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Planning the Homestead Orchard  Plant the wrong trees, or plant in the wrong place, and it may be a 10-year mistake that you may never get to make right.

The Homestead Cookbook  A  searchable online cookbook loaded with homesteader's recipes and growing every day.

Clearing Land for Pasture Meadow Creation 101

The Simplest House of All The first house should provide all the bare necessities, but few frills.   

Drawing a Circle in the Sand

Teaching Awareness to A Consumer Society

by Sheri Dixon  

The following is a true story.  Names have not been changed to protect the innocent.

On a picnic one fine day several years ago, my son Alec and I were lunching with my friend MaryHelen and her twin boys, James and Noah, also my son’s age.  Approximate age of these boys at the time is right around four years old.  

My son was busy munching his Happy Meal and took a moment out from ingestion of grease and preservatives to inquire if the liquid in the wax carton was cow's milk or goat's milk.  I told him it was cow's milk and he accepted that without comment.  

My friend’s boys however, were suddenly very quiet and eyeing their wax cartons with grave suspicion.  

“What do you mean, what KIND of milk???” they asked Alec.

Alec cheerfully explained.   “The milk at our house is goat's milk.  Every morning my mom goes out and feeds the goats.  Then she gets down on the ground next to them and milks them like this (insert visual of young boy doing realistic rendering of milking a goat).  She brings it into the house, strains it and puts it in the fridge for us to drink.”

After a stony silence, James announced, “Well, our milk comes from the STORE”.

Alec allowed that most people do not have goats in their yard and, that for the unfortunate masses, store-bought cow's milk is the only sad alternative for a calcium-laden drink.  James and Noah were still not happy, saying that THEIR milk does NOT come from COWS, it comes from the STORE.

In the manner of most pre-school and congressional discussions, this rapidly escalated to fisticuff status.

Now, MaryHelen is a veterinarian and these boys are exposed to many animals, both in and out of nature, all the time.  The Circle of Life is not a stranger to them.  Or so she thought…

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