So how do you keep focused on prepping during personal storms? Lately things have been stormy, health storms, work storms, financial storms. So many storms that we are drowning in stress, we have found some new friends through these storms, and learned that we have very little of what we need to survive a real emergency crisis that lasts longer than a few days.
During this process I am taking the time to dream, to give myself some strength to get though this time in my life where life sometimes seems pretty disappointing and so completely off the track from my past dreams. Where would we live if we could? What things would we have to help us be better prepared for a famine or a sustained power outage or a tornado that wrecks everything. how woudl our friendships and relationships look? Can we set up a future for our children that is better than the life we are currently struggling in?
So here is a little bit of my dream:
We would live on some land (preferably at least 10 acres) with a water source, some wooded areas and a few acres that are farm-able. There will be a root cellar or a nice basement for food storage. Our house would be designed to be as energy efficient as possible, and easy to keep up with some sort of solar power and a engineered field for a septic system, and well water or some other form of non- city water supply, rain barrels catches etc. Wind power is also an option.
The storage area will be well defensible for our food and emergency water supplies, I prefer that the house be solid and hard to break into - but with the windows needed for energy efficiency we may have to come up with some kind of special shutters for a true disaster. An emergency escape vehicle is a must - Brad wants a Deuce and a half, but in the interests of costs we may have to go a bit smaller than that. I also want a camper trailer of some sort as temporary shelter and for us to use for camping and vacations (something we have not really had in many years). There will be a barn with chickens and perhaps a milk and beef cow for food, maybe even goats instead of cows because they are edible and produce good milk as well and are much hardier and easy to feed.
Our house would be as much off the grid as we can make it and it will be in proximity to a community of people who want to work together and share our lives and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. I feel a need to surround myself with friends and people we can count on in this world today where people are so busy we all end up alone or living just for ourselves. This is the most important part of my vision, the house is negotiable, the land is negotiable, but I really feel a need to be part of a "village" so to speak, with neighbors that are friends as well as family and fellow villagers. I would be able to use my weird backwoods skills for everyday enjoyment and activities as well as possibly to barter or trade for things I can't do. Back to the basics or what life was life before the information and technology age. Not that I mind information and technology, I just think we need to integrate it a little bit better into a more old fashioned approach for keeping people connected and working together.
So anyway this is the start of my vision of the life an home that I want!
Friday, July 13, 2012
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Water Storage
Well we finally have one 7 gallon water storage container full - which could be stretched to 72 hours of drinking for the 4 of us, so goal number one complete! We have 3 more containers to fill and a 4th that was stained inside that we filled for non-drinking usage. We are using our R/O filtered water to fill the containers for drinking so it takes a few days to fill up.
We had one short power outage last week with the hail storm that came through here, I was actually a bit calmer about it as we had enough stuff stored for a few days without power. A little peace of mind goes along way and makes for a good mini practice session.
We still need to come up with a better long term solution for water, something to clean it and a place to get more if we need it. There are so many options out there and most are expensive and some are just not very portable or realistic. One thing that I looked at many years ago was a natural clay or stone filter/cooler for drinking water. They are portable and can last for up to 5 years to purify drinking water. It might even be worth learning how to make a water filter from materials on hand. its my next research project.
We had one short power outage last week with the hail storm that came through here, I was actually a bit calmer about it as we had enough stuff stored for a few days without power. A little peace of mind goes along way and makes for a good mini practice session.
We still need to come up with a better long term solution for water, something to clean it and a place to get more if we need it. There are so many options out there and most are expensive and some are just not very portable or realistic. One thing that I looked at many years ago was a natural clay or stone filter/cooler for drinking water. They are portable and can last for up to 5 years to purify drinking water. It might even be worth learning how to make a water filter from materials on hand. its my next research project.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Snail's Pace
Sometimes it seems to take so long to get even a little bit stored. I am slowly buying things for our food stores. I have added a little canned milk this week. We got a flat of strawberries, which I made into fruit leather but the kids are gobbling it down so I can't count that as stored! The tomatoes are all planted and growing well, a couple days of rain made them grow a lot faster. I have plans this year to can tomatoes and beans, and I am hoping to get some more berries for some jam and fruit leather.
On a really good note, Brad cleaned out our shed and found several water storage containers we bought years again, so I am going to wash them and slowly start filling them with filtered water from our tap. They are the long term blue HDPE containers so they are good for a minimum of 6 months and probably for a lot longer than that. I am tempted to put a little bleach in them just to make them last longer. All I have to do to get rid of the bleach is open up the cap and let them sit for a day or two. And meanwhile I will have our 2 liter bottle stores while the bleach evaporates off.
I am really interested in learning to can meat, I had some canned whitefish at a friends the other day and it was fabulous, I would like to be able to make my own. I am still cruising Craig's List for a pressure canner, as well as an Avion tow behind camper. We are looking at ways to get out of this house and move to a real house with acreage, a place for a root cellar and possibly some chickens and a bigger garden. We are also looking at building a community because we have been alone and on our own for far too long.
The possibilities keep opening up and we are praying about it and keeping our eyes and hearts open for which way we need to go.
On a really good note, Brad cleaned out our shed and found several water storage containers we bought years again, so I am going to wash them and slowly start filling them with filtered water from our tap. They are the long term blue HDPE containers so they are good for a minimum of 6 months and probably for a lot longer than that. I am tempted to put a little bleach in them just to make them last longer. All I have to do to get rid of the bleach is open up the cap and let them sit for a day or two. And meanwhile I will have our 2 liter bottle stores while the bleach evaporates off.
I am really interested in learning to can meat, I had some canned whitefish at a friends the other day and it was fabulous, I would like to be able to make my own. I am still cruising Craig's List for a pressure canner, as well as an Avion tow behind camper. We are looking at ways to get out of this house and move to a real house with acreage, a place for a root cellar and possibly some chickens and a bigger garden. We are also looking at building a community because we have been alone and on our own for far too long.
The possibilities keep opening up and we are praying about it and keeping our eyes and hearts open for which way we need to go.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
The List
As we continue on in our prepping foray's we are slowly making a list of things that we have not done and need to address.
Our biggest vulnerability at this point is water. We have very little water storage, and no way to purify water if we need to other than boiling. So what we have decided to do it to save our empty gallon milk jugs each week - sterilize them with boiling water and fill them up with our filtered water to store for 4-5 months (after that the plastic in the milk jugs start to break down and leach into the water). We also have a couple of big water storage jugs that will we be filling with emergency water and I am currently researching long term water purification options (although we do have an R/O filter on our sink which runs without electricity that I may also figure out how to convert for water purification since we carry about 2 years worth of filters int he house because it is cheaper to buy them in bulk.
As much as it pains me I also need to learn to can food and spend some time throughout the summer canning and putting up some food for use each year. I want to learn how to can meat as well as fruit and vegetables. We need to step up the drying as well, shortage of cheaper produce through out the winter has kept that down other than jerky, which we eat faster than we can seem to store it.
Food wise we need more coconut flour and cream, and we could use another gallon or so of the oil as well. I want to find a recipe for some good energy bars that have no starch in them so that we all have an option for a high calorie food - maybe pemmican like made with coconut cream and oil. Being limited to no starch or wheat or corn products is a huge challenge, it basically means that we can buy little to no prepared food to store because EVERYTHING has wheat corn and starch in it that you can buy on the reg store shelves. It means a lot more making things ourselves and having single ingredients instead of easy prepared food to live off.
Back on the kitchen list of things to do are making homemade vegetable stocks and sauerkraut and have that on hand to store and eat continually for the health benefits. This is not a prepping thing so much as a personal health thing but I think we can incorporate it into our food stores as well. We also need to do an inventory of our freezer and probably buy another beef quarter in the next month or so.
On the personal protection front we are taking a CPL class next weekend and saving up our pennies to buy 2 hand guns and practice with them regularly at a shooting range. We have several ranges nearby, we just need to choose an affordable one or look at the cost of the range vs driving to some personal property we have been offered to use for target shooting.
That is just the beginning of our list of things we have not done, but int he interest of keeping this in nice small bite-sized packages to prevent burnout and getting discouraged it seems enough for today!
Our biggest vulnerability at this point is water. We have very little water storage, and no way to purify water if we need to other than boiling. So what we have decided to do it to save our empty gallon milk jugs each week - sterilize them with boiling water and fill them up with our filtered water to store for 4-5 months (after that the plastic in the milk jugs start to break down and leach into the water). We also have a couple of big water storage jugs that will we be filling with emergency water and I am currently researching long term water purification options (although we do have an R/O filter on our sink which runs without electricity that I may also figure out how to convert for water purification since we carry about 2 years worth of filters int he house because it is cheaper to buy them in bulk.
As much as it pains me I also need to learn to can food and spend some time throughout the summer canning and putting up some food for use each year. I want to learn how to can meat as well as fruit and vegetables. We need to step up the drying as well, shortage of cheaper produce through out the winter has kept that down other than jerky, which we eat faster than we can seem to store it.
Food wise we need more coconut flour and cream, and we could use another gallon or so of the oil as well. I want to find a recipe for some good energy bars that have no starch in them so that we all have an option for a high calorie food - maybe pemmican like made with coconut cream and oil. Being limited to no starch or wheat or corn products is a huge challenge, it basically means that we can buy little to no prepared food to store because EVERYTHING has wheat corn and starch in it that you can buy on the reg store shelves. It means a lot more making things ourselves and having single ingredients instead of easy prepared food to live off.
Back on the kitchen list of things to do are making homemade vegetable stocks and sauerkraut and have that on hand to store and eat continually for the health benefits. This is not a prepping thing so much as a personal health thing but I think we can incorporate it into our food stores as well. We also need to do an inventory of our freezer and probably buy another beef quarter in the next month or so.
On the personal protection front we are taking a CPL class next weekend and saving up our pennies to buy 2 hand guns and practice with them regularly at a shooting range. We have several ranges nearby, we just need to choose an affordable one or look at the cost of the range vs driving to some personal property we have been offered to use for target shooting.
That is just the beginning of our list of things we have not done, but int he interest of keeping this in nice small bite-sized packages to prevent burnout and getting discouraged it seems enough for today!
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The Financial Side of Preparedness
One of the things you do not see addressed very often is the financial aspect of being prepared. I have been working on learning financial self sufficiency for years using debtproofliving.com. The truth is that credit and living in debt is taken for granted in our society and used as actual income by many people, and but our government as well (trillions in debt anyone?).
The fact related to this truth is that as long as you are in debt it is very hard to be prepared for emergencies, because if something bad happens you could very well lose everything to your creditors. Not to mention being in debt reduces the amount you can spend on preparedness supplies because you have to spend that money to pay back your creditors. Mary Hunt has become my financial preparedness mentor and I am using her books, newsletter and daily emails to become better at managing our money and get us out of debt and into the realm of real self sufficiency.
Growing up I learned a little bit about money management from my grandmother and my mother but for the most part I was influenced by the credit companies and loan givers and stores that told me I deserved everything I wanted right now. I fell slowly and continually into debt. I got married in debt, and he had debt too. Then I quit to stay home and left behind half of our income and we got into more debt. Then I got sick and the idea of me being able to go back to work suddenly disappeared and we needed to get serious about learning to manage our money. Back then this website was called Cheapskate monthly and had a mailed out newsletter of tips along with her books.
Time has gone by and we are finally living on our income and not credit and slowly climbing out of the debt hole we are in. We are teaching our kids about budgeting for what you want and not living off credit, and I read the newsletter every month and still learn something new about being prepared. Check it out - it might help you in your quest for preparedness as well.
www.debtproofliving.com
The fact related to this truth is that as long as you are in debt it is very hard to be prepared for emergencies, because if something bad happens you could very well lose everything to your creditors. Not to mention being in debt reduces the amount you can spend on preparedness supplies because you have to spend that money to pay back your creditors. Mary Hunt has become my financial preparedness mentor and I am using her books, newsletter and daily emails to become better at managing our money and get us out of debt and into the realm of real self sufficiency.
Growing up I learned a little bit about money management from my grandmother and my mother but for the most part I was influenced by the credit companies and loan givers and stores that told me I deserved everything I wanted right now. I fell slowly and continually into debt. I got married in debt, and he had debt too. Then I quit to stay home and left behind half of our income and we got into more debt. Then I got sick and the idea of me being able to go back to work suddenly disappeared and we needed to get serious about learning to manage our money. Back then this website was called Cheapskate monthly and had a mailed out newsletter of tips along with her books.
Time has gone by and we are finally living on our income and not credit and slowly climbing out of the debt hole we are in. We are teaching our kids about budgeting for what you want and not living off credit, and I read the newsletter every month and still learn something new about being prepared. Check it out - it might help you in your quest for preparedness as well.
www.debtproofliving.com
Monday, April 30, 2012
The Gardening Dilemma... solved?
So one of the things we really want to do is to have a decent sized garden and grow some of our own food. This will help us preserve some food and also allow us to have fresh produce that we have grown ourselves. We have been prepping the soil in our backyard for a couple of years with compost and it is now very healthy. The problem is the sun exposure is blocked by trees and we do not own the land we live on so we have to get permission to make any changes.
There are two huge trees we figured they would never let us cut down, but I discovered today that is actually a possibility. Then we simply need to put in to practice a lot of the gardening tips for small areas we have been reading about this winter.
I did buy some seeds when we were out at Home Depot and a few little seed starter kits, I am going to get those going this week so I can have some plants for our soon to be revamped garden. This year we will need to buy plants to get a harvest on time, but for next year we might be able to make a temporary greenhouse in back and row all of our own seedlings.
Some of the books we are reading on gardening:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1882424581/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1602399840/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i02
We are going to look into heirloom seeds, because another thing we want is to use the seeds from year to year and save even more money. For now we bought mostly organic seeds since they don't seem to sell heirloom seeds at any stores around here, so we will probably have to order them online.
There are two huge trees we figured they would never let us cut down, but I discovered today that is actually a possibility. Then we simply need to put in to practice a lot of the gardening tips for small areas we have been reading about this winter.
I did buy some seeds when we were out at Home Depot and a few little seed starter kits, I am going to get those going this week so I can have some plants for our soon to be revamped garden. This year we will need to buy plants to get a harvest on time, but for next year we might be able to make a temporary greenhouse in back and row all of our own seedlings.
Some of the books we are reading on gardening:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1882424581/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1602399840/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i02
We are going to look into heirloom seeds, because another thing we want is to use the seeds from year to year and save even more money. For now we bought mostly organic seeds since they don't seem to sell heirloom seeds at any stores around here, so we will probably have to order them online.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Feeling very underprepared today...
Well it took me almost 4 days but I finally got all my photos synced to the web, I also backed up my eBook collection and put it on my survivor thumb drive and put it in my purse. Then I read a bunch of the entries on the preparedness pro contest, hoping for some more tidbits. The problem is, I feel like we are barely crawling along in our efforts, finding time, energy and money is not easy. I guess every little bit helps and I need to go in and look at my stockpile more often to feel a little better about our progress. I must remind myself that 2 months ago we did not even have a stockpile! Not to mention this is a way of life we are learning, and something we have to learn to improve daily.
My son got into making survival bracelets, which are pretty cool, they are made with paracord and its basically 8-10 feet of paracord you can wear as jewelry and take apart and use if you ever need some emergency rope. They actually look pretty cool too!
I am helping him out and I find they are fun to make. I prefer mine on my ankle though because I am not a big fan of thick bracelets or watches. Not to mention it clashes with my Pandora! Hee hee. Nice to have rope on hand for when it is needed in an emergency though. He also wants to make belts and necklaces which would give even more feet of rope. Its a good project for the kids and I to do together while we talk.
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