Thursday, May 24, 2012

Seriously?

How serious are you?

Stop for a second and think.  What would happen if right now BAM a "One Second After" type of event happened.  Take just a bit of time and really try to immerse yourself in that scenario.

What would be the first thing that you would do?  What would your course of action be?  What do you imagine your first hour, 12 hour, day, week would be like?

Do you seriously have a plan or do you just have a plan for a plan?

Are you playing prepper or do you have a firm, actionable plan AND the hardware/resources to carry out that plan?

Where are you right now?  How do you get to where you need to be?  What do you have with you to help you carry out that goal?  

What if that plan falls through?  What if that "little hidey hole back in a national forest that nobody else knows about but me" turns out to be the destination for half of your county's population?  Do you have an alternate Bug Out Land?  

What would you do for water?  Seriously.  Remember, the Shit just Hit the Fan.  What do you do today?  This is no longer hypothetical or a post on a forum, this is real and this is happening!

Rain water with a water filter?  Just this morning in my area, the weatherman said that the past two months have been the driest on record since the late 1800's.

How does that rain water sound now?  Have access to a river or pond?  Awesome!  How are you going to access it?  Do you have the necessary water prep/filter?  Is it in your possession or just "in your plan?"

What about food?  Do you have what you need for today?  I am sure that you do.  What about this week?  If you have found this page, you probably have that covered.  This month?  Hmmm, are things going to get a bit tight?

Human Nature.  I have been in a few places that have shown human nature is capable of stooping to any level to ensure survival.  This won't happen after a few months, this type of nature will begin to exhibit itself within hours.  How will you deal with it?

I am sure that most preppers have firearms pretty squared away.  What about ammo?  Is it in your possession or just "in your plan"?  I personally know preppers that have several high quality firearms but not enough ammo to even carry them through a decent day at the range without stopping by walmart to stock back up.

Do you have a plan to help people out?  Do you have the means and capability to carry out that plan?  Do you plan to help to try to build a community or will you be in "EMFH" (Every Man For Himself) mode?

What skills do you have to help build a community?  Database programmer?  Car Salesperson?  Lawyer?  Window Washer?  Probably not a big call for these fields in the PAW (Post Apocalyptic World).  Know how to raise livestock and manage a flock/herd?  Nice.  Know how to save seeds and raise a garden?  Awesome!

Putting ourselves in this mindset and getting out of the "planning to plan" stage just might, one day, save our lives!



Tuesday, May 15, 2012

LET THERE BE QUAIL!

Well, about 3 weeks ago I fired up the old incubator that I put away last year and put a bunch of my eggs from my 6 mature Coturnix Quail.

The incubator did it's job well and I now have 8 little bundles of energy bouncing around inside the incubator.  (I will be posting pics as soon as my crappy camera/phone cooperates with me).

Because of all of the selective breeding that has occurred throughout the years to get this kind of bird, the Coturnix Quail has lost all instinct to brood.  Hence the incubator. 

A person could use a very small banty hen to sit on the eggs (which I have one and she VERY MUCH has the instinct to brood, sometimes it's hard to get any eggs because wants to sit on all of them.

If worse comes to worse, I will do that, but for now I will use the incubator.  It increases the hatch rate and reduces work.

Anyway, my plan is to basically keep the incubator full of eggs and every 3 weeks put in another batch.  By the beginning of fall I should have enough of a cycle to allow me to butcher 4 - 5 each week to add to my VERY locally sourced food.  1 quail is not much meat, but every little bit helps.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Close Food: This time its personal!

Well finally got my plants in the ground and not a moment too soon since we just had a great rain storm that should help my stuff just leap out of the ground.

Here are a few random, crappy cell phone pictures of my WIP (Work In Progress).

This is my garden plot.  Much smaller than the previous three years, but will still keep us in fried okra, fried green tomatoes, fried squash, (do you detect a pattern here?).  Ok, I do eat raw stuff too, but fried stuff is just so freaking tasty!

I went to the dark side and got a few hybrid tomatoes.  Don't worry though because most of the plants are heirloom.




Here is my patch of garlic from the previous years.  (it doesn't really grow sideways, its just the camera angle LOL)





As you can see in this picture, my wife will have no excuse not to keep me well stocked with cherry cobbler!




Here is a small glimpse of part of how I keep my garden watered during the dry spells.  Its a rain water catch off of my well house.  Old DirecTV dishes make for a plethora of great hobby uses.  Here it is being repurposed as a funnel.  Inside the water drum I have a pump that I use to pump the water out through a hose.  It doesn't have great pressure, but does an acceptable job of watering the garden when needed.  It doesn't take long to capture 55 gallons (a few rains) and I can water the garden about 3 times out of this before its empty.




Our grapes are coming along nicely.  I am going to try some new recipes this year that call for grape leaves.  I have never eaten anything with grape leaves in it, but since my motto is "waste not want not", I am going to try a few.  Have plenty of grape leaves to experiment with.





During my "down time", I can usually be found behind my workshop starring at this.  Its my makeshift target range for my pistols.  Its only about 20 yards, but long enough for some decent pistol work. 


I truly love spring, summer and fall and enjoy every minute of being outside on my place.  Some folks like to take vacation to go places.  I like to stay home.  I feel that if everyone had as wonderful place as I do, there would be a lot more "stay-cations" in the world!

Addendum - 5-10-12:
Just walked around my garden last evening and the squash and cucumbers are already breaking through the ground.  Got some blooms on my tomatoes.