Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2020 i The New Pioneer

Spring is the season for making winter dreams come true. You may be thinking about a major change, such as relocating to a rural area, living debt-free and starting a small business, or simply changing the layout of your garden to improve yields and quality. We give you food for thought (and a delicious recipe) in the farm-to-table section of this issue by focusing on four people who are living their personal dreams in Colorado’s Front Range. Their inspiring stories demonstrate just what thinking beyond the box and sweat equity can accomplish. Chef Eric Skokan and his wife Jill decided they wanted to open a restaurant, which led them to grow some produce in a small garden. In a few years it morphed into a 400-plus-acre biodynamic farm and they…

Artist Ray “Bubba” Sorensen makes a living with his paintbrush on a “canvas” that weighs tons. But his unusual career wasn’t even on his mind when he painted his first memorial to veterans on a 60-ton boulder near his Iowa home. THE FIRST MURAL Just 19 at the time, Ray often drove past the roadside boulder jutting up on a flat stretch of Highway 25 near Menlo, Iowa. Dug from a quarry, the limestone landmark was rolled to its current location and permanently parked after it was decided that it was too big to budge or blast. For years, kids decorated the rock with graffiti and messages. Ray remembers seeing a marriage proposal painted there, and he himself painted a “Welcome Home” banner after a relative’s long hospital stay. Having recently…

Ranching at 8,200 feet, in a pasture near the foot of the confluence of two valleys that rise all the way up to the Continental Divide, invites challenges. It’s cold, for one thing. Temperatures in this patch of Boulder County, Colorado, often drop deep into negative territory. It’s windy, too. Gusts roaring down through those valleys flip trucks, flatten sheds and rip roofs from homes. These winds routinely get clocked in excess of 100 mph. And then there’s the growing season. Parsimony describes it. When the warmer months—June into October—deliver healthy rainfall, then livestock can find enough pasture to eat. Drought years, however, complicate matters. Ranchers settled the area in the 19th century, but few remain. Most property now is homes and second homes—all home, no ranch. Woody Woodward didn’t…

Saving the world is a daunting process. Many of us feel like the proverbial hamster on the wheel as we attempt to make even a small difference correcting the environmental wrongs on this planet. But Paul Wheaton, the mad scientist of permaculture who shares his theories from his lab in the mountains of Montana on permies. com, has come to the rescue with a practical guide that gives us real-world solutions. He and his co-author, Shawn Klassen-Koop, offer dozens of feasible steps in their book, Building A Better World In Your Backyard Instead Of Being Angry At Bad Guys, so readers can choose to improve their own lives—and the health of the planet—using the permaculture model. For those familiar with Paul through his articles, videos and podcasts, his tone, complete…

1 If you’re raising chickens solely for eggs, you don’t need a rooster. Hens will lay eggs on their own. A rooster’s main job is fertilization. 2 Light influences a rooster’s fertility in the same way that light influences a hen to lay eggs. As the seasons change, a rooster’s testes, which produce sperm and testosterone, will grow with more daylight and shrink with less. Because of this, you may notice that your roosters tend to mate more with the hens during spring and summer and less during fall and winter. 3 A rooster is made to attract hens, and his appearance matters to them. Hens tend to favor roosters that have a large red comb with tall points. They also favor evenly formed wattles. Roosters have more colorful feathers…

Diatomaceous earth (DE) is one of the most useful products you can have at your homestead, small farm or even around the house. That might sound like a pretty bold statement, but if you’ve never heard of DE and its wide range of uses, you’ve been missing out. In a nutshell, DE is a natural product made up of the fossilized remains of tiny, aquatic organisms called diatoms. The diatoms found in DE are actually skeletons that are made up of silica, a compound abundant in nature that makes up about 59 percent of the earth’s crust. Composed of the cell walls/shells of single-cell diatoms, it easily crumbles to a fine powder. The reason that DE works so well for killing bugs that can be a nuisance to your livestock,…

Before dawn, JT Amos drives his Suburban and 20-foot-long trailer into the parking lot at the farmers market in Webb City, Missouri. Then he begins unloading his restaurant. He rolls one stainless steel cart after another into the sheltered market: a pasta machine, two-burner stove, steam wells, prep carts, pasta pots, coolers, signs, cash drawer, trash cans—everything he and his wife, Nicole, need for their pop-up artisan pasta restaurant, MaMa JoJo’s Pasta. “My checklist is about a mile long,” says JT, 37. “And I have everything numbered so I know where everything goes.” They make and sell 20 different shapes of pasta noodles, which are infused with what seems an endless variety of herbs and seasonings, plus sauces. The pasta machine cranks and shapes the simple dough of semolina flour…

Relief woodcarving is a great way to bring art into your life by creating a family heirloom that’s practical to boot. I have been relief carving on wood for over 30 years, making armoire doors, trunk lids, art to hang at home and in the hunting cabin, cabinet doors and storage boxes of all kinds. Carving the top or face of a utility storage box is a great first project for beginning carvers. Let’s get started. I like butternut for relief carving because it’s soft and has a nice grain that shows when stained. Soft maple is nice, too, but it’s harder to chisel (I mostly use chisels to carve). Google “hardwood stock for sale” for a retail outlet near your home. Next, set the dimensions for the carving. Add…

This yummy egg dish can be made in a woodstove, over an open fire or atop a gas range burner. You might get it right the first time, as I did, or char several servings, as I also did. But, once you get the knack of hovering the egg spoon over the flames, it’s easy, quick and delicious. INGREDIENTS: • 2 eggs • Thin slices of pepperoni sufficient to line the bowl of your egg spoon • 1 small tomato, sliced thin • Cream • Olive oil • Seasonings (salt, pepper, whatever floats your boat) In a bowl, combine eggs, a dash of cream and seasonings. Whip to a froth. Set aside. Splash some olive oil into the bowl of your egg spoon. Swirl to coat the entire surface. Line…

For many years, firearms manufacturers offered .22 LR long guns in a smoothbore configuration especially for .22 rimfire shotshells. All the major U.S. gun companies have offered them in one form or another; bolt-action repeaters like the Marlin 25MG and Savage Mark II G or slide-action guns like the Remington 572 or the Winchester Model 61. Loosely referred to as “garden guns,” these handy rimfires were just the medicine for eliminating pests like rats in the corn crib or other nibbling, pecking varmints with fur or feathers that ravaged your vegetable garden. They also worked well for dispatching venomous snakes. If your subsistence depends on what you grow, keeping these pesky animals at bay might just cause you to seek out one of these “garden guns.” My research indicates that…

The New Pioneer is now on Instagram at instagram.com/thenewpioneer. Be sure to stop by our page, give us a follow and share your photos with us by using #thenewpioneer or #thenewpioneermagazine. Keep your helpful Facebook comments and emails coming so we can provide the information you crave. Your letters prompt us to order feature articles. We do read your comments. If you know a family who might be a good cover story, let us know. We also want more of your helpful “It Worked For Me” stories. Cut and paste your 350-word manuscript into an email and attach a high-resolution photo (between 1 and 5 MB) or two for illustration purposes. We’ll pay $100 upon acceptance. Email us at editdesk@ athlonoutdoors.com.…

In this issue we focus on four remarkable individuals in Colorado—a chef/ farmer and his wife, a rancher and a financial whiz from Wall Street. At first glance the Rockies seem an unlikely place to be in the forefront of innovative farming methods. The growing season is short, the soil terrible and the terrain can be treacherous, but these folks have helped turn Colorado from a culinary desert into the home of “Front Range cuisine.”…

There are several benefits of working with the NRCS and the ABC, and one is that they also marked out the patch cuts and supervised the cut to ensure a high-quality job. Working with the NRCS gave me the opportunity to allow university researchers to monitor bird species on my project, and I learned a lot about the many species using my land. You’ll want to keep an eye on new trails, roads and patch cuts for invasive plant species so you can eliminate or control them. Doing my own forest management put me in touch with the larger forest-management community. For example, I’ve been invited on forest-management tours by the local Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD), participated in setting management goals for other forest watersheds and received a…

Everything wakes up in the spring. It’ time to plan and plant your garden and protect your plants from pests and the weather, including being proactive against mosquitoes. And instead of battling the weeds in your lawn and garden, this might be the season when you learn how to eat them, preferably with a little lemon juice squeezed over the top. You may even want to try grafting tomatoes, especially if you live where the growing season is short. The to-do list is always long at this time of the year, but these tips will help you make the most of the season. GROW FALL RASPBERRIES SPRING PRUNING OF SUMMER raspberries can be a little confusing because it’s important to know which canes to remove and which to leave. To…

“Selecting for a purpose will ensure that both you and the dog are happy with the arrangement.” “Pa stopped the mustangs. He and Ma got out of the wagon to make camp, and Mary and Laura climbed down to the ground, too. ‘Oh, Ma,’ Laura begged, ‘Jack has gone to heaven, hasn’t he? He was such a good dog, can’t he go to heaven?’ Ma did not know what to answer, but Pa said, ‘Yes, Laura, he can. God that doesn’t forget the sparrows won’t leave a good dog like Jack out in the cold.’ Laura felt only a little better. She was not happy. Pa did not whistle about his work as usual, and after a while he said, ‘And what we’ll do in a wild country without a…

“The finished cooler fit nicely next to the outdoor sink. I love that I can use it as a worktable for my gardening projects but that it also doubles as a fun and funky drink cooler…” We live on a homestead farm where getting dirty is a part of daily life. Before we added a deck to the house that we built, the only option for cleaning up messy hands and garden veggies was the kitchen. Washing the dirt off vegetables in the kitchen sink made a mess and put dirt in the septic system, which is a big no-no. Because of this, we knew that an outdoor wash area was a necessity. A sink was installed outside the kitchen door where hands and vegetables would get scrubbed, and we…

Joe Albanese’s career in natural resources has taken him from the shadow of the Empire State building to the remoteness of the Alaskan Bush, with experiences as varied as the terrain. He can fix most anything with a Leather - man and a roll of duct tape. One of his crowning achievements was going 39 days without a shower, a record he hopes to break, though his wife would prefer he didn’t. Cody Assmann has been blessed to write for outdoor magazines all across the country. His interests include bowhunting, trapping, horses, primitive camping, living history, and western history. Recently he published his first book The Wild Adventures of Old Bill Williams and will soon publish J ourney of a Mountain Man. Both books and Cody’s creations can be found…

Eric and Jill Skokan raise Tunis and Karakul sheep, Mulefoot and Hereford pigs, goats, chickens, turkeys and geese on Black Cat Farm. The centerpiece of their 425-acre farm just outside of Boulder, Colorado, though, is the 60 cultivated acres of heirloom and heritage cultivars. There are some 250 of them, ranging from regional classics like butternut, acorn and spaghetti squash to exotics, including Osaka purple mustard greens, tatsoi and ruby streak mizuna. An additional 15 acres are devoted to wheat and small grains. The remainder of the property is pastureland. The vegetables and meat that the farm produces provide ingredients to the Black Cat and the Bramble & Hare restaurants in Boulder that they own, where Eric is also the chef. The products are also sold at the Boulder Farmers…

The trip to Italy begat an inspiration, which begat a book, which begat a movement, which begat millions of dollars (and counting) directed towards small American farms and food enterprises. Which begs the question—whose trip to Italy sparked the chain of begats? It was in the town of Bra, in the mountainous region of Piedmont, where inspiration struck Woody Tasch in 2000. Bra is the hometown for Slow Food. The international organization works to preserve and champion local foodways. Before arriving in the small town, Tasch had spent years working to encourage investments promoting positive change in the world. He was a pioneer in what’s known broadly as mission-related investing. In the epicenter of Slow Food, where reverence for patience, craft and community reigns, Woody found new purpose. Slow Food…

It’s the time of the year when we all start planning and planting our gardens for the upcoming season. Finding and repurposing free gardening supplies is recycling at its finest. In addition to saving money, frugal gardening helps reduce waste, thus helping our environment. Lastly, remember that gardening of any type is a journey of patience; it is investing your time in the future. PRE-PLANNING Before you begin planning your free garden, there’s a little bit of research you need to do in order to ensure success. Even then, things happen and gardens fail, but don’t give up. Plant and plant again. • KNOW YOUR PLANTING ZONE. Also referred to as your hardiness zone, it indicates the average high and low temperatures in your area, so you’ll know which plants…

I’ll never forget the time I first learned that I had a rooster in my flock. I had picked out day-old chicks at my local feed store. They were all the same breed—Buff Orpingtons. But one was larger when I picked it out and it remained larger than its mates as it developed. Then, it started growing a comb while the other chicks didn’t have much, if any, comb showing. I let the kids name him Kate and lived in denial until the day my husband and I heard Kate practicing his crowing. All the signs had been there, this just cinched the deal. Kate became Roopert, and we learned to adjust. Roosters often get mixed reviews. Some love them. Some hate them. Some purposely keep them. Some can’t have…

Dawn was breaking on the second Saturday in July, and firefighters from Sisters, Oregon, were answering the call. It was last-minute time to prepare for what’s billed as the “World’s Largest” quilt display. There were so many quilts that there just wasn’t time enough for the local townsfolk to put them up before the show began. And the firefighters are part of the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show tradition—they’ve been doing it long enough to become part of the culture. Quilting is sewn into the social fabric of Central Oregon, and the practice stretches across the country. On this sunny summer day, hundreds of quilts hung like flags on the parapets and railings of the buildings downtown. Even as the sun rose, the first of thousands of people began to stroll…

MATERIALS • 27 inches of 3/8-inch square mild steel rod • 7 inches of 2-inch O.D. type “L” copper tubing ( 1/16-inch wall thickness) NOTE: Copper tubing is pricey. You’ll pay around $8 for a 7-inch piece at a hardware store, but much less at a scrap yard. • Two 3/16-inch diameter shovel rivets What flippin’ egg-spoon war? And what on God’s green earth is an egg spoon? Here you are, nose-deep in The New Pioneer. Not Vogue. Not the food pages of The New York Times. Not the pixelated pages of The Kitchn. You’re more than likely blissfully unaware of the rancorous food fight over an oversized, hand-forged egg-roasting spoon that has roiled the culinary world for a decade and simmers still. THE BACKSTORY Here, in brief, is the…