Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Carrie Shepard <carrieshepard@yahoo.com>]

I'm no financial whiz, but dh's 401K went down $2,000 in just a few days.  I don't know how you can say the market evened out when the charts and records are always so few years at a time.  Somewhere I read that financial reporting is regularly skewed by timeline manipulation.   This past weekend I was reading a bank trade journal in which the editorial was stating the facts of looming large recession.  Seems they're not trying to cover anything up, though the entire editorial seemed cautiously padding the awful truth to come.  Reminded me of my most social security letter (nothing paid in 10 yrs as I'm a homemaker training the next generation to be self-sufficient productive thinkers) that finally states that in 2018 they'll be paying out more than they'll be taking in and will be reducing benefits to only 75% --- my paraphrasing, not verbatum.  Did you guys read that letter too?

 

 It doesn't take much to interpret how much it now costs to buy feed for two weeks for my animals or how much it costs to buy groceries for a family of 5 in comparison to the increase in earning wages.    basically if I don't decrease the feed bill all around, then the wage increase doesn't go that far above the food increase, sort of like spinning wheels.

 

At the feedstore yesterday they were again raising the prices on their white board and I paid $9.50 plus tax (my fault for not getting a new farm or 4-H tax # yet) for one  50# bag of alfalfa cubes.   Seems to me that same bag was only $6 just a few years ago.  A 50# bag of rabbit pellets was $5.95 and now is over $8.     The cost of the animals and their products has to go up in order for me to pay for this.

 

I'm currently reading The Food and Heat Producing Solar Greenhouse by Rick Fisher and Bill Yanda and discussing with DH how we're going to remodel our new house to be more energy efficient (we bought it with the intention of adding a larger kitchen and decking and a bedroom in the basement -- the existing kitchen we want to turn into a library and music space partially open to the living room).    This is pretty inspiring reading:  http://www.earthtoys.com/emagazine.php?issue_number=03.08.01&article=finch

 

I'm planning to get a couple cattle panels and do something similar to what Claudia's done in creating a small and simple effective seasonal unheated attached greenhouse and get busy on a few cold frames.   My hoophouses have the chickens and rabbits until we make a plan for how to house them permanently.

 

Blessings,

Carrie

 

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