Gardening 2012

There's a lot going on around here.  I'll try to show some of it in pictures rather than a wordy blog post.

We had to renew our flock, because a predator carried off our original

 

 

Compost piles are getting started and/or turned

Jake helping turn a compost pile.... I need to get him off the pile, the boys growing like a weed.

 

 

 

Seeds are started and tended to by my lovely wife.

Meat is being canned, this is hamburger.  In the canner tonight is both turkey and ham.

Sauerkraut is being fermented.

The garden is being prepared.

Strawberries are growing, and there's a tone of berries growing on the plants.

Seedlings are being hardened off.

This is a blackberry plant I thought was going to die.

Elderberry, the coffee can was used to keep ants out of it.

Onions in a temporary home.  We'll replant some of them around the tomato and pepper plants to try to keep bugs away.

The watering system is going in.  We lay the soaker hose down, sow the seeds or plant the plants then mulch to keep weeds down and moisture in.

In this picture you can see that I moved the tomato supports to the west side of the garden.

A Nation in Trouble and the Solution

A few of the posts I've written lately have discussed being self reliant.  I've done this because I see bad times upon us coming very quickly.  There are things happening that are causing our freedoms to be removed and the people of the country aren't responding in a strong show of displeasure about it.  The latest is the NDAA.  Do an internet search and read the new law.  Basically it removes certain portions of the Bill of Rights.  See below:

Couple this with the Patriot act and the Bill of Rights is gutted.  Not shown in the picture above should also have the Article I crossed out as well.  Every presidency, every change of congress, every terrorist attack or natural disaster some new act, regulation or policy comes along and removes our freedom.  In towns all over the nation people are being recorded on public rights of ways while driving.  This is done, because the local government has measured the average speed of the thorough fare and found it to be higher than the posted speed limit.  The cameras get put in with a pre-suposition that everyone driving on that road is speeding, therefore we as a people are not 'innocent until proven guilty' we are guilty and have to prove innocence.

 I told you in a previous blog post that the beans bullets and band aids need to be taken care of.  The above is partially why I think that.  But it goes deeper than that.  I was only a few decades ago that ever house had a small kitchen garden and food got 'put up' or canned.  Today if you talk about preserving your own food you're either a freak or an oddity.  It wasn't long ago that credit was shunned, today if you don't have credit card debt or store credit debt your a freak and not 'keeping up with the Jones's' is considered stupid.

Couple all of this with expensive oil, a weak dollar that is getting weaker, a stock market that is completely divorced from the economy and a real unemployment that is in the neighborhood of 16% and that spells disaster.  This can be averted though.  It means getting back to God and trusting in Him for His Salvation.  It means getting back to the Constitution of the United States and being thankful for all God has blessed us with.  It means remembering the Rules of Civility as written by George Washington.  It means loving one another as Jesus Christ first loved us.  We are not the center of the universe Jesus Christ is!!

1 John 4:7-10
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Bullets, Beans and Band Aids

I've been hearing a lot about the new show Doomsday Preppers on one of the cable networks.  I don't have cable, so it's not something I can watch.  I did get to watch one episode, my wife and I were at my parents house, they have cable.  The episode we watched was the one where the guy blew his thumb off.  I wasn't overly impressed.  It seems to me that the producers put the people in a bad light, but also the people themselves seemed to be operating out of fear not out of rational, objective thought, nor out of much prayer to God and guidance by the Holy Spirit.  It could just be that in the time given this part of the story could not be communicated properly, however, that's my take on that one episode of the show.  If the show ever goes to Netflix I'll watch more of it and make a more informed decision. 

Let's talk a bit about the prepper movement, there are people who are prepping for the fringe fears... A polar shift, alien infiltration, full scale invasion by a foreign power... the list goes on.  These things could happen, I suppose, but will they?  Objectively, not likely.

Let's mention some other things that I think are much more likely to happen: slow economic slide followed by hyper-inflation (think Greece), infrastructure  collapse due to disrepair, a government that slowly moves away from the Constitution and changes the way it operates through executive orders and appointment of czars and administrations that make policy through non-legislative rules (think IRS, EPA, FEMA, Federal Reserve).

Does this make me a conspiracy theorist?  Maybe, however, I also know that I have the responsibility to care for my family and those around me.  I know that the media is telling me that times are getting better  all the while the month is getting longer and the money's getting shorter.  I know there are more rules, laws, policies, and statutes than is covered by the Constitution of the United States.  Objectively if we look at our country and the economy we see issues, problems.  I'm not saying it's going to get worse, because I don't know the future.  I am saying we need to prepare for the future, whether it be good or bad.  My wife and family and I are on a journey of learning skills like organic gardening, small livestock for food, cooking with alternative solar, re-purposing things for garden/agricultural work and use, food storage and cooking from scratch.  If things get worse we will have the skills to survive.  If things don't get worse, then we're just 'living a green life style'.

Regardless, I urge everyone to examine the world, the news, the economy, and the government in a very objective way, then pray, seek guidance from God.  The guidance you receive may be do do nothing, it may be to start buying extra canned goods when you go shopping.... Act on whatever guidance you receive.

God Bless.

Americans view of the Future

I never watch mainstream news on TV and don't normally read mainstream media articles, but this headline caught my eye: More Americans Think Economy Will Never Recover

A basic summary is that most Americans think it's going to be a long time before the economy and consumer spending is back to where it was pre-recession.  Some going so far as saying their spending will never be like it was before.

It seems people have a pretty poor outlook for the future, I find that sad.  My wife and I are among those who say we will never spend the same as we did in the past.  That doesn't mean we have a less comfortable life, in fact, in the last 3 years we have started eating healthier, better and less processed foods than ever before.  We have fundamentally transformed (thanks BIG O) our spending.  We have taken steps to produce our own food and be sustainable, and we'll continue working to be as self reliant as possible in that area.  All in all life is looking pretty good.  So the way I look at it, maybe this isn't a bad thing, maybe people will get back to the barter and/or trade among each other instead of going to the big stores.

There's a lot to be said for the barter system when items, time and possibly currency is being traded.  I believe it's more sustainable than a straight currency trade system.  Granted not everyone has the ability to trade time or knowledge, however those who don't have time or knowledge have the goods or extra items to trade.  I think we need to get back to that kind of system, but I also think we have to remind people that they can trade other things besides money.

God Bless!!! Remember He controls history.

Prepping, or just Normal Life

In the last several years there have been news articles about people dubbed as 'preppers', survivalists, hoarders and nut jobs.  On one extreme there are rich people spending millions of dollars on condo's in renovated missile silo's where they can go if the SHTF for those who don't know that means Stuff Hits the Fan.  There are those who talk about being prepared but don't know exactly what it means so they just kind of vacillate because the don't believe in a TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) scenario.  To that end I want to tell you what being prepared means to me.

It wasn't that many years ago that in this country everybody had a pantry.  A large percentage of the people of this country had gardens.  Women canned on a regular basis and instead of buying canned goods 'put up' food.  We as a people no longer do that.

That still doesn't give any answers does it?  Lets start with the basics.  I'm not a big proponent of the SHTF or TEOTWAWKI however I guess it could happen.  I am however a proponent of being able to support myself and my family in times when things are tough, when a job is lost, when inflation goes up, when the unexpected happens, or just about anything comes up that taxes us emotionally, physically, mentally or financially.  Having food from the garden 'put by' by being canned or dehydrated allows me to be prepared for these types of things.  It's that simple and sometimes I might miss the mark, but at least in this country I have the freedom to make the attempt to be as self sufficient as I can be.

So what some people call prepping, or hoarding is just normal life.  It's what the people of this country have done since April 19, 1775 and before.