V under the sun THE BRUNSWIOCfetEACON THURSDAY FEBRUARY 27. 1992 D D Leading The Simple Life Mintzes Enjoy Self-Sufficiency, Livinq Close To Nature BY SUSAN USHER Nestled in the woods oft Big Ncck Road in Ash, Henry Mint/ lives quietly with Frances, his wife, and David, the younger of their two sons. Other than the calls of wild birds, few sounds pene trate the woodland canopy. Formosa-type azaleas grow freely, their low-flung branches taking root and spread ing wherever they touch the soil. "It's quiet here," said Mint/. "The only thing I can't do anything about is the planes flying overhead." The Mintzes arc homesteaders, taking pleasure and pride in a level of self-sufficiency rarely seen tixlay even in rural arc-as of Brunswick County. "If we can't do it, it doesn't get done," said Mint/. "I can get by. I'm not afraid to tackle most anything." As best they can, the three live in harmony with na ture and strive for a healthy balance in their own lives. Not one of them is afraid of a good day's work; they find joy in a task well done. Mint/ gardens using the basic approaches espoused in Rodale's Organic Gardening magazine, trying to avoid the use of pesticides, herbicides or other chemi cals while building the soils naturally. "You get better quality and the insects aren't as bad," said Mint/, crumbling a Fistful of loamy soil, enriched with compost and organic fertilizers. The land holds moisture more easily and is slow to erode. Crop rotation increases natural resistance to disease and insects. "I don't repeat the same crop in the same place," said Mint/.. "1 wail Five years. 1 plant things that don't take the same nutrients from the soil. "If you had to cat bains every day you'd get tired of it too," he said by ' '? -i t- i ? W33a*? tt- ?? way of analogy. What garden produce ihc Mini/cs don't eat or put up in their four freezers and two refrigerators, they give away. Henry chooses indeterminate type tomatoes, with the Park Whopper and Better Boy among his favorites. Stripping all leaves off the stem except at the lip, he buries each plant in an "L" in a trench four to six inches deep, up to the leaves. "The stem will extend roots and draw nourishment from a wider area," said Mint/.. He prunes and suckcrs as needed to keep the vines thinned and the fruits large, yielding slices so big they cover a piece of loaf bread. "You've got to come back this summer and sec," he says with confidence. Other garden standards include butter beans, squash, green beans, okra, carrots, spinach, mustard and sweet potatoes. He trains his pole beans on a six-foot-high row of utility fencing, which allows more light to reach the plants and makes it easier to harvest the beans. Mint/, has his own simple and inexpensive, if labor intensive, approach to irrigation. A row of barrels and 30-gallon rubber containers stand along the rear of a shed. Here he collects rainwater. In dry weather, he hauls the water to the field with the tractor. Wild creatures abound at the Mint/, farm, from worms that draw moles and birds, to hungry deer that are some times a "problem" in the garden. Mint/, sees only a few rabbits these days, possibly be cause the local fox population is increasing. The family puts out wild bird seed and shelled com twice a day. BETWEEN THE THREE of them, there are few jobs that tackle. They live quiet lives of relative self-sufficiency. Henry, Frances and David Mintz won't drawing even more birds as well as squirrels. Their small house sits unobtrusively on a irau of 92 acres, jusl a few hundred yards from where Mint/ was reared by his parents, the late Mamie and L.B. (Burden) Mint/.. His and her baby blue Suburbans are sheltered side by side in a garage that also holds garden equip ment, a chippcr/mulchcr, boat and other equipment nec essary to maintaining a self-sufficient household. The Mintzes haven't always lived here One year, when he was a single man "about 24" and the crops were laid by. Mint/, went to town looking for work building the bridge that now crosses the Shallotte River. The foreman told him, "Come back tomorrow" one time loo many; Mint/, enlisted in the U.S. Army. In Washington State the young serviceman met and married his wife, who had moved to the West Coast from the North Dakota plains. His military career was interrupted briefly at one point, but Mint/, eventually retired from the Army with just over 21 years in. Today that small monthly check is his only income. Mint/, says. And, like the hearing loss brought on by ex posure to sustained heavy artillery fire in Korea, a con stant reminder of those years. Returning to Brunswick County around 1962, Mint/ settled in Supply, but within a few years the family moved to the homcplacc in Ash. There they took on the task of building a home. "We had the house framed in. Me and my wife put up the floors and ceilings. They delivered the windows and it went to raining," he recalled. "We put them in our selves. It was that or something worse." Looking around the room with its paneled walls and knotty pine ceiling. Mint/, added, "It's not that great a carpcntry job, but it's livable." There's little around the place that he or his wife can't do. When his wife was not well. Mint/ learned to cook, clean, hang out clothes and "most anything a woman can do," he said, causing a few eyebrows to lift in earli er days. The two arc a team, however, and simply do whatever work there is to be done around the place, inside and out. Henry maintains and repairs all the gardening and household maintenance equipment, from the tractor to the air compressor he relies upon to pump up tires and whatever else needs a burst of air. Slacks of firewood, shielded by sheets of tin roofing, await use: pine and miscellaneous logs for the heater but maple only for the wood cookstove the Mintzes import ed from Austria Bees fly in and out of hives near the outbuildings. As time allows. Mint/, takes his boat out on local rivers and creeks and into the Atlantic Ocean, mainly for the pleasure of it But the family buys 300 to 400 pounds of fish each year to stock the freezers ? mullet, spot, "whatever I can gel hold of," says Mint/.. Slender and strong of build, Mint/'s appearance be lies his age. But, at 76, his pace has slowed a little, w ith a touch of arthritis in the shoulders. He no longer keeps chickens or hogs, or even dogs. He's made other concessions to age as well. "I used lo buy rabbil manure, and cow manure and horse manure by the iruckload," he said. "But I've had STAFF PHOTOS BY SUSAN USHER ItEMRY MINTZ uses organic fertilizers and compost to build the soil of his homeplace at Ash, with hefty tomatoes part of the abundant yield each summer. lo give thai up." Instead he rakes pine straw from the forest beds on the tract and spreads it thickly across the garden, allow - ing it to compost for at least two years. Tilling it in any sooner dries the soil. When he does turn the composted needles under, he applies lime to offset the extra acidity. In January he tilled the beds to be planted this spring, turning under a volunteer cover crop of "winterweed" and drying the soil shaded by a tall stand of nearby pines. He'll turn the soil again before planting. "You have to stay at it, winter and summer," says Mint/, not at all complaining. "1 like being self-sufficient," he concludes. "I don't depend on nobody for nothing." CO c c 1 o '5 c IZ 0) > (0 o 'I . ? w CO Hunter Douglas ? Schumacher ? 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