July Newsletter

Spiritual Goal: Seek out a family history specialist and learn how to use New Family Search. Spend a little or a lot of time in this pursuit depending on your time of life, but do pursue it a little bit each week.

Physical Goal: Continue...Are you getting 8 hours of sleep, drinking plenty of water, eating vegetables, counting your blessings, and adopting an optimistic attitude? All these things affect physical health and stamina. Study the Word of Wisdom and align your lifestyle to it. Make a goal to eat healthier: less sweets, more fresh fruits and veggies, less meat and animal products, more fiber, less soft drinks and juice, more water, less processed food, more home cooked meals.

Financial Goal: Make a goal to have 6 months expenses in savings for emergencies. Write out a realistic, long-term plan to make it happen.

Provident Living Goal: Your garden should be producing full tilt until first frost, where cover and winter crops will continue until next April. Continue succession planting until just before frost. Begin canning/dehydrating excess. “Ye Latter-day Saints, learn to sustain yourselves, produce everything you need to eat, drink or wear…” President Brigham Young

Storage Goal: 2 lbs. honey and/or maple syrup per person,10- #10 cans dehydrated vegetables per person, 2 toothbrushes, floss, and paste per person, Infant supplies “[They] reserved for themselves provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years, in the which time they did hope to destroy the robbers from off the face of the land …” 3 Nephi 4:4. Even the Nephites were commanded to have home storage, but they were to store a 7-year supply.

Emergency Kit Goal:: Paper and pencils, Mosquito repellent, $25 cash, Sleeping bags moved to easily accessible place, miniature entertainment: travel games, dolls and balls, books, cards, coloring books, crayons, butane fuel

Pantry Box Goal: indoor/outdoor butane stove

Improve Self-Sufficiency: On the southern Japanese island of Shikoku, Masanobu Fukuoka began his career as an agricultural Customs Official with degrees in microbiology and plant pathology. Because he didn’t like what he saw, he left government employment and bought a farm to raise rice, winter grain, and citrus crops, using the sustainable mulch practices. He experimented and failed and experimented again until he found success. While his yields consistently surpassed those of his neighbors for over 50 years without tilling, other labor-intensive practices, or chemical-dependent methods, Fukuoka’s system completely contradicted modern agricultural techniques, negated scientific ‘knowledge,’ and opposed traditional farming know-how.

A deep mulch system without several large shade trees takes some ingenuity. In fall traveling up and down the streets in search of bags of leaves is sort of a pain. Buying hay and straw at the feed store is pricey. Growing mulch to grow the soil, as did Masanobu Fukuoka, is the answer. Between the beginning of August and mid September in zone 6, plant hull-less oats, alfalfa, and Austrian winter peas. Since these things are planted to feed the soil and not the humans, it is good that they winter-kill in a cold climate. They leave nice mulch to rake back and plant ala Ruth Stout. Decomposing all summer, deep mulch placed last fall or spring is mostly compost. Pull back what is left of the mulch; spread seeds thickly around plants and directly on top of bare soil. Replace mulch lightly on top, fluffing it up a bit. When garden plants are spent, cut down and chop into pieces or leave them standing where they are. If you have lots of trees, mow up the leaves and spread them in between the now tallish hull-less oats, alfalfa, and Austrian winter peas. The leaves are not essential but are a nice addition. In the spring, all the now dead plants make a great mulch. Mow or cut and begin spring planting.

Another bonus of the deep mulch system is the elimination of the compost pile, with all its backbreaking work. When working in the kitchen, put scraps in a bucket under the sink. After meals add all vegetable matter to the bucket. When the day is over, head out to the garden. Move the mulch aside and put it directly on the soil. Choose a new location each day. Recover the spot with mulch. Composting right in the garden is superior to any other method. Of course, when snow and ice prohibit this, the two garbage can method is preferred. Just outside the kitchen door, place a plastic garbage can. Inside this, put an identical one drilled all over with ½ inch holes. The holes provide drainage and air circulation to eliminate anaerobic (aka smelly) decomposition. Dump your kitchen bucket in this and cover with a lid to hold in moisture. Most things from the kitchen are nitrogen rich or green layers. Since carbon or brown is important too, add shredded brown paper, dried shredded leaves, or sawdust occasionally. Yes, it is still a good idea to collect bags and bags of the neighbor’s leaves. Don’t worry about turning the layers in your two-can system. As things freeze and thaw and freeze and thaw all winter, the scraps will break down. By spring it will be pretty nice compost to use as needed.