Mother Earth News - Mother Earth News 1973

Well, I suppose that E. Martini is just suggesting, but not recommending, what everybody with a wood or coal stove shouldnt do but does anyway (if youre desperate, a few drops of white gas on the paper and a long taper to light the fire might help, but I dont recommend this).

For years, in press releases and safety talks, Ive been pointing out the danger of rushing a fire with gasoline or other flammable liquid and I hope that Ive convinced a few. But people, being, only human, still assume that accidents happen only to the other guy so every once in a while our volunteer fire department (of which I used to be president) would haul a crispy critter out of the black shell that used to be home.

Even though theyve incinerated themselves through sheer stupidity (one hot ash or coat in what looks like a cool firebox can cause a fatal explosion), you feel sorry for them but its the little kids that really tear you up. When Momma tosses a cupful of gas on the kindling and it blows up in her face, she may or nay not get out. Unfortunately, the little kids hardly ever get themselves out and theres nothing harder to take than stuffing a two-year-old into a body bag while hes still warm.

So next time you toss a few drops of gas in the stove, I wish you luck and if luck isnt so good, I hope theres a fire fighter nearby with a body bag to carry out as much of you as he can find.

Bill del Guidice
Durbin, W. Va.

The article, How We Found a Live-Aboard Boat in B.C. mentions briefly that diesels are safer three little words that have become personalized for us.

On July 28, 1972, carrying a lunch, jackets, and an issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS , our family hurried along the dock to my brother-in-laws gasoline-powered, gill-netter fishing boat on the way to a days outing. Less than a minute after wed boarded, the gasoline engine exploded directly underneath the spot where my small son was standing. He nearly lost his life in the flames of the burning bilge before I could find him and pull him to safety.

Because of a gasoline engine that had just a pinhole leak in the fuel filter, fumes formed below deck and now our formerly beautiful child must consider himself very lucky to be alive and functional meaning he has hands, feet, eyes and ears. Of course, you cant melt all the skin off your face and come out looking very good. My husband and I were luckier: rescuing Roy, we only burned our hands in 12-16 months, theyll work almost like before.

NOW everyone tells us that diesels really are safer and weve heard several stories from doctors and nurses - as we lie here in the hospital getting better - about even worse gasoline engine boat tragedies.

People argue that diesels are more expensive. Our hospital bills have totaled $9,000 already, not including the many visits well have to make to doctors over the years for plastic surgery, physical therapy, etc.

For us, now, therell be no homesteading some place far away from suburban hassles well be tied to big city hospitals for a long, long time. Think about it.

Nancy Bartoo
3231 Elderwood Drive
Bethel Park, Pennsylvania 15102

ILLUSTRATION: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Whether in your house or on a boat, you should be aware of gasoline fire hazards and try to prevent them.

The Pig Report in MOTHER EARTH NEWS September/October 72 was very good, and especially interesting to us because weve been raising hogs for about eight years mostly to eat but occasionally even for profit. However, theres one point in the article Id like to disagree with a very important point.

Nancy Bubel, author of the otherwise excellent pig piece, mentions paying $14.00 each for feeder pigs from a farmer acquaintance, and half apologizes for not waiting and obtaining a bargain through newspaper ads offering $11.00 shoats. Friends, beware of bargains in livestock! When you buy a feeder pig, the food and care that have gone into him up to that point pretty much determine his development during the rest of his life. If you pay $5.00 or $10.00 less than the going rate for a feeder which then takes a year or more to reach 200 pounds, you havent saved much.

The most usual problem with such low-priced shoats is malnutrition. Unlike the Bubels, who offered their animals a wonderful diversity of garbage, many producers who dont use commercial feed are attempting to raise hogs on barrels of rancid tortillas or the Yankee equivalent. If the pig you buy has been fed this way, itll have problems and its meat will be too fat and will remain so after several months of a balanced ration (as weve found from trying to salvage a couple of these creatures). Even if the producer feeds the hog or hogs a variety of scraps (scavenged from a restaurant, perhaps), the waste. will be heavy in stuff like moldy white bread and the pigs will be obese and unhealthy just like the people who discarded the garbage.

Besides their probable malnutrition, theres another danger in bargain pigs: the risk of hog cholera, .. a hard-to-spot, incurable disease that was supposedly wiped out a few years ago but is now staging a comeback. What aids the spread of this sickness is that even when a producer loses most of his larger hogs to cholera, the babies sometimes survive. Theyre supposed to be destroyed, since theyre carrying the illness, but often are sold probably as cheap feeders, which is what happened when we had an outbreak of the disease around here a couple of years ago. A healthy pig exposed to the infected newcomer will come down with severe chills and fever and will usually die within 5 to 10 days.

This disease, which only hogs contract, is the main reason most states require that garbage fed to swine be cooked. Cholera can be spread by the feeding of raw or even underdone pork, if the meat came from hogs carrying the hardy and long-lived virus, So dont buy pigs at any price from a producer who doesnt cook food waste thoroughly.

If you think you have cholera among your hogs, call your county agent. Your herd, however small, will be examined, and if the sickness is present the animals will be destroyed (theoretically) and youll be reimbursed.

You may be able to avoid such a misfortune, though, if you check a little when you notice that feeder pigs are particularly cheap. And although hog cholera is the worst disease of swine, being easily spread and 85-100% fatal, its not the only one your herd could contract from unhealthy new stock. Youll be wise to inform yourself about the others, and about the prevalent illnesses of any livestock you decide to go into.

I hope Ive convinced you by now that bargain feeders can be a bummer but super-expensive ones can be a screw, as weve learned from some very bad experiences with $100 gilts bought at shows. The practice of inbreeding swine to make them conform to the current styles has produced nervous hogs, hogs so long that they never finish out, muscle-bound hogs that can hardly get around, sows with farrowing problems and sterile boars. The best route to go in acquiring feeder pigs (bearing in mind that youre going to eat them in the end) is to buy carefully, if possible from someone you can trust and who seems know what hes doing.