Man was made to enjoy the seas, rivers, lakes, land, mountains, woods, and other natural resources, not to exploit and spoil them, polluting them for the sake of the profit of a few. Who can enjoy much less profit from a filthy stinking polluted river that is dead. Who can enjoy a sunrise or sunset that is hidden behind smog?
Who can live and be happy and healthy on foods that have so many poisons in them? Some foods taste similar to cardboard. We are drinking water full of chemicals and living a synthetic life.
God made everything beautiful for man to enjoy and use for his benefit. That is for every man, not for just a few fat bank accounts.
It is the new year and things seem to be getting worse around the world. You say you can’t paint as pretty a picture of city life as I can of country life. I have never thought there was anything pretty about a city, or town of any size. That is why I am out here in the woods.
I have just finished reading my copy of “The Freedom Way,” for the third or fourth time and enjoy it very much. I have gotten very much out of it. The wife and I have been figuring out some of the things we are going to need to carry on a simple life such as tools, but, we have complications; a three year old boy, a one and a half year old girl, and a two month old boy, so it will cost us a slight bit more to get along than a single person or a couple. However we can live on a whole bunch less than anyone can in the city.
People going back to the sticks should not try to live completely off game and fish. Raise vegetables, have goats or sheep, some chickens, bantams preferred, maybe some ducks. Also depend on wild greens and herbs with some fish and game.
We have 6 children and are doing fairly well. We don’t have any other income than what I can make through my own efforts. I have plenty of responsibilities with this family. So it can be done other than by a single man or couple and we do enjoy nature. As to the concern for want, if a person places his full trust in God, there is no want, for God says, “ask and ye shall receive.”
I bought several pounds of nails the other day at a builder’s supply store. It seems that top quality lumber for “nice houses'' isn't moving. Instead, slowly, it’s rough lumber and low grade reject milled lumber that is moving. Fancy finish, paneling, windows, doors, and fittings are not selling. More expensive sidings and roofings aren’t selling well. Cheap rolled roofing paper and the cheaper grade of shingles are moving slowly. It looks like something is brewing. Not finding one or two small items I wanted, I tried a similar store in a different town and heard the same story. Contractors aren’t getting nearly as much business as they did a while ago.
Another day I visited a supply store to get 7X9 window glass. The proprietor was wondering what’s setting off customers to want so much small sized window glass, glazing compound, and glazing supplies.
There seems to be a good deal of uneasiness and uncertainty everywhere. New cars aren’t selling and people only buy used cars if theirs have quit beyond repair and then they replace it with one only a year or two newer.
Store parking lots have many fewer cars than usual for this time of year and customers are bringing out fewer packages. Some just look around, but don’t buy anything. Grocery carts don’t look as full as they used to when they get to the checkout stands.
The big Oxford Paper mill is running below capacity, with some departments doing little, and workers in others only working two or three days a week. The mill pulp yards have much less pulpwood than previously. Wood cutting operations are also very slow. Some operators have shut down for a while.
Two relatively small wood product factories have gone out of business. Others have slowed down and laid off workers for a while or possibly permanently. If any strikes take place in them, these will also close for good.
A neighbor who works at another woodworking mill says some of the crews are laid off and the salesmen who get orders for the mill’s products aren’t getting any new orders. That mill produces the material for furniture factories who in turn can’t move furniture already manufactured. The furniture stores can’t sell their stock on hand. A furniture store in Norway, Maine is holding a going out of business sale but people don’t seem to be buying. Big Sales are going on in the cities of Portland and Lewiston. They have been at it long enough that there shouldn’t be anything left to sell if it were selling normally. Much noise about fabulous bargains, but not many vehicles on the road that seem to be delivering or taking home many items. Second hand things seem to be moving more than anything else but even these, not very briskly.
The cities of Portland, Lewiston, and Bangor all have lost quite a lot of population, about 1000 apiece per year but it is slowing down in village, rural, and semi-wilderness areas. A few thousand former Maine people have returned from other states but also are in non-urban places.
Recent discrimination against mobile home owners, such as higher tax rates on them, is slowing down the sales yards. Of the sales made, the trailers are older ones, and they’re going into small villages and smaller towns or sitting down in isolated areas in old fields. I have noted a few additions of mobile homes along routes we travel, but also a marked increase in little vacation cabin type buildings, with people living in them. More former hunting camps now appear to be permanently occupied with some being built by do it yourself-ers.
The state put out poison for the fox this spring because there had been quite a few cases of rabies but they also poisoned coon, skunk, fisher, and quite a few dogs. We sure wish that some of those “poison boys” would soon wake up to what they are doing and the way they are destroying our wildlife. I didn’t catch one coon or one fox this season. Have seen only one coon track and only two sets of fox tracks since November. Also I only caught one skunk and haven’t seen any skunk tracks nor have I smelled, seen or heard of any skunk around. It sure doesn’t look very good. Oh yes and the state still charges $10.00 for a trapping license then spend a large hunk of money on poison to kill our furbearers. They send around pamphlets telling us what a good job of conservation they are doing. Just what are they conserving?
I have been gathering copper and brass and selling them to a dealer in scrap metal. At this time he is giving .40 a lb for copper and .28 a lb for brass. As soon as the snow clears I will go along the roads and pick up all the returnable bottles as they are worth .03 and there is a big accumulation after winter snow
It is a fairly pleasant job on a nice warm spring day to take a bicycle and ride along the side roads picking up the bottles and enjoying the scenery and fresh air.
I do try to save as many of my own seeds as possible but the season wasn’t very good last year and most vegetables didn’t mature enough for seeds to form.
I have tomatoes starting indoors now and they are up. As you know we believe in organic gardening with no poisons either.
I didn’t have any livestock this year so I will have to haul manure from other places. There are 3 or 4 places that keep riding horses or ponies and a big chicken farm all within a radius of 3 miles and they just pile the manure up and just let it rot and just don’t bother with it so I can just get all I can haul for free.
We would like to hear from other wildcrafters in Maine. We have been thinking of getting a partner at least for the trapping. I had a partner this past winter but he drinks too much and won’t put in a full day and won’t put in a full day on the line and was very sloppy about skinning out the fur and taking care of it after so I will either go alone or get a new partner.
They are having a campaign here trying to talk people into putting fluoride into their drinking water, hoping they don’t make it.
How can you render lard from coon and skunk fat, and turn it into coon or skunk oil?
I have never had any experience with a power blade saw but I saw one work once. I think that a chainsaw is faster and more versatile. I have had a chainsaw for eleven years, a couple of used ones and two new ones.both the new ones were Pioneer brand and I must say I had exceptional good luck with both of them.I cut myself two times accidentally, once in 1961 when I was cutting a tree on a bank with snow on the ground. I pulled the chain out of the cut and my foot slipped, the chain caught me on the left knee, cutting quite a hole in my trousers leg, and about an inch and a half cut on my knee, although not very deep. I patched up myself with a butterfly bandage. Then this August I tripped over a stick while limbing a large pine tree that I had just cut down. I went forward and put my left hand out. It hit the chain and tore the heel and part of the palm up from the base of my little finger to about the middle of the heel of my hand. I had four jagged tears so you could see the cords moving when I moved my fingers. However, it didn’t cut the cords and the bleeding stopped within five minutes. I went to the hospital where they sewed my hand up, the doctor telling me I was lucky to still have my hand. In three weeks it was completely healed and all there is now is a tiny scar. This was my own fault as the clutch spring was broken on my saw and the chain wouldn’t stop when the motor was idling. The only way to stop the chain was to shut the thing off. That saw went to the repair shop then. It is alive and one half years old and still in good running order. I cut all my firewood, about twelve cord a year plus bucking it up stove length, also cut brush and have cut some pulp and logs with it, so I would say it was a good investment.
Most of the woodcutters around here say a saw is only good for six months and they have to get a new one, but they really abuse some of their saws. Most woodcutters cut 8 to 10 cords a day six or seven days a week, so most really use their saws. They use mostly McCulloch and Homelite saws. I have never seen a power blade saw here in Maine and I know nearly every home has a chainsaw or two in this vicinity.
I would say to your question as to why such seemingly worthless goods break down in one way or another is that neither the manufacturer nor the worker care in any way about the consumer. The manufacturer wants the most profit and the least expensive and the worker wants the biggest wages and gets away with the least amount of work. I don’t think there is any pride in workmanship anymore.
I don’t have a power saw now, but have had several in the past. They are a blessing when they are operating, but when they act up they are not worth a plugged nickel. I had so much trouble with my power mower when I had an
It is best when using any type of saw to prop the wood up off the ground, so the saw or blade will not run into the ground and possibly rocks.
About the power saw, you must have a “Wright.” I have used one of them and have repaired quite a few. They should be called “Wrong.” When I worked on the farm back in Massachusetts, we had a “Wright.” It was hard starting and I remember well how the gas leaked out of it. It also had a habit of stalling and making some awful clanking.
I can just imagine what would happen to a saw like that if there were a rock. That saw is a tough looking customer. I’ve used chainsaws and worked in the woods in a sawmill where we cut up slabs, sawed out boards, etc., but I don’t think I’d dare use one like in that picture.
Our mortgage and bank payments are coming way down and by the end of the summer it should be all paid up then we will be able to swing into the simple life completely instead of my running to s timeclock every day for a meager wage.
I wonder if you or any of your readers ever saw “The Plain Truth,” or “Tomorrow's World” magazines? These have quite a bit about the Bible and about things that are happening all around us today. They are not fanatical religious books and they don’t have any special religion. Also they are absolutely free and are published in full color, about 50 pages. I have been getting them for six years now and have not been asked for one cent.
My wife and I enjoy these two magazines and like I say, they talk about God and the Bible in plain, everyday language.
God promised there wouldn’t be another flood, but He didn’t say there would be another cleanup if people got too bad.
It could well be why so many of us “little people” are moving back out of the way. We think of it in terms of commonplace reasons but I can’t help wondering if the urge isn't a lot deeper.
I have been busy here berry picking, gardening, canning, digging a well by hand, and have started an addition to the camp.
I have harvested most of my garden now. We have 333 glass jars of food put up, also 8 bushels of potatoes, some pumpkins, 50 buttercup squash, and 8 gallons of sauerkraut, which I put up according to an old recipe.
I still have some cabbage, rutabaga, and turnips in the garden. I will harvest them in October, just before the ground freezes.
I am going to.rig up a little greenhouse...for giving squash, cuke, and melon plants a real head start for spring setting out. I did get some started that way last spring but didn’t have enough flats or place to put them to start as many as I would have liked. This spring I will try for tomato plants too, and maybe some peppers and celery plants.
Having a water well is going to mean so much to us as we garden next summer.
I also want to pick some elderberries and get some apples from trees on the old abandoned farms around here to put up some jelly.
I then can start on my wood for the winter. I have it all handy to the house; it just needs to be blocked up and split.
I had my garden on land belonging to a neighbor, and expect to next year unless I can clear more stumps off my land.
I have only had time to clear off a small space and promptly set the place in strawberries. I also rooted out enough stumps to plant 9 dozen tomato plants, a row of lettuce, a row of turnips and 100 gladiolus bulbs.
I have been working some this summer on a barn being built here for chicken raising. With the older barn the new capacity will be 80,000. The chickens came as day old chicks. They are kept for nine weeks then sent to a processing center at this age they average 3 to 4 pounds.
I work there for two days every nine weeks cleaning out the manure. The boys that clean the coops are allowed to catch and keep the stray chickens the catching and trucking crew leave. No one else bothers with them so I usually get them. Last time I got 32 chickens. I brought the bunch home and let them wander outside all over the yard. For the first two days they stayed in a bunch in the corner. They can not see very much in the light as they were raised in semi-darkness. What a change a few days makes though. We keep 3 or 4 eggs.
We have some problems with dust in the summertime. We are about 100 feet off the road so the dust usually settles before it gets here to the house. We have woods on three sides of the house and across the road.
I worked out today for a horse and cattle dealer. My trapping partner and I cleaned up brush and cut sprouts off the old stumps as it will be a pasture when it is all cleaned up.
We bought some more canning jars and boxes of lids the other day. The storekeeper said he had never sold so many cases of jars in his many years at the store. He said he thought every housewife in the county must have been canning like mad this year!
Two young friends of ours, both teachers, called the other evening to get advice on canning. They’d gardened this year and canned what they could. Both plan to plant much bigger gardens next year and do everything possible from them.
One of them says they will be looking for a different teacher, “some of these days.”
On the first day of school this fall, he told us that he looked up from his desk and saw heavy iron grating over the windows, and a super sprinkler system installed just inside the wall. Bomb and fire-protection he says. He told me if they expected a need for grated windows and that kind of sprinkler system it didn’t look like a good place to teach classes! He’d find a different region to teach in or quit altogether. He’s gone back but I wouldn’t dare say he’ll stay for as he says, a big salary wouldn’t be much help to him if he gets blown sky-high by a bomb! He isn’t a bit happy!
The other teacher says it is a little better where she teaches and she’s also looking to make a change. I’m not too sure it may not have been why they were in Maine.
There seems to be more mobile homes yarding in the fall than ever and they are not setting up in towns and villages, they are scattered out through the rural and ‘semi-wilderness’ regions.
For three years now Portland and Lewiston have been steadily losing population. Portland has been losing over 1000 a year. The large towns are also losing urban populations. According to rumor they are ‘taking to the brush,’ and from appearances it is looking so. Many ‘hunting camps’ and ‘summer cottage’ seem to be permanently occupied this fall. They didn’t go back to town this year. I suspect the mobile homes belong to former Maine people who are getting out of out-of-state cities and towns to return to their original home areas. Out of state registration plates are on the cars for a while and then the cars seem to get new shiny Maine plates on them. They have to if the owners take a job and or enter children in Maine schools. Otherwise they have to wait 60 to 90 days, I can’t remember which. Many I have noticed have not been in the area over a month but have put on Maine registration plates so apparently intend to stay.
Well I am thankful we began to ‘dig in’ in ‘65! It was none too soon!
Again the out of state hunter:
We had a little trouble with our cat. On Saturday morning, the 7th of November, I went down cellar to get some canned fruit, and there on an old box lay my mama cat. She looked funny and didn’t come running to me as usual.
I went and picked her up and found her back end crippled. Someone had run her over and broke her back and she dragged herself home. Later a neighbor told me he saw one of those out of state hunters riding a mini bike and he seemed to be chasing something off the road into the brush just a short ways below our place late Friday afternoon. We think he did it. Then the next day the guy up the road told me his cat had been shot in the back legs by a shotgun, so it was crippled like mine and just able to drag itself by its front feet. He thinks it was the same guy who hit my cat.
If that hunter did this, he needs a beating, country style.
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