Lehman's Country Life

The farm I live on, World Hunger Relief, Inc. in Waco, Texas, uses composting toilets rather than flushing toilets.  I had heard about them before I came and thought it was just a quirky thing that they did, having a toilet that didn’t require plumbing, but I quickly realized upon my arrival that every toilet in common use on the property uses sawdust instead of water.

I remember my first tour of the place—I arrived at night and was given a quick tour of the dorm by Melody.  We walked into the bathroom, with two sinks and a small shower and a teal-colored door in the back.  Melody worked up a bit of theatrics for us:  “And this,” she said as she opened the door, revealing a teal staircase with teal walls leading up to a bench with a toilet lid on it, “is the throne.”
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We come across cotton everyday in our homes, at the stores and even at work. Our lives are intertwined with this fiber and most of us never think twice about it. What most people don’t know is that there are many different kinds of cotton. Cotton is grown all over the world and is a part of everyday life.

Scientists exploring in Mexico first found bits of cotton bolls and cotton cloth, in Mexican caves, that were aged at least 7,000 years old. The cotton itself was found to be much like the cotton that is grown in America today. Cotton was being grown, spun, and woven into cloth in Pakistan in 3,000 years BC. Around this time natives of the Nile valley in Egypt were making and wearing cotton clothing. In about 800 AD, Arab merchants brought cotton cloth to Europe. Columbus found cotton growing in the Bahamas Islands when he traveled to the Americas.
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I love watermelon pickles.  My biggest goal of the summer is to collect the best watermelon rinds that I can and make them into yummy, luscious sweet pickles to soothe my soul in the wintertime.

However, it seems to me that the watermelons these days are bred to have skinny rinds and there is NO rind left of any decent sort to make into pickles.  A shame!  A travesty!  How can we have those delicious pickles if there are no rinds to use?  I managed to get a total of three (count them, THREE) pints of pickles last year and they were a sorry sight to see, skinny little pickles, ashamed to show their heads against the fat ones in the past.
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SNOW! It’s SNOWING outside our windows here at Lehman’s (in northeast Ohio). Ok, ok, we realize many of you have already SEEN the white stuff this fall, but we were caught offguard this morning. Brrr…it’s chilly out, too. Time to fire up the wood stoves!

The scene outside our office window this morning - can you see the flakes?

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The crisp fall weather is an ideal time to start planning the addition of a fruit garden.  You do not need a large plot of land – a sunny area 100×100 feet is more than room enough.
Fruit trees can provide both flower power and fresh fruit.  Berry plants and brambles produce sweet, juicy and delicious fruit from spring to early fall.

The hardest part can be to understand where to start.
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If you are a gardener and a cook, homegrown garlic is a must-do on your fall garden list. Nothing beats the taste of lovingly grown garlic and being a crop that grows well in many regions, there is no need to purchase imported garlic in the store (check labels!). Growing your own also opens up a whole new world of variety possibilities.

Pictured is the basket of labeled garlic I use for my Thursday demos at Lehman’s store and it’s interesting to hear folks who thought that “garlic was garlic” be amazed at the options. I am planting fifteen garlic varieties this fall, and one year a friend of ours (who is also a Lehman’s employee) planted fifty different kinds! Some are sturdy hard neck varieties like German Extra Hardy, the soft necks like Lorz Italian are great for braiding,  others like Georgian Fire have a more pungent flavor, while some are great for roasting like Chesnok Red. Our family favorite is Music, which is a Porcelain hard neck variety with large cloves and an excellent medium garlic flavor.
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Monday, Oct. 26, 2009

United Feature Syndicate
MARYJANE’S EVERYDAY ORGANIC

There is nothing more comforting on a cold winter’s day than the lush, radiant heat of a woodstove. Its warmth soaks into your skin, and its flame enlivens a room with a presence all its own. I’ve always loved the way fire dances and illuminates, warming hearth and soul. And I continue to invite the spirit of flame into my home, even after suffering the very real nightmare of a fire that consumed my house 13 years ago. In a mid-winter cold snap, 10 below zero, a faulty new chimney spread fire up through my rafters. To this day, when I think about how close I came to losing my children, I find myself short of breath.
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Article by Tim Matson, author of The Book of Non-Electric Lighting,

Earth Ponds A to Z and the Earth Ponds Sourcebook

Here it comes: heavy fall rain, the lights are flickering, and there’s a tree on the power line a mile up the road  the utility company hasn’t fixed in over a month. Put ‘em together and what have you got? Firelight time. Check the lamp fuel supply, trim the wicks, clean the chimneys, restock the candles.

But aside from the practical value of having a reliable stash of emergency lamps and candles at hand, I like firelight whether the power works or not. Evenings, it’s a pleasant way to dial down the go-go pace of the workday and relax. Turning out the electric lights and lighting a few candles is like meditation. Or maybe it’s nostalgia. Walking into a room lit by lanterns or candles is a way to step into the past, perhaps a distant century you can use your imagination to conjur up, or a past you may have lived, in a cabin or a house off the grid.
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I grew up in the city, so coming to live and work on the World Hunger Relief farm in Waco, Texas is one great big learning experience for me.  Since my arrival a few months ago, I have learned so much, from where eggs are kept in the pantry, to where we keep the sawdust for our composting toilets, to how a community of 25 organizes itself for a day’s farm work, to how to milk a goat. Though the composting toilet certainly merits elaboration, the last is perhaps the most colorful story for a girl who grew up far removed from her food.

The WHR farm is a Grade-A raw goat milk producer. The pasteurization and homogenization process that milk from a supermarket goes through means that it loses a lot of valuable enzymes and proteins as well as a lot of its flavor.  Raw milk, on the other hand, is incredibly fresh–I was astounded that it took only about an hour from milking to lining up the bottles in the fridge, ready for sale.
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The family farm has been a vital image in the American consciousness for centuries. The thought of a rural barn raising creates a picture of community spirit. Many American farm families can look at their barns as links to the past. A barn raising shows the strength of a community in more than riches. These old barns are community landmarks and make the past, the present.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, barns were essential structures for the farm. They stored the hay and housed the horses and cattle, which were an inseparable part of farming. The barn was usually the first structure to be built when a family moved to a new area and it was also the largest and most expensive. The community would get together and help build the barn so that the family could start their farm and the community could prosper.
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