If you can get together with your neighbors to produce your food as a cooperative effort then your life will be much easier.
Goats are perhaps of more use if you can move them around a larger area of common land, attempts to secure them on your land and have them only eat what you want them too will fail, they are smart, versatile beasts and will eat you out of house and home given the chance. More robust than cattle though.
Here and in In Erdély (Transylvania) a pig is and always has been the animal of choice for getting you and you family through the winter. The 'pig-killing' is always a social affair and if you saw the size of some of these beasts you would appreciate that folks do need as many willing hands as possible to render the animal into its many tasty components. Nothing is wasted, as the men begin to break the beast down the wife of the house is already preparing a tasty snack from blood.
The high levels of paprika used in the local sausages stem from an attempt to limit the amount of meat taken with each meal, as your forced to eat more bread with it, your stomach fills faster and your sausages are more likely to last through the lean months.
Other things that may be of interest...
Jules Dervaes is growing a surprising amount of food in only 1/5 of an acre...
[video=youtube;QIFPFpxBFVE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIFPFpxBFVE[/video]
More here.
Also worth a read is this down-loadable book about Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden...
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/buffalo/garden/garden.html
Obviously North Dakota isn't Northern Italy but her comments on the importance of pulses are relevant I think.
Last edited:
