Successful Swaps

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Our truck has been important in several trades, like the time we brought home over 150 tires iii exchange for hauling the lot of them away. Though well worn, these automotive castoffs have found their way onto hay wagons and farm trucks throughout the area. We can also count on having plenty of retreads for worn shoe soles, and maybe even a new roof (as shown in MOTHER N0. 41). Then we had a chance to bring home a turndown chimney. We'll soon have a pad of 100-year-old bricks beneath our stove, and plenty of fill for the driveway.

The vigorous interchange that goes on around here is really viewed as sharing. After all, isn't that what swapping's all about?

Bob & Robin Fillhart
Adams, N.Y.

The first time I tried "barterin" I was flat broke and working in the date palm groves of the California desert. I sure wasn't hurting for foodI had all I could eat of the finest organic dates, pecans, pink grapefruits, tangerines, etc. (it was a raw food eater's paradise!)but I still got kind of hungry for a little variety in my daily meals.

Wouldn't you know that every dinnertime the Mexican workers sizzled up some kind of mouthwatering, appetite-stirring meal? Of course they offered to share their food, but since they were even poorer than I was I maintained my raw regimen.

Then one evening, while taking a sunset stroll, I discovered a nearby tomato farm. The following nightfall, I presented myself to the owner with a big sack full of surplus dates, nuts, and assorted citrus fruits . . . and came wobbling away with a couple of crates full of fat reds.

I could never have eaten all them 'maters alone, and when the Mexicans saw my juicy beauties their eyes lit up. They gladly swapped enough tortillas, eggs, cheese, onions, and other fixin's to provide me with many of those savory, south-of-the-border meals I'd been acravin'.

Robert Harris
Kilchberg, Switzerland

Every year we receive a bountiful harvest from our walnut and fruit orchard, and some of it we sell to stores and whoever, but we really prefer to barter our homegrown goodies.

We've traded walnuts for such diverse things as pottery, blueberries, and quartz crystal, and friends of ours have exchanged their nuts for a sit in the dentist's chair!

Our apples and cherries have brought us a multitude of valuable goods . . . even yummy meals in natural food restaurants.

But our first real experience with big bartering came at the end of last summer, when we held the "Barter Bazaar" on our farm. We sent out flyers in advance, and people came from miles around to set up their booths and trade ducks, geese, chickens, pottery, clothing, jewelry, vitamins, herbs . . . just about anything you can imagine. It went on for two days, with a potluck meal the first evening. The whole thing was great, and the bazaar was a hit.

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