Fedco Seeds - A cool little company!

Well some of you who know me better understand that I am a little strange... one of the many ways is in my passion for growing things - more specifically growing FOOD! 

If you can't eat it or something that eats it, what good is it?

Being of the mindset of a freedom and liberty minded individual, I am making all attempts I can to minimize my government (the department of making you sad - D.O.M.Y.S) footprint!  I'll get to that in a minute... but first, another personality trait that I really like to eat, and I want to do my best to make sure that I won't run out of food if anything bad happens... and bad things to happen to even good people!  Just ask Job...

Anyway, back to minimizing my gov't (D.O.M.Y.S) footprint... one way to do that is to minimize the taxes I pay.  Now, what can I do to reduce my property tax?  I can try to get an agricultural exemption!  (I'm working toward it...)  Can I reduce my income tax?  Maybe I can start a business and claim a few expenses that I couldn't otherwise claim... I'm working on that too!  But think about it a little more... how else does the DOYMS get money?  Every single time you spend money, it get's taxed.  Maybe not on food, for some states... but the person who works at the grocery pays income tax, the person driving the truck pays income tax, the truck had a sales tax, the fuel to drive the truck had a sales tax... etc.  Get the point?  I'm becoming a bigger and bigger fan of keeping it local...
Note - The Bible tells us to pay to Caesar what is due Caesar.   I'm not advocating illegal activity, just working within the confines of the system to your fullest advantage!

Starve the monster!

So that said, there are things that can be done to provide us better wealth without being taxed (at least not yet).  Now to deviate for just a moment, lets talk about financial world views.  There are some out there who subscribe to the Limited Wealth concept.  This takes the opinion that there is a limited number of resources around us, and those who have only have at the expense of those who do not.  On the other hand there are those who subscribe to the Unlimited Wealth concept... as do I.  This basically says that there is as much wealth surrounding you as you are willing and able to create.  So what does this have to do with Fedco Seeds?  I'm almost there, I promise!

Being a subscriber to the unlimited wealth concept, I look at my backyard (and front yard - as the wife will permit) and wonder how I can utilize those resources to increase my wealth.  Currently one goal is to raise sheep... time will tell on that venture.  Another venture is my garden... I spend some money, time, energy and I get food in return.  I could go to work and spend some time, money and energy and get a pay check, but that gets taxed!  Instead, the garden provides me with organic food that I can eat!  As of yet the IRS (DOMYS) has not yet figured out how to tax me on the produce grown in my garden - double win for me (food and minimizing my footprint).  The same thing is going on with my fruit trees.  Now I'm using a holistic management method (click to read my book review here) with organic spray ingredients, so I pay some tax on those, but nothing compared to the total value that I will get out of my trees when they start to produce!  (I planted them in 2014-2015 with a few more going in each year.) 

So now why do I mention Fedco Seeds?  Well I was looking for some cherry scion to graft onto a piece of cherry root stock that survived when the tree on top of it died (it sent up a sprout, I can only imagine I cut a root when I put the T-post in) and somehow ended up on their site.  What I found was some really cool catalogs you can download as a .pdf. 

The orchard catalog is full of all sorts of great information that Ive not seen elsewhere in all my research!  You can just click here to open it.  Hopefully they don't get mad at me for posting it here, but one piece of information I thought was really cool was this recipe for using chives to protect your fruit trees!  (If you guys are mad, I'll be happy to take it down... hopefully you are cool with it as I'm providing some free advertising... I hope to business with you guys in the future!)

Who would have thought?

Needless to say, I need to plant some chives around my fruit trees!  I also need to plant some comfrey and daffodils around them... oh, and garlic too!  So this is one of the little jewels that is scattered throughout the catalog.  I highly recommend you check it out, and perhaps buy a tree or two from them!  If you do, let me know your thoughts!

Living lawnmowers... an update

I had mentions before in my post Living lawn mowers... that I had a mind to raise sheep.  Well apparently I misunderstood the farmer and the prices are not quite what I had expected.  Now the cost is up to $200 for lambs... ouch.  Well, so be it... we thought we were going to have to pay the gov't department of making you sad on our tax return this year, but it turns out we are getting some money back, so that helps!

....and thanks to a guy named Darby Simpson, I've got a new plan on the fence charger...

Premier PRS 100

Yea, its a little bit more than I wanted to spend... but it's a little bit more than I need too!  If Darby gave it his approval, I'm willing to drop an extra $60 for it.  Throw in two 164' sections of electro netting and away I'll go!

I'm sure you'll hear more about this in the future!

Can you guys give me a hand here?

So this is something of an unusual request, but I'll make it anyway...

Hmm... I'm not so sure...

So this book has been recommended to me, but I'm not really sure about it and it's not in the local library's system.  So today I'm asking if any of you have read this book and wonder what your feedback is on it.  Yea, I can read the Amazon reviews, but wondered if any of you have read it... before I drop $25 for it (I don't have prime).

3-30-16
Okay, well as usual, no feedback... I bought the book and will now have to give it a full review at some point... hopefully it's a keeper!

Well what do ya know about that? (Probiotics)

Aren't they cute?  (Keep reading)

Some of you may know that one point in my professional career, I was doing some work for a pharmaceutical company... I learned a few things there.  In addition, I've listened to a guy named Gary Collins, a former FDA special agent (for the government) and his comments back up what I've experienced... call me tin hat if you want, but I heard it and so did he: 

The major pharmaceutical companies want you to be sick.   Why?  Well if you are sick, you need their medicine!  If you need their medicine, they get your money!  They don't necessarily want you to be healthy, then you might stop taking their medicine... they prefer you feel good and stay sick.  

But what if there were an alternative?   I subscribe to the "you are what you eat" club, and a healthy digestive tract is mostly bacteria, to the extent that it makes up 90% of the cells in our body!  Where does the bacteria come from... well if you were not fortunate enough to be born (you pick up some good bacteria in the birth canal on the way out if it's not a c-section) of a mother with a healthy digestive tract, then you have to eat them.  You can buy them or make your own... you guys know I    prefer to make my own, as you can read about here (click here for a list of all my fermenting articles).  
So my manager at work recently announced he's moving on to another company and has since been, well... coasting, just ever so slightly?  The other day he sent out an e-mail with a link to an article on 3D printing body parts for medical research.  Interesting stuff, really... but what I found more interesting was at the bottom... this article goes well with all of the things we are doing to try and be healthy... check it out yourself!

Probiotics dramatically modulate liver cancer growth in mice

Interestingly enough, that wasn't the only one at this site... which goes against what I've typically seen.  Yep, back to the tin-foil hat conspiracy stuff again... if you are a company that wants the public to think something is good, one way you can control that thought process is to "donate" lots of money to a university and have them publish a study that says your product is safe and great for everybody and anyone who thinks otherwise is stupid!  I think the medical, pharmaceutical and big agriculture industries have all done this... but I'm getting side tracked.  The point I raise here is that this type of research doesn't seem to have any strings attached.  It doesn't have anything to sell... so what's the point?  Could it be that it is nothing more than true research for the benefit of man kind?  (I honestly can't tell... but I'm open to ideas and suggestions!)

Regardless, here are a few other articles from the same site that I found to be very accurate, considering my understanding of the human bacteria relationship...

Microbes in the gut help determine risk of tumors

Gut microbiota transplantation may prevent development of diabetes and fatty liver disease

Bacterial imbalance contributes to intestinal inflammation and carcinogenesis

Study finds link between liver cancer and gut bacteria in obese mice

This one rings home for me... considering the issues my son recently had with his blood work!  Researchers find link between intestinal bacteria and white blood cell cancer

Collaborative effects of multiple bacterial strains in the gut may help prevent onset of certain inflammatory diseases

Need any encouragement to breast feed your baby? Breast is best: Good bacteria arrive from mum's gut via breast milk

Well that should keep you busy for a few minutes...