The Owner Built Home & Homestead
(Page 15 of 15)
I propose, next, a descriptive evaluation of sensible
techniques and routines of productive homesteading.
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The tragedy of the homestead movement is having
enthusiastic but ill-prepared people attempt a life on the
land. To start with, the land they choose may not be
adapted to the type of gardening or animal production they
have in mind: They may innocently choose wrong soil and
fertilizer types, insufficient or inefficient irrigation
systems, inappropriate shelter forms, wrong tools and
equipment. Efficient home production requires a concise
what-to-do and how-to-do-it program.
At least in one small way a homesteader competes with his
commercial farm neighbor, and yet how can a
homesteader-come-lately ever expect to be as knowledgeable
and efficient in his production as a full-time life-long
experienced farmer? It is possible. He may be even more
effective and advanced. Through proper design and planning
practices, and through work simplification, an
inexperienced homesteader can become more
efficient in living and livelihood than a
commercial farmer.
For one thing, today's ordinary farming practices are
miserably inefficient and wasteful. The most
famous study on this subject was made by Dr. Carter at the
Vermont Experiment Station in 1943. For 4 months he studied
the work practices of a 22-herd dairy farmer. Then with an
investment of $50—which went mostly for a
rearrangement of stables, tools and supplies—Carter
reduced chore-time from 5 hours to 3 hours a day. Daily
walking distance was reduced from 3 miles to 1 mile. In
total, 760 man-hours and 730 miles of walking were saved in
one year. This Vermont study should encourage the
prospective homesteader with an awareness of how his own
food production program can be arranged with minimal chore
labor and maximal personal satisfaction.
Yet I would not wish to close this Introduction by giving
the impression that one develops a homestead merely through
knowledge and efficient effort. In reality, the
design-development concept must be regained rather
than acquired. A first lesson of Zen tells us
more: The concept can be regained only by allowing
things to happen. In a very real sense the homestead
that I intend to present is an ecological
happening. Your brainy body is only one little
organism in the big natural and social world. It cannot
command, but it can, indeed, promote harmonious
and creative adjustment.
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