After reading the latest issue of MENS ( actually haven't picked up a new issue in ages) I read about John Vivian, writer of the The Manual of Practical Homesteading Manual from the 70's. He has had a stroke and is in need of being in our prayers and thoughts. I used this book like a "bible" back in the beginning days of our Homesteading Adventures". Actually took it with me in the woods the first year we tapped our maple trees for sap !! I know many of you have followed him through the years also. Maybe this is one issue that some of you might want to pick up from the newstands this month. Not too bad....do they have a new editor or something ?? But please remember John Vivian for without him many of us might not have found the homesteading life and succeeded.

-- Helena Di Maio (windyacs@ptdprolog.net), July 23, 2001

Answers

Response to John Vivian

I too owe a huge debt of gratitude to John Vivian. "The Manual of Practical Homesteading" was the very first homesteading book I ever read and before that I never even knew homesteading existed! I thought homesteading was long gone with the pioneers and everyone nowadays who lived in the country and had a garden and animals were "farmers". I never knew you could be self-sufficient in today's world. I was very intrigued!

That was back in the late '70's and we were living in New York city. We had just moved from Toledo, Ohio due to my husband being transferred and I was still in culture shot from that! I told my husband about what I had read and that this might be something we would want to think about some day.....he was sure I had some kind of breakdown from the relocation! Somehow...and neither one of us even recalls how or why....he got glancing through the book and also became very intrigued.

It took us another 10 years and 2 more transfers and lots of "we're going to do it....nope...maybe next year" to finally say the heck with it all and get our homestead. Everyone thought we had lost our minds, including our families -- even our children cried because we were moving to the country and going to grow our own food, raise animals, and...holy shmoley!!...bull sh_t is a real thing!!!

John Vivian's book was under my arm in EVERYTHING we did! I didn't know Countryside existed at the time and when I found it a whole new world opened up for us!!! Our homesteading was the happiest, free- ist, and most content I had ever been in my life. It was a sense of doing what God had created people to do -- living on the land. Hey, what is the oldest profession in the world? Adam was a farmer and Eve was a farmer's wife!

As most of you know, we ended up having to come back to city life after the children were grown due to a family illness, but we are moving to our new homestead in less than a week! We are so excited and in the interim we had a late-in-life baby and he is now 5 yrs old and just can't wait! As he says, "there lots of places for a boy to play there"!!!

So, John..if you happen to be a reader of the forum...thank you for changing our lives and our hopes and prayers for a speedy recovery!

You want to know a funny thing??? We have no idea where that book came from. It was in a box of books that we unpacked when we got to NY. I didn't have before then...and that is the honest truth!

-- Karen - soon to be in western VA (db0421@yahoo.com), July 24, 2001.

Response to John Vivian

TMEN was recently sold so you can expect some changes with new ownership.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), July 24, 2001.

Sooooo sad to hear that about John! His dog-eared book is in my personal library, too, right next to jd's; always using them as a reference. Except for his opinion that there is no use for a cat on a homestead... duh!... I've gleaned loads of info from his wisdom. Will keep him in my thoughts. dh in nm

-- debra in nm (dhaden@nmtr.unm.edu), July 25, 2001.

I too loved his first book and followed it re: chixs, and bees etc. I have occassional read Mother Earth and have tried to find more info on John Vivian. I know he moved from the original homestead. What did he do thereafter, I mean other than being a roaming writer. He is in my prayers too.

-- Debbie (bwolcott@cwis.net), July 25, 2001.