I am interested in finding homestead pictures on the web. Either drawings or actual pictures. I want to see how different people are doing things. The kind of pictures I am looking for are ones that give an idea of the general layout of the homestead. I know that it is different for every situation, but I am interested in what others are doing. I have been thinking of posting a picture place for this forum on webshots. what do you all think? Would you be interested in this/

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit farm (littleBit@compworldnet.com), September 27, 2001

Answers

Hello LBF, If you have not already checked out my website, your certainly may. You will find I have photograph nearly every stage of my homestead over the past year or so. Sincerely, Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), September 28, 2001.

Ernest I really enjoyed your website. I went to the site for your community paper. What do you think about these new health department rules? For crying out loud, even in California you can have a Pot Luck. If I lived in Mo., I think I would be down talking to some of my state reps right now! That is insane! I say let the public eat what they want, when they want.

Please pardon my outrage. I come from California and the reason I left is, I don't need a state nanny telling me what I can eat, where I can build, and who I can buy from. Praise the Lord for Oklahoma! We actually seriously considered moving to Mo., but the vote on right to carry pretty much made up our mind permanently. We left California for one reason above all else, Freedom. I am really surprised though that these kind of regs are being tried in Mo.. I do know that Missouri is a beautiful state. California is an extremely beautiful state, but a state loses it's loveliness when there is no freedom. Missouri was actually in our top three states we considered the most free. I am happy with our final choice, but I was actually very interested in Missouri. One thing Joe and I vowed when we left California was that wherever we lived we would stand for freedom even if it meant traveling to the state capital to do so. Tuesday an old law forcing Oklahomans to join a union when one was available, was struck down by a vote of the people. I am proud to say that I was part of the strike force. No one should be forced to support a cause that they do not believe in. Nobody's money should be forced to support political objectives that don't match their moral values. Unions are nothing if they are not loyal to the people who pay them.

Anyway enough of that. I really enjoyed all the pictures. Is this on an intentional community? There were quite a few people's gardens on there. I was just wondering. That chicken Moat I dea, is a really good one. Does it really help with the grasshoppers and such?

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit farm (littleBit@compworldnet.com), September 28, 2001.

LittleBit,

Thanks for sharing the info. on the Unions. Yeah!! I was planning on asking Mom what the outcome was.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), September 28, 2001.

Hello LBF, I don't pay too much attention as to what the local polly ticks are. In fact I did not even read the section in our local paper about what you were talking about. We moved from Florida. My wife and I carried conceal weapons with a permit. Here in Missouri I carry a rifle in my pick up, in a gun rack. No problems. The nearest town is a thirty minute drive away. Population 576. The people in town leave their keys in their cars and trucks and no one dares to steal them. The town has one motorcycle repair shop, Harley Davidson! The local bike club consists of over 100 bikers. Most of them are farm boys or ranchers. The biggest crime here is the manufacturing of metaniphedimines. You can buy the ingredients in the grocery stores and manufacture it in the trunk of your car. This has replaced "moonshining". This has also made it harder to make homemade soap, since lye is one of the ingredients in manufacturing metamiphedimines. This is a region of extremes in human behaviour. It allows all types to live in perfect harmony. We have what you say "regular folk". Then we have eccentric professional writers. We have religious fanatics with stocked piled foods and ammo. We have milita types who are watching the skies for helicopters to spray them with chemicals. We have drug manufuacturers. We have politicians that will drive all the way out into the wilderness just to shake your hand and ask you for your vote. We have coon hunters. We have poachers. We have cowboys and Indians. We have Jehovah Witness's. We have Primitive Baptist. We have Wiccan and Santerias. We have Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and more. We have a mixture of about all of the human conditions, even Californians! But, the one thing we have here is peace and isolation. Its seems like dispite the worlds differences on these groups of people, that we all live together harmonously. Odd but, apparantly the Ozarks (I am talking about the true Ozarks), has emcompassed the best of the simplist things and brought them together with the best of the simplist people. No, there is not intentional community here. What you see is the gardens of a couple of my neighbors that are also members of my website. The thought has crossed our minds about an intentional community but, so far very few people can accept our way of life as their own. When Meli and I came here, after we purchased our land, we cut every tree that needed to be cut ourselves. We cleared the areas for our gardens and chicken moat, toolshed, outhouse and finally our A- frame. We have built everything ourselves. We built the cellar for our A-frame using Scott and Helen Nearings style of slipforming. We used only a wheelbarrow and a borrowed mason's hoe to mix the necessary concrete. We used the natural stones on our land to built with. The house is nearly complete, (exterior) and we will be living in it before wintertime. We built the chicken coup, toolshed, and outhouse out of recycled materials or materials gathered from the forest. We built them first as we have a camper to live in and we wanted to grow vegetables and raise chickens for food as soon as we could. I work for myself. I build childrens furniture and other crafts and sell them on Ebay. I also work in the community as a handyman. Meli makes our quilts, soaps and cans all our harvests. She also raises our daughter Caroline. She sells her soaps occasionally on Ebay. We deliberately sought out a place in these United States to live a simple life. We have discovered that the simplier you live the freer you become. That is why I do not pay any attention to the local polly ticks! Sincerely, Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), September 28, 2001.