Welcoming 2013

I hope the New Year brings happiness, joy and preparedness to you and your families.

Prepping for Spring and Sustainability

As you eat fresh produce, save the seeds.  Dry them out and use them this spring to begin your garden.  It is relatively free, you can guarantee their being organic, and it is another frugal step in self reliance.  (By the way, GMO seeds will not reproduce as they are engineered not to...)

My latest seed acquisitions are avocado, red pepper, yellow pepper.  I will be starting the avocado now so that it will be a seedling by Spring.  Organic soil and compost are the way to go.  

What do you guys do to prep for Spring?

End of the World? Hmmmmm

Yes, that date is approaching.  12/21/2012.  The Mayan calendar ends.  Nostradamus predicted cataclysmic natural disasters.  The Hopi predicted fire from the skies.  The list goes on and on.

What do you think?

Can America Be Saved From the Stupid People?- Great Book

Currently reading a book titled, "Can America Be Saved From the Stupid People?" Yes the title is not politically correct, but the content of the book is great. It highlights a society that does not think and is governed by what is seen on the television. Yes, America was founded by God-fearing men, but they were secular in their thought process in developing our Constitution. You know, the do

cument that structured our country and its principles. I believe in God and try to live my life by the Commandments, but our nation was not founded on the principles of "One Nation Under God." That is the pledge of allegiance, not the Constitution. Our country was founded on the idea of freedom of religion and a separation of church and state. Our people have spent so much time voting based on emotion and religious ideals, but neither have a place in running a country founded on individual freedoms. Our morals should guide us in our daily lives; and, therefore, our religious beliefs are our guide, but if emotions are used to guide our votes then we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the country we left because we will be easily manipulated by the politicians who want to rule for the sake of power and not for the will of the people.

Anyway, just my thoughts on the state of our country. They are not the most popular thoughts to have, but we live in a country where we have freedom of speech as long as that speech does not impinge on the life, liberty or pursuit of happiness of my fellow Americans. Our country is struggling like hell. Our economy is heading to the pooper and our politicians are corrupt, but our people and our freedoms still make us the greatest country in the world. We just seem to have forgotten those things in the light of the emotional fears pushed by the slanted media. We need to remember how to think for ourselves, fend for ourselves and defend ourselves.

Soapbox ended. Thanks for listening. God bless America because we sure as hell need it.

Adventures in Moving

Quite a few folks have been asking about the house, etc. SO, here is the skinny. We are the Griswold and Murphys wrapped in one. Those of us who know us know this to be truth.

We found this house, a rental or owner financed purchase, and it looked really nice. There were 7 acres of land, a well, fruit trees, a full basement and 2 barns. It was everything we were looking for. We inspected the land and the outside of the house. We talked to the owners, who were really nice people, and decided we would rent the place for a bit and then purchase the home from them. We have been waiting on the house to be vacant for about two months.

Flash forward to the weekend of the move. We go to sign the paperwork on Saturday. Everything seems normal. We look at the house and everything is off, power, gas, water......( I am an optimist) we decide we can camp for a day. We are preppers, right? That night the owner calls to tell me about the snakes in the woods and mice in the woods. We are still okay with that. After all, we live in the boonies and there are critters. We have a hunting dog. My thoughts? Take the dog hunting and clear more from the area of the house. Still the trusting optimist.

Moving day: Our sweet friends show up to help us load everything. We are loaded and ready to go. On the way there, the car starts stalling out. Never happened before. I believe this is called foreshadowing...

We get to the house, and the previous tenants are STILL THERE MOVING OUT.... Ever the optimist, I reason we can move in through the front while they move out through the side. (My husband has a look of trepidation on his face at this point, but he is still being the calm and cool one). We take this unexpected extra time to do a more detailed inspection of the home. As we go into the basement, we notice in the corner something odd. Upon closer inspection, we discover they are mini coffins and urns. It seems the previous tenant was a contracted mortician. That also explains the hearse in the driveway. (Yes, I said hearse) We quickly leave said basement as the heebie jeebies are running rampant. The idea of camping out in the house not nearly as appealing at this point. We move upstairs to open windows to air out the wretched stench that seems to be emanating from every room of the home. It is beyond me where this smell is coming from, but I am an optimist and think to myself - I can clean and the smell will go away.

I go outside to breathe for a minute, and during that time my friend and her husband (who is a fire investigator) are doing a more thorough inspection of the basement, the crawl space and are speaking to the previous tenants. I really need some coffee at this point. As my friend walks out of the house I see her face. Hmmmmm, that does not look good. She tells me to sit down. She wants to go over a couple of things she saw. I think, okay-crappage. She begins to tell me the story of the previous tenant's adventures in snake land and rat land. Yes, do we remember the vague reference the home owner made to the snakes and mice in the woods? Evidently, there is also something called the adventures in flea infested land. These wonderful bedtime stories are what every OCD person loves to hear. Evidently, the wonderful creatures of the woods actually made their home in the walls and flooring of this home - evidenced by the multiple dead rats in the crawl space and the liberal sprinkling of snake skins along the floor of the basement. As I begin to feel the prickling along my legs (this is not an OCD idiosyncrasy - I actually had 4 fleas on my legs) I stand up and decide to make a phone call to the sweet old lady who owned the house. At the same time the men repacked the one truck that had been unloaded. You see, at this point we decided we there was NO WAY IN HELL we would be living in critter central.

The sweet old lady talked to me and seemed confused at the state of the home. Why, she had no idea there were snakes in the walls, a full flea infestation and rats in the basement. Was I sure I didn't want to live there? She could put us up in a hotel room while she called an exterminator....Really? I believe the bomb squad is in order for this place. I then begin discussing a refund of our monies, etc. Suddenly this sweet old lady turns into a gangster from Vegas and begins talking about this, that, and the other about why we cannot have our money back. She even tells me it will ruin her grandchildren's Christmas. Still the optimist, I am quite sure I am going to get our money returned to us. So, as she is telling me about her ruined Christmas, I extol the virtues of the Fayette County jail and the free Christmas dinner that may be provided to her at said facility. I go on to tell her about this quirky little thing called fraud and iterate that I am quite willing to put a grandmother of four in jail post haste should our monies not be returned that day and in full. Thankfully, the dear old grandma saw things my way.

We returned to our previous residence, and I spent the next two days unpacking and showering with a brillo pad.

Thus ends the story. Sweet dreams.

 What does this have to do with prepping?  Not a lot.

The Documentary: Ethos

It discusses the Federal Reserve and the fact that is it not owned by the Government but by a central bank cartel (thanks to Woodrow Wilson signing it into law). It discusses how each dollar printed is requested from the federal reserve and is in fact loaned to the government at a specified interest rate. So, each dollar printed is an increase of governmental debt to a centralized bank cartel that remains fairly quiet on who they are. It goes on to speak of the manipulations of corporations of the political system so that the will of the people is not followed but rather the will of the corporations. Pretty interesting.



The cooler part is Edward Bernays (Freud's nephew) use of Frued's science to manipulate the public in the 30's and changed marketing to the public to what it is today by appealing to their deepest fears and drives to manipulate the public to purchase their goods - retraining the public to desire the goods as opposed to purchasing their needs.

Thougths?

On a more upbeat note

This time of year is a great time stock up on baking items.  They preserve well and are great for bartering.  Thanksgiving and Christmas/Holiday times are the lowest prices of the year, so if you are on a tight budget, now is the time.

Paint buckets from a hardware store, oxygen absorbers and a cool dry place are all you need to store these items for a few years.

Happy prepping.

Why do I prep?

It is simple really.   We prep for days like today where my husband and I both got notifications we will not have our jobs after December 15th.  Need any more reasons?  This is a pretty good one.  We are not panicked.  We are prepped.

Have a great day.

Prepping on a Budget

First off, I need to give a shout out to Dana for allowing me to post.  Secondly, after reading through some of the post here and talking to friends, family and co-workers, it seems a lot of people are wanting to prep, but are having trouble getting started due to a tight budget.  Contrary to what Doomsday Preppers would have you think, you don't need hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to prepare.

Everyone has to start somewhere.  Some of us have only a few bucks to spare a month while others may have a little more.  Regardless, there are things you can do to get started.  Below, I will try to outline somethings to help those on a tight budget get started.

First, you need to decide what the risk is of a disaster happening in your area and what the most likely disaster is.  Do you live in a hurricane prone area?  How about living on a fault line?  Or in an inner city?  Your preps should focus on what is most likely to happen first and once that area is secured, then branch out into broader preps.

Ok,  now on to getting started...

Food.  You've got to have food to survive.  One cheap way to start storing up is to buy just a few canned goods extra with each trip to the grocery store.  Over time, you will end up with several weeks worth of food.  Buy the things you and your family already eat.  When you buy more, rotate the stock, that way, nothing ever goes out of date.  Also, by doing this, you are beating inflation....think of it as an investment.  A can of soup now is $1.15; next year, it may be $1.35 or $1.50.  The more you buy now, the more you will save.  Other things to store....pasta, rice and beans - very cheap.  To properly store these, you will need a bucket.  I buy these from Lowes for about $3.00.  Inside the bucket, you will need a Mylar bag.  You can get 5 gallon bags and O2 absorbers together from Amazon for $26.99 -http://www.amazon.com/10-OxyFree-Absorbers-Freshness-Dehydrated/dp/B001Y0Y8C6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354160543&sr=8-1&keywords=mylar+bags .  You can either use a lid from Lowes that comes with the bucket or you can get a Gamma seal lid for somewhere around $8-10 depending on which website you find.  Other items that are cheap and will be in high demand are salt, sugar, flour, pancake mix, etc.  Most of these are very cheap, especially if you buy just 1 extra each time you go to the store.  You likely won't even notice your grocery bill has gone up.  And don't forget about coupons.  (How to store food is beyond what we are discussing here).

Water.  You gotta have water.  This is a little harder because most of the ways to get clean water are expensive.  Water tanks cost a lot.  However, if you have room, start buying the gallon drinking water jugs from Wal-Mart.  They are about a dollar and you just rotate these like you would the food.  Another option, although a bit more expensive, is to get a water filter, like a Katadyn or a Berkey.  There are also water treatment tablets, like Potable Aqua.

Security.  If you're on a tight budget, buying a Glock or a $1000 .223 rifle is probably not feasable.  My take on this is what weapon could have multiple purposes - defense and hunting.  There are 2 - the shotgun and the .22LR.  You can get a basic 12G or 20G shotgun for usually under $400.  Slugs can be used for game hunting, buckshot for humans when they try to steal your food and birdshot for hunting birds and turkeys.  The 22 is around $300 or less.  Ruger makes a take down 22 that comes in a nice handy back pack.  The good thing about the .22 is ammo is super cheap.  A .22 LR cartridge can kill squirrel, rabbit, birds, etc for food.  It could be used for self defense in a pinch, although certainly not the best choice.  It is quite and has no recoil.

Power.  Lights.  Fire.  All important.  Generators are expensive and require fuel, which is also expensive.  If you can afford this, great.  If not, then stock up on emergency candles.  Make your own candles.  Oil lanterns aren't very expensive.  Light sticks.  Flashlights (with plenty of extra batteries).  And you need several ways to start a fire - matches, flint and steel, magnesium, lighters.

First Aid Supplies and Medicines.  Try to catch basic first aid supplies on sale.  Try to get your doctor to write you refills for your maintenance medications and go ahead and pay cash for several months.  See if your doctor will write you a supply of antibiotics off the $4 list from Wal-Mart.

Important documents.  You can get a 2GB or 4GB jump drive for less than $10. Put all your important papers - marriage license, social security card, banking info, etc on the jump drive.  If possible, get several and put one in a safe deposit box and give one to a trusted friend or family member.

Well, I guess this is a good start.  It is certainly not everything.  This is just my opinion.  Please feel free to add to this, take away from it, or comment on it in anyway.  We are all here to share info and to help each other learn so we can all survive the likely coming collapse.

The fiscal cliff

So the " fiscal cliff " is approaching.   How are you preparing or are you not worried ?

72 Hour Bug Out Bag Basic List

Bedding and Clothing
Change of Clothing (short and long sleeved shirts, pants, jackets, socks, etc.)
Undergarments
Rain Coat/Poncho
Blankets and Emergency Heat Blanks (that keep in warmth)
Cloth Sheet
Plastic Sheet
Fuel and Light
Battery Lighting (Flashlights, Lamps, etc.) Don't forget batteries!
Extra Batteries
Flares
Candles
Lighter
Water-Proof Matches

Equipment
Can Opener
Dishes/Utensils
Shovel
Radio (with batteries!)
Pen and Paper
Axe
Pocket Knife
Rope
Duct Tape

Personal Supplies and MedicationFirst Aid Kit and Supplies
Toiletries (roll of toilet paper- remove the center tube to easily flatten into a zip-lock bag, feminine hygiene, folding brush, etc.)
Cleaning Supplies (mini hand sanitizer, soap, shampoo, dish soap, etc. 
Medication (Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, children's medication etc.)
Prescription Medication (for 3 days)

Personal Documents and Money
(Place these items in a water-proof container!)
Legal Documents (Birth/Marriage Certificates, Wills, Passports, Contracts, etc)
Insurance Policies
Cash
Credit Card
Pre-Paid Phone Cards
Miscellaneous
Bag(s) to put 72 Hour Kit items in (such as duffel bags or back packs, which work great) Make sure you can lift/carry it!
Infant Needs (if applicable)