Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Keep your friends close and your food closer - #4

Ok, so I have talked about grapes and cherries and squash and quail and peppers and tomatoes and chickens and eggs and okra and etc etc etc.

Now let's get a bit more personal.  All the quail and chicken in the world ain't gonna help you if you don't know how to properly (AND HUMANELY) process them. 

I don't want to sound all weird and stuff because I am a pretty down to earth guy actually, BUT, I am always a bit in awe when I harvest and process an animal because this animal is giving its life for me and my family, friends and acquaintances to eat and gain nourishment from them.  Treat animals with the respect that they deserve and always strive to harvest and process them in the most humane way possible.

Ok, enough of the touchy/feely crap.  Onward.

The saying goes that a pictures is worth a thousand words, so a video is probably like a whole library.  So here ya go. 

I took this video last night on a request from a fellow blogger who wanted to know more about how to process a farm raised quail. 

By the way, wrap these in bacon, pan fry (or grill them) and they are delicious!

How to properly process a farm raised quail


Tuesday, September 11, 2012

SO THE SHIT HAS HIT THE FAN...NOW WHAT?!

I recently read a great article that said "So the S has H T F.  How do you know really know though?  Is it a local, regional, national or worldwide event?"  What happens if you experience a Carrington Event.  How do you know that its not just a local thing and that by tomorrow you will be sitting on your front porch sipping mint juleps? In the same way, how do you know that it is not a life changing, true SHTF end of the world scenario that has jumped out of the pages of fiction and landed right on your head?

That really got me thinking.  Right now we are so used to easy, cheap and verifiable information.  In less than a minute, I can find out who a girl that I dated out of college is married to, how many kids they have and where they live.  I can find out what the lead drummer for Led Zepplin likes to eat and how he likes it prepared.  I can find out what our current national debt is and verify it through several sources.

However, in a true TEOTWAWKI event, we will not have this type of information.  We will be going off of word of mouth, hearsay, rumors etc.  Information will not be quick, it will not be easy, it probably will be a mix of some truth and some fiction and it will not be easily verified, if able to be verified at all.

SO WHAT ARE WE DO TO?

If you came here for answers, you are SOL, but over the next few weeks/months, I will be digging up some way to help combat this type of information vacuum and come to some good solid information.

Of course I always welcome comments, so if you have some information to help other folks out, please feel free to share.


Well guess its been too long

Been quite busy over the last few weeks just getting stuff prepped if you know what I mean.  Working on the shelter and getting it ready for storage has been taking up a bit of my time, but along with work, family, other small remodeling projects just haven't posted here for a while, but here we go.

Here are a few older pics of my shelter.  It looks a bit different now, but I will be taking some pics of what it looks like now one of these days and post them up here.








Nothing really fancy, but has got plenty of room for a substantial amount of temperature stable storage.  There won't be much room to move around down here, but that is not really the point of this.  Over the next few months I will finish stocking it (or at least get to a comfortable spot) and will be running electricity to it for lighting and better ventilation and de-humidification if that becomes necessary.

The boys think that its awesome, but the dogs are not impressed at all by the giant hole in the ground and will not venture near it. 

Well, that is all for now, will be posting again soon to cover some other item. 

Take care and keep prepping.