Thanks for the push

Sorry to send in my check for another 3 years of BHM so late. I stay busy.

Even though I make a good dollar at my job — and I am very glad I still have it — I don’t do like the average person does and just go to work, watch TV, (yech!) and sleep. I do welding jobs, clear out houses for people, do moving for people, and make power equipment with small engines work again and sell them. (Ones I have “curb shopped” for, I got them ALL year long!)

I have BHM to thank for giving me the push some years ago now to be as independent as possible from the “Rat Race.” From always having a full pantry — from my yard & gardens — to having enough money stashed away to ride over being laid off from my old job it feels good and lets me sleep at night a lot better…

I wish to thank all of the authors in BHM for teaching me so much over the years. I have always been a “do it yourselfer” and Clay and Blunt and Ayoob and the others I can’t currently remember the names of have an avid reader in me. And follower. And listener too.

Well, keep up the good work and I will continue to be a subscriber. Fair enough!?

Bruce Epperson
Westmont, Illinois

Atta girl, Clara Lynn!

To: Duffys, Tuttles, Silveiras, Ayoobs, Clays, and especially Clara Lynn—

I have not subscribed to BHM nearly long enough.

I have thoroughly enjoyed every issue, and read damn near every word. I have worked many of the ads.

But this issue is the biggest and best yet, and if this is what the arrival of Clara Lynn causes, let’s have many more Clara Lynns!

I am hoping to come up with the $ to get the anthologies, and also make a contribution to your overseas fund.

But as have celebrated the 41st anniversary of my Jack Benny birthday, and having spent most of last week in Richmond, VA, hospital while coupla guys in white coasts cut hole in me and ran long tubes (they called them catheters) up into my pump, and then stuck festive balloons in me, and eventually some little wire cages (they called them “stents”) were run up into my ticker, and expanded with a little balloon, while I watched on a monitor and questioned these chaps as to whether they had ever done this before, and after got out, found to my surprise and disappointment that this did NOT cure everything that ailed me, it may be awhile before I can gather up enuf green stuff to do this.

But the best thing that has happened to me since I got back to my little brown shack was the receipt of the new BHM.

So I want to thank you, and thank you, and thank you.

And I have never shot a .50 handgun, but have, and shoot, a Clark Long Heavy Slide .45 ACP built for me for the first combat pistol shootoff in Wyoming so many, many years ago.

Have learned much from Ayoob-from Clay-from Duffy-from Silveira-and from your other contributors, and plan to learn a great deal more.

So please-PLEASE-keep up the good work. Or should I say, “Atta girl, Clara Lynn-keep ’em at it!”

Richard Huckeby
Elberon, Virginia

Water treatment series

The three-part series on Emergency and backwoods water treatment was excellent! Tim Thorstenson is to be commended for its preparation, as it is so comprehensive and so useful in these times.

Rick Brigham
Clarkston, Washington

Jackie Clay’s book

I’m ordering this book for my daughter. (Growing and Canning Your Own Food) I bought one last year, it is the best & most “simply put” directions for preserving our garden’s bounty.

Both my grandmothers & my mother were all avid gardeners and “preservers” — with me being the only girl — well, I grew up in the kitchen! My grandma Roy gave me my first canning book when I was 10 years old. It was marked 35 cents. I’m saving it for my own girls!

Again, this is one of the most prized possessions in my kitchen. Thanks, Jackie, for passing on your knowledge & experiences—and that’s exactly what I’m doing to my children.

Janis Kelly
Norwood, Missouri

Jackie’s book (the ad for it is on the back cover) has been very popular. She promised me it would be the best canning book ever, and she delivered.
— Dave

Appleseed Project

My thanks to BHM for making me aware of the Appleseed Project. My 13-year-old son and I went to the AS event in Throop, NY July 10-11. We had a great time and learned alot. I made sure that the shoot boss knew I found out about Appleseed through BHM.
Mark Pauly
Rochester, New York

Making homestead plans from inside a Texas prison

In 1999 I tried to rob a bank and was sentenced to prison. A few years into this sentence I escaped which resulted in 10 more years being added to my conviction; and because I’m an escape risk now, I must serve the remainder of my time in solitary confinement where I have been since 2003. What does this have to do with your magazine? I will try to explain.

Because of my isolation, I am ineligible to participate in school programs where I could earn a degree in a useful vocation. In fact, school and work are prohibited to a large number of Texas inmates in these control units throughout the vast empire, who number in the thousands and have spent literally decades in these small cells. Most of these inmates will succumb to this hostile atmosphere either physically or mentally, and if they fail to control themselves, they will be controlled by means that often stimulate their degeneracy still further. No, I am not seeking sympathy, but I am delineating an increasing situation, a progressing scene, manifesting in these states, i.e. like Texas, who depend on growing prison populations to enhance its job market. This is just the nature of the capitalist beast as it appears in reality…

Now imagine, sir, a person arising from this mire after such a long stay underground — my impulse is to steal and rob and scavenge for food, or at least some sort of social identification to understand my place. The ex-con is radically ostracized by state and federal governments; lacking any type of retirement plan, no health insurance, no work history and completely broke. My criminal history has been thoroughly documented and made easily available to anybody who might consider hiring me or renting me a place to sleep. A credit card or bank loan? That’s what got me sent to prison in the first place…I am too old to compete in the job market. I don’t see that well and my stamina is fading like the dim glow of a spent candle. A smart person would probably just stay in prison, but…this time I’m going off grid and homesteading as an alternative survival plan by contrast to further imprisonment or committing a new crime! Through your magazine I have educated myself and organized a schematic, with other ex-cons, to form our own homestead!

“Man must go back to nature for information.” —Thomas Paine

Thanks for the great wisdom of your magazine. Noble regards,

James Duncan
Lovelady, Texas

Self-reliance is attitude as much as it is lifestyle

Please renew my subscription for 3 yrs. Maybe this will make up for 3 cancellations in Letters section, Issue #124.

Also, in response to the letter by Joe Leonetti to “Ask Jackie” in Issue #124 about how to get started in self-reliant living:

Self-reliant living is a mental attitude as much as a lifestyle. I am part of a 1400 acre 3rd generation family farm. I love our big screen TV with satellite, our air conditioning, our above ground pool. Yet we buy and maintain used tractors and machinery. They are cheaper to buy, operate, and repair (also easier). We buy used vehicles & repair or replace parts till cost of repair exceeds worth. We use other peoples’ “junk” to build or modify things that will improve or increase our efficiency or save money.

Our motto—Do more, do it better, do it for less money or work. Enjoy life! Leave the land in better shape than when you get it.

Don Stewart
Hartville, Missouri

Applause

Enclosed is a renewal of our subscription. We have found this magazine to be a worthwhile addition to our few magazines we subscribe to.

We especially like the editorial comments and the fact that you uphold the Constitution and the amendment rights. Keep up the good writing and articles.

Lynda Brown
Winlock, Washington

My husband and I have subscribed for a few years and have learned so much from your enlightening magazine & books. Keep up the good work. I am ordering a subscription for my brother as he is starting off on the “Self-Reliant” journey himself. I know he will learn and love your magazine as much as we do. God has blessed us with your knowledge and straight-forward articles.

Cheri Pearson
Moore, Idaho