The Wisdom of Helen and Scott
Knowledgeable couple benevolently dispense their wisdom on dividing chores, keeping unwanted visitors from disturbing the home and which tools are most helpful to the beginning homesteader.
March/April 1981
By the Mother Earth News editors
As we've noted several times in these pages, Helen and Scott Nearing are light years ahead of most of us when it comes to getting back to the land and living a life of voluntary simplicity. As well they should be, since they originally homesteaded a run-down farm in Vermont's Green Mountains away back in the autumn of 1932.
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Life was good for the Nearings on that mini-farm . . . until the slopes around them exploded into ski resorts in the early 50's, forcing Helen and Scott to move on to a rocky inlet on the coast of Maine and start all over again.
And that's where you'll find the Nearings today: still clearing brush, still building honest stone houses (Helen and Scott are famous for their stone houses), and still raising most of their vegetarian diet themselves in unbelievably productive wholistic gardens . . . just as they've been doing for nearly 50 years.
Naturally (in more ways than one), the Nearings have learned a few things about homesteading and getting back to basics over the years. And, lucky for all of us, they've agreed to share some of that knowledge with MOTHER's readers in a regular question and answer column. If you'd like to get in on the action, send your question or questions about self-sufficient living on the land to Helen and Scott Nearing, THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS®, P. O. Box 70, Hendersonville,N.C. 28791. And please don't expect personal replies to your queries. The most important and most frequently asked questions will be answered here — and here only — where we all can read what the Nearings have to say.
Now that my husband and I have settled into the. "country life", we've discovered — as I'm sure you did — that there are numerous chores that have to be done on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. How did you two go about dividing up your workload?
Speaking generally, the matters which pertain particularly to the house and household are dealt with by Helen, while those involving farm maintenance and the outdoors are handled by Scott.
We are just finishing the building of a stone wall around our new 50-foot-square garden. The wall is a foot thick, extends about three to four feet underground, and is five feet high. Its construction has taken us both a couple of years of parttime work.
Road building and repair are also shared projects. We garden together, too, but the planning and main work is done by Scott. He also takes care of the whole "wood problem" (we cook and heat with wood), which involves cutting, sawing, chopping, splitting, and stacking . . . as well as keeping the woodboxes full and the fires burning.
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