Using Your Resources
Community is super important. Getting to know the people in your community, what their talents are, what their needs are, etc. can help you as well as serve them. Here at Kindred Acres, we like to do a lot of bartering or trading for the things we need.....woodchips being one of them.
To create our no-dig food forest we needed woodchips. And lots of it. I signed up to the free mulch databases like chipdrop.com and leaflimb.com....but I went a step further. I called all the local tree companies in my area. I introduced myself to them, told them what our homestead was about and asked them personally to drop chips to us. We've gotten several loads of free woodchips and in exchange, we've given some of our delicious garden-fresh goodies. You see, the tree companies around here have to PAY to dump their woodchips at a landfill. Not only does that cost them, but it's soooo wasteful and these woodchips can get put to good use! When they have a free place to dump them that will put them to good use, like our homestead, they win and so do we! We get free chips (and save them from going to the landfill!! how wasteful!!), they don't have to pay to dump it....we get to grow delicious juicy foods, they get a taste of the foods they helped to grow! Do you see the full circle here?
Building community, using your resources, talking to people and truly getting to know them benefits not only you but the community as a whole!! Take the time to learn about the people around you. Find out their talents and needs. It might come in handy one day. ;)
With lots of love
~Kindred Acres
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Wow... that si great that you can barter for what you need! Good lesson to learn... to look around for the things that we need in the local area before jumping on the internet and just ordering stuff in....
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Wow! Thank you!!
My pleasure!
That is very interesting. So, what do you do with the woodchips, exactly?
Congratulations on being featured by @bengy in an entry for the Pay It Forward Contest
I build BTE gardens with them. Lasagna layering. If you scroll back through some of my older posts you'll see some video tours and lots of pictures and info on it. :)
We also have access to free wood chips, all we want.
I've been re-reading Joel Salatin's Folks, This Ain't Normal again, as I found it at a tag sale last weekend. He has a whole rant in there about the waste of food scraps, wood chips, manure, etc. All going into landfill where it sits for decades, not improving anything.
UGG! YES! That drives me BATTY! WHY!? It makes NO sense!! At least in Texas, the county set up an area for tree companies to dump their chips for FREE under a bridge by the water in this paved parking lot type area. People can go and shovel as much as they want. Some of the piles are old and already composted gorgeously. We used to bring a trailer and fill it up to the brim! When the county officials CARE about the environment, things happen! Unfortunately, in several areas I've lived in, it's been such a fight to get permits, to get eco-friendly solutions implemented, to get approval for things, etc. There is an intentional community in TX that grows TONS of food and would bring free leftover food to the homeless community. They had been arrested so many times for doing this. They are told to throw it out. The city preferred to treat these HUMANS like animals and didn't care about food waste vs doing a humane thing and offering unused, clean, fresh food to them. Despite being arrested many times, the intentional community will still go out there and bring boxes full of freshly picked produce, leftover meals, etc. and risk being arrested again because they are so passionate about not wasting food and helping those in need. It's a shame when we as the people have to fight against our own government to make positive changes! Anyway, I'm going off on a rant. It just infuriates me. I'm glad to hear you are using free resources too and preventing all of those beautiful and natural chips from going to waste!! Why PAY for treated and crappy chips that don't have all the leaf debris in it from a store and allow these natural chips/leaves/etc to sit in a landfill. They won't break down properly there and what a flippen WASTE! oy. Ok I need to go outside now. Haha. It's one of those days. My passion is running hight. ;)
UGG! YES! That drives me BATTY! WHY!? It makes NO sense!! At least in Texas, the county set up an area for tree companies to dump their chips for FREE under a bridge by the water in this paved parking lot type area. People can go and shovel as much as they want. Some of the piles are old and already composted gorgeously. We used to bring a trailer and fill it up to the brim! When the county officials CARE about the environment, things happen! Unfortunately, in several areas I've lived in, it's been such a fight to get permits, to get eco-friendly solutions implemented, to get approval for things, etc. There is an intentional community in TX that grows TONS of food and would bring free leftover food to the homeless community. They had been arrested so many times for doing this. They are told to throw it out. The city preferred to treat these HUMANS like animals and didn't care about food waste vs doing a humane thing and offering unused, clean, fresh food to them. Despite being arrested many times, the intentional community will still go out there and bring boxes full of freshly picked produce, leftover meals, etc. and risk being arrested again because they are so passionate about not wasting food and helping those in need. It's a shame when we as the people have to fight against our own government to make positive changes! Anyway, I'm going off on a rant. It just infuriates me. I'm glad to hear you are using free resources too and preventing all of those beautiful and natural chips from going to waste!! Why PAY for treated and crappy chips that don't have all the leaf debris in it from a store and allow these natural chips/leaves/etc to sit in a landfill. They won't break down properly there and what a flippen WASTE! oy. Ok I need to go outside now. Haha. It's one of those days. My passion is running hight. ;)
The way things were at one time. It's a good way to be, overall better use of resources with less waste.
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Oh wow, awesome!! Thanks!! :)
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