Book from My Parents - How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty

Back in the "olden days" of 1979, my parents recognized my obsession with self-sufficiency and growing my own food, and fed the obsession with a book for my birthday.  The book was titled, How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty.  This book was not quite as influential on my thinking as The Have-More Plan, which I mentioned in an earlier post.  Yet it gave me an updated view on some of the things I could do to accomplish my goals.  The book is a dog-eared paper back, having been read several times and referenced many more times than that.

How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty was a key reference for me in my late high school, college, and early married years.  Particularly after high school, I had almost zero discretionary income.  While living in Logan, I would go the the local book store and drool over books related to gardening, livestock, farming, and self-sufficiency.  I succumbed once and bought a book on small livestock by Jerry Belanger for $5.95.  This book, How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty, along with The Have-More Plan, carried me through my thought experiments during my early adult years.

The Table of Contents discusses changing your lifestyle, growing vegetables and fruits, livestock, and even cooking.  Other than a relatively brief mention, The Have-More Plan did not discuss cooking.  I'd like to say that cooking is a foundational self-sufficiency skill.  If you don't know how to cook reasonably well, self-sufficiency could certainly be drudgery.  This book helped me to realize that.

I recall many times trying to figure the optimal way to raise hogs on a small scale.  I would read the chapter from The Have-More Plan, then the chapter from this book.  I would note the differences.  One would focus more on efficiency.  The other would focus more on raising more of the feed for the hogs yourself and purchasing less.  Each would recommend slightly different housing or access to pasture.

Chickens would be similar to the hogs.  One would recommend humane confined housing and the other would recommend free-range, with adequate protection from predators.  In one situation the eggs may abe easier to find than the other, but conversely, in the other, the feed costs would be lower and egg quality higher.

The varied reading and different ideas and ideals challenged my own thinking.  There truly was and is no "one right way" to do things.  I would read a chapter here and there and ponder and think of how I may adapt the ideas.  The books challenged my foundational thinking.  What were my ideals related to food production?  What was quality food?  How should I treat animals?  How would I optimize my time or the time of those who may help me?  What would I do myself and what would I have someone do for me?  What would I buy and what would I raise myself?

How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty set me on a path of exploration which included a lifetime of study of alternatives and the comparison and contrasting of those alternatives.  This study and intellectual development over literally decades have gotten me to the point where I am today in my thinking.  This study set me off on different avenues of study through my life that frame the way I think about food, nutrition, health, ethics, sustainability, self-sufficiency, economics, etc.

Although I have not read this book for probably 15 years. the lessons were valuable in helping me grow, develop, and come to what I consider to be a relatively wholistic view all of the things discussed above.

Thanks Mom and Dad for the gift of this book and the beneficial impact it has had on my life.

Delicious Raw Milk from Rawl's Cows

On the northeast side of Rawl's milking barn was the "milkhouse."  The milkhouse was a separate, extra clean room where the milk was stored.  It was also the place where all of the milking equipment was washed and sanitized.  The milk came into the milk room through sealed, stainless steel milk lines (pipes).  The milk was received into a roughly five gallon glass jar, then pumped through a filter into a 500 gallon DeLaval bulk milk tank, where it was immediately cooled to 34 degrees.  In the bulk tank was a paddle that stirred the milk to ensure that it was uniformly cold.  Additionally, the paddle stirred the unhomogenized raw milk to keep the butterfat mixed into the milk.  If raw cows milk is not stirred, the butterfat rises to the top of the milk.

Ever since reading the chapter in The Have-More Plan on keeping a family cow, I was intrigued and interested in trying some fresh cows milk.  Growing up, we mostly drank reconstituted powdered milk, not the most delicious kind of milk.  Powdered milk was less expensive than the alternatives.  One day while helping Rawl, I was brave enough to ask him if I could have a taste of milk, fresh from the cows.  He opened up the top of his bulk tank and dipped a clean stainless steel cup into the tank retrieving a full glass of milk for me.  I tasted it and was pleasantly surprised.  The milk was sweeter and creamier than any milk I had tasted before.  One glass and I was hooked.  The milk was fresh, raw, unhomogenized milk from pastured dairy cows.

Having become enthralled by the taste of the milk, I wondered whether or not Rawl would let me keep a cow at his farm so I could produce fresh milk for my family.  Rawl told me that if I got a good stainless steel milk can that I could take milk from his bulk tank for my family - free of charge.  That was a great deal.  I was able to take milk home for my family for several years.  We had a one gallon glass jar in the fridge at home in which we would store the milk.  The cream would separate and we would ladle it off to put on our oatmeal or other hot cereal.  This was good stuff.  Sometimes people worry about the safety of raw milk.  In the roughly eight years I brought milk home to my family no one ever got sick from the raw milk.  We thrived on it.

If you are going to produce or drink raw milk, cleanliness is imperative.  Rawl's milk would be tested every tankful by the milk cooperative that bought his milk.  The county health inspector would test the milk every month.  These tests would include several things, but the key tests of importantance for milk quality are related to bacteria counts and leucocyte counts.  Three different bacteria counts were regularly performed, a raw count, a pasteurized count, and a coliform count.  For each of the tests, the milk was incubated for 24 hours to allow the number of bacteria to multiply.  While the results varied somewhat over time, Rawl's raw count was typically between 1,000 and 2,000 per milliliter.  The pasteurized count was typically between 100 and 200 per milliliter.  The coliform count was typically zero.  Those results were excellent.  Typical Grade A milk had a raw count of about 20,000 per milliliter and a pasteurized count of about 1,000 per milliliter.  Rawl's results were excellent due to careful milk handling and sanitation practices we followed.  Rawl's coliform count was typically zero.  A coliform count of zero means that there was no manure contamination.  If you have ever been around cows, you may understand why zero manure contamination is no small feat.  

Comparatively speaking, if you grab a gallon of milk off the shelf at the store, the bacteria count will be approximatley 3,500 per milliliter, using the same test procedures.  In reality, Rawl's raw milk had lower bacteria counts than the pasteurized milk you buy off the shelf in the store.  Lastly, leucocyte counts represent the amount of white blood cell counts in the milk.  Rawl almost always had excellent scores in the 100,000 range.  This indicated that his cows' udder health was good - no mastitis.

I could make this a treatise about the cautions and benefits of good raw milk, but much has already been written about that by others.  If I could choose the milk that I would feed my family, it would be well-produced and handled, raw, grass-fed, unhomogenized, organic milk.  You can't find it in the store in many states.  Where you can find it, it is typically about three to four times the cost of conventionally raised milk, which meets none on my criteria.  Good milk is a wonderful tasting, health promoting product.... my mind slips back to that first glass of milk from Rawl's bulk tank--refreshing!

Hauling Hay and the Value of Pasture

As a ten year old, I was ill-equipped to haul hay.  The small bales of hay weighed as much, and sometimes more than I did with the bales weighing in at 70-90 pounds.  I watched the "men" haul the hay for the first couple of years I worked for Rawl.  When I was 12, I was asked to drive the tractor in the field while the others picked up the bales and stacked them on the wagon towed behind the tractor.  I felt like a king driving the tractor, particularly the John Deere 3020 that Rawl had.  I had to grab onto the hand hold in the fender as well as by the steering wheel as I pulled myself up to the driving platform and seat.

From atop the tractor I could see the hard work, picking up the bales, walking them over to the wagon and either putting them on the wagon or pushing them up in the air onto the stack as the wagon got full.  Usually two people would pick up bales and bring them to the wagon while one person carefully stacked the bales on the wagon.  Stacking the bales on the wagon required both muscle and finesse.  The worst thing ever would be for the stack to fall apart as you drove down the road or pulled in to the barnyard.  The stack on the wagon had to be sturdy enough to endure bumps in the road, braking the tractor, and the steep downhill and uphill slopes encountered when maneuvering the tractor from the hay field to the barn or stacking area.

By the time I was 13, I was strong enough to begin to help hauling hay.  It was fulfilling to know that I had reached that level of masculinity (try not to laugh).  I even tried hauling hay without my shirt on.  That was a bad choice.  I don't recommend that.  The hay, primarily alfalfa, was unforgiving as it gouged my skin and made me bleed.  The pollen from the hay would get onto my skin and in the scratches and made my skin welt up.  My suggestion:  keep your shirt on.

Hauling hay was hard work.  It was physical and exhausting.  We would haul hay from right after breakfast at about 9:00, to milking time at 4:00.  We would take a quick break for lunch as well.  By the end of the day, I was ready to crawl into bed at 8:00.  Rawl had 13-20 acres of hay, depending on the year.  The hay yielded 5-7 tons to the acres, over three cuttings.  We hauled roughly 50-60 tons of hay each year with the first cutting in early June, the second cutting in mid July, and the last cutting in mid to late August.  These were hot and sweaty times of the year.

While stacking the hay on the wagon was important, stacking in the barn or yard was at least as important.  We would put roughly 60-70 bales on a wagon, but we would put 2,500 bales in the barn. The stack had to be built well so it didn't fall down during the time is was stored in the barn.  The stacks got 20-30 feet high with the use of a hay conveyor.  Careful building was required.  Rawl "taught" me several times how to build as stack before I gained a good understanding and became proficient.

One day, after hauling hay, but right before milking time, Rawl said to me that pasture is really where he made the money that he made on the farm.  I was puzzled.  "Why is that?" I asked.  He said, he didn't have to pay anyone to harvest the pasture because the cows harvested the pasture themselves.  I thought that was interesting, but didn't see that what he paid people to haul hay as very much.  What I didn't consider was all of the equipment, fuel, repairs, maintenance, storage space, etc. that he had to pay for to harvest hay.  Is was worse for corn silage.  On pasture the cows fed themselves, and spread fertilizer while they fed themselves.  It would be years before I realized the simple genius of this concept.

Rawl had earned a special award from the Soil Conservation District for his pasture management.  I didn't get the idea.  It seemed to me that Rawl was a little backwards.  After all, it seemed like no one else still pastured their dairy cows.  I thought Rawl was a little old fashioned.  I thought it was okay, but it seemed to me he was a little behind the times.  I had no idea how far ahead of the curve he was.  Rawl practiced what is commonly called "strip grazing."  In effect, this is a special kind of "Management Intensive Grazing" (MIG), where you give the cows just what they need to meet their daily nutritional requirements well, but not enough so that they spoiled any of it.  This strip grazing allowed the grass to be harvested cleanly by the cows, but then given a rest of about five weeks to recover and grow before it was again harvested by the cows.  This allowed for more nutrient dense feed to be managed in a way that suppressed weeds, prevented soil erosion, built organic matter, improved butterfat yield, improved cow health and all other manner of fantastical things.  Rawl was decades ahead of other dairy or beef farmers on this issue.  Even today, forty years later, many still have not learned the lessons Rawl had learned and put into practice.

I have learned much more about the concepts and science behind MIG over the past 10-15 years.  I hope to be able to implement what Rawl knew and practiced as well as other elements of MIG and other biological farming processes that could make it even better.  Rawl was a good mentor in teaching me about pastures and the value it brought to the farm.

As I look back and think, would I rather cut the hay, rake the hay, bale the hay, haul the hay, stack the hay, feed the hay, clean up the manure, and spread the manure; or would I rather move a single wire in the field and let the cows take care of all that.  I will choose the pasture when it is possible.  I will also be prepared to deal with the hay while trying hard to let the cows do the work as often as is possible.  Simple is good.  Let the cows be cows.  Use human management to help the cows help, rather than harm the environment.

The "Farm" in West Farmington

One of the things that created a strong set of impressions and experiences in my young mind was the "Farm" in West Farmington that my parents and aunt and uncle bought.  I don't recall the year exactly, but I'm willing to say it was 1974 +/- a year.  Now this farms was no ordinary farm.  It was a one acre parcel that had only fair soil, but also had pressurized irrigation on tap right at the front gate.  This is where some of my key gardening, livestock, and farm experiences were based.  On this farm, we grew big gardens, pigs, raspberries and worms.  We had very interesting construction type projects where we built a small pole barn and we drilled a well with a DeepRock well drilling rig.  In many ways, this was a place of dabbling with my ideas from The Have-More Plan.

When I was roughly 12 years old my parents and my aunt and uncle pooled their resources and bought an acre in West Farmington.  The soil was heavy clay and was on the alkaline side of the spectrum.  It was probably less than two miles from the shore of the Great Salt Lake.  The texture of the clay soil was very similar to what I find in Western Oregon where I live today.

I recall several different gardens we grew on this property.  The first year, I remember witnessing and participating in the process of roto-tilling roughly half of the one acre.  That was a big garden.  The spacing was generous.  I recall growing tomatoes, potatoes, corn, more squash that we could shake a stick at, onions, and carrots.  There were probably other things as well, but that is what I recall.  I recall my uncle's father teaching me how to plant corn without a corn planter.  He would take a shovel, push in into the ground a few inches, push the shovel forward, and place two seeds behind the shovel about two inches deep, then pull the shovel out.  I recall the hard work it took weeding the garden and the abundance of the harvest.  In many instances, we harvested way more than we used.  After I was out of college, one summer we lived in Farmington.  I managed the garden.  We grew lot of stuff.  I was in charge, so felt responsible to make sure things were cared for properly.  It was a rewarding experience.  In the fall we harvested dozens of pumpkins that we companion cropped with the sweet corn.  In our little garage, we had probably three dozen pumpkins that we used for Halloween, gave away, and ultimately threw many away.

The second year after we got the farm, I somehow convinced my Dad to get a couple of pigs.  We built a pig pen, after the style and idea from The Have-More Plan.  We got the pigs and fed them extras from our garden, pig weeds (that is a real name), and feed from Smith's Feed on Main Street in Bountiful.  One experience we had was attempting to take the pigs to the Davis County Fair to be a display of sorts.  The pigs were not cooperative and were chased around and around and around, until they were finally corralled back in their pen.  Needless to say, they never made it to the fair.  The water that we had was the pressurized irrigation water that was turned off at the beginning of October.  So we had a tight timeline to raise the pigs to harvest weight.  One of the neighbors down in West Farmington ran a portable abattoire, so he took care of the harvest.  I recall eating the excellent ham and bacon.  My Dad commented, "This is the best ham I have ever eaten!"  And so it is with well raised meat.

My Dad often tried to figure out how to generate a supplemental income using the resources he had available.  One effort was to raise earthworms.  He had several beds of earthworms that he would grow and multiply, and harvest.  The earthworm beds included feeding the earthworms lots of prepared organic matter, including what I recall was primarily horse manure and chopped hay.  Over the years, these beds became highly fertile, much different than the surrounding soils.  I remember helping my Dad with some of the worm bed feeding and preparation.  Ultimately the worm beds turned into a valuable place to grow raspberries.

During my college years, my Dad, some of my brothers, and friends grew an acre of raspberries on the Farm.  I did a fair amount of financial and market analysis to see if it would make sense.  It appeared to make sense.  We installed irrigation and trellising.  We planted an acre of raspberries.  We kept it weeded and fertilized.  The second year and beyond we harvested raspberries.  We were harvesting roughly 10 flats of raspberries, six days a week for about four weeks, starting in mid-June.  The harvest time was chaotic.  The berries needed to be picked early in the morning as they became softer in the heat.  We had to cool the berries as best as we could in a couple of refrigerators we had.  We would take and fill orders in the Farmington area.  I recall dealing with customer complaints and praises.  Ultimately, the raspberry project was a great project that taught me a lot about small farm entrepreneurship.  As I moved away and others got busy, the berry bushes became chopped organic matter that added fertility to the Farm.

The Farm was an experimental plot for me.  I had many hands on experiences there.  Some meeting with success, and some becoming learning experiences in failure.  In part, it was experiences at the Farm that gave me confidence to experiment and know that I could succeed in gardening and farm endeavors.

If I look at Google Earth, I now see that there is a big house on the Farm with a small horse barn and horse training/exercise ring out back.  It doesn't appear to me that there are any food crops on the farm.  That makes me a little sad.

Watering Corn for Rawl

When I started working for Rawl, I was a wee lad of 10 years old.  For a couple of years, I fed calves, cleaned stalls, brought the cows in from the pasture to be milked, and sometimes fed the cows hay in the evening.  When I was 12 years old, I started to grow and became more physically capable.  Rawl asked me if I would like to help him water (irrigate) his corn that he was raising for silage.  The silage was winter feed for the cows.  He told me he would pay me extra during the summer for help with this.  I was excited to become more useful and more fully integrated into the overall farming operation.

Now watering corn wasn't turning on some sprinkling system like a center pivot or a big gun sprinkler.  The type of corn watering I did was like 19th century technology stuff.  It was hard work that required attention to detail.  We used ditches, shovels, rocks, and the most high tech stuff of all was old, empty corn seed bags to act as dams.

The corn needed watering from roughly mid-June through the end of August.  Rain was scarce and pretty much inconsequential in Utah.  In the Farmington, the average annual rainfall was high for Utah, at about 18 inches a year.  The summer saw maybe two inches of rain.  To put that in perspective, corn needs about two inches of rain a week to thrive.  This is the type of rain that certain areas of the midwest receive that allows them to grow corn without irrigation.

During the summer, after morning chores were completed at about 8:00, I would run home for a quick breakfast.  I would pack up my ice water jug and head to one of three or four corn fields Rawl had.  I would ride my bike to two of the fields or walk to two other fields.  The highly coveted irrigation water would be available in the ditch.

I would use my shovel, rocks, and paper bags to create a diversion and a dam in the ditch to bring the water to the tops of the corn rows which had furrows between them.  I would use my shovel to place little rocks in the water path to regulate the amount of water flowing down each furrow.  The goal was to get water in all of the rows from the top of the row to the bottom of the row at about the same time.  This required the initial set up of the water turn and constant monitoring to see if each row needed more or less water from the top.  Much of the time was just watching and checking.  Watering corn also gave a lot of time for having a wandering mind, thought, and contemplation.  Sometimes when things were going well, it allowed for a short little nap under a tree in the shade.  I would try to get a good stable set at about 1:30 or 2:00, then make a mad dash for home to get some lunch.  Then I would race right back.

Each water turn typically took about 90 minutes.  That is how long it took to get the water from the top of the rows to the bottom.  I typically had enough water to do about ten rows at a time.  The field sizes were between four and ten acres.  Usually, it would take two days to water most of the fields.  I would water corn Monday through Saturday.  Rawl gave me Sunday off from watering corn.  I really, really looked forward to that Sunday.  To me, it truly was a day of rest.

Rawl typically had about 20-25 acres of corn for silage.  That amount of corn would feed Rawl's cows corn silage from about October to April, when they were off of the pasture.

As the corn grew, I had to walk the rows to make sure I could see where the water was and to repair any furrow damage that resulted from the water washing over from one furrow to another.  Ultimately the corn would grow to about eight feet tall, with pollen covered tassles at the top.  The pollen would drop all over me and get in my shirt.  At times my skin would welt up because of the pollen.  Generally that was my least favorite part.

Watering corn was "teenager" work.  I was glad to be viewed as a teenager and able to contribute more to Rawl's modest dairy farm.  Watering corn was not all fun and games.  It was hard work.  It was hot, sweaty, and sometimes frustrating.  It was also very satisfying when I got the end of the summer and we had a good corn harvest.

Living Self Sufficiently in the Space Where You Live

That horse-drawn corn planter sent me on a quest that was quite expansive for my young mind.  I've spent literally weeks, months, maybe years of my life trying to understand how a family could live self-sufficiently inside of a defined property boundary. How could a family realistically provide for all of its needs from the place in which the family lives, without degrading the resources and without importing resources?

Providing food and energy, mostly energy for heat and on-farm motive power, were my primary focus for years of thinking.  Having read The Have-More Plan and having worked on Rawl's farm, my thoughts turned to growing food and the inputs required to grow it and cook it.  Also, living in Utah, with the cold winters, the idea of keeping warm was high on my list.

Rawl was an innovative farmer for his time.  It would take me many years to figure out just how innovative he was.  That said, he farmed conventionally at the core.  He imported a fair amount of fertility.  His primary fertility imports were nitrogen in the forms of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate.  He used these inputs for both corn and pasture, as well as for grass fields that he harvested as hay.  He didn't use those inputs on the alfalfa hay fields because alfalfa was a legume that had the capability of fixing its own nitrogen.  Rawl actually limited the importation of nitrogen because he regularly used the manure of his 40-50 cows on his corn, hay, and pasture fields.  Rawl effectively used his on farm resources.  As a young lad, I saw Rawl importing fertility and wondered what one would have to do so that it was unnecessary to import fertility.

I also saw Rawl use biocides (herbicides and pesticides) on a limited basis.  I saw him use herbicides on a limited basis in his corn fields to limit weed competition beyond what basic cultivation was capable of doing.  I also recall one time when he used pesticides on his corn field.  He had planted corn in one of his lower fields.  The corn emerged normally.  When it was between six and twelve inches tall, corn borer went through the field and ate of almost all of the little corn stalks just below the surface.  I recall looking at the field, seeing all of the little corn stalks falling over.  When I picked up the little corn stalks to see what was wrong, there were no roots attached.  Rawl used a corn borer pesticide on the field and replanted the corn.  Additionally in very limited places in the pastures, Rawl used the ubiquitous 2-4-D (non-selective broadleaf plant killer) to kill of primarily cockleburs and wild roses.  It did not kill the grass in the pastures, only the broadleaf weeds.  I believe in the eight years I worked for him, he used 2-4-D three or four times in one pasture.  As I saw this, my mind went to the idea of how one could farm without the use of these off-farm inputs, biocides.  Only later in life would I begin to question the harm that biocides could have on humans, domesticated animal (farm stock like cows), and the food/soil web on the farm.

I wondered if it were possible to grow food without bringing in fertilizer.  Could a family just use manure?  Could you raise enough feed for livestock without importing fertilizer?  What about compost?  Did that somehow magically create fertility that wasn't already there?  Could you grow your own fertilizer?  Could you raise food that didn't need biocides?  I recalled the Hughs family down the road.  They had an apple orchard.  They sprayed their apples on a regular schedule.  Was it possible to grow apples without biocides.  I liked apples and applesauce.  I thought farmers of 100 years prior did not have ammonium sulfate or biocides.  How did they live?  I recall from a junior high history class that one of the reasons why farmers kept moving west from the east coast was because they kept using up or burning up the soil.  They would use all of the fertility.  Yet somehow that land grew trees, nuts, berries, and grass for thousands of years without any ammonium sulfate or 2-4-D.  I wondered how that could be.

Also, I thought if a family was going to raise food, they would need to plow the land and haul stuff.  I reasoned that a family would need horses to do that work.  Horses ate pasture, hay, and grain.  Pasture and hay were relatively straight forward to grow with horse motive power, but grain was not.  You needed specialized equipment to harvest grain.  I reasoned that perhaps we could use a scythe to reap the grain, but was about threshing it?  I wondered if horses really needed grain, or if they could just eat really good hay and pasture.  The wild horses didn't eat any grain.  Why would a farm horse have to eat grain if they had good hay and pasture?

Foods matured in season.  In Utah, there was a long, cold winter where no food was produced.  I saw my Mom can fruits and put away grains for storage.  We froze meat and vegetables for storage.  We even canned green beans for storage and made pickles.  My Dad put in a small root cellar on the south west side of the house to store potatoes and carrots for winter.  Working on the farm, I imagined having a milk cow.  I raised chickens.  We raised hogs.  We raised a big garden at times as well.  We did these things, yet we still went to the store.  We still had to go get food from elsewhere.  How could a family raise all of its own food, inside the boundaries of the place where they lived?

We didn't raise our own firewood.  We would buy it.  That bothered me.  How could a family raise its own firewood to keep warm during the winter and cook with year around?  I decided a family would have to dedicate part of its land to growing firewood.   One of the questions was how much land it would take to grown enough firewood for the family energy needs.

Over the years, the questions would pile up, becoming more and more complicated and esoteric.  Questions would arise about building materials, electricity, transportation, clothing, household chemicals, manufactured consumer goods, etc. Was it sensible to raise extra food and export it outside of the boundaries of the family property to obtain other goods not easily derived from the family farm?  If you exported food and its associated nutrients and fertility, would you have to import the same amount of nutrients in another form to replace them?  What about water for both domestic and farm use?  The list of questions would go on and on...  Gradually, sensible answers started to come into place.  Those questions and answers have helped me frame a conceptual design for a farm that would provide for my family in a relatively closed-loop fashion, inside the boundaries of where we live.

The idea of living inside of a defined boundary and providing for all of ones needs is an ideal.  It is a direction.  I think that a large percentage of what a family needs can be provided within a defined boundary.  I am also quite convinced that the quality of what a family can provide for itself is potentially much higher than like commodity offerings from the lowest cost modes of production.  I also think that humans have used barter and trade to create much enhanced lives.  The questions evolve to how does a family utilize the resources inside of the boundaries of its space to be as self-sufficient as possible and to live the healthiest, most joyful life possible?

The web of considerations have grown exponentially over the years, providing fodder for thought, design, development of ideals, and ultimately pragmatism.  I still have much to learn through experience that will help me move directionally towards answers that make sense.

The Horse Drawn Corn Planter

At the top of Rawl's farm property, two driveways descended sharply to the west into the barn yard.  The milk room and milking barn were towards the top of the property, just below Rawl's small orchard.  The baby calf barn and hay barn were next, followed by the cow yard, silo, and feed bunker.  Towards the bottom of the barn yard, and off to the north a bit was Rawl's "older calf" pen and shelter, which housed the calves which were roughly three to nine months of age.  In one corner of the older calf shelter was an old green and yellow horse drawn corn planter.  I don't know if it was a John Deere or an Oliver corn planter, but I suspect it was a John Deere.  This corn planter and the OPEC oil embargo of '72-73 created a problem in my mind that I was determined to solve.

Having witnessed the impact of the OPEC oil embargo, first hand, as a ten year old, I was deeply concerned about how countries thousands of miles away could impact my life and the life of my family and fellow Americans so directly.  It was as if they could control much of our fate on a whim.  If they didn't like us, they could refuse to trade or sell oil to us.  That would drive up fuel prices, fertilizer prices, and other prices of items that depended on fuel for delivery.  I wondered what would happen if the oil stopped flowing.  What if there were no more oil for farming?  What if there were no more oil for automobiles?  What if there were no more oil for delivery trucks or the milk truck which came every other morning to pick up fresh milk from Rawl's farm?

As I observed the old, unused, horse-drawn corn planter, I came to the conclusion that at least Rawl had a corn planter if we had to go back to using horses for motive power if there were no diesel or gasoline for the tractors.

I didn't think through all of the energy requirements of the farm operation.  But I started to think through the issues.  The farm was old enough that is was quite clear that petroleum and electricity came well after the farm was established and made operational.  I assumed that there must be a way back to farming without dependence on middle-eastern oil producing countries.  I assumed we would be able to bring back horses and use them effectively to farm Rawl's modest farm of roughly 80 acres.

I had little experience with horses at that time.  I had ridden horses a few times, but had never really seen a draft horse or draft mule.  I don't think it was until years later when Budweiser started using Clydesdales in their advertising that I started to grasp the size of the draft horse breeds.  Rawl had never really farmed with horses, but I did not know that at the time.  I know he witnessed the tail end of the horse farming era.  I think he was glad to move on to tractors.  

But the cool thing about the idea of farming with horses is that horses could participate in raising their own energy sources.  They could eat pasture, hay, and maybe grain if they were working hard.  With pasture, they could even eliminate most human intervention.  The horses would not depend on OPEC.  The horses would depend on themselves and on the farmer(s).  That would be both Rawl and I, in my own mind at the time.

I started to wonder if we had gone too far with depending on other people or other countries for providing us with basic needs.  What if we had to take care of ourselves?  I had heard much about the Great Depression from my Grandparents.  What if fuel were rationed?  What if food were rationed?  What if other basic necessities were rationed?  The OPEC oil embargo and the horse-drawn corn planter set my mind in motion on the merits of being self-sufficient.  

Could one take care of himself and his family?  Could someone provide for himself and his family?  Could a community provide for their own needs?  Could a country provide for their own needs?  In short, I started asking the question, "How can someone provide for all of his or her own needs in the space in which they live?"