ON a sunny Sunday just before the vernal equinox, Rich Ciotola set out to clear a pasture strewn with fallen wood. The just-thawed field was spongy, with grass sprouting under tangled branches. Late March and early April are farm-prep time here in the Berkshires, time to gear up for the growing season. But while many farms were oiling and gassing up tractors, Mr. Ciotola was setting out to prepare a pasture using a tool so old it seems almost revolutionary: a team of oxen.

Standing just inside the paddock at Moon in the Pond Farm, where he works, he put a rope around Lucas and Larson, his pair of Brown Swiss steer. He led them to the 20-pound maple yoke he had bought secondhand from another ox farmer, hoisted it over their necks and led them trundling through the fence so they could begin hauling fallen logs.

Mr. Ciotola, 32, is one of a number of small farmers who are turning — or rather returning — to animal labor to help with farming. Before the humble ox was relegated to the role of historical re-enactor, driven by men in period garb for child-friendly festivals like pioneer days, it was a central beast of burden. After the Civil War, many farms switched from oxen to horses. Although Amish and Mennonite communities continue to use horses, by World War II most draft animals had been supplanted by machines that allowed for ever-faster production on bigger fields.

Now, as diesel prices skyrocket, some farmers who have rejected many of the past century’s advances in agriculture have found a renewed logic in draft power. Partisans argue that animals can be cheaper to board and feed than any tractor. They also run on the ultimate renewable resource: grass.

“Ox don’t need spare parts, and they don’t run on fossil fuels,” Mr. Ciotola said.

Animals are literally lighter on the land than machines.

“A tractor would have left ruts a foot deep in this road,” Mr. Ciotola noted.

In contrast, oxen or horses aerate the soil with their hooves as they go, preserving its fertile microbial layers. And as an added benefit, animals leave behind free fertilizer.

David Fisher, whose Natural Roots Community Supported Agriculture program in Conway, Mass., sells vegetables grown exclusively with horsepower, said he is getting record numbers of applicants for his apprentice program. “There’s an incredible hunger for this kind of education,” he said.

Mr. Fisher discovered farming with horses more than a decade ago as an intern on a farm in Blue Hill, Me. It stuck.

“Using animals is just really appealing to the senses,” he said, adding that he found it philosophically appealing as well. “There’s a deep environmental crisis right now, and live power is also about creating an alternative to petroleum. Grass is a solar powered resource — and you don’t need manufacturing plants or an engineering degree to make a horse go.”

Drew Conroy, a professor of applied animal science at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, who is known in draft-power circles as “the ox guru,” notes that horses and even mules are seeing a comeback. Each animal has its niche.

“Ox are cheap and easy to train but they’re essentially bovine, which is to say, smart but slow,” he said. Horses are faster, more spirited, trickier to train and more expensive to buy and to keep. Professor Conroy notes that mules are better suited to Southern weather. “In the heat, an ox will just stop,” he said.

Even their most ardent supporters concede that draft animals are likely to remain minor features of the rural landscape. For starters, they are cost effective only on small farms. They are also time intensive, performing well only when they can be worked every day, and becoming temperamental when neglected.

On Mr. Ciotola’s first day out with his oxen, he had to struggle with the fact that the long winter had left them rusty. At one point they pulled over and came to a full stop in the bushes. He walked in front of them and tapped them gently.

“They’ve been cooped up all winter, so they get restless,” he said. Indeed, getting Lucas and Larson to go is a much more involved process than turning a key, and even at top speed they are far slower than a tractor. They plod, and Mr. Ciotola must plod along with them.

“You still have to walk nine miles for every planted acre,” said Dick Roosenberg, the founder of Tillers International, a 430-acre farm learning center in Scotts, Mich. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Mr. Roosenberg helped farmers who practiced hand cultivation in third world countries learn about oxen. Eventually, he also taught ox techniques to interpreters at historic communities like Plimouth Plantation.

But now Mr. Roosenberg’s plowing workshops fill with a new demographic: farmers from Wisconsin, Minnesota and even Alaska who hope to use animal power in their fields. Last year, about 320 signed up.

“It’s suddenly not just historic replication, it’s reinvention,” he said. “A new generation wants to do this again, now.”

Oxen are also cheap, at least compared to a tractor, and can work for 10 to 14 years. Since the dairy industry relies on keeping cows pregnant so they lactate, millions of baby bulls are born each year. A pair of calves start at $150 and range up to $1,500, depending on their breed and how much training they have.

Some dairies even give their young males away. Mr. Ciotola got Lucas and Larson, now 2 ½, as wobbly-kneed babies from a nearby raw-milk dairy, bartering for them with his own labor. “I just had to buy or make the yokes and cart,” he said.

Farmers who want to learn the old art of draft power sometimes find their education in odd places. Dominic Palumbo, Moon in the Pond’s owner and chief farmer, learned to plow with an oxen team by way of an intern from Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass., which replicates an 18th-century Shaker community. Mr. Ciotola first learned to work his team from Mr. Palumbo, then later refined his skills by studying a DVD called “Training Oxen,” made in 2003 by Dr. Conroy.

The film is something of a cult classic in the draft-power community, and in sections covering topics from “the yoke” to “stall etiquette,” the movie pictures Dr. Conroy and his partner, Tim Huppe, working with New Hampshire farmers who raise oxen from their cute baby phases through their slightly belligerent adolescence. It also features each of Mr. Huppe’s four daughters leading her own team around the farm.

Interest in ox-farming became so strong that in 2005 Dr. Conroy and Mr. Huppe began hosting three-day workshops at Sanborn Mills Farm in Loudon, N.H.. At first they were surprised to find themselves emerging as minor celebrities on the draft-power circuit. After all, they had learned ox-pulling as teenagers in 4-H clubs at a time when the activity was mostly seen in shows. “It used to be kind of a cultural thing, a county fair thing,” Dr. Conroy said.

But Mr. Huppe, who sells yokes, oxbows, carts, goads and other gear at his store, BerryBrook Ox Supply, in Farmington, N.H., said his clientele is changing.

“It used to be 15 percent small farmers,” he said. “Now the farmers are more like 60 percent.” About his workshops, Mr. Huppe said, “I feel like the Johnny Appleseed of oxen.”

As draft power spreads, a 7,000-year-old technology is being looked at in different ways.. Some young farmers are developing a hybrid practice, using oxen to supplement, rather than replace, tractors. Some use them just to log and plow, while others have their teams haul machines with engines. Even this can be energy efficient.

“If you use animals to pull a motorized hay-baler,” Mr. Roosenberg said, “you can bale hay pretty fast with about one-third the gas.”

Mr. Ciotola, who does not yet own his own land but who makes his living doing jobs at Moon in the Pond and other Berkshire farms, does have a lightweight tractor, a 1949 Farmall Cub that is particularly suited to small acreages. Some of its accessories — the manure spreader, stone rake and disc harrow — can also be fitted to the ox-drawn forecart he bought from Mr. Huppe’s store.

As the spring morning passed, he continued breaking his team into their third season, walking alongside Lucas’s left side, talking softly. About three hours in, after Lucas pulled into the bushes, Mr. Ciotola turned to head out for one more load, and Lucas pulled back toward the paddock. Mr. Ciotola decided to let him go.

“Lucas is always the troublemaker,” he noted, patting the blond steer. “He’s been restless all winter, but then he gets stubborn.”

For Mr. Ciotola, the most challenging aspect of working with his oxen is finding the time it takes to break them in.

“The best pairs need to get worked every day, and that’s hard for me because I have to do other work during the winters,” he said.

Even though Lucas and Larson now stand 5 feet tall and weigh 1,500 pounds each, they are not yet fully grown. Over the next two years, they will each gain 500 pounds and grow two feet. At that point, they will easily be able to pull 4,000 pounds. Mr. Ciotola wants to have them in prime shape for logging, plowing and haying.

After this season’s first expedition, they stood calmly in the dung-scented paddock, rolling their eyes and flicking their tails as Mr. Ciotola brushed them. Larson ambled off to eat some hay.

“Even when it’s tough with them, it’s better than spending a day with a tractor,” he said.

Then again, there was that time when he nearly took a horn to the groin.

“A tractor doesn’t do that either,” he said.

Source: New York Times

Swimming pools are one way of surviving Arizona’s sky-high temperatures, which hit triple digits in a recent uncharacteristically early burst of heat. But Dennis McClung’s pool, in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, has been redesigned into a survivalist refuge of an entirely different sort.

Mr. McClung has installed a subterranean garden in his pool along with a fish pond and chicken coop. The chicken droppings feed the tilapia, which swim in water that is pumped up through the blackberry, cherry tomato, bell pepper and chili plants. The ecosystem is designed to feed his family with minimal trips to the supermarket.

Mr. McClung’s desire to become self-sufficient does not end there. One room of his modest one-story home has been transformed into a storage facility, in case something dire happens in the world outside. He has radiation suits, batteries, bleach to disinfect water, medical supplies, gas masks and a Geiger counter, as well as freeze-dried food.

Mr. McClung, married with two young children, is not certain exactly what he is bracing for, but being ready for the unexpected has become an essential part of his life.

It all began in 1999, when many predicted dire consequences once the year 2000 arrived and computers the world over went haywire. Mr. McClung, who worked at Home Depot at the time, saw firsthand the run on generators, flashlights, tarps and other supplies and vowed to be in position to make a profit the next time anything similar occurred.

That time may be now, as 2012 nears and Mr. McClung and his wife, Danielle, sell survivalist gear on their Web site, 2012Supplies.com, to those who believe the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012 — 12/21/12.

Mr. McClung said he had not decided what to do with the name of his site once, in all likelihood, 2013 arrives without any doomsday predictions playing out. He is already planning his next home-improvement project, though, which involves solar panels on the roof and a water system that captures rainwater and recycled shower water to irrigate fruit trees. He hopes to finish that project by the end of next year.

“I hope 2013 rolls around and everyone laughs at me,” he said. “That would be fantastic.”

Source: New York Times

A devastating earthquake strikes Japan. A massive tsunami kills thousands. Fears of a nuclear meltdown run rampant. Bloodshed and violence escalate in Libya.

And U.S. companies selling doomsday bunkers are seeing sales skyrocket anywhere from 20% to 1,000%.

Northwest Shelter Systems, which offers shelters ranging in price from $200,000 to $20 million, has seen sales surge 70% since the uprisings in the Middle East, with the Japanese earthquake only spurring further interest. In hard numbers, that’s 12 shelters already booked when the company normally sells four shelters per year.

“Sales have gone through the roof, to the point where we are having trouble keeping up,” said Northwest Shelter Systems owner Kevin Thompson.

UndergroundBombShelter.com, which sells portable shelters, bomb shelters and underground bunkers, has seen inquiries soar 400% since the Japanese earthquake. So far sales of its $9,500 nuclear biological chemical shelter tents are at an all-time high — with four sold in California last week, compared to about one a month normally.

Hardened Structures said inquiries have shot up about 20% since the earthquake — particularly for its apocalyptic 2012 shelters, radiation-protection tents, and nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) air filters.

Vivos, a company that sells rooms in 200-person doomsday bunkers, has received thousands of applications since the massive earthquake in Japan, with reservations spiking nearly 1,000% last week. And people are backing their fear with cash: A reservation requires a minimum deposit of $5,000.

“People are afraid of the earth-changing events and ripple effects of the earthquake, which led to tsunamis, the nuclear meltdown, and which will lead to radiation and health concerns,” said Vivos CEO Robert Vicino. “Where it ends, I don’t know. Does it lead to economic collapse? A true economic collapse would lead to anarchy, which could lead to 90% of the population being killed off.”

The last time people flocked to purchase bunkers in such droves was right before the Y2K scare, according to Stephen O’Leary, an associate professor at University of Southern California and an expert on apocalyptic thinking.

“Tens of millions of people believe in a literal apocalypse, which involves earthquakes, storms, disasters of global proportions and especially disasters related to the Middle East,” O’Leary said.

Find the nuke plant nearest to you
But, he added, “Some believe that this is just a turbulent time and they have to go somewhere to ride it out.”

Elan Yadan, a clothing store owner in Los Angeles, is one of the many customers who rushed to find a bunker last week. Yadan secured a spot for his family in a Vivos’ shelter, putting down four deposits totaling $20,000 — $20,000 that had been earmarked for a down payment on a new house.

“I honestly didn’t want to do it, but unfortunately it looks like the worst expectations about the world are starting to come true,” said Yadan, who had been reading about Mayan predictions of a global meltdown in 2012. “With the things happening this week, it’s better to be safe than sorry. And what good is a house if you don’t feel safe?”

Yadan will be riding out any apocalypse in Vivos’ most ambitious project to date. The company has more than five 200-person shelters in the U.S. that are in various stages of construction, but this facility outshines them all.

The bunker, which is being built under the grasslands of Nebraska, is 137,000 square feet — bigger than a Wal-Mart — can house 950 people for up to one year, and can withstand a 50 megaton blast. Once completed, it will boast four levels of individual suites, a medical and dental center, kitchens, bakery, prayer room, computer area, pool tables, pet kennels, a fully stocked wine cellar and a detention center to place anyone who turns violent.

Plus, there will be a fortified 350-foot lookout tower for residents who want to see what’s happening in the outside world.

Once Vivos collects deposits from at least half the number of residents needed to fill the bunker, it will take them on a tour of the near-completed site. At that point, they must pay the rest of the $25,000 reservation fee.

That’s what Yadan intends to do.

“I’m not a psychic but I’m not a scientist either, so I’d rather err on the side of caution — and I’d rather survive and live in a bunker for a year than be wiped out,” he said.

Source: CNN

Most urban farmers confine their agricultural efforts to vegetables, fruit, and the occasional egg-laying chicken. But on her small plot in Oakland, California, Novella Carpenter has raised bees, pigs, goats, rabbits, geese, and turkeys.

A graduate of the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she studied with Michael Pollan, Carpenter now writes about urban farming and sustainable-food production for various publications, including her blog, Ghost Town Farm.

Novella’s charming memoir, Farm City is full of hilarious moments, fascinating farmer’s tips, and a great deal of heart. When Novella Carpenter-captivated by the idea of backyard self-sufficiency- moved to inner city Oakland and discovered a weed-choked, garbage- strewn abandoned lot next door to her house, she closed her eyes and pictured heirloom tomatoes and a chicken coop. The story of how her urban farm grew from a few chickens to one populated with turkeys, geese, rabbits, ducks, and two three-hundred-pound pigs will capture the imagination of anyone who has ever considered leaving the city behind for a more natural lifestyle.

Watch as Novella Carpenter describes her experiences in urban farming:

Download FM 21-76 US ARMY SURVIVAL MANUAL (PDF, 277 pages)

Permaculture is sustainable land use design. This is based on ecological and biological principles, often using patterns that occur in nature to maximise effect and minimise work. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs, harmoniously integrating the land with its inhabitants. The ecological processes of plants, animals, their nutrient cycles, climatic factors and weather cycles are all part of the picture. Inhabitants’ needs are provided for using proven technologies for food, energy, shelter and infrastructure. Elements in a system are viewed in relationship to other elements, where the outputs of one element become the inputs of another. Within a Permaculture system, work is minimised, “wastes” become resources, productivity and yields increase, and environments are restored. Permaculture principles can be applied to any environment, at any scale from dense urban settlements to individual homes, from farms to entire regions.

Watch: Beyond Sustainability with David Holmgren

Source: Club Orlov

How to destroy biological impurities in water:

As easy as 1,2,3

#1 Procure a glass bottle

#2 Fill bottle with water of questionable quality

#3 Leave full bottle in sunlight for several hours

A new way to treat drinking water here could save thousands of lives among Kenya’s urban poor. The Simple Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS) method recommended by the World Health Organization uses the sun’s ultraviolet rays and heat to kill harmful microorganisms in the water.

“We only need to leave the water out in the sun for a whole day, and it is safe to drink,” says Dushman Abdul. Ms. Abdul lives in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, where 1 million residents often suffer from waterborne diseases such as cholera due to limited access to safe drinking water.

Many of the slum dwellers must rely on water supplied by vendors who may use unclean containers.

The simple treatment process also saves money for poor families who won’t have to buy fuel to boil the water before using it.

Beyond the initial cost of 18 cents for a reusable water bottle – good for six months before it starts to break down from use and contaminate the water – the technology is free of charge, as light and heat from the sun do the work.

Besides families, the technology is gradually finding its way to schools and other public facilities. It is hoped that it will reduce disease and therefore cut student absences and raise their performance.

Ironically, the simplicity and low cost of SODIS have also proved to be a drawback: Most people think it is too simple to work, says Lilian Shimanyula, a SODIS advocate at the Kenya Water and Health Organization.

Source: Christian Science Monitor