Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Andeanfx" <andeanfx@midrivers.com>]

I have a pretty good idea what a WWOOFer is but what do the letters actually 
represent?


I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually 
happened. -- Mark Twain


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 25, 2010 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] current financial


> Fascinating about the problem with Xmas and with WWOOFers. We see some 
> people buy a live tree and plant it outdoors for a Xmas tree. I suspect 
> the problem with WWOOFers is even worse with hosts that don't really have 
> much to teach and just need grunt work done. And suspect for some it's 
> just a brief break from college.
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
> On 12/25/2010 at 6:12 PM John D'hondt wrote:
>
> > From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
> > > Sure, add more. We're not in the city anymore, not isolated but too far
> > > from stores to bicycle and if predictions hold horses will be very
> > > expensive. Rural or city, my best guess is too many things will start
> > > getting too expensive in a matter of months - and hope I never see it.
> > Gas
> > > #1, food a close second. I don't quite like the word crash because it
> > > sounds too all or nothing. It appears this slow motion economic
> > > contraction is irreversible for multiple reasons. And what we're seeing
> > > already is desperate cuts in several state and city budgets, loss of
> > many
> > > social services and safety nets - and some pension defaults dead ahead.
> > > So it looks like gradual worsening of family finances and a lot of big
> > > bumps in the road, more downhill than uphill. With local networking
> > pretty
> > > iffy for many of us the Internet is a poor substitute. Still it's nice
> > to
> > > be able to communicate over vast distances with so many.
> >
> > At the very moment there must be thousands of horses, definitely in
> > Ireland,
> > looking for a home for next to nothing.
> > But whether it is a good idea to get one is another question. Horses do
> > not
> > need to get shoed. They can be made used to working without expensive
> > blacksmith work. But to be useful they will need some harness; collar with
> > haimses, straddle and bridgins, head collar and bit and at least a cart
> > which people will find much more expensive than buying even a trained
> > horse.
> > I could buy at least 20 good horses here now for the price of one new neck
> > collar. But I won't do that for I got a few already each with their own
> > harness for the leather has to fit the horse.
> > Working with a horse also requires a learning curve from the owner. It is
> > not quite as easy as driving a tractor and if you try to drive horse and
> > cart like a tractor you are likely to loose the cart the first time you
> > drive in or out of a field that has a gate or pillars.
> > Good to know also is that a big horse,16 hands and up, will likely eat as
> > much as two cows. In my location a horse that size needs about 2 acres of
> > grazing to survive for the year. But luckily there are small pony races
> > that
> > pound for pound out-pull the big ones.
> >
> > As to networking in a basically hostile neighborhood....it is hard enough
> > to
> > keep going with what we have been doing for over twenty years. I reared
> > four
> > fantastic children and thaught them all the jobs going to survive and then
> > the three oldest found a mate that wanted something else from life leaving
> > us a bit understaffed at most times. I then tried to find maybe a wwoofer
> > or
> > two who could fit in what we are doing here. Must have had a hundred over
> > the last few years and found half a dozen who would fit in. Unfortunately
> > these all have a goal in life, know what they want and have plenty of
> > drive
> > to get it. They came here for a limited time to learn something specific
> > and
> > left.                                                  . A few
> > of these wanted to stay but they would have destroyed us if we had let
> > them.
> > I then advertised to get a young family here offering to share everything
> > we
> > have, plenty of food, a dry roof over the head a chance to live with and
> > in
> > nature. No takers. Nada. Well I suppose this might be even more tricky
> > than
> > finding a good single person.
> > Most people still can't see what is coming and that is that.
> > > Without kids at home we don't really do Xmas or shopping with the
> > madding
> > > crowd, so 25th is just another day here, and long as the ground doesn't
> > > freeze I can get some more wheelbarrow work done. The next two months
> > > won't let me do much with the garden.
> >
> > It is the same here Paul even if we do have some adult children and even
> > some small grand children not too far off. A long time ago when we were
> > still in suburban Belgium we were part of a neighborhood group of young
> > parents. There are about a dozen couples and a few singles who apart from
> > mutual help all the time came together once a month to talk openly and in
> > complete honesty about a particular subject. One month that was about Xmas
> > and all the hype surrounding it. We found to our surprise that just about
> > everybody there hated Xmas and everything to do with it but we all went
> > along with the mass hysteria because that was the only thing imaginable.
> > Most of us would have preferred to live with a primitive tribe along the
> > Amazon that had never heard of Xmas.
> > That two hour long meeting definitely changed the life of this family. We
> > became eccentric while thinking that all the hype was not necessary unless
> > life through the year was too empty and without purpose. One can teach
> > children anything, even that once a year we have to chop down a small tree
> > and then see it die inside the house for a while. You can also teach
> > children that a 60 foot tall living tree outside is something else again
> > and
> > that there needs to be a very good and better reason than "everybody does
> > it" to kill a tree.
> >
> > End of rant, all the best for the new year,
> > john
> >
> >
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