Recommendations

While browsing in Barnes and Noble yesterday I happened to read a couple of the articles in Permaculture Magazine. This is a magazine that I do enjoy but not always all of it---in other words not always cover to cover. I would buy it but since it comes over seas it has a larger price tag than normal so there for I buy only those that I feel I need to keep for reference.

I do how ever cheat and copy down web page references from articles if I think I might be interested in learning/seeing/studying more about the subject.
Here is a web blog that was mentioned in one of the articles and I wrote it down. The blogger is very good in the telling of a story and I found it interesting just in the few postings I have read. Maybe you will find it enjoyable also: www.permacultureinbrittany.blogspot.com


Here is a site for a lady raising sheep in England-- Woolly Shepherd. From what I gather they have a heck of a time selling their wool if they don't sell it through the government wool pools. She and the site above were in the same article which spoke of "home grown" woolen goods and the making of organic wool duvets. She also felts leftover bits of wool to make into hanging baskets liners to keep in the soil---instead of coir liners. I might try that myself since I always have wool bits left over. She also has natural/plant (and chemical) dyed yarns, bamboo needles (one of my favorite) and stitch markers for sale. Her links page has her web blog site if it interests you.

And a magazine review too

Last night as we watched the Daily Show on Comedy Central, John Stewart did an "interview" of a Senator who has recently written a book. To make a long story short said Senator (missed his name) who happens to also be an ordained minister, said some things concerning separation of Church and State. That brought back to mind a magazine I used to get before we moved to this house. ( This is not one of those magazines that will hound you endlessly to re subscribe so you kind of have to stay on top of it or the subscription will lapse.)

If you are concerned about separation of church and state, don't understand it or would like to better understand it or just want to find out more about happenings around the country pertaining to separation of church and state----read Liberty Magazine. I highly recommend it.

Liberty Magazine is a publication of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. But if you think that just because a church publishes this magazine it will be full of preaching or pushing religion in everything---you are wrong. This is absolutely hands down one of the best sources I have ever found for understanding legal issues pertaining to separation of church and state, religious rights in public and work places etc. They cover many many subjects, generally framed in a very understandable way, and they do not get "wound up" in fervor. In the time that I had a subscription they covered topics having to do with saying prayers in school, burning the flag , topics having to do with covering religious rights of Muslims, Jews and other religions that practice on Saturday instead of Sunday, defense of Amish and Mennonite, work place rights pertaining to both expression of religion and not having to be subject to expression (just depends on the issue). They covered very fully the issue of the Electoral College when Vice President Gore lost to George Bush.

On their declaration page they state:
The God given right of religious liberty is best exercised when church and state are separate.
Government is God's agency to protect individual liberties and to conduct civil affairs.......

You can read more at their web site. For the low low price of only 6.95--- you can get six issues and try it for yourself. Maybe you won't like it---but maybe you will. It surely gives you plenty to think about.

Book Review

Here is a book I would recommend borrowing from you local library--Micro Eco-Farming by Barbara Best Adams. Don't buy it though. It's not chock full of how to information that you will want to hang on to for ever and ever. It does though have some interesting stories about people who started small farms and are earning a living on them. One thing that is nice about this book is that her title of "micro" farm does actually fit. The majority of the farms listed don't even own more than 15 acres total and most of them use only a small portion (under one acre to five acres) to make their living on. About half the farms in the book are under 5 acres total in their owned acreage.
The reason I liked this book is that it shows concrete examples of people who actually do earn their living, or the majority of it, farming from smaller acreage. Everything from growing flowers and produce, heirloom seeds, animals, dairy and wool. Generally most farm organizations ---government, grant or non profit--- consider a "micro farms" to be about 50 to 100 acres (size fluctuates a bit but that is the average). So it is difficult to find information, or in this case success stories, that deal with a farm under say --15 acres. What someone can do with 50 acres is supremely different than making a living on under 5 acres. There is no comparison. I KNOW I could make a living on 50 acres. I just can't afford that much land. But can I make a living on 6? Or what if I still lived in the city? Could I make a living, or a large portion of our yearly income on a suburban lot? Well, this book at least gives you incentive to try since she sites people doing just that. Even if you have no intention of farming in any way--this book still gives hope that there our people out there that are trying to do business with out being an "agribusiness".

Mrs. Adams also sites Gerald Celente and his organization The Trends Research Institute. She credits him with this statement: "By the 21st century, organic micro farms of 10 acres or less will begin to challenge the food giants." I have never really heard about this man or his institute but I have linked it for further "study" ;-)

Also for those of you who have never read "Diet for a small planet" by Frances Moore Lappe---don't forget to check it out and there is also her book "World Hunger--twelve myths" I didn't realize how much I didn't know about world hunger until I read this book years ago.
I also noticed that her daughter Anna Lappe (who co wrote with her mother " Hope's Edge--the next diet for a small planet") has a new book out this year entitled "Grub--Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen"
The two woman advocate a more vegetarian diet ---of which I am not entirely of that persuasion---BUT they are really good books and give you another look at large agribusiness and it's impact on world society and causes of hunger.

Here is another link of interest:

Micro--Farming Information