Focusing on Love and the Spiritual Side of Life

Here at Self Sufficient Farm Living we are busy making prepartions for the winter. There are so many things to accomplish before the cold sets in and it time just runs out.

Reality Check Time! I'm not alone. Read Andrea's article below and see if you or someone you know can relate. Times are hard and Andrea has a heart felt message for us all to hear.

Don't forget to leave your comments.

In this issue:

Quotes for the Month

Recommended Resource of the Week: The Winter Harvest Handbook

Article: Focusing on love and the spiritual side of life, by Andrea Weatherford

Book Review The Complete Root Cellar Book: Building Plans, Uses and 100 Recipes by Steve Maxwell,

Quotes for the Month

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. - The Dalai Lama

If you treat a sick child as an adult and a sick adult as a child, it usually works out pretty well. - Black Hawk

Reflective thinking turns experience into insight. - John Maxwell

There is no security in life. There is only opportunity. - Douglas MacArthur

Recommended Resource of the Month:

The Winter Harvest Handbook

Choosing locally grown organic food is a sustainable living trend that's taken hold throughout North America. Celebrated farming expert Eliot Coleman helped start this movement with The New Organic Grower published 20 years ago. He continues to lead the way, pushing the limits of the harvest season while working his world-renowned organic farm in Harborside, Maine.

Now, with his long-awaited new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters. Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this new book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses. Coleman offer

Article: Focusing on love and the spiritual side of life, by Andrea Weatherford

Surely I’m not the only one to notice that the whole world seems to be going crazy. It’s almost as if Mother Nature’s extremes are trying to spew everyone off of her sacred ground. And who can blame her? The human race has lost respect for each other and all of God’s wondrous creations. It’s frightening , depressing and totally ridiculous.

Times are hard! There’s no doubt about it. Money is tight, an understatement, and jobs are scarce. The middle class are struggling to keep food on the table and to afford any kind of health care. I personally have experienced the “no health insurance, no money; doctor say you’re gonna die” saga.

In the midst of such poverty and despair more people are turning to meanness and dishonesty, violence and theft. Murdering an innocent woman for a credit card!? Ripping a gold chain from a blind woman’s neck as she makes her way down the street with her Seeing Eye dog!? What has become of our once proud Nation?

Do the “powers that be” even care? I could support my household for a month on one evening at a restaurant enjoyed by our Congressmen. Luckily for them the rest of us are working to support our families that we haven’t the time to start a revolution.

I say it’s time for a reality show that places our politicians on a monthly salary of $2,000, set their mortgage payment at $500 monthly, a car payment at $300 and see how the do budgeting the rest to include groceries, health insurance, utilities and possible a cell phone. Good luck! Lord forbid should their child need braces, the refrigerator quits working or the need new tires on their car so that the can drive to work safely. Having any kind of health problem would be out of the equation. Stretching a dollar until it screams should be rewarded with a free tank of ga-that little prize might allow them to have beef or bacon on their shopping list.

In order for middle class America to hold on to their pride, their sanity and even ones integrity we need to make a pact to love one another. We have to stick together; help each other-not just in the aftermath of a major tornado, flood or earthquake, but always.

Now more than ever the help and support of our families and friends is crucial, and those who are not fortunate enough to have the support of loved ones need our love and support. Random acts of kindness need to be put into action and will go further than they ever have. We need to “give up our last dime” and “share our last loaf of bread”. People in the country are starving! Suicide rates are high where no hope is in sight.

Sadly there will always be mean people who have no heart and no morals. Sadly there will always be lazy people who will make a career of milking the welfare system instead of trying to work to earn a hard days’ pay. I feel that the majority are folks making a genuine effort to make ends meet, to comfortable support their families, but in the hard times many are faced with a feeling of hopelessness as the struggle, wondering if things will ever get better.

I say things CAN be better and it won’t be due to any change in the economy or from some miracle on Wall Street. Perhaps the first change will come from love, love for one another. Whatever happened to the value of treating others as you would have them treat you? Maybe it’s time we put more faith in what Mother Nature and the Creator are trying to tell us instead of those on Capitol Hill.

Book Review:

The Complete Root Cellar Book: Building Plans, Uses and 100 Recipes by Steve Maxwell, Jennifer MacKenzie and Len Churchill (Apr 1, 2010)

The Complete Root Cellar Book This review is from: The Complete Root Cellar Book: Building Plans, Uses and 100 Recipes (Paperback) I was very excited to see this book's description. We have in recent years begun growing many of our own vegetables and have explored traditional means of preserving the food we grow, including canning and dehydrating. Many of the folks living in our valley live off-grid and many more are trying to use less electricity. We have wanted root cellars to help us preserve the harvest, but with our very high ground water (no basements!), we have been unsuccessful. Then I saw in the review for this book, which promised "never-before-seen models for apartment and condo dwellers and home owners without a basement." Perfect, I thought, and attempted to research the author and his methods prior to ordering the book. Finding nothing, I went ahead and ordered. When the book came, I discovered the author's non-basement models use electricity. I already have a fridge!

There are tons of plans for root cellars on the web and in other books. What made this book unique was its promise of models for home owners without a basement. I think many folks who buy this book will be disappointed to find out that the "new model" root cellar is just a version of what they already have in the bottom of their refrigerator.

Projects and Research

Solutions for Science has a Solar Panel Generator that will power your refrigerator and most household functions for a very reasonable price. Let’s face it, most of us don’t have enough money to get totally off the grid. This could be one solution. Check out this video and let me know what you think.

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