This space is here for sharing information about small scale farming, self-sufficiency, ecological living, tribes/communities etc....
As food, and everything else, is becoming more expensive, there is coming about a great renaissance of gardening for self-sufficiency. People find that they are saving a significant part of their salaries by doing it, that their food tastes better and does them more good, and that their children are healthier. They themselves benefit from some hard work in the fresh air, and from being involved in the benign cycle of the seasons and with the satisfying process of helping nature create beautiful and nourishing food out of what is apparently nothing...
John Seymour - The Self-Sufficient Gardener -1978
As food, and everything else, is becoming more expensive, there is coming about a great renaissance of gardening for self-sufficiency. People find that they are saving a significant part of their salaries by doing it, that their food tastes better and does them more good, and that their children are healthier. They themselves benefit from some hard work in the fresh air, and from being involved in the benign cycle of the seasons and with the satisfying process of helping nature create beautiful and nourishing food out of what is apparently nothing...
John Seymour - The Self-Sufficient Gardener -1978
Come fare il sapone in casa, ottimo sito in Italiano: http://sapone.ilbello.com/
Il formaggio casalingo http://www.formaggio.it/casalingo.htm
An awesome forum about family cows http://familycow.proboards.com/
The method of natural beekeeping we are experimenting now we found from this site
The Barefoot Beekeepers www.biobees.com/
..And another interesting beekeeping method
http://www.rosebeehives.com/index.html
Masanobu Fukuoka - The one straw revolution
http://www.onestrawrevolution.net
"As it was expected that Fukuoka would inherit the family farm, his father sent him for higher education to Gifu Agricultural College, near Nagoya, on the main island of Honshu. Gifu was a three-year state college where students learned modern techniques for largescale farming.
In its laboratory perched on top of a hill overlooking the city's port, Fukuoka studied diseases, fungi, and pests found on imported fruits and plants, spending his time, as he later recalled, "in amazement at the world of nature revealed through the eyepiece of the microscope."
In his third year at Yokohama, however, he was struck down by acute pneumonia, or incipient tuberculosis. Hospitalized, he was subjected to wintry-cold air as part of his treatment. His friends avoided him, fearing contagion. Even the nurses fled after taking his temperature because the room was so cold. Sick and lonely, Fukuoka feared for his life. He was twenty-five.
When he finally recovered and returned to work, Fukuoka remained distracted by his harrowing brush with death and he began brooding obsessively about life and what it was meant to be. One night during a long solitary walk on the hill overlooking Yokohama he approached the edge of a cliff. Looking down, he wondered what would happen if he fell from the cliff and died. Surely his mother would cry for him, but who else? Overcome by realization of his failure to acquire five true friends, he collapsed into a deep sleep at the foot of an elm tree.
He awoke at dawn to the cry of a heron. He watched the sun break through the morning mist. Birds sang. At this moment Fukuoka had a revelation: "In this world there is nothing at all." There was no reason to worry about life. As he wrote later, he suddenly understood that "all the concepts to which he had been clinging were empty fabrications. All his agonies disappeared like dreams and illusions, a something one might call 'true nature' stood revealed."
Fukuoka embarked immediately upon a new life. The next day quit his job and set off gaily on an aimless journey. He wandered the sea, to Tokyo, to Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto, and finally to the southern island of Kyushu. For months — he himself doesn't know how many — he lived on his severance pay and the generosity of others he jubilantly broadcast his newfound belief that "everything is meaningless." But people dismissed him as an eccentric and he fine went home and retreated to a simple hut on the mountainside. He entrusted with his father's richly-bearing citrus grove, he beg putting his revelation to a practical test — by doing nothing!
Convinced that everything should be allowed to take its natural course, Fukuoka left the meticulously pruned fruit trees to nature. He then watched as insects attacked, branches interlocked, and orchard began withering away.
His father's decimated grove provided Fukuoka his first important lesson in natural farming: you cannot change agricultural techniques abruptly — trees that have been cultivated cannot adapt to neglect.
...What he had learned from his earlier farming experience was that no area, once cultivated, was natural. Orchards were quite unnatural. And trees accustomed to pruning would not fruit well with the sudden withdrawal of pruning care. From this, Fukuoka realized that to grow food by "doing nothing" would require a framework of effort. His task? To create a food-producing environment that diverged as little possible from what he considered a natural one.
To learn how to accomplish this, Fukuoka says, "I just emptied my mind and tried to absorb what I could from nature." For the next few years, therefore, he observed which plants and animals lived naturally on his small piece of earth. He scattered fruit, vegetable and tree seeds randomly and watched as some of them rooted a thrived while others died. Proceeding by trial and error, he farmed the land passively. Instead of asking, "how about doing this?" asked, "how about not doing this?" Over the years, his original insight about natural farming was borne out. As a more natural ecology was re-established, the less he did, the better the land respond This is why his Four Principles of Natural Farming, as he eventually summarized his experience, compose a list of things not to do.
» The earth cultivates itself, observed Fukuoka. There is no need for man to do what roots, worms, and micro-organisms do better. Furthermore, plowing the soil alters the natural environment and promotes the growth of weeds. Therefore, his first principle is: No plowing or turning of the soil.
» Secondly, in an unaltered natural environment the orderly growth and decay of plant and animal life fertilizes the soil without any help from man. Fertility depletion occurs only when the original growth is eliminated in favor of soil-exhausting food crops or grasses to feed cattle. Adding chemical fertilizers helps the growing crop but not the soil, which continues to deteriorate. Even compost and chicken dung cannot improve on nature, he concluded; moreover, chicken dung can cause the disease rice blast. Therefore Fukuoka's second principle is: No chemical fertilizers or prepared compost. Instead he promotes cover crops like clover and alfalfa which natural fertilizers.
» Weed is everywhere the enemy of the farmer. Yet Fukuoka observed that when he ceased plowing, his weed population declined sharply. This occurred because plowing actually stirs deep-lying weed seeds and gives them a chance to sprout. Tillage therefore not the answer to weeds. Nor are chemical herbicides, which disrupt nature's balance and leave poisons in the earth and water. There is a simpler way. To begin with, weeds need not be wholly eliminated; they can be successfully suppressed by spreading straw over freshly sown ground and by planting ground cover. Eliminating intervals between one crop and another through carefully timed seeding is essential. No weeding by tillage or herbicides is Fukuoka’s third principle.
» Finally, what to do about pests and blights? As Fukuoka’s grain fields and orchards came more and more to resemble a natural ecology — with the proliferation of plant varieties growing all ajumble — they also created a nature-like habitat for small animals. In such a habitat, Fukuoka noted that nature's own balancing act prevented any one species from gaining the upper hand: snakes eat the frogs which eat the bugs, and so on. Furthermore, insect infestations and diseases attack the weakest plants, leaving the strong to fruit more abundantly. (A blight-reduced rice field, he says, may actually yield larger quantities of grain than one left untouched.) Although chemical solutions can be effective against pests and plant diseases in the short run, in the long run they are hazardous. Wholly aside from the pollution they leave behind, they permit weak, chemical-dependent plants to survive. Left to itself, nature prefers hardier stock. Fukuoka’s fourth principle is: No dependence on chemical pesticides.
Although Fukuoka has continually refined his farming techniques over the years, he remains fundamentally inspired by his youthful insight into the futility of man's endeavor. Nature is the true perfectionist, he says. It best provides for man's survival. But man's intellect has distorted his wisdom. Modern science, along with industry and government, is leading man further and further away from nature.
Viewing the the world from the serene, prolific bounty of his farm, sage-like Fukuoka wavers between despair and hope. Perhaps the degradation of the earth is beyond repair; he often thinks so. Even if it is not, he recognizes, "the changeover to natural farming involves a sweeping Copernican transformation. It is not something that can be accomplished overnight."
Source: The Ramon Magsaysay Award Fourndation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We used this method for tanning our first two sheep skins, and they came out fine
http://www.rivercottage.net/forum/ask/processing-and-other-crafts/25881how-to-curetaw-a-sheepskin/
..And here's how to make the washing soda for it, and many more interesting information
http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2011/01/homemade-washing-soda.html
Global ecovillage network
http://gen-europe.org
Il formaggio casalingo http://www.formaggio.it/casalingo.htm
An awesome forum about family cows http://familycow.proboards.com/
The method of natural beekeeping we are experimenting now we found from this site
The Barefoot Beekeepers www.biobees.com/
..And another interesting beekeeping method
http://www.rosebeehives.com/index.html
Masanobu Fukuoka - The one straw revolution
http://www.onestrawrevolution.net
"As it was expected that Fukuoka would inherit the family farm, his father sent him for higher education to Gifu Agricultural College, near Nagoya, on the main island of Honshu. Gifu was a three-year state college where students learned modern techniques for largescale farming.
In its laboratory perched on top of a hill overlooking the city's port, Fukuoka studied diseases, fungi, and pests found on imported fruits and plants, spending his time, as he later recalled, "in amazement at the world of nature revealed through the eyepiece of the microscope."
In his third year at Yokohama, however, he was struck down by acute pneumonia, or incipient tuberculosis. Hospitalized, he was subjected to wintry-cold air as part of his treatment. His friends avoided him, fearing contagion. Even the nurses fled after taking his temperature because the room was so cold. Sick and lonely, Fukuoka feared for his life. He was twenty-five.
When he finally recovered and returned to work, Fukuoka remained distracted by his harrowing brush with death and he began brooding obsessively about life and what it was meant to be. One night during a long solitary walk on the hill overlooking Yokohama he approached the edge of a cliff. Looking down, he wondered what would happen if he fell from the cliff and died. Surely his mother would cry for him, but who else? Overcome by realization of his failure to acquire five true friends, he collapsed into a deep sleep at the foot of an elm tree.
He awoke at dawn to the cry of a heron. He watched the sun break through the morning mist. Birds sang. At this moment Fukuoka had a revelation: "In this world there is nothing at all." There was no reason to worry about life. As he wrote later, he suddenly understood that "all the concepts to which he had been clinging were empty fabrications. All his agonies disappeared like dreams and illusions, a something one might call 'true nature' stood revealed."
Fukuoka embarked immediately upon a new life. The next day quit his job and set off gaily on an aimless journey. He wandered the sea, to Tokyo, to Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto, and finally to the southern island of Kyushu. For months — he himself doesn't know how many — he lived on his severance pay and the generosity of others he jubilantly broadcast his newfound belief that "everything is meaningless." But people dismissed him as an eccentric and he fine went home and retreated to a simple hut on the mountainside. He entrusted with his father's richly-bearing citrus grove, he beg putting his revelation to a practical test — by doing nothing!
Convinced that everything should be allowed to take its natural course, Fukuoka left the meticulously pruned fruit trees to nature. He then watched as insects attacked, branches interlocked, and orchard began withering away.
His father's decimated grove provided Fukuoka his first important lesson in natural farming: you cannot change agricultural techniques abruptly — trees that have been cultivated cannot adapt to neglect.
...What he had learned from his earlier farming experience was that no area, once cultivated, was natural. Orchards were quite unnatural. And trees accustomed to pruning would not fruit well with the sudden withdrawal of pruning care. From this, Fukuoka realized that to grow food by "doing nothing" would require a framework of effort. His task? To create a food-producing environment that diverged as little possible from what he considered a natural one.
To learn how to accomplish this, Fukuoka says, "I just emptied my mind and tried to absorb what I could from nature." For the next few years, therefore, he observed which plants and animals lived naturally on his small piece of earth. He scattered fruit, vegetable and tree seeds randomly and watched as some of them rooted a thrived while others died. Proceeding by trial and error, he farmed the land passively. Instead of asking, "how about doing this?" asked, "how about not doing this?" Over the years, his original insight about natural farming was borne out. As a more natural ecology was re-established, the less he did, the better the land respond This is why his Four Principles of Natural Farming, as he eventually summarized his experience, compose a list of things not to do.
» The earth cultivates itself, observed Fukuoka. There is no need for man to do what roots, worms, and micro-organisms do better. Furthermore, plowing the soil alters the natural environment and promotes the growth of weeds. Therefore, his first principle is: No plowing or turning of the soil.
» Secondly, in an unaltered natural environment the orderly growth and decay of plant and animal life fertilizes the soil without any help from man. Fertility depletion occurs only when the original growth is eliminated in favor of soil-exhausting food crops or grasses to feed cattle. Adding chemical fertilizers helps the growing crop but not the soil, which continues to deteriorate. Even compost and chicken dung cannot improve on nature, he concluded; moreover, chicken dung can cause the disease rice blast. Therefore Fukuoka's second principle is: No chemical fertilizers or prepared compost. Instead he promotes cover crops like clover and alfalfa which natural fertilizers.
» Weed is everywhere the enemy of the farmer. Yet Fukuoka observed that when he ceased plowing, his weed population declined sharply. This occurred because plowing actually stirs deep-lying weed seeds and gives them a chance to sprout. Tillage therefore not the answer to weeds. Nor are chemical herbicides, which disrupt nature's balance and leave poisons in the earth and water. There is a simpler way. To begin with, weeds need not be wholly eliminated; they can be successfully suppressed by spreading straw over freshly sown ground and by planting ground cover. Eliminating intervals between one crop and another through carefully timed seeding is essential. No weeding by tillage or herbicides is Fukuoka’s third principle.
» Finally, what to do about pests and blights? As Fukuoka’s grain fields and orchards came more and more to resemble a natural ecology — with the proliferation of plant varieties growing all ajumble — they also created a nature-like habitat for small animals. In such a habitat, Fukuoka noted that nature's own balancing act prevented any one species from gaining the upper hand: snakes eat the frogs which eat the bugs, and so on. Furthermore, insect infestations and diseases attack the weakest plants, leaving the strong to fruit more abundantly. (A blight-reduced rice field, he says, may actually yield larger quantities of grain than one left untouched.) Although chemical solutions can be effective against pests and plant diseases in the short run, in the long run they are hazardous. Wholly aside from the pollution they leave behind, they permit weak, chemical-dependent plants to survive. Left to itself, nature prefers hardier stock. Fukuoka’s fourth principle is: No dependence on chemical pesticides.
Although Fukuoka has continually refined his farming techniques over the years, he remains fundamentally inspired by his youthful insight into the futility of man's endeavor. Nature is the true perfectionist, he says. It best provides for man's survival. But man's intellect has distorted his wisdom. Modern science, along with industry and government, is leading man further and further away from nature.
Viewing the the world from the serene, prolific bounty of his farm, sage-like Fukuoka wavers between despair and hope. Perhaps the degradation of the earth is beyond repair; he often thinks so. Even if it is not, he recognizes, "the changeover to natural farming involves a sweeping Copernican transformation. It is not something that can be accomplished overnight."
Source: The Ramon Magsaysay Award Fourndation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We used this method for tanning our first two sheep skins, and they came out fine
http://www.rivercottage.net/forum/ask/processing-and-other-crafts/25881how-to-curetaw-a-sheepskin/
..And here's how to make the washing soda for it, and many more interesting information
http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2011/01/homemade-washing-soda.html
Global ecovillage network
http://gen-europe.org