How the Mother Earth News Ruined My Life By Makin' Me Successful, Famous and Rich

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But perhaps even the editors of MOTHER failed to realize just how many of the magazine's readers would be galvanized into action by that article. By the end of September, we were 3,000 units back ordered . . . and the calls and letters were still coming in.

This response was really an eye-opener for us. Here at Taos Equipment we had known that THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS encourages people to develop simpler, backto-basics, planet-oriented ways of life. We had not realized, however, just how well MOTHER has done her job. But take our word for it, we know now! There are literally hundreds of thousands of dedicated MOTHER readers out there who have made a commitment to the oldtime values of selfsufficiency, doing more with less, and living lighter on the earth (heating with wood, for instance, instead of with electricity, gas, or oil).

We had known, of course, that a $199 device capable of splitting out $75 worth of wood an hour on less than a dollar's worth of gasoline could be of tremendous help to anyone (especially if he or she didn't have the strength or stamina of a north woods lumberjack) trying to provide him or her self with a renewable source of fuel. It's just that we didn't know how many of you there are out there. MOTHER certainly showed us and helped us find each other.

AND OUR LIVES WERE CHANGED FOREVER

By the time we began to realize the true extent of the demand for our product, we had already run head-on into the major complication that has accompanied that demand: namely, our location in a distinctly non-industrial area. I have since learned that this is a very common problem among backwoods tinkerers who develop good energy-related hardware. But in our case, the complications have been even worse than usual.

Taos, New Mexico is a remote, 7,000foothigh mountain town of about 3,000 distinctly non-industrial people. It's one of the worst places in the country to try to produce a steel product, simply because the flow of materials is so difficult to arrange. This has been the case for centuries. An ancient Mesopotamian design for a wooden door hinge (known as a pintle), for instance, still survives in this region simply because of the extreme difficulty and expense of bringing in any iron products right up to the last century. The 19thcentury wills of wealthy Taos residents sometimes even divided bars of iron among heirs, because of its local rarity and value.

We sometimes feel that this traditional situation hasn't changed much. Especially when lost Texas truck drivers (hauling longawaited loads of steel) call from distant locations to ask, "Where the hell are y'all at up there?"

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