Not that Olympics.  Not that thing with the five rings and the Coca-Cola logo.  Any wimp can do that stuff.

You take your weight-lifting: in the normal, ho-hum, panty-waist everyday Olympics, some big bruiser in tights grunts, howls, and groans until he lifts a few hundred pounds over his head.  B-I-G deal.  Pardon me while I drop off to sleep.  The way I see it, this doesn’t take any real skill or planning, just a good breakfast, and maybe, if you’ve got a musk-ox somewhere in your family lineage, that doesn’t hurt either.

Now MY Olympics, that’s a different story.  My Olympics are held every spring and fall, but the fall event is somewhat the more spectacular.

Preparation begins when my razor-sharp perceptive abilities begin receiving vibrations of minute and subtle changes afoot in the environment.

First, the Black Walnut leaves turn a golden yellow, and each crisp breeze brings more and more of them gently floating down from their branches.  Before long, flocks of geese can be seen and heard in the sky overhead as they make their way southward.  One night, I walk outside to learn that the balmy night air of summer has been replaced by a sterner, less forgiving ether.

Or, if my razor-sharp perceptive abilities have got a head-cold or something, I just turn on the weather channel and they tell me that winter is fast approaching.

That means that my houseplants have to come in before they get frosted.  All the conventional wisdom will tell you that the average first frost around here is October 10.  However, the conventional wisdom doesn’t live down in my valley where the cold likes to congregate… early.

Last year’s Autumn Olympics were held on October 8.  Typically, this was the day after the first frost. It’s an essential part of my Olympic Tradition that these pre-frost games actually take place AFTER the frost.  This underscores the fact that this is all done for the purity of the sport, and not because I want my plants to look good all winter or anything so shallow and banal as that.  It’s from this perspective, that I’m then able to pontificate about the unpredictability of life and on the personal ancestry and relative intelligence of the weatherman.

There are many, many challenging events comprising the Autumn Olympics, but there’s little argument that the feature event is Bringing In The Hibiscus.

I have this Chinese-red hibiscus that typically spends the summer basking in the sun of the front lawn (having arrived there as the feature event of the Spring Olympics, Taking Out The Hibiscus).  This monster is ten or twelve years old and has grown to be about four feet high and nearly as wide.  Its’ broad leaves and myriad branches almost completely conceal an ancient 18″ pot of Mexican origin that my sister gave me.

Some years ago, astronomers discovered a star half-way across our galaxy which was dubbed a Magnetar.  You may have missed it since it’s not been subpoenaed or anything, but according to the scientists, its density is so great that, even though it’s weight is 500,000 times that of Earth, it is only 12 miles in diameter!

I mention this so that you may have an appropriate image in your mind when you visualize what I am about to carry from my front lawn up two flights of stairs to the dormer window beside my office.

This is a solo event.  About the time my son finally got big enough to (theoretically) be of much help, he also obtained a driver’s license, which means he’s never around here anymore and besides, he’s a teenager, which means he rarely does anything of any practical value anyway.

In his absence, I’ve considered finding and marrying a really brawny woman (does anyone remember Nikita Kruschev’s wife?) who could help with things like this, but… well, everything has its down-side.

Anyway, this year’s running was quite dramatic, and I only wish I’d had some way to record it for posterity.  After I’d performed a sophisticated series of stretches and warm-up exercises; after I’d stood facing the plant and reached deep within myself for the mental discipline I would need, I then reached deep within the plant to wrap my arms around the slippery, round pot somewhere within the mass of foliage.

As I applied my first burst of energy, my mind flashed on those regular-Olympic sissies who get to place their rosin-dusted hands on a nice grippy bar before they lift it.  Plunging most of my upper body into this Porta-Jungle, I began the sequence of the events that those phonies refer to as “the snatch”.  This, however, isn’t a very good description of the process whereby one hefts this small planet off of the ground, tearing loose from the earth whatever roots have grown through the drainage holes and deep into the lawn.  Perhaps “the struggle”, “the bungle” or “the vertebrae compression” would be better terms.

Terminology aside, reeling with a combination of relief and dismay, I find myself standing vaguely upright clutching this little forest to my chest.  I lean forward slightly in the direction that I recall the house was last located.  The weight of the hibiscus then propels me across the yard and toward the steps of my front porch.  I ride this momentum up approximately four of the eight steps where I lurch to a momentary halt, then start to teeter slowly, agonizingly backward.

The thought of falling down the stairs and landing on the back of my skull with this enormous thing coming to rest on my chinny-chin-chin gives me the necessary adrenaline to clamber up the remaining stairs.

Between those stairs and the front porch, I am forced to pirouette around something soft and lumpy that yelps like a dog who’s just been stepped on by a large tree.

Suddenly, I find myself through the front door, and with a pathetic gasp, head on to the final, most rigorous and grueling leg of the event, in which I mount the fourteen steps to the second floor in a gasping, wheezing stumble to the top, there to plant the load directly on the plant dolly which waits somewhere beyond the top step and on the other side of all this greenery.

It seems that the hibiscus has had a very good summer.  Even though I manage a beautiful bull’s-eye landing, the weight of the plant instantly crushes the dolly, breaking off one wheel and bringing the sorry combination of plant, pot, and dead dolly to rest completely askew but safely a the top of the stairs.

For a few moments I just lie there.  My lungs ache as I gasp and I moan, but I know that victory is mine, and I even manage a slight smile.  I hallucinate there are cheering crowds, I imagine microphones thrust in my face (only these microphones have leaves and perhaps a dose of white-fly).  Voices ask me what it was like out there.  Any judge in his or her right mind will give me at least a 9.3.  Somewhere, the theme from Rocky begins to play.

So that’s my athletic career to date.  My trophy now sits in its’ dormer, soaking up the sun’s rays, full of vim, vigor and a special blend of rotted manure and bone meal.  Next week I begin training for the Spring Downhill, which makes what those cowardly Winter Olympics slalom racers do look embarrassingly tame in comparison.

Black Thumb! Helpful Hints for the Cultivationally Challenged

The post The Autumn Olympics appeared first on Homestead.org.

When I go for a walk around my place, it may appear that I’m enjoying my time in nature, but the truth is, I admit, that I’m always thinking about how to “improve” nature.

Normal folks plant flowerbeds, but perverts such as myself try to make creations that give the illusion of natural groupings. We like to improve on perfection.

That’s how I got started building a group of Rose Mallow, Hibiscus moscheutos, about eight years ago. I had a marshy area that I imagined would look great covered with pink Rose Mallow.

A few miles from here is a collection of a white version that went wild decades ago that now covers an area around an old pond with a couple of acres of blooms in the late summer.

Maybe you’ve seen Rose Mallow growing near you, it’s a native in most of the South and in California, but it’s commonly cultivated all over the East and Midwest.

It’s a tough, stalky plant that grows up from a very sturdy root crown. It grows taller than your head and in late summer it provides a multitude of huge tropical-looking blossoms. The blooming always starts about the third of August down here in my little frost pocket in southern Missouri and it will continue to bloom almost, but not quite, to September.

As I say, I’ve been building a group of Rose Mallow for several years now. They seem to thrive in the marshy, wet ground that we have so much of. I top-dress them with compost about once a year. In the most recent years, I’ve started having enough plants to start dividing root clumps and multiplying the group.

Some of the advice I’ve read suggests that the plants are very sensitive to having their roots disturbed, and these folk recommend propagation by seed or tip cuttings, but all I can say is that I haven’t had any of these problems, and in fact have been pleasantly surprised by how well my specimens have taken to being moved.

Rose Mallow comes out of the ground in shoots after just about everything else is already up. It produces a light-green rather hairy leaf that makes you think more of a weed, but then, always right on schedule, you have those stunning big flowers, six inches or larger, that cover the plant. All through August, the show goes on with fresh blossoms replacing the old ones every day.

There are plenty of different cultivars of Hibiscus moscheutos and you can find color variations from white to deep red usually with a deep red center, hence one of the common names, “Crimson-eyed Rose Mallow”.

For my purposes though, I had a definite mission.

Since I am unabashedly lazy, and want a plant that will live on its own, I wanted to get wild specimens or very nearly so. However, due to the perversity mentioned earlier, I am not content to settle for the plain-Jane white hibiscus that you commonly find growing wild, and I was also not so thrilled by such cultivars as the hybrid “Disco Belle”, a crimson floozy if I’ve ever seen one.

No, I wanted the rarer blossom, the soft pink that occurs infrequently on the periphery of an otherwise white clump of mallow, a native Southern Belle of extraordinary beauty.

Since I’ve always had reason to drive around my state quite a bit, I was aware of two such instances of pink blossoms developing in a white group. Both were about seventy miles from my home… but in different directions.

Should you find yourself in a similar situation, I recommend that you contact the County Collector’s Office and get the address of the landowner so you can write him a nice letter asking permission to dig up one of the twelve million hibiscus plants growing around his abandoned pond.

That, however, isn’t what I did.  What I did was just go there in my pickup with a spading fork, remove one of the pinker specimens, and leave as quickly as possible.

Now the world knows.

That’s been about eight years ago. Since then, one of the specimens has proven to be much more robust, and pinker, than the other, and I suspect this huskier version comes from a cultivated line. It spun off a third clump which had very pale white flowers the first year, but was a deep and satisfying pink thereafter.

Two years ago I made the first root division, which was successful and this past year I’ve done several more, so I’m hoping to see a much larger area in bloom this year than last.

The Collie Who Tried to End It All

Johnny Appleseed: The Myth and the Man

The post Rose Mallow Hibiscus: Southern Belle Knocks Your Socks Off in August appeared first on Homestead.org.

~~~~~~~~

So you’re out of work; maybe you have been for a while?

For a lot of people, that means that they have two options, they can find another job before their money runs out, or they can find some cozy bridge to sleep under.

Let me introduce you to a new way of thinking about job security: your job is never going to be secure—not as long as you have a job.  Working for someone else is always just that, and the only way to ensure your job security is to start working for yourself.

The good news is, you can start today. If you decide that, from now on, you’re going to be self-employed, then instead of looking for work, you go to work right now, and start looking for money (or business) instead.

If your goal is putting bread on the table, looking for money is a lot easier, both on your feet and on your ego, than looking for work.

By “looking for money,” I don’t mean just looking for money lying in the streets; I mean looking for cash now, as opposed to trying to find someone willing to commit to paying you every week of the foreseeable future.

Let me give you three examples of people who have gone out and done just that.

Laresa

Several years ago, one of my wife’s friends, Laresa, lost her job as an accountant.  Like a lot of people, she’d have happily taken another job at that moment.  She had accounting skills, of course, but she saw that her field was crowded with other applicants.  Besides, the work was occasionally stressful, and she’d often yearned for more autonomy.

However, she was desperate for cash, so she started perusing the “Jobs” section on Craigslist, and she didn’t just read the ads for her specialties (besides working as an accountant here, she was trained in Russia as a geologist and had worked there as an economist).  She looked at everything available, including part-time jobs.  One of the things she found was an ad placed there by a working woman who needed someone to clean her house.

Well, that certainly wasn’t anything she’d considered before, but it was money, which she needed right away, so she called the lady, made an appointment, and took the job.   

She cleaned the woman’s house, taking care to do an especially good job and charged the lady $15 per hour.   To make a long story somewhat shorter, Laresa realized that even given her special attention, she’d made more per hour than she would have made working at her old job.  

Plus, her new client, who’d been hiring a maid service before, was much more satisfied with her work.  Laresa found it was not hard to do a better job working for herself than someone else’s employees had been doing..

So she started placing her own ads, looking for other women who wanted their homes cleaned while they were away at work.  It wasn’t so long before she’d lined up quite a few more new clients through online ads, and through the word-of-mouth referrals she got as a result of doing good work. 

Next, she introduced a whole new concept: to her nascent business, while she’s in the client’s home doing the weekly cleaning, she also balances their checkbooks and takes care of some bill-paying chores—for an additional fee, of course.

Her business is booming; she’s raised her standard fee to $40 per hour, and she’s making more than she did as an accountant.  Perhaps more important, she sets her own schedule, makes her own decisions, runs her own life, and even though she sometimes loses clients, she never loses them all at once, so she’s never without work.

If you have a skill or a service to sell, and it’s hard to imagine any adult who’s worked for any time at all who doesn’t, then you only need to find a way to market what you do or what you have.   

Now, I know that a lot of people are uncomfortable trying to sell anything, even themselves, in a product or service.  They feel that selling is hucksterish and undignified.  

Well, the fact is that, to get another job, and maybe the one after that, you’re going to need to sell yourself to your future boss.   Remember your last job interview?   I do, even though it was almost forty years ago.   Not so much fun.  In fact, it can sometimes seem a little like begging.  Not only that, but in a way, you need to keep selling yourself every day when you go to work.

By contrast, when you’re self-employed, you’re probably only going to be speaking to people who have answered your advertisements—in other words, people who sought you out, and you’re the one in charge of setting the price and the conditions.  If they buy what you’ll be selling, that’s great, but if they don’t, that’s no big deal either.  You don’t need them.  

Powerful stuff, huh?  

Maybe you’re thinking that there aren’t a lot of well-heeled folks like Laresa’s customers in your neighborhood, and for that matter, perhaps you’re more concerned with just making a living on your homestead, not becoming nouveau riche.

Russell

If so, let me tell you about my old friend, Russell.  I met Russell back about a million years ago when I was a (self-employed) real-estate broker.  He’d just become one of my first clients, and he asked me, “Hey, how can a guy make some money around this place?”

Let me stop myself right there and point out that I am not telling this story to showcase what a brilliant guy I am, but rather, merely to demonstrate how a simple idea can make anyone self-sufficient in money.  

“Well gee, Russell,” I said, “I dunno, what can you do?”  

He thought for only a brief moment, then said, “Well… I can paint.”  

“That sounds interesting,” I lied, thinking it too bad that I hadn’t sold him an apartment in San Francisco rather than 20 acres in the woods, “What’s your style, impressionist, realist, cubist…” 

“No,” he said, “no, I mean I can paint houses, fences, barns.  Stuff like that.”

Okay, well it’s not that I don’t promote the arts, but this seemed like a much more likely source of income here in the rural Ozarks than fine art.  I told him I’d been having pretty good luck with steady classified ads, and I suggested a local “shopper”.  

You know what “shoppers” are, those advertising-only newspapers they give away for free at grocery stores, convenience stores, and the like.  They often have names like The Penny Pincher, The Wooden Nickel, The Moonbeam County Moneygrubber, things like that.  Locally, ours is called The Horse Trader.   

Craigslist is sort of a free version of that, and you should always investigate ANY free advertising you come upon first, but if that proves inadequate, and you have something to offer that has broad appeal, shopper ads can show you a pretty attractive rate of return on a small investment.   

Anyway, to get back to the story, Russell started with a single ad in The Horse Trader as “Anywhere Ozark Painting Company,” which sort of explains his scope.  It’s not complicated; he has a truck, brushes, rollers, ladders, and a technique.  

That was about 45 years ago, and to my knowledge, he hasn’t worked for wages since.   That’s over four decades that he’s been able to maintain his homestead independently, keeping his own hours, and managing his own affairs.  In fact, over the last three and a half decades, He’s painted MY house twice, and it’s about due for another coat pretty soon.   There’s little question that I’ll hire Russell to do the job for me, because even if he weren’t my friend, I don’t know anyone else whom I can just call up and he’ll be here painting my house in a few days, and at a reasonable rate.  

Okay, now I’ve got one more story; this one is about Joe.  Joe isn’t like that plumber guy, mostly because Joe really is his name and he really does do what I’m about to tell you about.

Joe 

Again, this goes back to when I was working in an office in town, so I haven’t seen Joe for many years, which is why I can’t even remember his last name, but I very distinctly remember how he took control of his own life.

I was working in my office one day when Joe walked in and asked if I’d like to have my windows washed. 

Well, before that moment it had never occurred to me that I did, but, come to think of it, since I hadn’t done it myself in months, perhaps years, yes, I wanted them washed quite a bit. 

Being self-employed, I had other things to do that would make me more money than washing the windows, so I liked the idea of doing those things while someone else washed them.

He looked the situation over and asked me if it was worth $15 to me. 

Well, I had to admit that $15 was a bargain, and we had a deal.  

So Joe filled up his bucket in the office restroom, added his soap, grabbed a squeegee out of his car and proceeded to wash all the windows in about 15 minutes.  (A dollar a minute!)  When he was done, he asked me to look over his work, and when I did, I had absolutely no complaints. 

Then he asked me if I’d like him to come back in a month and wash the windows again. 

“Why… sure,” I said, “I’d love it”.   

My office was on one end of our small town, and Joe proceeded to make the same offer at every other business in town.   

From what I saw in the subsequent months, I’d say that most of them took him up on his deal, probably because, like me, they’d been doing the windows themselves, and not nearly as often as they should have. 

After he’d made a deal with all the agreeable businesses in town, he moved on to the next little town down the road, then to the one east, the one north, south, and so on until he had all the work he wanted to do every day of the week.  He never seemed to try to recruit homeowners, I suppose because he could wash the big plate-glass windows of storefronts quickly, collect his money, and move on down the street, and he kept his travel expenses down by only working in one town per day.  

I had that relationship with Joe for years, until I moved my office into my home, and during the last years that I knew him, he drove a pretty nice car to his jobs; he’d gotten married, owned his own home, and he had two daughters.

I think it’s interesting to note that the only overhead costs he ever had were soap, gasoline, and occasionally a new squeegee.  He didn’t even advertise.  

Now let’s talk about YOU.  I’ve often heard people say, “Well, I’m not too worried about being unemployed, after all, I was out of work when I found this job.” That perspective might have been good for shoring up your confidence when things were booming, but if you spend months on end looking for work now, you’re not likely to feel so blasé next time, meaning you may even be more chained to your next job than you were in your last one.  

That’s good for your employer, but it’s not good for you—not for your confidence, not for your independence and not for your future.

Look, it’s not hard to make money from your own efforts—every boss you’ve ever had was doing it, the ones that stayed in business anyway.  Employers buy you low (your wages), and then they sell you high (their return).  If you don’t make any money for them, then you don’t work there for very long.

If you’re like a lot of people, losing your job may have come as quite a surprise.  That’s because employers aren’t likely to broadcast the fact that they may be having troubles that could impact your employment.  They often don’t want anyone, neither their employees nor their customers, to know how shaky things may be—it’s just not good for business.  Notice how even large companies in the news start to lose sales when it becomes public knowledge that they’re faltering, as happened with General Motors before their bankruptcy.  This will be true, not just for the company you used to work for, it may even be true of the next one you’re applying to.  

On the other hand, if you work for yourself, you can’t lose your job.

Please understand, I’m not trying to make employers look bad.  You may be an employer yourself one day, because it’s a logical extension of building your own business, BUT nobody is going to be looking out for your dreams and your family the way you are.  When you lose your job, you’re completely out of work and you have to reassess your goals, perhaps even start over.  When you’re self-employed, sometimes business may be good and sometimes it may be bad, but you’ll never be completely out of work again.  

Depending on how you choose to make your living, you’ll develop repeat business that will come to you almost automatically.  You’ll also become a walking advertisement for yourself, and people who’ve seen you at work will approach you with new business.  Times may get bad, but it’s a rare situation when all business dries up all at once, even if you were doing something like selling typewriters when word processing computers came along; all your business wouldn’t have drained away overnight, as it does when you lose your employment. 

Please understand though, that obtaining self-employment isn’t for everyone, and that there will always be plenty of employees in the world.  I’ve been self-employed since 1973, and while it’s not at all uncommon to find me wasting time amusing myself with some nonsense or other in the middle of a working day, still I know very well that I’ve spent a lot more than forty hours per week working over the years.  You’ll probably enjoy your work a lot more when you’re working for yourself, but you’ll almost certainly work more.  If that strikes you as a major drawback, you may want to reconsider.

You’re also going to have some responsibilities that you didn’t have before.  You’ll probably pay fewer taxes than as an employee, but you’ll be more responsible for reporting and filing them, and you’ll be less likely to overpay, so you’ll be less likely to get refunds at the end of the year.  You’ll also have to arrange for your own health care, although that seems to be a likely outcome even if you’re employed.

The examples I’ve given here were chosen because they are simple jobs that anyone can do, but if you have a particular talent, I urge you to follow it.  If, for example, you write well and enjoy writing, I think you’re more likely to do well freelancing than washing windows.  I’ve spent nearly all my life working in real estate because I’ve always found it interesting, and I wouldn’t be as happy painting houses.  I have, however, always been interested in the publishing business, so when I was offered the opportunity to buy Homestead.org, a place where I had been advertising, I saw the chance to expand into another field of interest and let my existing business pay the way.  Working for yourself can bring such opportunities. 

If you are out of work right now, I hope you’ll take the initiative to move to self-employment.  To reiterate, the first step is to check out the local shoppers and online ads to find some ways you can make money right now, but without committing all your time long term.  If you’ve already got a plan, those are good places to start with your advertising.  Whenever an advertising source pays off, keep advertising there, and make certain that you don’t give up on a source prematurely—give a new source six months.  Take the things that work for you and do them again, and again and again. 

Get all the advice you can, but get it from people who are doing what you want to do, and who are where you want to be.  DO NOT ask the opinions of your employed friends.  There are always people who’ll be able to tell you a hundred reasons why your ideas won’t work; you have to ignore them and talk to the people who can show you how to succeed.

Get up every morning (early) with the same goal in mind, and before long you’ll look back and see that you’ve accomplished quite a lot.

Good luck.   

The post Lost Your Job? Congratulations, You’re Finally Self-employed! appeared first on Homestead.org.

As I was doing this, happily engrossed in my work, I looked up to see something across the yard which I had never seen in my whole entire life.  A sight which made my blood run cold.

What I saw was a large black-snake climbing up a tree.  Almost straight up it in fact—it looked like he must have Velcro attached to his disgusting snake belly.

“Snakes can do that?”  I marveled to myself.

That led to a very, very troubling interlude while I pondered the fact that I have been walking under trees in the Ozarks since I was old enough to walk, and it has never once occurred to me to look up and see if there was a snake dangling from a limb overhead while contemplating doing a half-gainer down my shirt.

I’m not sure that I will ever fully recover from this epiphany.

Let me make one thing clear.  I do not like snakes.  In fact, I am completely opposed to anything that doesn’t have enough integrity to get up and walk on its legs, as do most all the other more respectable creatures do.

Yeah, yeah, I know about them catching and eating lots of field mice and other rodents, but I would gladly catch and eat rodents myself if it meant that the world would be free of reptiles of all kinds.

Maybe you’ve noticed that people often associate human traits with snakes and vice versa.  That seems appropriate to me, because I have plenty of problems with humans as well.  One of the things that irks me about the human race is the way they mess around with the English language.  I’ve never fully recovered from what the kids have done to the word “awesome”.

Time was, “awesome” meant something mighty, something inspiring, humbling even.  Nowadays, as best I can tell, it means something like, “no kidding?”

Well, they’ve done the same damned thing with the word  “snake”.  Be honest now, I’ll bet when you saw the title of this piece, you thought this was going to be about used-car salesmen or IRS agents, didn’t you?

Well, it’s not, and you don’t need to expect any stories about Eve being offered an apple by her divorce attorney, although you’d have to agree that it would be just as plausible a story as the original.

Still, humans may be pretty bad, but they don’t sneak into your tent and bite you with venom-injecting fangs.  That’s just a fact, so calling people “snakes” even hate-radio jocks, is just a dilution of a perfectly good word.

I was thinking about all this the other day when I received this email:

Dear Neil,

I got a big chuckle out of the Collie story.  I don’t have a dog (yet) but do have 2 cats.  I love dogs but can’t keep one where I live.

I hate snakes (actually I’m terrified of them) but will have to get used to them or find excellent ways of keeping them away besides cats.  I’ve read guinea hens work well, but are really noisy, and that pigs like to eat them.

Do you have any idea what the copperhead and rattlesnake population is like there?  Not actual numbers (who’d want to count them?) but more like what are seen on occasion or frequently noticed?

I can easily put up with non-poisonous snakes.

~Chris

Dear Chris:

There are four types of poisonous snakes in the Ozarks: the Copperhead, the Cottonmouth, and two species of rattlesnakes, the Pygmy and the Timber Rattler.

That’s what I get from my reading anyway, in an entire lifetime of bumbling into nasty, snake-y looking places, I’ve never encountered a rattlesnake in the wild.

I’m absolutely certain that they’re out there, though.

One of my clients found one in her backyard one evening, and seemed quite agitated over the experience for weeks thereafter.

I also recall a particularly colorful neighbor who was fond of prodigious quantities of cheap wine who once brought a matched pair of rattlers into town where he was photographed displaying them for the local paper.  He handled these specimens by means of strings that he’d tied around their necks.  (Like I say, colorful.)

He confided that he couldn’t recall precisely where he’d found them (evidencing one of the characteristics of drinking a half-gallon of Roma) so I can’t swear they were from the Ozarks, but, as I say, I’ve little doubt of it, because nobody could drive very far that drunk.

Copperheads are the most plentiful of our poisonous snakes, but you won’t see much of them either.  They tend to stay hidden under something during the day, because they dislike the sun’s heat and the light of day, hence the obvious parallel with gang members in the city.

Native Ozarkers tend not to wander out into the yard barefoot at night.

The truth is, unlike that clown who comes on the TV screaming about detergent right after you’ve fallen asleep in your chair, snakes are even more afraid of humans than vice versa, and you can step on a snake without being bitten… probably.

When I started out in the rural real estate business, I decided that I was just going to have to get used to the idea of snakes, and forget about all those years of nightmares I’d had about finding them in my bed, etc.

Well, forty years later, I’ve been in some of the most God-awful-looking places imaginable, and I don’t have even ONE set of fang marks to show for it.

Cottonmouths have to reputation for being the most aggressive snakes, but I’m here to tell you that even they will turn ummm… tail and run given the opportunity.

I was once showing some land to a young couple from Chicago.

When you’re trying to sell property with a creek on it, you’ve GOT to show the customer the creek no matter what’s involved, and you can’t go whining about the snakes, because then maybe they’ll chicken out.  (What’s more important after all, a slow painful death, or paying the rent?)

That’s how I got to be down in this humid, dark valley with these two innocent bystanders, standing waste deep in some kind of broad-leaf weed that almost completely obscured the muddy black creek-bank from view.

Almost.

While we were standing there, while I was busily engaged in trying to look like someone who wandered into places like this all the time, I noticed a spot about ten feet away from us where I could see all the way down to the dirt.  There’s no telling what little surprises the rest of that 20 acres held, but it was in that particular square foot that I saw the characteristic blunt, charcoal-gray tail of a cottonmouth about as big around as my arm, wriggling away from us.

I considered just dying right there on the spot, but I didn’t want to upset the lady, so I never said anything, answered all their questions, and briskly escorted them out of there with what I hope was not obvious haste.

They didn’t buy it.

To answer your questions, Chris, I think you’ll find the cats will do a bang-up job of keeping snakes out of the yard.

Frankly, though, if you plan to mow the lawn every so often, you probably won’t even need the cats all that much, to say nothing of the guinea hens – who have the amusing habit of making their incredibly raucous noise virtually every waking moment of each and every day.

I’m not sure whether you meant pigs like to eat the snakes or the guinea hens, (although I’m certain both statements would be true) but what they’ll do to your rhododendrons is even worse than the noise from the guineas.

So here’s my advice on the best way to deal with snakes on your property in the Ozarks: Fuggedaboudem, it’s politicians and televangelists you have to worry about.

The post Snakes in the Ozarks appeared first on Homestead.org.

Then he said, “Do you know what timber like that is worth?”

Needless to say, I was aghast, both at the crudity of what he was suggesting and by the fact that my wife might overhear.

“Yes!” I hissed under my breath, quickly hustling him into the next room beyond Ola’s earshot.  “Yes I do, but those woods are worth a lot more than mere money to me.”

“You know that lots of those big trees will just get hollow and die, and then they’re not worth anything, right?”, he asked.

“Do you have to scream?” I asked, “Look, they’re just innocent trees.  I don’t believe in vegetable labor, so I don’t expect anything out of them other than the usual things like shade and the continuous daily rebirth of my aesthetic sensibilities.  Besides, without trees, we’d have a bunch of panhandling, homeless squirrels to deal with.”

I could see that he and I just weren’t on the same page, so to speak, and I guess he left thinking I was crazy (just like all the rest of them).

The truth is that, in the past, people like this plumbing gentleman have caused me to feel somewhat… well, guilty about my forest, because I don’t do anything with it, except wander around in it a lot, and how self-indulgent is that?

Boy, what a bonehead I was.

Because that was before I learned a few things of considerable importance both to myself and to The Future of Mankind.

Did you know that in one growing season a single mature tree produces enough oxygen to service the breathing habits of 10 adult homo sapiens?  That’s just one tree, and I’ve got literally zillions of them.  I calculate that here at the Exclamation Pointe Oxygen Generation Facility #1, when engaged at peak capacity, we can supply an annual 24/7 oxygen fix to an entire city the size of Springfield, Missouri, and have enough left over to blow up the balloons for New Year’s Eve.  (Springfieldians can expect a hefty bill in their mailboxes when I work out the kinks in metering and distribution.)

Right now, I have the plant shut down for retooling and maintenance, but come spring, we’ll be coming back online with all units churning at peak capacity, sequestering carbon like it was going out of style, and pumping out massive quantities of safe, clean, 100% organic oxygen (with only trace elements of tree-frog and firefly).

Did I say “organic”?  Yes, that’s another thing you have to watch out for.  Recently, misguided environmental scientists have developed an artificial tree that supposedly generates product at a much greater rate than do our conventional systems.

I mean… REALLY!

What’s this world coming to?  I first predicted this when they started manufacturing aluminum Christmas trees back in the 1950s, but even visionaries such as myself never imagined it would go this far.  Seems to me that faux trees might be okay for someplace like France, or Neptune, but I think the good ol’ red-blooded American market is going to demand the sort of high-quality breathables that are only produced by wooden trees.  In fact, recent polling has found that those surveyed chose conventional oxygen as their Ether of Choice by a resounding margin. (Time–CNN poll)

Truly, I’ve found my niche here in the oxygen business. It’s obvious that the world has a maple on its back, and we oxygen farmers are the only ones doing something about it.

Sure, oxygen farming can be tedious at times, there’s lots of sitting and watching involved, then there are the hardships like never having a good place to get a tan, and the noisome din of the songbirds.

Still, if you’re that special kind of person who would enjoy the rough-and-tumble of the oxygen generation game, this may be the opportunity of a lifetime.

Have you ever invited friends over, only to discover that you were running out of oxygen?  Boy!  That’s really embarrassing, but it’ll never happen again when you “own the farm”.  Think of it.  You’ll have plenty of fresh, wholesome oxygen for the rest of your life, maybe even enough to share with the neighbors—providing they do something about their barking dog.

The post Oxygen Farming for Fun and Profit appeared first on Homestead.org.

On the one hand, I could tell you that much of her life was quite commonplace, at least for someone born in 1800 as she was, but in other respects, her time on earth was so unusual that one would be hard-pressed to name an equal.

But first, in order to tell you who she is, it is of necessity that I tell you about her family.

Her father, John Johnston, was born into a rather well-to-do Scotch-Irish family in the north of Ireland in 1762.  One of his cousins was a Catholic bishop, another a member of Parliament who eventually became Attorney General of Ireland.

John sought his fortune by other means.  Clearly robust and independent, he traveled in 1790 to Canada and the United States then, by canoe to Mackinac Island in what is now Michigan to become a fur trader.

There he met her mother, a young woman of the Ojibwa tribe whose name was Ozhaguscodaywayquay, which means “woman of the green prairie” and whose father, Waubojeeg, was an extremely notable chieftain of the Ojibwa in the area to the north of, and including what we now call the Great Lakes.  It would not be an exaggeration to say that she was an Indian princess. 

It is impossible to know what the resulting romance was like now, 220 years later, but we do know some rather juicy details.  Take for example, this tale of devotion: John Johnston met Waubojeeg early on and found him to be very well-connected in the Indian and mixed-race or métiscultures of the northern woods.  Waubojeeg was to prove a very valuable business ally, and with his help Johnston was able to set up a considerable trade network in the region.

It was quite common then for traders and trappers to marry Ojibwa women.  This was referred to, by the white men, as marrying in “the custom of the country”, which apparently didn’t necessarily have the same weight in their minds as marriage usually entails, and many of these women, and their children, were simply abandoned as situations changed and it became convenient.

One of these women, in fact, was Waubojeeg’s own sister, so when Johnston asked Waubojeeg to marry his daughter, the chieftain told him simply to go back to Montreal (a journey of about 800 miles by canoe).  Waubojeeg did, however, hold out some hope.  He added that if Johnston came back to Sault Ste. Marie, the following spring, then he would permit the marriage.

To his surprise, Johnston did indeed return the following spring.

Whether John’s enthusiasm came from wishing to seal himself to his benefactor, Waubojeeg, or whether he was simply smitten by the Indian maiden, it appears that no one bothered to first seek the acquiescence of Ozhaguscodaywayquay, because she was repulsed by the idea of the marriage her father had arranged for her, and after the marriage, she ran away to live with her grandparents.

Her father, apparently of the mind that a deal was a deal, found her and beat her with a stick and told her he would cut her ears off if she did not return, then took her back to Johnston.

Interestingly enough, what followed proved to be a fairly happy and affectionate union.  Johnston gave his new wife the English name of Susan, and she eventually bore him eight children including our heroine of the portrait, Bamewawagezhikaquay whose Ojibwa name means, Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky.

She was, of course, also given an English name: Jane Johnston.

Jane Johnston’s life may be a little difficult for us to imagine in 21st-century America, especially given what we have come to imagine about what life in the North Woods of 1800 could have been.

In those days, there were settlements of French and British Europeans, mostly lured there by the lucrative fur business, then there were the Indians, Ojibwa, and other Chippewa for the most part, but most notable there was also a considerable community of mixed Euro-Indian households like the Johnstons and their mixed-race, or métis, offspring.

As it happened, James Johnston considered himself a gentleman and he was also an avid reader who dabbled in poetry.  It was said that he had brought with him a substantial library in a time when books were expensive and literacy, particularly in that area, was not the norm.

During the long, cold winters of the region, Johnston took it upon himself to educate his children in reading and writing, and later in English literature and composition.  At the same time, “Susan” who could understand English, but who would not speak it, taught the children to be fluent in the language of the Ojibwa.

Young Jane took a special interest in her father’s books and letters and became quite familiar with English, and to some degree American, literature.  Presumably, she also had at least some familiarity with French as one visitor to the home described the Johnston library as “…A thousand well-bound and well-selected volumes, French and English, evidently much in use, in winter especially”.

Johnston, who remained a British subject all his life, was clearly not the typical fur-trader, but it was apparent to him that marriageable bachelors of the area were considerably less refined than he, and he wanted better than this for his daughters.

Clearly, Mr. Johnston cared a great deal about his children’s education, as all but Jane were sent away for a few years of schooling in Canada or the United States.  As it happened, he made a trip back to Ireland when Jane was nine years old, and he took her with him.

The idea was that Jane would live with John’s sister, Jane Moore while she attended school, possibly never to return to the new world.  However, Jane Moore’s husband died shortly thereafter, leaving her unable to afford another person to feed, much less educate.  Jane Johnston, for her part, was of a rather delicate nature and had suffered greatly on the voyage to Ireland.  She missed her mother and her home, and so it came to pass that John came to get her and, after spending a few months in England, brought her back to Sault Ste. Marie.

Imagine if you will, the situation in which young Jane finds herself: educated and aware of the world at large, numerous visitors to the home described her as well-read, refined and ladylike.  One commenting that she “spoke English with great charm and yet with a curious accent.”

Young métis women were often said to be strikingly attractive with their high cheek-bones and warm complexions and their Indian mothers took pride in bringing them up in the customs and fashions of white girls.

Many of these young women left to marry into high stature in the more civilized worlds to the east and south, but Jane must have wondered about the likelihood that she would ever have a mate that matched her education and refinement.

Then, in the spring that Jane was 22, the new American government which was making inroads into the area sent a garrison of troops and the first federal “Indian agent” for the Michigan Territory, which contained modern-day Michigan, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota and Ohio.

The Johnston family took in the new agent while the troops were building a fort.

This agent was the now-famed explorer, geographer, geologist and ethnographer, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a young man of letters, thirty years old and already quite accomplished.

We can imagine how attractive both Jane and Henry must have seemed to the other, both being writers and poets and both having extensive familiarity with literature.

Take as an example this, one of many flirtatious notes between the two, from Jane to Henry:

“Miss Johnston presents her compliments to Mr. Schoolcraft, and desires to tell him that her mother, begs his acceptance of the accompanying little moccucks of maple sugar.  Miss Johnston, begs leave to remind Mr. Schoolcraft, of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, when Bassanio, comments on the three caskets, one of gold, one of silver and the last of lead, in one of which, the picture of Portia, is contained, he repeats:

‘So may the outward shows be least themselves; the world is still deceived by ornament.’

and as he chooses the leaden one, he says,

‘Thy plainness moves one more than eloquence.’ 

– and is, of course, fortunate in his choice.  Mr. Schoolcraft may say the same of the unornamented moccucks, they are plain, but the sweet that they contain is not the less fine, and on that account, he may be induced to accept them.”

It is no great stretch of the imagination to see that Jane means to substitute herself for the moccucks and prays that Henry choose her, the “leaden casket“.  Such modesty seems particularly fetching.

They were married the next year, 1823, and from the beginning, there seems to have been much love and affection shared between the two.

Having said that, Henry benefited greatly from the marriage and from his in-laws.  It seems curious to consider that while he was enjoying the friendship, indeed the kinship of the Ojibwa and métis societies, he was also engaged in forcing the Indians out of the region.  The reader will have little doubt of the affection between the young couple, but history shows us that Henry did take advantage of his situation ruthlessly and continuously.

For example, Jane was quite a prolific writer, and was almost singularly qualified to translate Ojibwa and Chippewa legends into English.  Henry helped her with these translations, as a mentor and publisher, and saw that many were published, but he frequently failed to give her credit.

Henry is universally credited with discovering the source of the Mississippi River, twice.  Once on his own, which proved to be incorrect, and then later when he “discovered” it again when a band of Jane’s relatives took him there at his request, although he took full credit for himself.

Because of these things, and because she was eclipsed not only by her famous husband, but also by her father, and even her mother, who was well known and regarded, Jane’s place in history has been very slight, until the recent (2007) publication, edited by Robert Dale Parker of “The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky – The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft.” – University of Pennsylvania Press, in fact, she was nearly unknown.

Now however, we can credit Jane Johnston Schoolcraft as the first known American Indian literary writer, the first known Indian woman writer, the first known Indian (written) poet, the first known poet to write in an American Indian language (in transliteration) and the first known American Indian to write traditional Indian spoken stories.

Henry was an energetic and ambitious man; driven to make a name for himself and prolific in his writing and accomplishments.  Jane, by contrast appears to have written almost exclusively for the pleasure of writing, with no particular goals in mind with not thought of publication.  If Henry failed to give her all the credit due, neither would her work likely have survived today without his promotion.  Indeed, he seems to have been instrumental in her retelling of Native American stories which he collected and published, and which were read widely in the day.

In fact, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha borrows strongly from Henry’s Algic Researches which contains several of Jane’s works including, The Story of Corn.

Henry and Jane lived first in an addition built onto the Johnston home and later in Elmwood, a rather large home that Henry caused to be built, which he felt appropriate to his position, both in Sault Ste. Marie.  After 1833 they moved to Mackinac, which was also had a large métis community, more developed even than that of Sault Ste. Marie.

Henry and Jane had four children but only two lived to adulthood.  One babe was still-born, but their first-born, Willy was much coddled and beloved by both before he took ill and quickly died at the age of two.

In later years, Henry was occupied with affairs of state and spent much time away from home leaving the rather frail Jane with the children and an unruly staff to mind in his absence, sometimes for months on end.  This death seems to have been a cruel blow for Jane in particular who wrote several sad and beautiful poems in morning.  There is some indication that Willy’s death may have also put a strain on their relationship, but life moved on, and there was much to do.

Henry’s ambitions and accomplishments gained him greater influence in the Andrew Jackson administration and was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs, but in 1840, Henry got into a fierce battle with his younger brother, William and the federal government, the outcome of which resulted in his being investigated for corruption and removed from office when the Whigs came to power.

Jane, having been in poor health most of her life began using laudanum, an opium and morphine tincture to relieve her symptoms and eventually became addicted, which in turn had further ill effects on her health.

After Henry lost his position with the government, He and Jane decided to leave Mackinac Island ie for New York City, and then, without a job and needing to promote his writing, Henry decided to make a trip to Europe.  Jane, in frail heath as usual, and remembering the miserable time she had in Ireland and England, decided to stay behind once again and went to stay with her sister Charlotte in what is now Ontario in 1842, when she was 42.

There, on May 22 of that year, Charlotte found Jane sitting in a chair dead.

She was survived by two children and a large body of literature, some of which is still being discovered today.

Here are three Ojibwa legends translated by Jane Johnston Schoolcraft on Homestead.org:

The Origin of the Robin

Peboan and Seegwun (Winter and Spring)

The Corn Story

The post Bamewawagezhikaquay: The most famous person you never heard of. appeared first on Homestead.org.

One I remember in particular was a lady, probably in her early forties, who told me that, prior to her trip to my office, she’d never been outside of Los Angeles; had never gone before where no traffic lights or sidewalks exist.

Another thing that I remember about her was that she called home three times a day to check with the woman who was sitting her dogs.  Not that there’s anything WRONG with that, mind you.  It just sticks in my mind because I never saw anyone check on their kids that much.  I guess this seemed a little odd to be because it was a few decades ago.  Nowadays, children are kept at heel lest they wander a few feet from the helicopter… er… home… and pets have replaced actual human offspring in many parts of the country.

Well, I drove her all over creation, or at least the Ozark version of creation, for two or three days. During the middle of one afternoon, we were passing down one of the zillion or so little back-county gravel roads hereabouts, past a small farmhouse, when a large collie came running out of the yard barking at us.

I was just about to deliver the punch line of one of my remarkably humorous stories, when I turned to my passenger, not wishing to miss her appreciation of my profound wit.

To my surprise instead of eager anticipation, her face was frozen in terror. Her eyes were as big as saucers and she was making a strange “ACK-ACK-ACK!!” noise deep in her throat.

This was not the sort of reaction I’d been hoping for.

As quickly as I could, I pulled the truck to a halt, preparing to administer artificial respiration, the Heimlich maneuver, or whatever weird incantation seemed most appropriate… assuming I could determine exactly what the situation was.

By that time, she was sobbing uncontrollably.

After several moments, I managed to calm her down enough that she could, sort of, talk.

As it turns out, she thought the collie was going to run head-first into our vehicle and end it all.

I explained to her that rural dogs just aren’t under that much stress, and that they were probably far less prone to fits of depression, ennui, performance anxiety, and all of that sort of thing than their urban counterparts.

Apparently, dogs do not chase cars in Los Angeles, I thought. Maybe it was a city ordinance or something.

It’s moments like this that I realize what a simple bumpkin I am.

Angeleno dogs, in fact, do not chase cars, or if so, only in their dreams, because big-city bowsers only see the clouds and sunshine from the end of a leash.  They’d love to chase cars and cats, and dig up the front lawn, and chew up most everything, and pee on most everything else, but they simply are not allowed.  Not, not, not.

It makes me think of the way that kids today are sheltered and protected from so much that used to be considered just normal life: playing outside in the neighborhood; walking home alone, that sort of thing.  So if folks are so protective of their kids, nowadays, you can imagine how they must feel about their pets who, unlike your pain-in-the-neck human offspring, don’t talk back, don’t roll their eyes, and don’t ever complain about much of anything.

That’s why, when this dear lady sees a collie living a life of wild abandon; eating trash, chasing anything that runs, drooling, licking, and urinating with wild, euphoric rapture—just like we’d all like to do—naturally, she thinks he’s psychotic, and bent on self-destruction.

I wonder if we humans couldn’t take a lesson from this… and I call this exercise The Rule of Fido, which states, that the more we insulate ourselves from nature in our antiseptic little boxes, the less real life we get to live.   The more time we spend watching the (supposed) lives of others on television, the less time we spend actually living our own lives.  So instead of enjoying satisfying personal experiences like hiking the Appalachian Trail, or seeking higher education, we’re watching politicians making even greater fools of themselves on Dancing with the Stars.

Maybe that’s some people’s idea of a life well lived, but to me it looks uncomfortably similar to a bulldog in a pink cashmere sweater who’s never felt his heart race with unbridled ecstasy while terrifying a squirrel; a poor bowser who eats “gourmet” canned food even though he doesn’t speak French, but who has never tasted the heady elixir of fresh, warm blood.

People, this is not for us.  Rather, we should all be doing everything we can to make our lives more wild and natural; to feel our hearts pumping with excitement instead of watching our existence slowly crumble into the sofa cushions.

Look, as long as you’re still breathing and sentient, it’s not to late to redeem your life.  All you have to do is to stop babying yourself with what’s easy and acceptable, and start doing the exciting, dynamic things you’ve secretly always yearned to do.

And if we all start doing this, trust me, our lives will all change for the better.

C’mon, give it a try, what’s the harm?

You can show solidarity with us today by enjoying the wild adrenaline rush of digging up the neighbor’s flowerbed.

The post The Collie Who Tried to End It All appeared first on Homestead.org.

This is not such a bad position to be in, because unlike when you’re looking to purchase a car, the mere fact that the tractor you buy may be older than you are doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll wind up with either a museum piece or a pile of junk.

Tractors are tools.  They’re built like tools, and the older they are, the more so.  In this age when you have to buy a whole box of screws at your hardware store just to get the one you want, you can still buy just the tractor parts that you need rather than a whole assembly or worse yet, the dreaded rebuild kit.  Not only that, but in my state, you don’t even have to pay sales tax on tractor parts.

In fact, you’ll find that as often as not, quite a few of your tractor repair parts might even be considered cheap.  After all, they’ve been making head-bolts for your 9N for the last 58 years.  If you harbor a few vague notions about how the internal combustion engine works, you can probably fix your tractor yourself with simple hand tools.

Try that with a new car.

Probably the preeminent cheap-and-easy-to-repair older tractor is the Ford 9N-2N-8N series (see top of the page photo) but you can also still find parts readily available for other older-model domestic makes such as Case, International-Harvester, Massey-Ferguson, John Deere, Oliver and Allis-Chalmers, although you’ll probably be dealing with differently-named companies.  (John Deere is the only one of those mentioned doing business under the same name.)

So relax, you don’t have to be a mechanical engineer to buy a used tractor, you just need to know what you want to do with your new-old machine and look for a few particular things.

How to Buy a Used Tractor

When it comes to older tractors, the most important thing to look for is a hydraulic system, otherwise known as a three-point hitch.  This consists of three arms extending from the back of the tractor which are hydraulically operated to lift and hold in place whatever attachments you want to use.  In the center of this linkage is a power-take-off or PTO, which is a rotating shaft that connects to and drives such attachments as a mower or tiller.

The first three-point hitch was introduced on the Ford 9N in 1939, so you’ll find plenty of old tractors so equipped to choose from.  While there are still tractors sold that don’t have hydraulics, notably the older Farmalls and John Deeres, these are mostly used as glorified lawnmowers.  You get so much more functionality with the three-point hitch system that you really shouldn’t consider anything that doesn’t have one.

The next thing to assess when buying an older tractor is the age of the machine.  This isn’t as easy to determine as one might suppose.  First of all, most tractors look pretty much the same from one year to another and have only seen distinct model changes every decade or so, if that often.  The best way to determine the exact age in years is to find the serial number of the tractor you’re interested in, and look it up on the internet.  You’ll find no shortage of web sites listing dates of manufacture by serial number for all the major makes, but a good place to start is the Yesterday’s Tractors Registry online.

Looking up the year of manufacture may not be convenient or practical if you’ve just found a tractor that otherwise looks very interesting at a dealer or auction, so you may want to cross your fingers and hope that the current owner has the correct information.

Besides the date of manufacture gives you an indication as to what technology the tractor in question has, but it doesn’t tell you much about the amount of use it’s seen in its lifetime.  That’s why it’s nice if the machine you’re looking at has a working tachometer with an hour-meter.  An hour meter is also pretty handy to have when calculating your service intervals, but the chances are the machine in question won’t have one, or if it does, that it won’t be working.  So you’ll need to make an educated guess.

A good way to do this is to examine the metal foot pedals, which are likely to have originally had a tread, grid or some sort of design that will now be showing wear.  If these are inconclusive, then a more important criterion would be the overall condition of the machine.  Oil leaks and lots of play in the steering and pedal travel are not good signs.

Of course, you also need to remember that quite possibly someone has gone to some trouble to make the tractor appear newer than it is with a paint job.  That in itself is no bad thing since it amounts to protecting your soon-to-be investment, but if the tractor you’re looking at has shiny new paint, you should try to imagine what it looked like before.  Also, while professionals will tell you that a re-paint can actually be harder and more durable than the original, don’t count on it.  That shine may be chipping or peeling within a year, so while a new paint job has its benefits, once it’s been applied, it’s hard to tell how long it will last.

When you’re buying a pretty low-priced tractor, don’t forget that replacing a set of tires may cost you $400 to $800, so look at the tires carefully.  Just because they have a lot of tread doesn’t mean that they’ll last a long time if they are severely weather-cracked, or if they have deep cuts.  In fact, it’s not a bad idea to assume that you’ll be wanting a new set of tires early on and bear that in mind when setting your budget.

Next, you want to start up the engine.  I’m assuming that you wouldn’t be reading this if you were an expert at engine diagnosis, and I’m not one either,  but I can tell you some basic things to watch for that don’t take a lot of knowledge.

First of all, does it start right up?  If not, it’s only going to be worse once you get it home, especially after the weather turns colder.  An engine can be in pretty poor condition and still start easily in warm weather, likewise, just because it doesn’t start easily doesn’t mean that it’s worn out, but if you have any reason to believe the seller has more mechanical capabilities than yourself, hard starting should be viewed with suspicion.  There are always lots of tractors on the market.  For our purposes here, if getting the engine started in the first place requires any special skills or procedures, just move on to the next one.

Assuming it turns over quickly and fires right up, does it idle smoothly and is there any excessive smoking from the exhaust?  Again, either condition is not a sure sign of trouble, but since we’re not mechanics, maybe we’ll want to pass on anything that looks questionable.

Also, don’t forget to look for are oil leaks, which can come from simply not having a bolt tightened enough or something more sinister like main bearings about to fail.  If the tractor has been recently cleaned or repainted, this might be harder to determine, so leaving it to idle for a while might not be a bad idea.

Generally speaking, you can’t expect to pay a really low price and not have a few things wrong with the tractor, but like many things, if you’ll investigate four or five in your price range, you’ll probably see one that stands above the rest.

The best way to assure that you’ve found at least a fair deal is to be familiar with the market and that’s a lot easier than it used to be.  Once you’ve decided on the make and model you want to buy, I recommend you spend a few hours looking over the selection at TractorHouse.com.  You’ll find several examples of most any popular model you want to consider, and you can compare the prices and conditions there until you’re a near-expert.  You may even find the tractor you’re looking for within a reasonable distance of your home.

You can also find a selection of used attachments there.

Things may be different in your area, but In my neck of the woods, where the vegetation is lush and the rains are frequent, most everyone who buys a small tractor usually also purchases a brush-cutter of some kind, and a grading blade of some kind.  I’d like to say a word about these.

First, the brush-cutter, what’s generically called a bush-hog.  For $500-or $600 you can get a new brush-cutter made with a sheet metal body.  Don’t buy one of these unless all you really want is to mow grass (in which case you’re better off with a finish mower).  Real bush-hogging requires something with heavy steel plate, like the brand-name Bush-hog cutters, if you’re looking for equipment that will last more than a season or two.  These cost more in the neighborhood of $1500 and up new, but since they’ll last for decades, you’re better off buying a used one than a new model of the lighter version.

As for grading blades, a straight blade does a poor job of most of the things you want to do with a blade.  If you want to smooth your driveway, a box-blade is much, much more effective.  Even a rock-rake does a better job of smoothing roads than a straight blade (although the straight blade will do a barely-adequate job if you turn it around backwards).

Straight blades are probably best for moving snow, but if you want to grade or move rocks, you’re better off with either a box blade or a rock rake.

A very good companion piece to a tractor is a utility trailer that you can haul it on.  Besides giving you the capacity to attempt jobs at a distance from your home, a trailer is the only practical and affordable way to get your machine to the shop should that be required.

Finally, safety should be a major concern when you’re shopping for an older tractor.  Even a small tractor can kill you if you wind up under it or entangled in the PTO, and roll-over protection and PTO guards were virtually unheard of prior to the 1970’s. Many of the older tractors have the row-crop or tricycle configuration which is just simply not as stable no matter what anyone tells you.  I’d avoid these.   Most tractors, even the older models, have wheels and axles that will allow you to widen the tread and this an important safety feature that you should have.

Don’t kid yourself that you’ll be able to jump clear of an overturning tractor.

When you get your new-to-you tractor home, always remember to avoid driving along the edge of streams or ditches that can undercut their banks and if you’re not certain that you can drive across a side-hill safely drive up and down it perpendicular to the slope.

If you’re pulling anything with a chain or nylon strap attached to the tractor, connect the chain to the draw-bar or something else as low to the ground as possible, so as to avoid turning the machine over backwards.

When you’re mowing near overhanging tree branches, have your wits about you, as a stout limb can sweep you off of the seat and into the path of the mower.

Also, avoid letting your clothing or hair ever get anywhere near the power-take-off when it’s running.  It can pull you in and wrap you around the shaft more quickly than it takes to tell about it.

Remember that farming has always been one of the most dangerous professions, and that largely because of tractors.  All you need to do to avoid death (or worse) is to follow a few common-sense precautions.

How to Buy a Pickup Truck for the Homestead (or Looking for the Best Mule)

The post How to Buy a VERY Used Tractor appeared first on Homestead.org.

And the worst part is, they weren’t even MY ticks.  I used to be a rural real-estate broker in southern Missouri, you see.

Sometime I ought to tell you about how many people buy a parcel of land, then, when they come to camp on it for the first time, find themselves coated head to toe with ticks.  This seemed especially true of those clients hailing from A Large Western State.

I think that these dear souls, in particular, must immediately decide that living in the forest means being constantly consumed by ticks, and that we poor rubes just don’t know any better.

Well, I have to admit that, when it comes to Not Knowing Any Better on most subjects, the Ozarks can field a team whose world-class naiveté is a match for any region on earth.  However, if there’s anything, ANYTHING Ozarkers know, it’s ticks… and the avoidance of same.

The other day, I happened to pick up a gardening magazine and I stumbled across an article written by a physician regarding protecting oneself from ticks.

This, in itself, was not so remarkable, but as I read on, it became apparent that I was holding in my hands a manuscript of potential importance to literary collectors.

Difficult as it may be to comprehend, this learned author, who was apparently getting PAID, managed to perpetuate as truth, two out of three of the Most Common Silly Myths About Ticks that are generally held by the tick-feeding public of today.

You can only imagine my elation.  I’d been meaning to write something for our website about ticks for months, but I was looking for an interesting angle so as to avoid making just another dry recitation of tickfact.  What could possibly be more interesting than debunking myth, and who would be a better target for ridicule than a doctor?

I am, of course, ever mindful of the fact that doctors often consort with attorneys, so I don’t intend to mention any names.

Out here in the woods, we don’t know too much about leeches or liposuction or any of those with-it new medical procedures, but gee-golly, do we know something about TICKS! …and I’m just itching to tell you about ’em.

Let’s start out with these Three Common Silly Myths about Ticks:

MYTH No. 1: When visiting the home of the tick, leave as little skin exposed as possible, wearing long sleeved shirts and long pants tucked into your socks.

I love this one.  A few weeks ago, I had the luck to run into a young woman on an river outing.  Meeting this girl was like old times for me because I started out in the real estate business catering primarily to the readers of the original Mother Earth News.  You can imagine then, my sense of deja vu to find standing before me, what appeared to be a perfectly preserved early-70’s-era Hippie Chick.  What was especially neat was that this was during that really hot spell we had back in July and she was wearing, I kid you not… long underwear.  I didn’t learn this because I asked, I assure you, but because over the course of the afternoon, she happened to mention it several times, usually in reference to the fact that she was sweating like a hog in a sauna.

She said it was to avoid ticks.

Had she ever SEEN a tick, I wondered.  I mean, if she, at maybe 5’3″ and 120 lbs.  Could get into her clothes, then why couldn’t someone who was less than a sixteenth of an inch long? It’s a good thing that ticks don’t have any sense of humor, because the laughter out in the woods would be deafening when they see fully grown homo sapiens wandering around in July wearing long sleeves and their pants tucked into their socks.

I told her that the best thing to wear for ticks was nothing.

She looked skeptical and suspicious of my motives.  I just hate how untrusting society has become.

MYTH No. 2: Ticks jump out of trees and land on you.

The same girl (I am NOT making her up) was wearing a sort of a sailor hat.  After I professed interest in her TAS (Tick Avoidance System) she volunteered that the hat was to protect her from the shower of ticks coming out of the trees.

Think about this.  The tick climbs up the tree (which has got to be the approximate equivalent to a human climbing the Washington Monument) then he sits patiently waiting for a victim.  Suddenly, YOU come wandering out of the underbrush fifty feet away.  The tick hastily calculates your mean velocity; your height in relation to his position in the tree; the speed and direction of the prevailing wind.  A hush falls over the forest.  Then, at precisely the correct moment, with a powerful spring of his spindly 1/32-inch legs, Thunder Tick launches himself, in a perfect triple-gainer, out of the tree and into your hair.

I’m disappointed that the doctor got this one right, knowing that ticks make their approach from below rather than above.  Phooey.

MYTH No. 3: Ticks must be removed very carefully.

Luckily for my purposes of ridicule, the doc goes on to tell us that we should never, never, ever remove ticks with our fingers.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t say why, but he does recommend using fine tweezers.

He goes on to say, “Don’t use alcohol, nail polish or petroleum jelly to remove ticks—it just makes them mad.  A provoked tick will attach itself more firmly to it’s host…”

“A provoked tick”—I marvel at the mere suggestion, as ticks in my experience have seemed rather passionless.  Perhaps this is where the term “ticked off” originates.  The Doc recommends you go home and shower after your tick exposure.  Again, he doesn’t exactly say why.  Certainly you’re not going to just WASH OFF any self-respecting tick.  They do this for a living, and they’re damned good at it.  It makes sense though, that if you’re not going to be removing your ticks (maybe you want to show them to your friends when you get home) you’ll want to make certain that they’re as clean as you are.

The article said the doctor was from New Jersey, but is suspect he is originally from A Large Western State.

The other day, I got into a tick discussion on a Usenet group.  Some poor babe was trying to find out how to AVOID ticks, and all the local experts seemed fixated on how to advise her to properly remove them once she’d been “tick-timized”.

My client seemed to favor trying to discourage the attached tick (she got dozens, of course) by burning them with a cigarette lighter.  This appeared to be a very painful solution and a very ineffectual one.  Maybe if you pulled the tick off with your fingers and THEN burned it.

Let’s get to the point here.  How do you spend a great deal of time in the Great Outdoors without being driven to distraction by ticks?

STEP ONE: KNOW YOUR TICK MODUS OPERANDI.

Here’s how ticks do business.  They climb up onto a tall stem of grass or a bush and wait until something warm and juicy, such as yourself, walks by and rubs against them.  When it does, they hop on.

STEP TWO: AVOIDING TICKS

Therefore, the number one best and most effective thing you can do to avoid ticks is to avoid tall grass.  At home, this is best done by mowing the lawn.  In the wild, it’s somewhat more difficult, but there are ways to lessen the impact of your tick-related experience.

Ticks do not immediately sink their choppers into your soft underbelly as might a Doberman Pinscher.  In fact, you might find that they’ll even wander around in your clothes for a few hours before selecting just the right spot from your lush display of anatomy.

That’s just one good reason not to wear a lot of clothes.

When you must walk through tall grass or any area that promises tickfulness, try wearing shorts so you can easily see any ticks that get on you.  Every so often, bend down and look to see if ticks are crawling up your legs.  If they are, simply flick them off and go on your way.

Grizzled old-timers think that anyone who uses insect repellent probably has lace on his shorts too, but a good repellent such as “Off” applied directly to your bare legs in conjunction with this frequent-check-and-flick routine is about as effective as any method you’ll find.  (Besides what’s wrong with lace?)

Nothing, however, is foolproof, so when you do get them, here’s the Noble Savage two-step technique for removing ticks:

1. Grasp the tick between the nails of your thumb and middle finger.

2. Pull.

I think part of the reason that so many people may be squeamish about this technique is because, in the process of sucking your very delicious blood, the tick actually embeds his head inside your skin and when you pull him out, chances are the head stays behind.  This can cause more aggravated itching and, I imagine, increase one’s exposure to Lyme Disease.

I agree that you shouldn’t try unguents or fire to try to get the tick to let go.  Ticks very are slow to pick up on a hint, and you’ll just look silly in the process.  If you want to carry tweezers around with you, I guess that would work okay, but the most important thing is to get the tick as quickly as you can after he bites into you.  The longer he’s been ensconced, the more you’ll itch when he’s gone.  I’ve also read that if you screw the tick out counter-clockwise, you’ll remove him with his head intact.  This sounds a little off-the-wall, but I’ve tried it, and it does seem as though they don’t itch quite as much when you do.  Maybe.

You may note that I’ve not made a lot of comment about Lyme Disease.  I have to admit that for several years I suspected that the whole ailment had been invented by Newsweek.  I’m sure I’ve removed ten thousand ticks from my person in this lifetime, and in my experience the itch is the major down-side.  In recent years, however, my father, a confirmed tough-guy from way back, claims to have contracted the disease and if that’s what he said he had, I’ll not argue.  I’d just comment that the odds of NOT getting it are better than one is led to suppose.

In summary, ticks are a fact of life most everywhere there are mammals living outdoors.  Places that have more ticks tend to have fewer muggers.  You need to put things in perspective.

How to Sell Your Land Yourself and Move on with Your Life

I’m From the Universe and I’m Here to Help (Regretting “Rethinking Everything”)

The post Ticks! appeared first on Homestead.org.

Not only that, but I was wasting lots of perfectly good money on packaging and processing, which in turn meant that I had a lot more trash to get rid of and that I was eating a lot of “ingredients” with long, polysyllabic names that I couldn’t pronounce.

Yes, I was a complete dope, but not an irredeemable one.  I learned that, like most anything else, there are ways to get by cheaper, tastier, and healthier when you buy groceries.

Here are 49 (count ‘em) ways to save money on groceries and get more, better food while spending less cash:

1. 1. First, Track Your Expenses. You can’t save money if you don’t know how much you’re spending to begin with.  Keep a list of everything you buy.  Once you’ve got an idea of what you spend each month or each week, then you can make a budget and begin to set goals.

1. Grow Your Own. Obviously this is the way to achieve the greatest savings.  Make a garden this year.  Next year make a bigger garden.  If you own a freezer and know how to can and preserve you can do more financial damage to your local grocer than with any other method.  Not only that, but you can’t buy healthier food, and you’ll enjoy your meals even more when you produce them yourself.  A word of caution: growing your own food can also be expensive, depending on how cheaply you can arrange for irrigation, and rich, friable soil.  If you have to buy lots of tools, hoses, soil amendments, and the like, these can consume your savings.
2. Cook. Without question, you can cook your own food more cheaply than you can hire someone to cook it for you.  This is not to say that you shouldn’t ever go to another restaurant, or order another pizza, when you want to celebrate, or when you just want to take a break, but if you’re out to save money on groceries, you need to be the one who prepares your meals.
3. Keep a Running Grocery List.   When you run out of anything, add it to the list.  The more well-stocked your larder, the better you’ll eat, and the less you’ll spend.  Always take your list of the things you need when you shop, and only buy what’s on the list.  If it’s not on the list, then you obviously don’t need it.
4. Use Discount Grocery Stores.   We’re talking about the types that buy surplus lots in grocery auctions, not necessarily the ones that have “discount” in their names.  We save a small fortune every year by shopping at our local discount grocery,   Not only do we save a lot of cash, but our diet is much more varied than it used to be because the discount stores wind up with lots of unusual items that may not sell so well in middle America.  For example, we frequently have lots of fancy foreign cheeses, Brie, Camembert, Gouda, you name it.  These apparently don’t appeal to the typical Midwesterner, or maybe the typical American, palate, but we love them, and we get them for less than the price of Velveeta.
5. Buy in Bulk. As with most everything else, the more you buy, the cheaper you get it.  Ola recently brought home a 40-pound carton of green bananas from the discount grocery for which she paid $6.50 total.  That’s 16.25 cents per pound versus 60 to 90 cents per pound in regular stores.  Of course, you don’t save much if your fruit rots in the fridge. I prefer my bananas slightly green, Olia doesn’t like them until they’re slightly brown, and when we’d both had what we liked, she made many loaves of tasty banana bread.
6. Cook for a Week, or Month. If you’ll cook up large batches of your favorite foods and put them away in the fridge, freezer, or pantry in single-meal portions, you’ll not only save money on groceries because of buying in bulk, but you’ll also earn yourself quite a bit of free time.  Try making a stock-pot full of soup or stew and freezing what you don’t eat. You’ll have a quick, tasty meal that the biggest clutz in the family, me, for example, can prepare for himself.
7. Recycle Old Meals. A/K/A leftovers.  Don’t just keep them, make a meal from them.  Monday’s Casserole and Tuesday’s Roast can become Wednesday’s Stew with a little stock and some seasonings.  Like-wise a large piece of meat can be stretched a lot further, as well as be more tasty and healthy if you use it in several different dishes with many bite-sized morsels.  We rarely eat large pieces of meat alone, but often have meat mixed in a bowl of rice or buckwheat, or on a large salad.
8. Don’t Throw Away Food. Save your bacon grease, make stock from your chicken carcass, save hambones to add to bean soups.  If you don’t have time to do these things after dinner, put them in a bag in the freezer.  Save everything you can think of a use for, and don’t forget the livestock/pets and the compost pile.
9. Eat More Possum. Wild game is both healthier and more affordable than the fat-marbled meats you find in the store.  Even if you don’t hunt yourself, if you live in a rural area, you won’t have any trouble finding hunters in your neighborhood to barter with.
10. Avoid Impulse Purchases. These are the bane of all would-be frugal shoppers, so just don’t do it.  If you truly need an item, then it should appear on your list next week
11. Make Fewer Shopping Trips. The more often you go shopping, the more you are likely to spend.  About half of all grocery shoppers go to the store three or four times a week.  This is probably less true of homesteaders who spend less time in town, but the principle still applies.  Try to make your shopping trip no more than once per week.  If that works, try for every two weeks, even every month.  This tends to focus you more on buying larger quantities more carefully.
12. Investigate; Ask Questions. What’s the price difference between the bag of dried beans that sells for $.89, and the can of beans that sells for $.99?  Just a dime?  No.  The bag yields 7 cups of cooked beans, $.13 per cup.  The can yields 1-1/2 cups of cooked beans, $.66 per cup.  The canned beans—as inexpensive as they are—are five times more expensive than dried beans.
13. Take a Calculator. Many stores have already calculated the unit prices of the items you buy, but many don’t offer this, and it’s information that you definitely want to know.  Also, if you’re being genuinely thoughtful about your purchases, you’ll probably want a little help in the brain department while you’re moving through the aisles.
14. Food Only, Please. Paper goods, cleaning supplies and cosmetics are probably going to be less expensive at big-box stores like Target or Wal-Mart.  This also helps you to track your grocery costs separately from other living expenses.
15. Avoid Processed Food. You’ll be wealthier and healthier if you buy basic commodities that only have one item in their list of ingredients—things like potatoes, beans, apples.  Not only will you avoid lots of chemicals and preservatives, but you’ll save a ton of money.  Just remember, if it has a trademark or a brand name, you’re paying more and probably undermining your health in the bargain.
16. Cut Up Your Own Food. Consumer Reports found that two pounds of carrots cost $1.29, compared with $7.16 for the same amount of precut carrot sticks.  Also avoid “vegetable medley” packages.
17. Don’t Buy Water. Everyone knows that bottled water is expensive, but fewer people know that it may be inferior, or at least no better than your tap water at home.  If you have your own well, the odds are very good that you have cleaner, better water than the brands from Coca-Cola and Pepsico.  If you have city water, yours may be, probably is, just as good.  You may want to invest in a reusable water-filtering pitcher.
18. Don’t Buy Disguised Water, Either. When we were kids, Kool-Aid only came in an envelope.  You could add only the amount of sweetener you wanted, and your own water, and you spent a lot less money.  So why buy it by the bottle?  That’s a good example, but there are lot of other ways you pay more just for water.  Such as, cartons of fruit juice, canned broth or soup, canned, cooked beans, low-fat coconut milk, Jello cups, applesauce, popsicles, even chicken and pork injected with water and salt “flavoring”.
19. Don’t Buy Designer Salt. Specialty spice mixes are usually 90% salt. You can just buy the basic herbs and spices, then make your own.
20. DON’T Use Coupons. Ever see a coupon for bananas?  Apples?  Coupons may offer apparent savings, but they’re usually for some sort of processed food that still winds up costing you more.
    
21. DO use Coupons. Okay, nobody’s perfect.  Sometimes you or your family will want to buy things even if they aren’t pure as the driven snow.  If you’re going to buy it anyway, having a coupon makes it cheaper.  It’s a no-brainer.
22. Get a Store Card. These loyalty cards allow shoppers to get extra discounts on items without having to clip coupons.  If a store you frequent, even infrequently, offers a card, you should get one.
23. Be Open to Store Brands. Most times, but not always, store brands are of equal quality to brand name foods.  Sometimes they’re the very same thing.  Not always though, so you need to try each one out, and see what you think.
24. Take it back. Sometimes it happens. Something you’ve purchased is bad – soured, rotted, moldy, fizz-less, broken, or otherwise spoiled.  Don’t be afraid to take it back.  Food is simply too expensive NOT to get what you paid for.  Return bad items for credit or replacement.  Most stores will gladly oblige.
25. Shop Several Stores. You’ll find that if you are familiar with several different groceries in your area, some will have consistently better bargains on certain items than others, and it’s not just a matter of one store having better prices.  We find that one local store always has the best prices on fresh meats, but never the best prices for produce.
26. Buy Bagged Fruits and Vegetables. Bags of onions, potatoes, apples and oranges are often less expensive than the same items offered loose in a bin, although the latter may be larger and arguably more attractive.  That’s if you can use them up before they spoil, that is.
27. Don’t Buy Anything in Individual Wrapping. This seems so obvious I almost hate to mention it.  If you buy anything in individually-wrapped, portion-sized packaging, be it potato chips, cookies, nuts or whatever, you only need to compare what these cost with bulk purchases to see the severe error in your ways.  If you need individual portions for the kids’ lunch-boxes, buy reusable containers and fill them yourself.
28. Open Your Mind to a New Cookbook. In the typical U.S. diet, a pound of meat serves four because meat is an American luxury, but in Latin or Asian cooking, a pound of meat will serve eight or ten.  Asian cooking, in particular, uses meat as an accent, and I think you’ll find, as we do, that you’ll even feel better after a meal that makes heavy use of grains accented by small bits of meat as opposed to a plate covered by a slab of steak or roast.  Again, besides saving money, you’re saving your health.
29. Try to Produce Your Own Staples. Do you eat lots of bread?  If so, a bread machine will quickly pay for itself.  Determine the items that your family uses the most, and see if you can’t reduce your purchase to the basic ingredients.  This is especially something to consider also if you use lots of ice cream, yogurt, or kefir.  Also, don’t forget snacks, which may make up a large part of your food budget.  Popcorn can be produced cheaply in large quantities and can be flavored with a number of low-cost items.  If you’ve never tried it, I suggest a sprinkling of nutritional yeast, which gives a richness reminiscent of butter, but without the cost or calories.
30. Know a Good Deal When You See One. Of course, you probably can’t remember the price of everything, but most people buy the same food items most of the time, so make it a point to notice and remember what you pay.  That way you’ll know when you see it somewhere else for a lower price.  This may sound a bit tedious, but it’s actually rather fun when you discover a new bargain.
31. Always Use the Produce Scale. Don’t try to guess how much a pound of mushrooms amounts to.  Weigh everything before you put it in your cart.
32. Avoid Lavish Displays. Cheese is almost always less expensive in the deli than from the tantalizing display of hors d’ourves set in mid-aisle.  Don’t be a sucker for marketing.
33. Buy Cold Cuts in the Deli. Plastic-packaged cold cuts are usually more expensive, generally a lot more expensive, plus you have less packaging to send to the landfill with deli or meat-market purchases, especially if you buy whole units and slice them yourself at home.
34. Shop for Seasonal Produce. Buy fruits and vegetables when they’re in season. That’s when you’ll see them offered for sale, and that’s when they’re in their best condition.
35. Watch the cash register. It is estimated that up to $2.5 billion per year is made in scanning errors.  That’s a lot of money left on the check-out counter.  Supermarkets often put items on sale at prices that don’t always get to the register.  Also, checkers can easily make mistakes when making entries.  Check your receipt carefully.
36. Leave the Kids at Home. Even if you take them with you, you can easily find something your kids will enjoy more than following you around the grocery store trying to think of what new sugar-coated catastrophe to buy.  It’s not so much that a box of Puffy Sugar Bombs costs five bucks that irks, but that the little darlings develop the idea that Puffy Sugar Bombs are food.  This is not good for their health, not good for their teeth, and not good for your budget.  Children are only human, so of course, they want to choose a few of the things you buy when you go shopping, and they haven’t yet developed the native resistance to advertising that you have.  Drop them at a playground, or maybe the library.  Frankly, you’re probably better off leaving your spouse at home too.  The more people that go shopping with you, the more you’re likely to spend.
37. Patronize Farmer’s Markets. Not only will you save money on groceries at farmer’s markets, you’ll get fresher food and benefit your local economy.  Buying directly from the grower in-season is also a good way to get food items for storage that you may not be able to grow for yourself.
38. Pack a Lunch. Going on a trip, or working outside the home?  Try taking food with you instead of stopping along the way to go to a restaurant or convenience store.  Again, you’ll eat better for less.
39. Own a Freezer and/or Extra Fridge. This is a large expense that you may not be able to afford right away, but well worth the money if you can.  Finding a used freezer may be difficult, though, so you may have to buy new.  Equally as handy, and probably less expensive than a freezer, is a second or third refrigerator.  We’ve inherited two extra refrigerators from family members who were moving.  Since virtually everyone owns a fridge at least once in their lives, there are plenty of used ones available.  They really expand your ability to stock up.
40. Stock up after Thanksgiving. November and December are the best months of the year to save on money groceries.  There are more coupons issued in these two months than at any other time during the year.  The day after Thanksgiving, stores practically give turkeys away—if they have any left.  This is when a freezer or extra fridge comes in handy.  You’ll find some great bargains both after Thanksgiving and after Christmas.  A good time to stock up on bargains.
41. Shop at Larger Stores. This may not always be good advice, but the bigger the store, the large the volume, so they can afford to offer better deals than smaller businesses.  Beware though, because larger stores also have more sophisticated techniques for getting you to spend more.
42. Know Your Enemy. Modern supermarkets, indeed all stores, are designed from top to bottom to make you want to spend.  Nothing is left to chance.  Popular items like milk tend to be at the back of the store, cheaper items are placed low and high on the shelves, and the more profitable/expensive ones are at eye-level. Most stores advertise “loss leaders”, extremely inexpensive staple goods to get you into the store where it’s hoped you’ll fill your cart with normally-priced items.  Also, expect tinted lights above meat and produce, automatic sprinklers, and mouth-watering displays.  Remember that the basic foodstuffs are usually located along the outside walls and more processed foods are on the inner aisles.
43. Volunteer. I do volunteer work at a local food pantry.   Many times at closing on Fridays we have large quantities of produce like strawberries or bananas that won’t keep over the weekend.  Rather than throw these items out, I take them home and we make preserves, breads, and other items that extend the shelf-life of the product.
44. Forage. If you are a rural landowner like most homesteaders, then you have an unending supply of food for the taking.  Even a few acres of woodlot will provide nuts, berries, mushrooms, and even a few fruits and vegetables, like paw-paws, persimmons, ramps, and wild garlic, during the warm months.
45. Barter. I purposely haven’t mentioned raising your own milk, eggs, and meat, because whether or not that proves to be money-saving option or not depends on your management skills, and is the subject of another article altogether, but if you do keep livestock and poultry, the chances are good that at times you will have more milk, eggs and possibly even more meat than your family can use.  When you do, these are the gold standard of barter.
46. Eat First, Then Shop. Never, never, never go into a grocery store hungry or tired.
47. Avoid Items Sold at the Checkout Counter. Stores feature single serving pies, cans of soda and other items at the checkout that are usually much more expensive.  Relax, you’ll be home soon enough.
48. Buy Frozen. Fresh produce is appealing, but items such as broccoli, green peppers and strawberries are considerably cheaper when purchased from the frozen aisle.  Most frozen items still carry the same health benefits.  If you can’t get it at a farmer’s market, you’re better off getting many items frozen.

There you have ’em.  49 Ways to Save Money on Groceries. You can reduce grocery bills and free up some money for other utmost necessities. This way, you can easily stay on top of your finances while keeping eating healthy.

The post 49 Ways to Save Money on Groceries appeared first on Homestead.org.