Lisa spent many years in the printing industry, working her way from running
printing presses (and fixing them) and doing camera work to managing
employees and eventually sales of printed products. She changed direction
in the early 90's to working with people as they made career changes and for
the past several years she has worked as a technical recruiter in the
computer industry. She has always spent some of her spare time gardening.
Since moving to Vermont last year (2001), she has the space and more time to
grow a variety of vegetables and experiment with some new techniques.
Lisa's self reliant upbringing and outdoor family vacations as well as other
past experiences have prepared her for this new adventure in self sufficient
homesteading in rural Vermont. She is interested in renewable energy, food
preservation, organic gardening methods, and woodworking.
Eve worked for 20 years in the fields of microbiology and molecular biology,
and has co-authored a biotechnology lab course text. In May 2000, she left
her research position in Boston and has made homesteading her newest
experiment. She is now applying her scientific training to problems and
tasks around the homestead. Her skills come in handy as she and Lisa
investigate, understand, and implement natural means of pest control in the
orchard, berry bramble, herb and kitchen gardens; build and use a compost
pile; brew tasty beer; and learn to make cider and tap trees to make maple
sugar. Eve is also a musician, and refinishes and decorates furniture and
home accessories. A very independent sort, she does not want to depend on
fossil fuel and utility companies to keep warm, see in the dark, or operate
her stereo, nor does she want to depend on the supermarket to eat.
Implementing alternative energies and producing food on the homestead are
philosophies and goals she and Lisa see eye to eye on.
Hello to the Vermont Chapter of Backhome
We are very glad there are other like-minded people nearby (Vermont's not
that big) and enough to have a Vermont Chapter. Hats off to Dave and Dani
who got the Northeast Chapter started, and who we met originally because
they are neighbors of Eve's mother. As we get our projects organized and
rolling we would be happy to have some Backhome members come by and visit,
help out, or give advice. In return we'd like to give those folks a hand
with a project they need help with. We've all got big stuff to do now and
then and more often than not it takes more than two to do it. Best wishes
and greetings to all! Below find descriptions of our land and buildings,
our philosophies, how we've been handling the drought, and our hopes and
plans for our homestead.
Our land
Eve and Lisa own a 97-acre property in east central Vermont with 89 acres of
forest. Six acres of maples were previously managed as a sugarbush that
utilized tubing for collection of sap. Another steep, 22-acre stand is even
aged and mostly sugar maple, also suitable for sugaring. They plan a small
sugaring operation to supply most if not all of their sugar. 25 acres are a
mixed even aged stand of hardwood (maple, beech, birch, ash) and softwoods
(spruce, fir, hemlock, cedar). 31 acres are a younger mixed stand of two
ages, and saw the most recent logging ~20 years ago. They would like to
construct small recreational trails for skiing and snowshoeing by improving
existing farm roads and older skid roads. The forest will also supply wood
for fuel, and lumber for building and woodworking projects. Logs will be
removed from the forest using horses to minimize the negative environmental
impact of skid roads and eliminate damage from typical logging machinery.
Thirteen remaining acres consist of open fields, an old apple orchard,
mature asparagus beds, rhubarb, and a 15x30-foot blackberry patch containing
a zone 4 cultivar. A Bartlett pear and a "canning pear" (which they believe
is a Kieffer) tree are in the front yard. There are about 200 trees in the
apple orchard proper and in and along the edges of the fields. After years
of neglect, the job of getting the apple orchard cleaned up and productive
has just begun and will take several years. The edges of the fields have
grown in, and some areas have heavy copses of chokecherry and alder. These
also will be mostly reclaimed. Eve and Lisa will keep some brushy areas to
provide habitat for deer, wild turkey and other birds. They also plan to
set up nest boxes for birds.
The buildings
The old house was originally a seasonal hunting camp built in the 50's that
was converted to a year round residence in the 70's. No updates, except for
the electrical, have been made since that time, so Eve and Lisa have been
busy making the necessary structural, mechanical and cosmetic changes to
make it a comfortable home. They enjoy a view of the White Mountains in New
Hampshire from the front porch and dining area. They are working on plans
to build a super energy efficient 'off the grid' home in a few years. There
is also a rehabbed barn with finished space for an office/studio and
workshop. The barn is unheated, so the current house will become an
office/studio and workshop after the new house is built. An animal shed
near the house will be torn down, the lumber reused, and a garden planted in
its place.
The drought
This first year homesteading has been challenging, mostly due to the severe
drought in the Northeast. The 14-foot deep stone-lined dug well (that
delivers water to the house via gravity) went dry in late August 2001 and
Eve and Lisa have had to haul water since then from a spigot on the state
highway a few miles away. Many others in the area have been similarly
affected and the spigot has become somewhat of a community meeting place,
with people talking and sharing ideas about coping with the drought while
waiting to fill up their own containers. Fortunately, Eve & Lisa's barn
contains a root cellar that stays between 36-40 degrees and is being used
for storage of the water containers. They have to re-fill their containers
at the spigot about once every six weeks. Without head pressure from the
well, the water systems in the house don't work, which means no hot showers,
no tap water and no toilet flushing. A pump and water storage tank system
was considered, but there was no place with existing plumbing to install
them. Waste has been taken care of by building two compost bucket toilets
as outlined in Joseph Jenkins "the Humanure Handbook". Personal cleaning is
done the old fashioned way, with a bucket of hot water (heated on the stove)
and a big bowl in the bathtub to take sponge baths. When it was still warm
enough to clean up outside, they used a SunShower. Dishes are washed and
dunked in water that has been boiled in a canning pot as a precaution to
prevent any potential problems with bacteria. Eve and Lisa hope that the
spring thaw will refill their well and bring their systems (hydronic heater,
water heater, faucets) back into service, but this experience has changed
how they will use water in the future.
A recycling lifestyle
Eve and Lisa are also avid collectors of "curbside treasures"; others'
cast-offs set out for trash collection in the suburbs of Boston where they
used to live (and now, at the local dump). They've fixed up, cleaned up and
reused/recycled furniture, lamps, shutters, slabs of slate, solid wood doors
from the Victorian era, storm windows (good for cold frames), etc. Beyond
being in adherence to the sustainable tenet of "reduce, reuse, recycle",
when they price these found items new, they feel just as good about the
money they've saved!
Eve and Lisa set their sights on being as self sufficient as possible with
their food supply and energy. It is important to them to produce as much as
they can of their own fresh food and use non-fossil fuel sources of energy.
To that end they are learning about root cellaring, smoking, canning, and
dehydrating and storing food. They have also been researching wood
cookstoves and ways of heating with wood and solar energy. The one fossil
fuel commodity they regret they cannot spurn is gasoline and oil for their
trucks. Until a four-wheel-drive electric or other renewable energy truck
is available, they'll rely on traditional transportation. However, they are
conscious of the trips they make and keep them to a minimum to conserve gas.
While food and energy self-sufficiency may reduce their need for money, they
still need some cash to pay for insurance and miscellaneous items. They have
found that the high cost of insurance in Vermont (auto, homeowners, and
health) is 20% more than what they "normally" spend monthly at the grocery
for food and pay to utility companies for energy/services. Even when their
grocery bill and energy consumption is reduced to the minimum, it will still
cost to maintain insurance premiums, which seem to increase every year, pay
property taxes, etc. Eve and Lisa have started an employment consulting
business to provide for these expenses. The philosophy behind independence
still stands. What if there is no propane or electricity to buy or they
become severely rationed? Or the grocery shelves become empty?
Self-reliance and sustainable energy technologies and practices are the
answer.
