L. A. set fire to their own town, yanked
people from vehicles and beat them literally to death, and even fired
guns at firemen attempting to save their buildings! More recently we
were all witness to the looting, violence and total breakdown of
society following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

What allowed this to happen? Simple: the simultaneous melting away of
the psychological barrier of “order.” Once people realized 911
couldn’t handle the load, or was offline, that the local police were
helpless or had simply abandoned their posts, “Law and Order” ceased
to exist in their minds. They then conducted their lives in the way
they always wanted to, but couldn’t because of the police. That is,
they ran out to the local stores and just took whatever they wanted
(looting). They took our their racial frustration on innocent victims
who happened to be driving through the area, and they let loose on a
path of destruction that only stopped when men with rifles (the
National Guard) were called in to settle things down. In other words,
only the threat of immediate death stopped the looting and violence.
Rifles work wonders.

Imagine store owners lying prone on the roofs of their stores with
AK-
47’s, firing at anyone who approached. This is exactly what happened
in Los Angeles. But worse, imagine the lawless horde firing at the
rescue copters trying to bring in supplies to the desperate masses.

The National Guard eventually got things under control. This event
was isolated, however, to one city. Imagine a hundred cities
experiencing the same thing. Will the National Guard be able to
handle the load? Not likely. What about local police? They aren’t
fools; if things look bad enough, they’ll grab their families and
head for the hills, just like they did in New Orleans. No pension is
worth getting killed for. A few U. S. cities could be transformed
into literal war zones overnight. It would require all-out martial
law and military force to have any chance whatsoever of bringing
order to these streets. And the reality is that there are not enough
military in the USA to secure all of the cities if this happens.

This collapse of social order is perhaps the greatest risk of staying
in the city during a crisis. What, exactly, would cause this collapse
of social order? Lack of three things: food, water, and money. When
people run out of food, some will begin ransacking their
neighborhood, searching for something to eat. (Remember that in a
city, a “neighbor” does not mean the same thing as a “neighbor” in
the country. They are not necessarily your friends.) It won’t take
long, then, for violence to take over in some cities. While certain
regions will certainly manage to keep things under control and people
will form lines at the local (depleted) Red Cross shelter, other
cities will see an explosion of violence. Imagine the gang-infested
regions of L. A., Chicago, New York, St. Louis & New Orleans. Do you
think those people are going to stand in line and wait? They already
have guns; now they finally get to use them. Pent-up racial tensions
& hostilities will simply serve as justification for shooting people
of the same or other color in order to get their food.

Even if the food somehow gets into the cities, lack of money (due to
the government not sending out checks) could cause the same thing.
Eventually, lack of money results in looting and mass theft. As the
stealing balloons, it also results in a collapse of social order.
Water; the same thing (but faster). The collapse of social order is
also very dangerous because it doesn’t require any “actual” collapse
of the power grid, telecommunications, transportation or banking.
Social order is a psychological artifact. It is a frame of mind, and
any global panic can quickly remove the mental barrier that right now
keeps people basically “lawful.”

The Failure of Water Treatment and Delivery Systems
Will the water treatment facilities fail during a crisis? Many will.
Some won’t. The problem lies in figuring out whether yours will.
Certainly, they depend on electricity, and testing conducted on some
plants has already revealed weaknesses in the system.

In one such test, the water treatment plant released a fatal dose of
fluoride into the water system when tested. The computers thought
they were 99 years behind in releasing minute doses of fluoride, so
they made up the difference. If you happened to be downstream,
drinking that water, you were dead. Fluoride, no matter what
misinformed dentists tell you, is actually a fatal poison. A major
crisis likely to demonstrate this fact in more than one city.

The most important question here, though, is about what will happen
when the water stops flowing (or if it is flowing, but it’s not
drinkable). As you are probably aware, while people can live without
food for long periods of time (2-3 weeks), water is needed on a daily
basis. You can go 2-3 days without it, at most, but beyond that,
you’ll quickly turn to dust.

That means people will do anything to get water, because to not have
it means death. And guess where it’s going to be the most difficult
to actually get water? You guessed it: in the cities. During the
first day of the water crisis, many people still won’t figure out
what’s going on. They’ll figure it’s a temporary breakage of a water
main and the government will get it fixed within hours. As those
hours stretch into the next day, these people will get very worried.

By the second day, more and more people will realize the water isn’t
coming. At that point, you could easily see a breakdown of social
order, as described in the previous section (as you can see, these
things all tend to cause each other.). People will begin
their “search for water,” and the first place they’re likely to go is
where they always go for liquids: the grocery store, the local Wal-
Mart, the 7-11. The shelves will be cleaned out rather quickly.

Beyond that (because those liquids aren’t going to last long), you’re
going to see people engaged in a mass-exodus from the cities. They’ll
take the gas they have left in their tanks and they’ll leave the city
in search of water. Some will go to “Grandma’s house” out in the
country where they might at least find a pond or stream to drink
from. Others will simply go on an expanded looting mission, stopping
at any house they see and asking the residents (with a gun in their
face, likely) if they have any water to “donate.”

As a result of all this, if water stops flowing, here are the events
you can expect to see in some of the worse-off cities:
* Looting of all the grocery stores by the second or third day
(remember New Orleans?)
* Minor outbreaks of violence during the looting. Shop owners, for
example, may attempt to defend their shops with firearms (ala L. A.
Riots)
* Mass exodus of residents from the city in search of water
* Ransacking of any houses or farms within a gas-tank radius of the
city, presumably by desperate people with guns
* Mass traffic jams on the outbound highways as people run out of gas
and abandon their vehicles (if bad enough, this could actually block
the highways and trap people in the cities) (Remember Hurricane
Rita?)
* Mass outbreak of water-borne diseases as people use streams and
rivers as both a water fountain and a bathroom. People crapping
upstream are going to infect the people drinking downstream. Very few
have any kind of water filtration device. That last point is really
critical. Once the water flow stops, disease is going to strike.

The Depletion of Food Supplies
The food supplies will likely dwindle quickly as we approach a
possible crisis due to people stocking up just in case. Once the
crisis actually hits, expect to see breakdowns in the transportation
sector that will result in major delays in food delivery. This means
food may arrive in sporadic fashion in some cities (if at all).

Once this happens, food suddenly becomes really valuable to people
(even though they take it for granted today). And that means any
small shipment of food that arrives will be quickly grabbed and eaten
or stored. It only takes one week without food to remind people how
much they actually need it, so expect the atmosphere to be that of
a “near panic” if food is delayed by as little as three days. The
level of panic will vary from city to city. Some cities or towns may
experience very little difficulty receiving food. Others may face
near-starvation circumstances.

Remember, the cities depend entirely on food shipped in from the
farms and food processing companies. Also, note that if there’s a
water problem as mentioned in the previous section, and the mass
exodus begins, the highways may be jammed up at critical locations,
causing gridlock for the trucking industry. If we’re lucky, some
trucks will continue to roll. If we’re not, assume that nothing gets
through.

A shortage of food ultimately results in the same behavior as a
shortage of water. First, people eat what’s in the pantry, then they
loot the grocery stores. After that, with all local supplies depleted
and no hope on the horizon, they leave the city and start ransacking
nearby homes. Some will hunt in nearby forests, but most city-
dwellers don’t know how to hunt. In any case, anyone with the means
to leave the city will likely do so soon after their food shortage
begins.

The Failure of the Power Grid
Nothing is as suddenly obvious nor has such a gigantic psychological
impact as the failure of the power grid. When the electricity stops,
almost everybody knows it at the same instant (unless it happens at
night).

Naturally, during the first few hours of the power failure, if it
occurs, people will assume it’s a temporary situation. Maybe a tree
fell on some power lines, or perhaps a transformer blew up somewhere
nearby. They’ll sit tight and wait for the power to come back on.

What if it doesn’t? Then the city faces a severe problem. Without
power, obviously, everything shuts down. Within hours, the looting
begins in the more crime-ridden cities (we saw this in New York a few
decades ago.). The longer the power stays off, the worse the social
disorder.

The loss of power will bring the entire city to a halt. While
vehicles may get around for a few more days (using whatever fuel they
have left), businesses obviously won’t be operating. Houses that
depend on electricity for heat will quickly reach Winter
temperatures, freezing many occupants to death. While those that
depend on electricity for Air Conditioning will just as quickly reach
Summer temperatures, resulting in death from heat stroke. Hospitals
and police stations may have generators on hand, with a few days
worth of fuel, but in short order, that will be depleted, too.

But the water treatment plant will almost certainly be off-line
without power, causing all the events mentioned in the water section,
above. Let’s face it, the power is the worst thing to be without in
the city. If you have power, you can survive a food shortage, perhaps
even a short water shortage. But without power, all bets are off. If
you have a “bug-out” vehicle stocked and ready to go (see below),
this might be the time to bail.

Solutions in the City
Okay, so you’re stuck in the city. You’ve made the decision to stay.
You’ve read the problems above, you believe they make sense, and
you’re intelligently frightened. What now? You really have two
strategies. You can:
* Stay and defend your house
* Bug out (leave the city and head for the hills)

Important! This is not an either/or situation. You can begin by
staying in your house and assessing the situation. You’ll want to
have a “bug-out” vehicle stocked and ready, just in case, if you can
afford one, but you may never actually choose to bug out. You’ll have
to be the ultimate judge of this. Just remember that when you bug
out, you face major risks and disadvantages. Among these:
1. You’re severely limited in how much you can carry -
2. You have limited range due to fuel -
3. You expose yourself to social chaos, roadblocks, random violence,
etc. -
4. Your house will certainly be looted while you’re gone -
5. You run the risk of mechanical breakdowns of your vehicle -
6. You must have a place to go that you know is in better shape than
where you currently are.

In general, unless you have a specific, known safe place as your
final destination, I don’t advise people to bug out. Just “heading
for the hills” is a very poor plan. You might not make it. But
heading for Grandma’s house or some known, safe place could be a very
good plan indeed, depending on whether Grandma is ready, willing and
able to accept you!

For these reasons (and more), staying and defending your house is
sometimes the only reasonable course of action, even if it seems
dangerous. For the most part, looters and people looking for food are
going to have plenty of easy victims, so if you show a little
willingness to use force to defend your property, you’ll likely send
people on to the next house.

That is, until the next house is already empty and you appear to be
the last house on the block with any food and water left. If you’re
in a bad enough area, your neighbors may “gang up” on you and demand
your supplies or your life. This is truly a worst-case scenario, and
unless you literally have a house full of battle rifles and people
trained to use them (and the willingness to shoot your neighbors),
you’re sunk. This is why the best situation by far is to keep your
neighbors informed and help them get prepared. Then you (both your
member and non-member neighbors) can act as a group, defending your
neighborhood and sharing the supplies you have with anyone willing to
help defend you.

When you have this kind of situation going, your neighbors realize
you are their lifeline. You supply them with food and water, and they
will help support you because they are, in effect, supporting their
own lives. The best situation is when your neighbors and other ward
members have their own food and water supplies. That way, they aren’t
depleting yours, and they have a strong motivation for getting
together with you defend your neighborhood. (More on this below.)

Storing (and Hiding) Your Food
Storing food is just as important in the city as in the country, but
hiding it is far more important. That’s because in the worst areas,
marauders will be going from house to house, demanding your food or
your life. If you’re dumb enough to put everything you own in the
obvious places, you might as well not buy it in the first place. They
will find it. To count on having any amount of food left over after
the marauders break in, you’ll need to hide your food.

One alternative is to plan on defending your home with force. If you
have enough gun-wise people in the house, and enough firearms and
ammo, you can probably pull this off. But most of us aren’t nearly as
experience with firearms as the gang members. A better alternative
might be to plan on bringing you supplies to your ward/stake building
where all of the Saints can both pool and defend their resources.
This of course will depend greatly on your local Bishop and Stake
President.

Back to hiding: the best way to hide your food is to bury it. You’ll
need airtight containers, long-term food that won’t rot and you’ll
need to plan ahead. Bury your food at night so nobody will notice,
and make sure you don’t leave the map on the refrigerator door!
(Better to memorize it!) Try to get the ground to look normal after
you’re all finished. You’ll want to bury your food as early as
possible because it gives the grass time to regroup over the spot. If
you’re in an area that snows, you’ll have a great concealment
blanket! Most food marauders won’t go to the trouble to dig up food,
especially if you insist you don’t have any.

Best plan: Have some smaller amount of food stashed around the house,
letting them find something. Better to give them something and send
them on their way. The art of hiding your food is an ancient one.
You’ve got to get creative. Use the walls, the floors, and the
structure of the house.

If hiding your food is simply not an available alternative, then try
not to advertise it. Keep it put away in your house or garage in as
discreet a manner as possible. Don’t make a point of telling people
that you have a years supply (or more). Word gets around fast that
Bro. Jones has a ton of food in his garage. Boxes of food fit nicely
under beds, behind furniture, in the attic, etc.. Be Creative!!

To sum up the food storage, you really have three strategies here:
* Store it all in your house and plan on defending it by force.
* Bury it in your yard in case you get overrun by looters.
* Store part of it in your house, and hide the bulk of it.
* Relocate all of it as soon as you recognize a major disaster is in
progress

One of the best ways to store food for burying, although it will only
last 2-3 years in high-humidity areas, is to purchase 55-gallon good-
grade steel drums. You can get them from: Memphis Drum Service, 3299
Tulane, Memphis, Tennessee 38116 (901) 396-6484; (800) 960-3786) The
drums are only $16.50, but shipping them is around $30 each. Once you
obtain the drums, dump in your grains or other food items. If you
purchase bags of food from Walton Feed, this is the perfect way to
store it. Don’t leave it in the bags unless you’re actively eating
it. [Note: Plastic barrels do not rust.]

Then sprinkle some diatomaceous earth into the drum. You’ll need
about two cups to treat a 55-gallon drum, and it must be mixed in
well. Diatomaceous earth is made from ground up sea shells, and it
kills bugs by getting into their joints. You can get some from:
Perma-
Guard, Inc. 115 Rio Bravo S. E. Albuquerque, New Mexico 87105 (505)
873-3061

This diatomaceous earth is food grade, and on the bag it
says, “Fossil Shell Flour.” Their prices are one pound, $4.90; 2 lb.,
$8.05; 5 lb., 14.70, 10 lb., $18.00; 50 lb., $24.95.

Once you get these drums filled and sealed, you can then bury them in
your yard. This is actually a HUGE UNDERTAKING and is a LOT more
difficult than it sounds, since you’ll need to dig to a depth of
around 5 or 6 feet in order to sufficiently bury these drums. You’re
likely to attract a lot of attention unless you do it at night, and
you’ll definitely be removing a lot of dirt that you’ll need to find
some use for. Because the drums are steel, they will also deteriorate
unless you line the outside with plastic (a good idea) and treat the
drums with some kind of protectant or oil. (Don’t use WD-40.) Even
Vaseline would work well, although you would definitely need a lot to
coat a 55-gallon drum.

When you’re all done, you should have your protected grains in 55-
gallon drums, buried in your yard and protected against the humidity
of the surrounding earth. It’s a big effort, but then again, the food
inside may save your life. You’ll find it much more efficient to bury
several barrels at once; side by side.

In reality it would be faster and easier to simply build a false wall
in your garage and seal up your food behind the false wall. Sure, you
might loose 2-3 feet of useable space in your garage, but the
tradeoff is knowing everything is safe and sound.

Storing Extra Water
Water can be stored in exactly the same way, although you might want
to bury the barrel before you actually fill it with water. Make sure
you treat your storage water, rotate it or have filters on hand when
you get ready to use it.

If you don’t have a yard, or it’s not practical to bury your water,
you’ll have to store water inside your house. This can get very
tricky because water takes up a lot of space and it’s very difficult
to conceal. It’s best to get containers made for long-term storage,
but in a pinch, you can use almost any container: soda bottles, milk
jugs (although it’s very difficult to rinse the milk out), and even
rinsed bleach bottles (in that case, you won’t need to add bleach).
But a lot of these containers will deteriorate quickly, and they may
break easily. Also, consider what happens if your water may be
subjected to freezing. Will your containers survive? Be sure to leave
enough air space to handle the expansion.

In order to prepare yourself for the water shortage, assuming you’re
going to stay in the city, stock at least six months of water at a
minimum two gallons a day per person. That’s nearly 400 gallons of
water if you have two people.

Of course, even with the best in-house preparations, you may find
yourself depleted of water supplies. In this situation, one of your
best defenses is to have a really good water filter (like the Katadyn
filter) that can remove parasites and bacteria from the water. You
can also treat your water in other ways (iodine, distillation, silver
solution, bleach, etc.). Armed with these items, you can safely use
stream or river water (or even pond water) for drinking.

WATER WELLS
By far, the best solution for obtaining long-term water supplies is
to drill a well. Buy the best-quality hand-pump available (cast-iron
pumps available from Lehman’s) and a good cylinder. They will last a
lifetime if installed properly. With this setup, you’ll have a near-
unlimited supply of water.

The total cost of doing this, depending on where you live, ranges
from about $4000 - $6000. Is it worth it? If you’ve got the money, I
think so. However, many cities simply don’t allow the drilling of
wells, so you may not be able to get one drilled even if you want to.

The deeper your well, the more expensive it gets. Most well drilling
companies charge by the foot. When water is deeper, you also need a
bigger pump and a more powerful cylinder, so the costs tend to really
grow the deeper you go. If you can find water at 20’, you’re very
lucky and it might not cost you even $2000. If you have to go down to
200’, it might cost you $7500, and you’re at the depth limit of hand-
powered pumps anyway.

Defending Your Life and Property
Let’s talk about force. No doubt, there are plenty of nice people in
this country, and I think that in small towns and rural areas, people
are going to find ways to cooperate and get along. I also think,
however, that some cities will suffer complete social breakdown and
violence will rule. If you happen to be stuck in one of these cities,
you’re going to need to use force to defend your house. The section
that follows discusses what I consider to be extreme responses to
violence in the most dire situations. Hopefully, you won’t find
yourself in these circumstances, but if you do, the information below
may be valuable.

Important: Do not use your lights at night. If you are stocking
propane-powered lanterns, solar-powered flashlights, or other unusual
supplies, using them at night will announce to everyone within line
of sight that you have more than the “usual” supplies. Expect them to
come knocking in your door. At most, let a fire burn in the
fireplace, but in general, avoid drawing attention to your house.

Defending your house is a crucial element on your stay-in-the-city
plan. Make your house your fortress, and hold drills to help other
family members practice some of the more common activities such as
hiding, defending, evacuating, etc. Some useful items for home
defense include:
* A guard dog
* Pepper spray
* Firearms
* Smoke bombs (military-grade)
* Trip wires

Let’s go over these: The guard dog is certainly a welcome addition to
any family trying to defend their house. Although he probably eats a
lot of food, the investment is worth if. Dogs also tend to sleep
light, so let them sleep right next to the food storage areas, and
make sure you sleep within earshot. If the dog barks, don’t consider
it an annoyance, consider it an INTRUSION.

Pepper spray is a great alternative to the firearm. It will
incapacitate people and certainly give them a painful experience to
remember. On the downside (potentially), it might just remind them
that next time they come back for food, they better kill you first.
So understand the limitations of pepper spray.

Firearms are useful for obvious reasons. In the worst-case scenario,
when looting is rampant, you may have to actually shoot someone to
protect yourself or your family. If you’re squeamish about pulling
the trigger under these circumstances, don’t plan to stay in the
city. Use the “bug out” plan instead.

Smoke bombs can be useful for covering a planned escape from your
house. You can purchase high-volume smoke bombs that will quickly
fill up any house with an unbreathable cloud of military-grade white
smoke.

Trip wires are great perimeter defenses. You can buy them from
Cheaper Than Dirt (they run a few hundred dollars). They will give
you early warning if someone is approaching. You can connect the
tripwires to flares, shotgun shells, light sticks or other warning
devices. This way, you can have an audible or visible alert, your
choice.

In addition to these devices, you can make significant fortification-
style improvements to your home. While none of these are very
affordable, they certainly help defend your home:
* Replace glass windows with non-breakable Plexiglas
* Add steel bars to the windows
* Replace all outside door locks with heavy-duty deadbolts
* Replace all outside doors with steel doors, preferably without
windows
* Remove bushes and other shrubs where people might hide
* Black out the windows entirely to avoid light escaping at night
(similar to what residents of London did during the WWII bombing
raids)
* Build secret hiding places for food, coins, or even people
* Create escape hatches or passageways
* Rig pepper-spray booby traps

These aren’t as absurd as they might at first sound. Many people
living in rough cities already have steel bars covering their
windows, and removing extra bushes and shrubs is a well-known tactic
for making your home a safer place.

LIGHT
To light your home when there’s no electricity, try the following:
* Use LED flashlights and rechargeable solar-charged batteries. You
can buy all these items from the Real Goods catalog
* Use propane-powered lanterns. You can find these in the camping
section of your local Wal-Mart. Be sure to purchase extra mantles and
store lots of propane.
* Purchase quality oil lamps from Lehman’s and stock up on oil. You
can also purchase cheap kerosene lamps from the Sportsman’s Guide or
Wal-Mart, then simply purchase and store extra kerosene.
* Buy extra candles.
* Purchase lots of olive oil. Not only can you cook with it (and
besides, it’s a lot healthier than corn or vegetable oil), olive oil
also burns as a clean candle fuel. You can float a wick in a jar
half-
full of olive oil and light the wick. Viola, a home-made candle.
Olive oil is a fantastic item for your storage anyway because even if
you purchase all the grains in the world, you’ll still need cooking
oil, and you obviously can’t buy powdered cooking oil. Well-stored
olive oil can last for thousands of years.

STAYING WARM
Did you know that people won’t steal giant logs? Although they may
easily steal wood you’ve already chopped, most people won’t have any
way of stealing logs. They’re too heavy, and the vehicles won’t have
any gas left. For this reason, your best bet in regards to stocking
fuel for your house is to stock up on UNCUT wood logs.

It takes a lot of extra research to find out how to get them (took me
a few weeks of asking around), but you can find a source if you look
hard enough. Or you can usually get a permit to go out and cut your
own. The effort is worth it, because this will give you a ready-to-go
source of heat and fuel that cannot be easily stolen.

The catch, of course, is that you’ll need equipment to cut and chop
the wood. A chainsaw is REALLY nice in this way, but it requires
fuel. Fortunately, chain saws don’t use much fuel, so if you have a
way to store as little as 50 gallons or so, you’ve got enough to
power your chainsaw for a few years (at least!). You’ll need fuel
stabilizers, too, which you can buy at your local Wal-Mart. (Be sure
to buy extra chains for your chainsaw, too.)

You’ll also need splitting hardware. You can buy log splitters or
just buy an axe, a wedge, and a sledgehammer. Better yet, buy all
four so you have a choice of what to use. And remember, wood splits
much better when it’s frozen, too, so you might just wait until the
cold hits in Winter to start splitting your wood. Only split a little
at a time, because you don’t want to end up with a big pile of
nicely-
split wood sitting out in your yard. It will invite theft from people
who don’t have any. If you already have trees on your property,
you’re all set. Cut down about 4-5 cords right now, so they can start
drying out, then chop them as you need them.

A “cord” of wood, by the way, is a volume measurement. It’s 8’ x 4’ x
4’, or 128 cubic feet of wood (stacked). Some people that sell wood
will try to rip you off, so make sure you know what you’re buying. If
you purchase logs, it’s better to get a price per linear foot, based
on the diameter of the log. For example, you might ask for logs that
are an average of 10” in diameter, and you’ll ask how much the charge
per linear foot would be. Something in the range of $1 - $2 would be
great.

Relations With Neighbors
I’ve already mentioned the importance of getting along with your
neighbors. It really is crucial to your city-based survival plan. The
best situation to be in, as mentioned before, is to have neighbors &
other church members who are aware of the issue and who are getting
ready for it by stocking their own food, water, and other supplies.
Every neighbor & member that becomes self-reliant is one less
neighbor or member you’ll have to support.

The range of neighbor situations, from best to worst, is as follows:
* Best case: your neighbor is current Recommend holder, is aware of
and both temporally & Spiritually prepared for an emergency with
their own supplies and training.
* Good case: your neighbor is aware of a potential crisis, and even
though they don’t have their own supplies, they’re willing to help
defend yours as long as you share
* Bad case: your neighbor is a non-member that didn’t prepare for it,
figuring they would just steal from you if things got bad. They are
aware of YOUR supplies but don’t have their own.
* Worst case: your neighbor isn’t aware of anything, he is anti-
mormon and he’s a violent, angry neighbor just released from prison.
He is going to be caught off guard by the ensuing events and will
likely attempt to use violence to get what he needs or wants.

Your decision on whether to stay in the city may depend greatly on
the quality and quantity of your neighbors. If you do live in a bad
neighborhood, do what you can to relocate. If you live in a good
neighborhood, do the best you can to educate and inform your
neighbors.

Gun Control in the Cities
No matter how you felt or thought about gun control in the past, it’s
time to face disaster-induced reality. The gun-control politicians
(and the people who supported them) have placed Americans in a
situation where not only can the police not protect us in a timely
manner, but we cannot lawfully defend ourselves. Criminals unlawfully
have firearms; citizens lawfully don’t. Intentionally or otherwise,
gun-control supporters have created a situation where an unfortunate
number of innocent men, women and children are going to be in danger
during a crisis simply because they could not obtain the tools of
self-defense.

It also happens that the cities where the rioting will likely be the
worst are precisely the cities where firearms are most likely to be
banned from lawful ownership (and where criminals may wield near-
absolute power for a while.). Perhaps when society recovers from it,
we can review the fallacy in the cause / effect logic that keeps
people voting for gun-control laws, but in the mean time, millions of
people are going to have to resort to breaking the law in order to
protect their families. And yes, you too will have to resort to
breaking the law if you are to acquire a firearm in an area where
guns are entirely banned from private citizens (like New York, Los
Angeles, etc.).

After the disaster hits, if the rioting gets really bad, we’re going
to see local police begging law-abiding citizens for help. Your
firearm will be a welcome addition to the force of law and order,
believe me. No local cop is going to mind you having a handgun if
you’re manning a roadblock protecting a neighborhood of families with
children. Act responsibly, tell them what you’re doing, and they’ll
probably give you a big thanks. But if you’re carrying a gun while
you smash a window of the Wal-Mart and walk off with a stereo; well
that’s a different story. Be prepare to get shot.

See, cops don’t mind private ownership nearly as much as we’ve all
been led to believe. I know, I work with law enforcement officers in
a small town, and I ask them about topics like this. When the crisis
hits, they’ll be more than happy to have your cooperation. We’re all
going to need as many law-abiding gun-toting citizens as possible in
order to fend off the criminals and establish some degree of order.

One More Reason To Move Out
If you really feel you need a firearm to protect yourself and your
family, your best bet may be to move to a city or state where people
are a lot more accepting of firearms. You’d be surprised what a
difference the locale makes. Check the gun laws in any state you’re
considering moving to. Obviously, “cowboy” states like Arizona, Texas
and Wyoming will have fewer restrictions on firearms (and,
interestingly, they have less of a problem with gun violence). States
where the population is more dense (like California & New York) tend
to have much greater restrictions on private ownership of firearms.

Bugging Out
Suppose it’s July 14, 2006, and you’ve changed your mind about this
city thing. You happened to be right smack in the middle of one of
the worst-hit cities in the country. The looting is getting worse,
the power has been out for two weeks, and your water supplies are
running low. You still have enough gas in your truck to make it out
of town if you can get past the gangs, that is. You’ve decided to BUG
OUT!

Some basic pointers:
* Don’t try to bug out in a Chevy Geo. You will likely need a big
heavy 4x4 truck in order to go off-road and around stalled vehicles
* Get something that can carry at least 1000 pounds of supplies. A
big 4x4 pickup will do nicely! Yes, it requires more fuel, but you
can carry the fuel as cargo.
* Don’t bug out unless you can have someone ride shotgun, literally.
You will need an armed passenger in case you run into not-so-nice
people

WHAT TO TAKE
Ahh, the bug-out supply list. All this will fit in your truck. Here’s
what you should take if you’re preparing to bug out with two people:
* Your 96 hour kits for each person in the vehicle
* 20 gallons of water
* 40 gallons of extra fuel or more (and a full gas tank)

WHERE TO GO
As mentioned earlier, if you have a designated place of refuge
(Grandma’s house, a cabin in the woods, etc.), head straight for it.
If not, you’re basically driving anywhere you can go, so try to head
for an area that forested and near a creek or river where you can get
some water.

Conclusion
Choosing to remain in the city is a rational choice for many people
in many situations. However, as you have seen from the dangers
described here, the further away you can get from the population
centers in general, the better your chances of surviving.

Most people, perhaps yourself included, have a difficult time
actually accepting that a major disaster is going to be as bad as
described in this report. And after all, if you leave the city, sell
out, quit your job, move to the country, and then nothing bad
happens? You will have disrupted your life, and you may find yourself
broke, jobless, and homeless. You COULD assume it will be a mild
event, which I suppose is also a credible possibility. In that case,
surviving in the city will be quite feasible, especially if you have
neighbors that can support your efforts and you don¹t live in a
dangerous city with high racial tensions. However, the very nature of
a major disaster means that if only one or two major infrastructure
components goes down, the ripple effect will quickly create a much
worse scenario. It seems there is very little room for “mild” effects
unless they are miniscule. The most likely scenario at this point
clearly points to massive disruptions, severe shortages in food and
water, loss of power in some areas, and a breakdown of social order
in certain areas where the population density is high.

But you can survive anything with good planning, an open mind, and
plenty of practice. Why not start now?

Information taken from
Mrs. Grieve, A Modern Herbal
LeArta Moulton, Nature’s Medicine Chest
Kathi Keville, Herbs an Illustrated Encyclopedia

There are several different kinds of plantain, (also called ribwort because of the veined leaves) Plantaginaceae is the most commonly known, but most have the same qualities. They all contain mucilage, flavonoid glycosides, tannins, iroids, silca. Broadleaf plaintain (P. Major), has much wider leaves and there are decorative cultivators such a bronze-purple-leaved ‘Atropurpurea’ available. The seeds of the Psyllium plantain (P. Ovata) are sold both here and in Europe as a bulk laxative and in the brand name Metamucil. Australian native plantains include sago weed, (P.varia, P. cunninghamii) and shade plantain (P.debilis).

In England farmers planted it for sheep to graze on, the children used the seeds for shot, and the gelatinous matter from the seeds was used to stiffen muslin. Early Australian settlers used the seeds to substitue for sago in puddings and Aborigines made a porridge from shade plantain, and in Europe the seeds which contain protein and have a nutlike flavor were ground, mixed with flour.and made into breads.

Plantain poultices or salaves are used on woulnds to stop bleeding and encourage healing with its proteolytic enzymes which are active in the fresh leaf or the fresh or dried roots. It also reduces inflamamation and helps reverse allergic symptons. It is often a blessing for those must have a constant supply of calamine lotion or cortizone. By applying the fresh leaf juice to poison ivy the inflammation and itching is reduced and usually doesn’t return. Other countries also use the fresh leaf, seeds, and roots for numerous other conditions. It has also been discovered that psyllium seeds lower cholestrol, which may apply to other plantain species as well.

PLANTAIN
(Plantago ma/or-wide leaf) (Plantago lanceolata-narrow leaf)
Common names
Snake weed, Englishman’s foot, wagbreadIdentification
Found in lawns, meadows, roadsides, waste places. Reproduces from seeds. Is perennial. Leaves are lance-shaped, 3-7 ribbed and hairy to smooth texture. The spike is 6-15 inches long with greenish to white flowers.
Parts used
The herb (broad leaf has a stronger concentration of medicinal properties).

When to gather
Root-after fall of leaves and flowers in autumn.
Leaves-when fully mature. Most potent before blossoms appear.
Reported to help in
Poisonous snake bites, boils, inflammed and protruding piles, wounds, sores or blood poison. (Crush the green leaves or make into an ointment and use as a poultice.) The tea will help clear head of mucus and good for thrush in children. Has eased pain in bowels and arrests hemorrhage and bleeding; also for heavy menstruation. Has killed worms in stomach and bowels. Good for sore eyes and dropsy. Plantain is rich in minerals and Vitamins C, K and T (which help to stop bleeding.)

PLANTAIN, COMMON
Plantago major (LINN.)
N.O. Plantaginaceae
Synonyms
Broad-leaved Plantain. Ripple Grass. Waybread. Slan-lus. Waybroad. Snakeweed. Cuckoo’s Bread. Englishman’s Foot. White Man’s Foot
(Anglo-Saxon) Weybroed
Parts Used
Root, leaves, flower-spikes
The Common Broad-leaved Plantain is a very familiar perennial ‘weed,’ and may be found anywhere by roadsides and in meadow-land.
Description
It grows from a very short rhizome, which bears below a great number of long, straight, yellowish roots, and above, a large, radial rosette of leaves and a few long, slender, densely-flowered spikes. The leaves are ovate, blunt, abruptly contracted at the base into a long, broad, chan-nelled footstalk (petiole). The blade is 4 to 10 inches long and about two-thirds as broad, usually smooth, thickish, five to eleven ribbed, the ribs having a strongly fibrous structure, the margin entire, or coarsely and unevenly toothed. The flower-spikes, erect, on long stalks, are as long as the leaves, ¼ to 1/3 inch thick and usually blunt. The flowers are somewhat purplish-green, the calyx four-parted, the small corolla bell-shaped and four-lobed, the stamens four, with purple anthers. The fruit is a two-celled capsule, not enclosed in the perianth, and containing four to sixteen seeds.
The Plantain belongs to the natural order Plantaginaceae, which contains more than 200 species, twenty-five or thirty of which have been reported as in domestic use.
The drug is without odour: the leaves are saline, bitterish and acrid to the taste; the root is saline and sweetish.
The glucoside Aucubin, first isolated in Aucuba japonica, has been reported as occurring in many species.
Medicinal Action and Properties
Refrigerant, diuretic, deobstruent and somewhat astringent. Has been used in inflammation of the skin, malignant ulcers, intermittent fever, etc., and as a vulnerary, and externally as a stimulant application to sores. Applied to a bleeding surface, the leaves are of some value in arresting haemorrhage, but they are useless in internal haemorrhage, although they were formerly used for bleeding of the lungs and stomach, consumption and dysentery. The fresh leaves are applied whole or bruised in the form of a poultice. Rubbed on parts of the body stung by insects, nettles, etc., or as an application to burns and scalds, the leaves will afford relief and will stay the bleeding of minor wounds.
Fluid extract: dose, ½ to 1 drachm.
In the Highlands the Plantain is still called ‘Slan-lus,’ or plant of healing, from a firm belief in its healing virtues. Pliny goes so far as to state, ‘on high authority,’ that if ‘it be put into a pot where many pieces of flesh are boiling, it will sodden them together.’ He also says that it will cure the madness of dogs. Erasmus, in his Colloquia, tells a story of a toad, who, being bitten by a spider, was straightway freed from any poisonous effects he may have dreaded by the prompt eating of a Plantain leaf.
Another old Herbal says: ‘If a wood hound (mad dog) rend a man, take this wort, rub it fine and lay it on; then will the spot soon be whole.’ And in the United States the plant is called ‘Snake Weed,’ from a belief in its efficacy in cases of bites from venomous creatures; it is related that a dog was one day stung by a rattlesnake and a preparation of the juice of the Plantain and salt was applied as promptly as possible to the wound. The animal was in great agony, but quickly recovered and shook off all trace of its misadventure. Dr. Robinson (New Family Herbal) tells us that an Indian received a great reward from the Assembly of South Carolina for his discovery that the Plantain was ‘the chief remedy for the cure of the rattlesnake.’
The Broad-leaved Plantain seems to have followed the migrations of our colonists to every part of the world, and in both America and New Zealand it has been called by the aborigines the ‘Englishman’s Foot’ (or the White Man’s Foot), for wherever the English have taken possession of the soil the Plantain springs up. Longfellow refers to this in ‘Hiawatha.’
Our Saxon ancestors esteemed it highly, and in the old Lacnunga the Weybroed is mentioned as one of nine sacred herbs. In this most ancient source of Anglo-Saxon medicine, we find this ‘salve for flying venom’:
‘Take a handful of hammer wort and a handful of maythe (chamomile) and a handful of waybroad and roots of water dock, seek those which will float, and one eggshell full of clean honey, then take clean butter, let him who will help to work up the salve, melt itthrice: let one sing a mass over the worts, before they are put together and the salve is wrought up.’
Some of the recipes for ointments in which Plantain is an ingredient have lingered to the present day. Lady Northcote, in The Book of Herbs (1903), mentions an ointment made by an old woman in Exeter that up to her death about twenty years ago was in much request. It was made from Southernwood, Plantain leaves, Black Currant leaves, Elder buds, Angelica and Parsley, chopped, pounded and simmered with clarified butter and was considered most useful for burns or raw surfaces. A most excellent ointment can also be made from Pilewort (Celandine), Elder buds, Houseleek and the Broad Plantain leaf.
Decoctions of Plantain entered into almost every old remedy, and it was boiled with Docks, Comfrey and a variety of flowers.
A decoction of Plantain was considered good in disorders of the kidneys, and the root, powdered, in complaints of the bowels. The expressed juice was recommended for spitting of blood and piles. Boyle recommends an electuary made of fresh Comfrey roots, juice of Plantain and sugar as very efficacious in spitting of blood. Plantain juice mixed with lemon juice was judged an excellent diuretic. The powdered dried leaves, taken in drink, were thought to destroy worms.
To prepare a plain infusion, still recommended in herbal medicine for diarrhoea and piles, pour 1 pint of boiling water on 1 oz. of the herb, stand in a warm place for 20 minutes, afterwards strain and let cool. Take a wineglassful to half a teacupful three or four times a day.
The small mucilaginous seeds have been employed as a substitute for linseed. For ‘thrush’ they are recommended as most useful, 1 oz. of seeds to be boiled in 1½ pint of water down to a pint, the liquid then made into a syrup with sugar and honey and given to the child in tablespoonful doses, three or four times daily.
The seeds are relished by most small birds and quantities of the ripe spikes are gathered near London for the supply of cage birds.
Abercrombie, writing in 1822 (Every Man his own Gardener), giving a list of forty-four Salad herbs, includes Plantain.
Dr. Withering (Arrangement of Plants) states that sheep, goats and swine eat it, but that cows and horses refuse it.
It is a great disfigurement to lawns, rapidly multiplying if allowed to spread, each plant quite destroying the grass that originally occupied the spot usurped by its dense rosette of leaves.
Salmon’s Herbal ( 1710) gives the following manifold uses for Plantage major:
‘The liquid juice clarified and drunk for several days helps distillation of rheum upon the throat, glands, lungs, etc. Doses, 3 to 8 spoonsful. An especial remedy against ulceration of the lungs and a vehement cough arising from same. It is said to be good against epilepsy, dropsy, jaundice and opens obstructions of the liver, spleen and reins. It cools inflammations of the eyes and takes away the pin and web (so called) in them. Dropt into the ears, it eases their pains and restores hearing much decayed. Doses, 3 to 6 spoonsful more or less, either alone or with some fit vehicle morning and night. The powdered root mixed with equal parts of powder of Pellitory of Spain and put into a hollow tooth is said to ease the pain thereof. Powdered seeds stop vomiting, epilepsy, lethargy, convulsions, dropsy, jaundice, strangury, obstruction of the liver, etc. The liniment made with the juice and oil of Roses eases headache caused by heat, and is good for lunatics. It gives great ease (being applyed) in all hot gouts, whether in hands or feet, especially in the beginning, to cool the heat and repress the humors. The distilled water with a little alum and honey dissolvedin it is of good use for washing, cleansing and healing a sore ulcerated mouth or throat.’
‘Salmon also tells us that a good cosmetic is made with essence of Plantain, houseleeks and lemon juice.
Culpepper tells us that the Plantain is ‘in the command of Venus and cures the head by antipathy to Mars, neither is there hardly a martial disease but it cures.’ He also states that ‘the water is used for all manner of spreading scabs, tetters, ringworm, shingles, etc.’
From the days of Chaucer onwards we find reference in literature to the healing powers of Plantain. Gower (1390) says: ‘And of Plantaine he hath his herb sovereine,’ and Chaucer mentions it in the Prologue of the Chanounes Yeman. Shakespeare, both in Love’s Labour’s Lost, iii, i, and in Romeo and Juliet, I, ii, speaks of the ‘plain Plantain’ and ‘Plantain leaf’ as excellent for a broken shin, and again in Two Noble Kinsmen, I, ii: ‘These poore slight sores neede not a Plantin.’ His reference to it in Troilus and Cressida, III. ii: ‘As true as steel, as Plantage to the moon,’ is an allusion that is now no longer clear to us. Again, Shenstone in the Schoolmistress: ‘And plantain rubb’d that heals the reaper’s wound.’

PLANTAIN, BUCK’S HORN
Plantago Coronopus (LINN.)
Synonyms
Cornu Cervinum. Herba Stella. Herb Ivy. Buckshorne. Hartshorne
Parts Used
Whole plant, leaves
Habitat
It is an annual, found on sandy commons, waste places and chalky banks, especially near the sea, being fairly common and generally distributed in England.
The Buck’s Horn Plantain is the only British species which has divided leaves more or less downy and usually prostrate. It is very variable in the size and in the lobing of the leaves, which are from 1 to 12 inches in length, one-ribbed, either deeply divided nearly to the base, or merely toothed and almost entire. The flower-spikes are slender, many-flow-ered, short or long, the bracts to the flowers have a long point and the sepals are strongly winged. The pale brown seeds are mucilaginous and adhere to the soil when they fall.
In Salmon’s Herbal we find ‘Our Common Buck’s Horn Plantain’ described thus:
‘Root single, long and small, with several fibres. If sown or planted from seed, it rises up at first with small, long, narrow, hairy, dark-green leaves, almost like grass, without any division, but those that come after have deep divisions and are pointed at the end, resembling the snaggs of a Buck’s Horn, from whence it took its name. When it is well grown, the leaves lie round about the root on the ground, resembling the form of a star and thereby called Herba Stella. There is also a prickly Buck’s Horn Plantain, which is rougher, coarser and more prickly than the other. In Italy, they grow the first in their garden as a Sallet herb. The second grows on mountains and rocks. They both flower in May, June and July, their seeds ripening in the mean season and their leaves abide fresh and green in a manner all the winter. The qualities, specifications, preparation and virtues are the very same as those of Plantage major. The decoction in wine, if it is long drank, cureth the strangury and is profitable for such as are troubled with sand, gravel, stones, etc. The catasplasm of leaves and roots with bay salt applied to both wrists and bound on pretty hard (yet not too hard) cures agues admirably.’
Medicinal Action and Uses
As a remedy for ague, the whole plant, roots included, was even hung round the neck as an amulet.
Gerard says: ‘The leaves boyled in drinke and given morning and evening for certain days together helpeth most wonderfully those that have sore eyes, watery or blasted, and most of the griefs that happen unto the eyes.

PLANTAIN, HOARY
Plantago media (LINN.)
Part Used
Seeds The Hoary Plantain is a common meadow species. The broadly-elliptical leaves, on short flat stalks, spread horizontally from the crown of the root and lie so close to the ground as to destroy all vegetation beneath and to leave the impression of their ribs on the ground. The flowers are in a close, cylindrical spike, shorter than in Plantago major, but growing on a longer stalk, which is downy. They are very fragrant, and are conspicuous by their light purple anthers, the filaments being long and pink or purplish.
Medicinal Action and Uses
This species is a reputed cure for blight on fruit-trees. A few green leaves from the plant, if rubbed on the part of the tree affected, it has been recently discovered, will effect an instantaneous cure, and the wounds on the stem afterwards heal with smooth, healthy coverings. The plant is often found growing underneath the trees in orchards.
The medicinal virtues of this species were considered to be much the same as the preceding ones, the seeds, boiled in milk, being laxative and demulcent.

PLANTAIN, ISPAGHUL
Plantago ovata (FORSK.)
Synonyms
Ispaghula. Spogel Seed. Plantago Ispaghula. Plantago decumbens
Part Used
Dried seeds
Habitat
India, Persia, Spain, Canary Islands
Description
The corolla gives attachment to four protruded stamina, ovary free with one or two cells, containing one or more ovules.
The style capillar, terminated by a single subulate stigma. The fruit is a small pyxid-ium covered by the persistent corolla; seeds composed of a proper integument which covers a fleshy endosperm at the centre of which is a cylindrical axile and a homotype embryo, boat-shaped, acute at one end 1/12 to 1/8 inch long and 1/24 inch wide, pale-green brown with a darker elongated spot on the convex side; on concave side hilium is covered with the remains of a thin white membrane. It has no odour or taste, but the herbage is demulcent and bitter and somewhat astringent.
Constituents
Mucilage contained in seed coat (sometimes used to stiffen linen),
fixed oil, proteins.
Medicinal Action and Uses
Useful in place of linseed or barley, also for diarrhoea and dysentery; the decoction is a good demulcent drink, or seeds mixed with sugar and taken dry invaluable in this form for reducing inflamed mucous membranes of the intestinal canal - a mild laxative. When roasted the seeds become astringent and are used forchildren’s diarrhoea. In European medicine they are used chiefly for chronic diarrhea and for catarrhal conditions of the genito-urinary tract. Dose, 2 to 2½ drachms of the seeds, mixed with sugar and taken dry. Decoction, ½ to 2 fluid ounces.
Other Species
The seeds of the Indian species, Plantago Amplexicaulis, are sold in the bazaars as Ispaghula. They are of a darker colour than the official seeds, and are used in India as a demulcent in dysentery and other intestinal complaints.
P. decumbens (Forsk.), of South Africa, is regarded by some as the wild plant of which the preceding is a cultivated variety.
The seeds of P. arenaria (Waldst.), the SAND PLANTAIN, somewhat smaller, black and less glossy, and those of P. Cynops (Linn.), somewhat larger and lighter brown, are used similarly.
P. arenaria is an annual, with an erect, leafy, branched stem, bearing opposite, linear leaves and flowers in a spike, on long stalks, greenish-white. It flowers from June to September and grows in sandy, waste places, but in Britain has only been found on sandhills in one spot in Somerset and is not regarded as an indigenous species.

PLANTAIN, PSYLLIUM
Plantago Psyllium (LINN.)
Synonyms
Psyllium Seeds. Fleaseed. Psyllion. Psyllios (Barguthi) Barguthi
Parts Used
Seeds, leaves
In Southern Europe, as well as in Northern Africa and Southern Asia, Plantago Psyllium (Linn.), Fleaseed is used similarly to P. major. The seeds are also used for their large yield of mucilage. Semen psyllii is the name given to the seeds of several species of European Plantago, but the best are those of P. Psyllium. They are dark brown on the convex side, shiny, inodorous and nearly tasteless, but mucilaginous when chewed. They are demulcent and emollient and may be used internally and externallyin the same manner as flaxseed, which they closely resemble in medicinal properties.
P. Psyllium has once been found on ballast hills in Jersey, but has not permanently established itself.

PLANTAIN, RIBWORT
Plantago lanceolata Synonyms
Snake Plantain. Black Plantain. Long Plantain. Ribble Grass. Ribwort. Black Jack. Jackstraw. Lamb’s Tongue. Hen Plant. Wendles. Kemps. Cocks. Quinquenervia. Costa Canina
Parts Used
Leaves, seeds
Several of the wild Plantains have been used indiscriminately for Plantago major. Of these, the most important is Plantago lanceo-latus (Linn.), the Ribwort Plantain.
Description
This is a very dark green, slender perennial, growing much taller than P. major. Its leaf-blades rarely reach an inch in breadth, are three to five ribbed, gradually narrowed into the petioles, which are often more than a foot long. The flower-stalks are often more than 2 feet long, terminating in cylindrical blunt, dense spikes, ½ to 3 or 4 inches long and 1/3 to ½ inch thick. It has the same chemical constituents as P. major.
When this Plantain grows amongst the tall grasses of the meadow its leaves are longer, more erect and less harsh, than when we find it by the roadside, or on dry soil. The leaves are often slightly hairy and have at times a silvery appearance from this cause, especially in the roadside specimens. The flower-stalks are longer than the leaves, furrowed and angular and thrown boldly up. The flower-head varies a good deal in size and form, sometimes being much smaller and more globular than others. The sepals are brown and paper-like in texture and give the head its peculiar rusty look. The corolla is very small and inconspicuous, tubed and having four spreading lobes. The stamens, four in number, are the most noticeable feature, their slender white filaments and pale yellow anthers forming a conspicuous ring around the flower-head.
In some old books we find this species called Costa canina, in allusion to the prominent veinings on the leaves that earned it the name of Ribwort, and it is this feature thatcaused it to receive also the mediaeval name of Quinquenervia. Another old popular name was ‘Kemps,’ a word that at first sight seems without meaning, but when fully understood has a peculiar interest. The stalks of this plant are particularly tough and wiry, and it is an old game with country children to strike the heads one against the other until the stalk breaks. The Anglo-Saxon word for a soldier was cempa, and we can thus see the allusion to ‘kemps.’
This species of Plantain abounds in every meadow and was brought into notice at one time as a possible fodder plant. Curtis, in his Flora Londonensis, says:
‘The farmers in general consider this species of plantain as a favourite food of sheep and hence it is frequently recommended in the laying down of meadow and pasture land, and the seed is for that purpose kept in the shops.’
But its cultivation was never seriously taken up, for though its mucilaginous leaves are relished by sheep and to a certain extent by cows and horses, it does not answer as a crop, except on very poor land, where nothing else will grow. Moreover, it is very bitter, and in pastures destroys the more delicate herbage around it by its coarse leaves.
The seeds are covered with a coat of mucilage, which separates readily when macerated in hot water. The gelatinous substance thus formed has been used at one time in France for stiffening some kinds of muslin and other woven fabrics.
The leaves contain a good fibre, which, it has been suggested, might be adapted to some manufacturing purpose.

PLANTAIN, SEA
Plantago maritimo
Synonyms
Sheep’s Herb
Part Used
Herb The Sea Plantain has linear leaves grooved, fleshy and woolly at the base. It is common on the seashore and tops of mountains and is easily distinguished from the rest of the genus by its fleshy leaves.
It is so relished by sheep as food and considered so good for them, that in North Wales, where it has been cultivated, it is called Sheep’s Herb, and the Welsh have two names for it, signifying ‘the sheep’s favourite morsel’ and ‘the suet producer.’
The RATTLESNAKE Or NET-LEAVED PLANTAINS Of the United States, Peramium ripens (Salisb.) (syn. Goodyera ripens, R. Br.), the White Plantain or Squirrel-ear, and P. pubescens (Willd.), peculiar little woodland herbs, their ovate leaves beautifully reticu-lated with white lines, are not allies of ourcommon Plantains, but belong to the Orchid family.
The name WHITE PLANTAIN iS also applied in the United States to Antennaria pIantagini-folia (Linn.), the Ladies or Indian Tobacco, Spring Cudweed, or Life-Everlasting, to give several of its names, exceedingly common throughout Eastern North America, and one of the earliest blooming of spring plants in dry meadows, where it grows in patches.
It is used as a soothing expectorant with more or less marked stomachic properties.

PLANTAIN, WATER
Alisma Plantago
Synonym
Mad-Dog Weed
Part Used
Leaves The Water Plantain, though its name suggests a similarity, is in fact widely different to the Plantago species, and belongs to another natural order, Alismaceae. It is a water-plant, widely distributed in Europe, Northern Asia and North America and abundant in many parts of England, though only naturalized in Scotland. It grows freelyaround the margins of lakes or streams and in watery ditches, in company with the forget-me-not, brooklime, and other well-known waterside plants.
The name Alisma is said to be from the Celtic word for water, alis, in allusion to the aquatic habitat of the plant. The name Plantago was given by the early botanists because they were impressed with the similarity of form between the leaves of this plant and those of the plantain, and ignoring its dissimilarity in flower and fruit, etc., called it the ‘Water Plantain.’
The roots of the Water Plantain are fibrous, but the base of the stem is swollen and fleshy, or tuberous and furnished with a tuft of numerous whitish hairs. The flower-stalk, which rises directly from it, is obtusely three-cornered, a form specially suitable to enable it to stem the current; it is from 1 to 3 feet in height. The flower-bearing branches that spring laterally from this at its upper extremity are thrown off in rings or whorls, and these branches are themselves branched in like fashion, the whole forming a loose pyramidal panicle. The large leaves, broad below, but tapering to a point, all spring directly from the root also and are borne on long, triangular stalks, growing in a nearly erect position. They are smooth in texture, their margins often more or less waved and are very strongly veined, the mid-rib and about three on each side being very conspicuous. The leaf-stems are deeply channelled, broadening out and sheathing at their bases. The flowers are attractive in form and colour. The calyx is composed of three ovate, concave, spreading sepals, while the corolla has three showy petals of a delicate, pale pink colour, somewhat round in form, slightly jagged at their edges. The stamens are six in number, their anthers being of a greenish tint. The fruit is composed of some twenty or more three-cornered, clustering carpels, each containing one seed.
Medicinal Action and Uses
The Water Plantain has been considerably used medicinally, and is a drug of commerce. It contains a pungent, volatile oil and an acrid resin, to which all its virtues must be ascribed
The drug has diuretic and diaphoretic properties, and has been recommended by herbalists in renal calculus, gravel, cystiris, dysentery and epilepsy.
The powdered rhizome and leaves are employed by herbalists, also an infusion and a tincture prepared from the swollen rhizome, in its fresh state, is a homoeopathic drug.
The powdered seeds were recommended by older herbalists as an astringent in cases of bleeding.
The bruised leaves are rubefacient and will inflame and sometimes even blister the skin, being injurious to cattle. They have been applied locally to bruises and swellings.
The roots formerly enjoyed some repute as a cure for hydrophobia (hence one of its names, formerly, Mad-Dog Weed), and have been regarded in Russia as a specific, but repeated experiments made with them in this country and a searching inquiry, have not confirmed their use as a remedy for this disease. Their acridity is lost in drying.
In America it has earned a reputation against the bite of the rattlesnake. The roots are also used medicinally in Japan, under the name of Saji Omodaka.
This group of plants, the Alismaceae, in general contains acrid juices, on account of which a number of species, besides the Water Plantain, have been used as diuretics and antiscorbutic.
Several species of Sagittaria, natives of Brazil, are astringent, and their expressed juice has been used in making ink.
See ARROWHEAD.

Simplyoffgrid, its owner, or moderators are not responsible for the use of any herbs or plants used for healing. Please consult a qualified natural practicioner. Metta

http://www.offgridappliances.com/cabin-appliances/cabin-furnaces.htm

What kind of heating solution is right for your needs?
Using the table below, you can get some idea of the kind of heater or furnace you’ll need
to make your home comfortable!

up to 200 square feet:
fully insulated: 3,000
some insulation: 6,000
no insulation: 9,000

to 400 square feet:
fully insulated: 6,000
some insulation: 12,000
no insulation: 18,000

to 600 square feet:
fully insulated: 9,000
some insulation: 18,000
no insulation: 27,000

to 800 square feet:
fully insulated: 12,000
some insulation: 24,000
no insulation: 36,000

to 1,000 square feet:
fully insulated: 15,000
some insulation: 30,000
no insulation: 45,000

Alternative Housing:
The Freedom of a Yurt
Claire Wolfe

Life can be a problem if you’re born with both the Homeowner’s Gene and the Nomad’s Gene. When you get the urge to move (if, say, you work on contract from state to state, get weary of winters in East Armpit, North Dakota or find the political climate in Bureaucracy land increasingly chilly) you can’t simply pick up your house, hitch up your ponies and depart like a Mongolian wanderer.
Or can you?
Well, okay, not quite like a Mongolian wanderer. The ponies will be a pickup truck and maybe a trailer. Civilized complications like plumbing and electricity will definitely make things more ... er, complicated. But in the twenty-first century, you can still have low-cost, all-season portable housing - housing that (unlike travel trailers and RVs) has the advantages of being spacious, environmentally friendly, pretty darned cool and - some would even say - spiritually fulfilling.
I’m talking about the modern, engineered version of the Mongolian yurt - that cozy structure that’s been serving nomads for centuries.
Just what is a yurt, anyway?
A yurt (or ger) is a circular, peak-roofed dwelling with a wooden lattice wall (like a giant baby gate) covered by a skin that may be of felt, canvas, animal hides or anything else suitable to the local geography and climate. The roof consists of a large central ring with radiating rafters, also covered by a skin. Rafters and lattice wall are tied together by a cord that bears a remarkable responsibility for keeping the structure upright and intact.
A concise description of the traditional yurt can be found at the ………Traditional yurts can be transported on one or two pack animals and set up faster than you can paint a closet.
While the modern yurt looks remarkably like its Mongolian ancestor, it’s made with updated materials. Windows are usually detachable vinyl panels over built-in screens. Skins are polyester-canvas or vinyl. High-tech insulation is an option. The cord that holds it all together is aircraft cable, not rope. The roof ring supports a skylight.
Figures 1 and 2 show the components of a modern yurt and the forces that act on the structure.

Figure 1: Yurt Components (Courtesy of Pacific Yurts)

Figure 2: Forces that Act on a Yurt (Courtesy of Nesting Bird Yurts)
Yurts may be up to 30 feet in diameter (around 730 square feet) - with 20- to 24-foot (450 square feet) models very popular. They can be partitioned - sometimes quite elegantly - into rooms, or they can be left as one whole and holistic living space. You can also place two yurts side-by-side and connect them with a walkway or enclosed hallway, thus creating your very own official yurt compound.
With the help of a few friends, you can have most yurts ready for occupancy in hours. (After your floor structure is built - but that’s another story, which we’ll get to later.)
You can purchase a yurt from any of a dozen or so suppliers, like
Pacific Yurts http://www.yurts.com/main.html
Nesting Bird Yurts http://www.nbyurts.com/
Advance Canvas http://www.advancecanvas.com/yurts/ and
Borealis http://www.borealisyurts.com/
Or you can build your own from scratch for a few thousand dollars. Either way, you’ll find a good set of links - to manufacturers, do-it-yourself guides and histories - at the
Digital Librarian Yurts and Tipis Page http://www.servtech.com/~mvail/yurts.html
Aside from the sheer mobility and beauty of yurts, there are additional reasons why Doing Freedom! readers might be especially interested in this housing alternative.
A yurt is inexpensive enough to let you own a home without bank mortgages - and therefore without Social Security numbers, IRS reporting or begging boons from Your Friendly Neighborhood Globalist Financial Cartel. You can get a very nice yurt for under $10,000. (Prices of manufactured yurts, with options included, range from about $5,000 to $15,000. See below for representative pricing.)
If you can arrange to be an out-of-state buyer (or buy from a manufacturer in a state that has no sales tax), no state extortionists will profit off you. Nor will you have to license a yurt as you would an RV.
Because it’s usually not a permanent structure, a yurt also shouldn’t increase property taxes on whatever piece of land you park it. (As always, know the policies of the local gov-o-crats - if you care about such things.)
A yurt is low profile.
Why not just get a trailer?
If you want inexpensive, portable housing - a kind that has plumbing and other necessities already attached - you could of course just buy a travel-trailer - and many yurt dwellers do buy them as a quick-and-easy method of supplying utilities, closets and spare bedrooms to their yurt homesteads. (Not to mention that a properly laid-out trailer can also be one of the “ponies” that transports your yurt.)
A yurt offers a different ambiance (and larger ambiance, generally). It’s an atmospheric world of wood and skylights, curves and open spaces. Nothing wrong with tow-alongs - especially the big new ones that cost as much as small houses. But as a place to spend years of your one-and-only life, there’s a world of difference between an $8,000 used travel trailer and an $8,000 yurt.

Courtesy of Pacific Yurts
A yurt can also go places you wouldn’t be able to tow a trailer. Truck it in with 4WD and carry it - or float it - to really private spots.
If you move once a week, a trailer or RV is obviously a better option. If you move twice a year, or once in two years, or you just appreciate a serenely simple dwelling you could move if you ever wanted to, consider a yurt.
Many people also say the circle is a sacred living space. Don’t know about that. I can certainly say it’s a lot less boring than living in a box.
What can you do with a yurt?
Live in it. Meditate. Make it a workshop or studio. Move it between a summer location and a winter haven. Use it as a seasonal cabin, then pack it away in a warehouse. Ship it to another country. Stash your mother-in-law in it. Make it a playhouse & get the kids out of your hair. Live in it. Surround it with solitude. Dwell in it while hand-building your dream house. Lend it to a friend. Take it on a long vacation. Keep a small one in the back of your truck for emergencies. Live in it.

Photo Courtesy of Nesting Bird Yurts
Is a yurt practical? It’s certainly not for everybody, every location, or every stage of life. (Sometimes real, solid walls are nice.) One yurt dweller said living in his yurt was like riding a motorcycle instead of driving a car: “You hear the wind and the rain. You have to be the kind of person who likes to feel your environment.”
However, a yurt was an eminently practical solution for Tom Galligan (pseudonym), who lives onshore eight months out of the year, then spends summers fishing arctic waters. With his home and possessions stored in a friend’s garage until fall, he can earn his living without worrying about thieves, vandals, or payments.
And then there’s the older couple who play snowbird in an expensive RV all winter, then return to Montana where they summer in their mountain yurt. In January while they’re roaming, they never have to wonder whether, back home, their pipes have frozen or their trees have crashed onto the roof - because their “house” is safely packed away. For them, a yurt is very practical.
And when you get right down to it, what’s so practical about paying for your conventional home three times over by coughing up interest for 30 years? Or having an immobile asset that hampers your mobile life?
It’s a matter of perspective, of course. And the perspective from under a skylight on a rainy morning in the middle of nowhere can be refreshing.
BUT, I can just hear you saying, “What about the plumbing and the wiring? It’s all well and good to be able to port your house around on camelback, but this is the twenty-first century! I’d rather stay put and have a toilet in the vicinity.”
Necessities
If you’re not interested in parking a trailer next to your yurt to provide all the amenities, you can plumb, heat and wire your yurt just like any home. Naturally, though, the more fixed amenities you add, the more your once-portable getaway home becomes an unconventional - but fixed - house.
Unconventional amenities, on the other hand, are as unlimited as your imagination. Some can be very portable and some may also help you avoid showing up on Big Brother’s data screen (via his Little Brothers, the utility companies and local permitting agencies).
Consider:
For plumbing: Outhouse, rented porta-potty, informal septic system, chemical toilet ($50-$75) or composting toilet. makes a self-contained composting toilet that requires no giant underground tank and sells for around $1,300.
For electricity: All the usual options for self-sufficient homes - wind, solar, generators.
For connectivity: Cell phones (which are almost to the point of being a realistic alternative to wired services), wireless Internet connections, packet radio.
For heat: Wood stoves, propane space heaters, kerosene space heaters (if you’re careful!) The makes a slim-line propane wall heater very nice for yurts.
If you plan to move your yurt back and forth between known locations - or if you plan to keep it in one spot but prefer to be ready to “travel light” - you might have electricity and phone brought “to the box” on your property, then simply make your own temporary connections from there - as you would if you were hooking up a trailer or doing some civilized camping.
Of course, the yurt’s got to sit on land, somewhere. If you want it on your own property, you may have to go through all the state-approved nonsense to acquire and own the dirt. On the other hand you could: lease vacant land, exchange land use for labor on a farm, set up as a caretaker to protect a rich person’s isolated estate, mooch off friends or family, squat in the middle of nowhere, own land via a trust or corporation - perhaps even set up your yurt homestead in a campground. (They may be particularly glad to have you in the off season.)
Deck and flooring: The biggest complication
Modern yurts sit on decks or other types of flooring. Virtually every yurt owner agrees that the deck is far and away the hardest part of the project. The deck must be round (or have a round platform on it) and be constructed precisely to the specs of your yurt. A deck that works for a Pacific Yurt, for instance, might not work for a Nesting Bird, since the two have entirely different systems for tying down their sidewalls.
Decks can be made portable - and yurt manufacturers will happily help you with plans for these — but then all that wood (or other material) adds to the load your “ponies” must carry.

Courtesy of Nesting Bird Yurts
Here’s a nifty decking option the Nesting Bird people told me about …… produces an R-24-rated structural panel consisting of foam laminated between two layers of oriented strand board. The panels are strong enough to span eight feet without the support of joists; all you need underneath is posts, beams and connectors. Premier’s Tacoma, Washington plant has Nesting Bird specs on file and routinely custom cuts decking for yurt buyers (around $2,000 for pre-fabricated decking for a 24-foot model). If you’re buying from another yurt vendor or building from scratch, you’d have to submit deck specs. But these panels could be a good idea for anyone wanting a well-insulated, but relatively lightweight deck.
One yurt dweller created a stylish brick floor by laying paving blocks on a flat sand base. A custom-made steel ring surrounds the brick and gives the yurt something to anchor to. The entire assembly can be taken apart and hauled away if necessary.
Getting one
I’m acquainted, up close and personal, with two yurt manufacturers - Pacific and Nesting Bird. I’ve visited their factories, talked with their customers, inspected their products (sometimes after the buildings have stood several years in nasty climates) and spent hours taxing the goodwill of their sales reps or owners. This article isn’t intended to be an endorsement of anybody, but from what I know I can say I’d cheerfully buy from either of these vendors.
Pacific, founded by Alan Bair in 1978 and located in Cottage Grove, Oregon, is the original developer of the modern yurt. Besides building reliable basic structures, they make some nifty options (like a rainwater catchment system and a lovely solar-arc skylight). Their prices are reasonable, their catalogs gorgeous, their people helpful - and they have a ton of photos, deck plans and words of experience to help you know just what you can do with your yurt. If you can make it to their plant, you’ll also find three yurts set up, each a different size and equipped with representative options.

Courtesy of Pacific Yurts
Nesting Bird, of Poulsbo and Port Townsend, Washington, has been around only seven years, but their boat-designer co-founder, Will Hays, has come up with dozens of structural refinements that make their product the tightest, best finished, easiest to erect (and most expensive) portable yurt on the market. Company president/co-owner Jenny Pell tells me that Nesting Bird also has the odd distinction of having sold yurts to Mongolia.
Nesting Bird offers minimal options. However, one of the extras they do sell is the best - a panel wall system that lets you install the yurt skin in sections. That not only makes it easier to complete your home, but lets you move windows and canvas around to take advantage of different views or equalize exposure to sun. Nesting Bird also puts a lot of emphasis on environmentally friendly and hypo-allergenic products.
When shopping on the Web, all yurt designs at first seem pretty much alike. But the differences are absolutely in the details. Compare the thickness of rafters, the composition of fabrics, the solidity of doors, the niceties of finishing and the attitudes of the vendors. Differences are enormous when you start poking your hands and eyeballs under, over and inside various yurts. (It really helps to compare them in person; on the other hand, there are plenty of happy buyers who ordered theirs sight unseen.) Ask yurt dwellers for their experiences and recommendations. Especially ask how their yurts perform in windy, wintry, wet or super-hot conditions.
Many parks and resorts now have yurts for overnight camping. Go and stay in them. (Enter “yurt” and “camping” in an Internet search engine. Or ask yurt manufacturers about resorts that have bought their products.)

Happy trails.
(c) Claire Wolfe 2000.
May not be reproduced without written permission.

Costs
Here are some typical prices from four popular yurt vendors. Keep in mind that it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison. One company’s option may be another’s built-in. I hope you’ll use these figures only for ballparking and not reject any vendor out of hand solely on the basis of prices listed here.
Basic yurt price, 24-foot-diameter model, complete with doors, windows, dome skylight and all hardware, but unassembled:
Pacific Yurts, $6,375; Nesting Bird, $8,855; Advance, $5,890; Borealis, $6,650
All option prices below are also for a 24-foot yurt.
Wall and ceiling insulation (a must for year-round living in most climates):
Pacific Yurts, $1,505; Nesting Bird, $1,900; Advance, $1,470; Borealis, $1,650
Snow and wind kits (may be one kit or separate):
Pacific Yurts, $540, Nesting Bird, not required; Advance, $530; Borealis, $474
Wall panel system (skin and windows in moveable, replaceable panels):
Pacific Yurts, N/A; Nesting Bird, $565; Advance, N/A; Borealis, N/A
Other options (varies by manufacturer):
Extra doors and windows, taller walls, French doors, door awnings, rain diverters, custom colors, twist-locks to anchor windows in high winds, heavy-duty roof, perimeter gutters, vinyl wall canvas (for lower maintenance, particularly in soggy climates), docking kit for connecting two yurts.
Common yurt diameters (in feet): 12, 16, 18, 20, 21, 24, 27, 30.
Nearly all yurt makers require 50 percent down with an order and charge heavy restocking fees if you cancel.

Read more articles by Claire Wolfe! /gen/0303/autind.html