Alder Burns

Here's how to "shop" for groceries on the cheap.  Go around back and hit the dumpster.  I have much of the time eaten like a king this way, ever since being introduced to this art in 1995.  I have never gotten sick, and have fed myself, my friends, and my animals this way.  Smaller and discount groceries are more likely to have open dumpsters, as contrasted to compactors, which are often impossible.  The food processing skills that I've mastered as a homesteader and gardener have done me well at this as well....discerning when food, including meat, is spoiled.  Dumpsters tend to produce in gluts and famines, just like gardens and wild foraging, and so the arts of food preservation are key to making the most of it.   Oh yeah, and cheap food tip #2: roadkill.  Right now I have over 100 pints of venison on my shelves thanks to two deer that presented themselves in fresh condition last winter.  Over the years I've enjoyed not only deer but wild pig (still have a few jars of lard somewhere from the last one, six years ago or so; and turkey.

40 years plus gardening and my conclusion is that unless I'm in a tight spot....say in a crawlspace, the long straight handle usually wins.  It really puzzled me traveling in Asia that nobody there (and in a lot of places in the world, actually) seems to think to put a long handle on a tool....the commonest farm tool there is a kind of broad-bladed grub hoe with a short handle, that you must bend over to use.  Ugh, the back!  And wood isn't that scarce!  Maybe the heavy clay common in so many areas breaks a long handle easier?  
    My very favorite shovel now is one I made the handle for myself, from hop-hornbeam....and I made it a good foot longer than an ordinary "store-bought" shovel handle.  The extra leverage really pays off whether for turning sod over, trenching, or digging holes.

I learned stuff like this living in California for ten years around all the ways there are to start a fire when it's tinder dry.  A trailer dragging a chain. A lawnmower hitting a rock.  A hot chainsaw muffler.  Parking a car in the grass.  A bottle laying out in the sun. A pile of hay or compost that is too big. Enormous wildfires have been started by all of these causes and others.  It's really kind of crazy, compared how people function in moister climates.

I wonder if autumn olive is considered a dangerous invasive in your area, and thus, some crew working along the roadside deliberately targeted it with herbicide, perhaps by pouring it around the base of each bush?  This is bolstered by the fact that you know already that phragmites was being deliberately sprayed nearby.

Milk thistle makes pretty good greens.  They only have the spines around the edges of the large leaves, so you pick them with gloves and then snip off the spines with scissors, you can then handle, cut up, and cook the greens like any other greens.

The website ic.org is a good place to start.  It's the premier site for intentional communities and ecovillages of all sorts.  It's worldwide, and searchable both by keyword and location.

Be sure to join Georgia Organics, and try to participate in the Southeast Permaculture Gathering held every summer near Asheville.  When I lived in GA these were the two main venues to connect with local comrades.

I've often mentioned this very idea as a comment to people who are building (or buying!) elaborate solar (or otherwise) dehydrators.  I once spent weeks building one of these, and it successfully dehydrated nothing!  In addition to a vehicle...the attic space of many houses, and any unused greenhouse or cold frame in the summer are viable alternatives.  The old greenhouse at the farm I used to live at, shut up and with a fan running on the screens, is how I know that a whole goat, boned out and sliced into small slivers, will fit into six quart jars when dried down!  Now, I regularly get sliced tomatoes snap dry in my attic...

I've been moving some extremely heavy gate fence posts...treated 6 inch rounds, eight feet long, with concrete attached to one end, around my place with a dolly.  I laid the dolly flat, got the post up onto it, heavy end down, and tied it securely in place.  Then with gloves I pick up the far end of the post, and it is then supported on the wheels of the dolly at the other end.  Balanced just right, I can then wheel the post wherever I want it....provided it's dry weather, otherwise the wheels would get stuck!

I always keep a collection of nice sticks for tool handles and keep my eye out for more...nice long straight ones of the right species can be hard to find in some places. The way I learned it, you cut them green, trim roughly to length and cut any branches (hopefully not too many, as knots make peeling and smoothing more difficult), and then paint some oil on the cut ends and knot stubs.  Then put them somewhere dry in the shade for a few months at least.  The oil keeps the stick from drying out too fast and cracking, instead it dries out slowly through the remaining bark.  Then when I need a handle I take one, shave the bark off with a drawknife, shape the end to fit the tool end, and attach however!  Over the years I've found the best species are hornbeam, hickory/pecan, and oak.  I have some ten year old handles of all three.  Around here at least there is no ash left anyway.  Right now I've got some Bradford pear sticks curing as an experiment...nice and straight but I wonder if they will be too brittle.  The heads of various tools seem all too easy to find...just last week my neighbor had a whole set of fiberglass handled tools by his trash can....post hole diggers, shovel, and rake, with splintered handles---but I'm after the heads!