Katie Erickson

Here's an idea, especially for those of you who are in temporary situations, but have you thought of rope beds? I've seen patterns online that look easy to put together and take apart. If you weave the rope together tightly, maybe it would be comfortable in permanent situations? Here's a link with a bunch of pictures of rope beds: http://howtomakeacharpoy.blogspot.com/

I had one hospital birth (baby came too early) and two home births. All three were great, also fast.
I recommend checking out Spinning Babies http://spinningbabies.com/ for ideas on exercise/stretching, etc for optimal baby positioning during pregnancy. Just getting baby head down isn't enough for an "easy" birth.

I also attempted to eat WAPF/ Brewer's diet while pregnant, not organic, unfortunately. I took high quality whole food-based prenatals also, since I knew I didn't eat perfectly, took herbal glycerin tinctures http://trilighthealth.com/ I drank a lot of herbal teas, especially in the third trimester (specifically red raspberry leaf).

All three of my labors were fast, my third was 1.5 hours. My baby's head was out before my midwife arrived. It was pretty exciting! I had dreams during my pregnancy that my baby would arrive with no one around around to help, so I did what I could to read up on emergencies and had an emergency childbirth book on hand. I think you should pay attention to your intuition, and don't attempt a homebirth unless you are completely comfortable with it. I wanted homebirths so bad, and I was confident that my body could handle it. I'm thankful that everything went well!

We did exclusive breastfeeding until 7-ish months, then extended breastfeeding until I dried up during pregnancy. Our third is 19 mos old and still breastfeeding a little.

We did baby-led feeding. I meant to make all kinds of homemade baby foods, but when I realized that it was much more appetizing and way less work for the baby to eat what we were eating, we did that. I've chewed up some of their food, (gross, I know), but that's probably what our ancestors did.

I did some babywearing.

We co-slept with all three babies. I had a co-sleeper next to our bed with our first, and since I was breastfeeding around the clock, it was just easier to have our baby in bed. With number two, we built a low platform bed and bought a firm mattress. If baby rolls off the bed, he/she is less than a foot from the floor. I can't imagine getting up to breastfeed while your baby is sleeping in a different room... talk about disrupted sleep!

Our kids have never had any medications, including vaxs. They are rarely sick, and when they are, I just give them garlic/ginger/honey tea.

We are homeschooling our kids. There's an awful lot to learn while living on a farm. Science, Math, Statistics, Social Studies, etc. I think learning while living is the best way to do school!

I used to belong to a group on Facebook that was all about healing tooth decay using Ramiel Nagal's excellent book Cure Tooth Decay (http://www.curetoothdecay.com/) and it was very interesting! Moms were constantly posting before and after pictures of their children's tooth decay throughout the healing process.
I haven't had any tooth decay myself, I hope to prevent it in my young children. This is worth looking into.

Russell Olson wrote:
Deer immune hedge plants. I hope to surround the property in a living food hedge of some sort. The deer here are voracious, but then they always are aren't they?
I've read Jerusalem artichokes and maximillian sunflowers, I have prickly ash thickets that seem to be undisturbed. I am going to experiment with osage orange, blackthorn, hawthorn, wild plum, rugosa rose, and maybe hedge lay boxelder which seem to not be their favorite. I really want to avoid using buckthorn if possible unless there’s a way to control it better.

Hi Russell, I am from Central MN, Zone 4b, & just beginning a permaculture "hobby-farm." I'm wondering how your experimenting went the last couple years, in partcular, the Osage Orange. Is it growing for you?

Experienced Permaculturist?