Dear MOTHER
“Sometimes, we had bees and chickens, and a small greenhouse, and always hard but rewarding work to keep us busy.”
Life in a Little House
I was recently given an old family photo. When one of your subscribers saw it, she said it looked like a MOTHER EARTH NEWS magazine cover. I don’t know about that, but I decided to let you know what a big part your magazine played in my family’s life.
My mother had been planting a garden for a few years before we moved from Southern California to Kansas in 1974. She subscribed to your magazine, and she also read The Foxfire Book (edited by Eliot Wigginton) and How to Prepare for the Coming Crash by Robert L. Preston. She even wrote to her grandmother to ask what her life had been like caring for a family of 13 people on an Oklahoma farm in 1920.
In 1976, My brother and I helped our parents build a small house on 10 acres, because the local bank wouldn’t loan money to build the geodesic dome my parents wanted. A friend finished the roof, but we did everything else. Our house had skylights, a woodburning stove for heat, a homemade front door, a lagoon, and an outhouse. Several months after we moved in, the outhouse was replaced by an Ecolet. (This meant that during cold weather, we no longer had to bundle up to use the facilities. It also meant that 13-year-old me was ready to invite friends over!)
Mom had a job outside the home, but
