Self-Reliance vs. Preparedness - Getting there.

[Barbara]

The thing is, those are things I eat and so it makes sense that I grow them.

I'm not really new to gardening..been doing it a couple of decades, although its been 5 or 6 years since I've had a big garden.

The one thing I've always had the most problem with is pole beans. They get bug-eaten and I try all the natural crap, and end up sprinkling them with Sevin dust, and then after all that, sometimes they end up flimsy.

Composting I'm familar with, and need to get off my duff and do..a friend of mine is having good luck with adding worms..things seem to break down considerably faster. But the water-collection is a good idea and not something I'd been moving towards.

I work long hours, go to school, do a lot of political stuff and every once in a while do some shooting. So while I'm working on being as self-reliant as possible, I'm not in a position right now to quit my job and do this stuff fulltime. So..a large garden, preserving food, and a small flock of laying hens. If the recession deepens much more, I'll add meat rabbits, but for now, my dog and some girls will be enough.
I'm not attempting to grow a year's worth of food on an acre..but I am looking to have a lot more fresh, more healthily grown food, at less cost.

I hope eventually to have several acres and build an ultra-energy efficient house on several acres. But for now, this is just the right size and I'm happy.

I was hoping this thread would be more of an opportunity for all of us to discuss what we're doing or want to do..not so much an all-about-Barb thread.

[Mac5.56]

I was hoping this thread would be more of an opportunity for all of us to discuss what we're doing or want to do..not so much an all-about-Barb thread.

No, I agree, you just offered us something to jump off from.

[macman37]

Yep..this is home. I'm not heading anywhere but here. I'm interested a lot in sustainable energy and after a lot of other details get worked out, I'll probably start going down that path.

Hope we get a chance to do some shooting this year. Does your wife shoot? Bring her with you..would love to meet her.

woops! Hadn't checked on the thread in a bit.

I have to cajole my wife to get to the range but hopefully I can get you two together. Maybe she'll feel a bit more comfortable with you giving guidance and talking her through it.

[bobby.lamberth]

I started reading this, and it all makes sense, Zombies are coming lol. No, but really, i've wanted to do things like this for a long time, SERE was my first career field in the Air Force, and since then i have cross-trained, but thats beside the point.
Things I've Begun:
-Started learning the 'real' non survival way to purify water and started bottling it.

-I have always been an avid hunter and start expanding my horizons on that (i.e. bow-hunting, pistol hunting, and learning better ways to make snares).

-I started fishing without a pole just line, hook, and bait (so far not fun).

-My father has always been a farmer, so i've started learning more than what i did from helping him since i was five. (good times)

-I work out everyday in some way, whether its a ruck march or cross-fit.

-I taught my wife weapons knowledge, I take her shooting every chance i get, shes not much on the .308 but she likes the Glocks and my AR-15.

-I'm working on getting a pull-behind camper that I can completely rebuild and reinforce for a temporary BOL or Hideout until we can get to our BOL which is a good ways away, but that will take a while.

-My father-in-law started re-loading ammunition and is going to teach me when he gets good and we find out the load for my AR, as I already have plenty stockpiled for my Glock 17 and I am in the process of getting more for my Glock 23

-Food stockpiling, we started but are nowhere near done, we have lots of canned foods that we eat, and cabinets full of noodles and beans with recipes to make meals with all of it and all the waste can go to the compost heape for the garden...

Thats about all I can think of off the top of my head, if there's anymore I will add it as I go, and if you guys have any suggestions/comments, please let me know, I am always looking to improve my Bugged Out Life.

Thanks For Reading
Bobby

[sewvacman]

Sorry I have to ask. EOTWAWKI?

[Barbara]

Sorry..End Of The World As We Know It. It's kind of poking fun at people over-preparing for unlikely possibilities. Also known as "when the Zombies come."

Finished basic EMT training last week, so finally have time to work on other projects.

Broke down and bought a 5k generator, only because I got a smoking deal on it. Keeping a little gas on hand.

Started working on the edible landscape this weekend..blueberry bushes, Bee Balm, sunflowers. Going to plant Jerusalem Artichokes across the street around the mailbox (and let them spread onto the surrounding land, which is owned by someone else but not used.) Will be planting some raspberries at the very far corner of the property tomorrow.

Got a compost bin. Planned to build one but found I could buy one less expensively. Bummer since this thing is kind of cheesy looking but its durable anyway.

Starting work tomorrow on raised strawberry beds.

Haven't started the vegetable garden yet, due to a lack of time, but it goes in next weekend. Same with herbs unless I get really ambitious tomorrow.

Would like to plant a couple of hickory trees..but right now only really have room for one. Will do this later this year.

Bought a snowplow for my garden tractor so I don't have to pay to have my driveway plowed.

Took another pistol class. Its my way of forcing myself to practice since I hate shooting pistols..Weird, but true. Love shooting rifles, hate shooting pistols. Practicing is a chore I have to force myself to do. No worries on the cost..traded business stuff for the class.

Need to keep an eye out for stovepipe now that winter is gone. If I don't find any by fall, I'll buy it but I'm keeping an eye on Craigslist, etc.

[Vic303]

Going to an Appleseed shoot next month, and a Bump-in the night-drill class at the end of this month.

Also been picking bush cherries like mad, and freezing most of them until I can figure out a suitable way to pit the little things. Very tasty and should make outstanding preserves if I can remove the pits. (Bush cherries are smaller than marbles but crop very heavily.)

[Barbara]

I'm not familiar with bush cherries. Are they shrubs?

I have a sand cherry tree, which is pretty but I'm skeptical about its productivity.

[Vic303]

http://www.ediblelandscaping.com and search "cherry". Mine are the red Nanking variant and I think I actually Gurney'd them! And they all survived, and grew well...

Here are some pics of my current crop.








Just bought an old fashioned pitter to try to pit them for preserves.

[MarshallDodge]

Great thread Barbara. My wife and I are on a similar "1-year" plan right now and are going to try and increase it as we get more proficient.

We moved out of the city about 4 years ago and have learned quite a bit.

My wife did a garden a few years ago and except for some excellent watermelon, it did not come out that great. We chalked it up to a good learning experience.

This year we started another garden and based on our first experience, we went much smaller so that we can keep up with it. The weather so far has really helped us with a little rain almost every day. Where we live, we have the ability to flood irrigate which is nice because it does not require any power to pump the water.

We have some fruit trees, cherry and apple. The cherry tree has not done well the last couple years so I need to do more research to see what we can do to help it out. There will be more tree planting in the future when I find out what it takes to keep them going.

We have about a dozen chickens and a couple goats. The chickens are good layers and the goats make for good weed control, and some meat if it came down to it.

I have a small diesel tractor with a loader and scraper. My neighbor has a tiller attachment that he said that I could have but it looks like it could use some work. I try to keep the tractor fueled up and keep a years worth of fuel on hand.

For power, I have been doing lots of research on wind, solar, and batteries. We have a 650 and a 6000 watt generator but I don't want to have to worry about keeping them running. Wind seems to be a good choice where we live and is less expensive than solar. I have friends that live off grid and use a combination of wind and solar, with a genny backup to keep a large battery array charged up. The technology is getting so much better with all of the "green" initiatives.

Food and water storage are growing. We started off the food storage slow to figure out what we could actually eat and digest. The purchase of a flour mill has allowed us to buy bulk wheat, rice, corn, and oat groats and turn them into flour to use in recipes. Our neighbor friends are very proficient at canning so we need to make an investment in the jars, etc. to make this happen.