Being self sufficient and prepared,

  For awhile now I have been thinking about what would happen to us if the world around us collapsed. If the banks went belly up, no jobs, if we had to survive completely on ourselves. We would probably, maybe last a month! Where we are in our home/lives at this moment we are not self sufficient what so ever. The only bulk items I have on hand is popcorn.Does anyone ever think about what their family would do if the world crashes like that? Because there is a good chance it just might. My husband and I have talked about what we would do, talked a lot but haven't done anything yet. The #1 thing we would do is go to as many pharmacies or stores that carry diabetic supplies and load up on them as this would be what we would need to keep our daughter alive until the world straightened itself out.I hope we will be in a place to supply as much of our own food as we could and I am learning to make things like laundry soap/other soaps we would need, not much but a start. I have been collecting books on homesteading/how to/herbal medicines which I hope would be of use to us.

 I look back on my childhood and came to realize just how strong my mother was. We pretty much always lived out in the country or in very small towns. We moved around a lot! One of my favorite places was in the itty bitty town of Pyatt Ar. We started out there on a large acreage that had a new barn, a new milk house and a well house on it. Those buildings were what we lived in. We had our beds and living area set up in the barn and the kitchen was in the milk house. We had several acres of vegetables growing in the bottom land and a huge on up by the house for us. My brother who was about 16 or 17, myself(10) and the twins who were about 5 at the time helped mom take care of those gardens. We would swim in the creek down by the road or out by the rail road tracks.We had chickens, ducks, rabbits and dogs. I remember mom canning in the milk house and how hot it would get. The twins and I would take off up in the woods for the day and come back when it was getting dark, drinking out of the cold spring, eating blackberries. The school I went to had 1st-2nd in one room,3rd-4th in another and 5th-6th in another, the other grades were over in another building. I thought it was a wonderful school! In the winter we would move into town until spring and planting time. My mom was about 45 at this time and I remember how hard she worked to grow food for us and get it put up for the winter.I remember her making clothes for us and teaching us what bugs in the garden were good and what were bad. For a kid it seemed like a great life most of the time but for an adult I think it would have been a struggle. My older sisters probably know more of what mom went thru at that time. To me the strength she showed back then gives me hope that I can get my family thru anything that comes our way.                                                         
 It has finally dawned on me that my husband,kids and myself will not be able to do this on our own. We need a community, a group of people/families with varying talents and skills that can work together to build a secure,well prepared place to take care of our families if anything major happens. I don't know if that can happen on this property we are on now or if we need to look for a more suitable place. I do feel that everyone needs to get themselves someway ,somehow, into a position where they can safely survive a major catastrophe. It might be getting some families together on some land and growing or building everything you need, a group of people in a neighborhood banning together and making plans, everyone in an apt. building working together to makes things safe (this would require you to know your neighbors), helping family/friends monetarily who can get a safe place set up so that you could take your family there. I am not an alarmist, but bad things do happen, be it with mother nature or man made and there needs to be plans in place for our families so we will not have to rely on a government that probably won't be there to help us.The 99% needs to start taking care of their own! We can you know, we can band together, thinking outside the box and create our own paradigm shift.

        

Blessed Be,

Homeschool Conversations

 Yesterday our homeschool group met up for park day as we do on most Fridays. There were about 9 moms with 1-4 kids each so we had a good group. The kids had fun playing in the creek and generally chasing around. As I was leaving I wondered what moms in a big city homeschool group would talk about.  
 Our conversation yesterday centered around our gardens and the animals we hoped to raise this year. We talked about the best chickens to raise for meat and eggs , the best way to butcher them, how many a family would need in a year and how we could help each other out with that big chore. We considered what breed of rabbits to raise and volunteered to help one mom to make a better chicken tractor as she didn't like hers.
 We talked about the gardens and I hoped it wasn't to late to put in potatoes. Composting came up which then lead to a conversation about humanure. Most had read The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins and I told of a new one out called Holy Shit by Gene Logsdon. One family had already tried this and said the soil that was produced after 2 years was the richest she had ever seen. I thought that was quite interesting.r
 In between these conversations we kept an eye on kids, passed out snacks, passed around babies and generally made sure no one roamed to far away. With all the families there about half lived in town with the rest living any where from just outside to about 30-45 min away. I think we all consider ourselves homesteaders, urban and country. All in all it was a great play day for the kids and me!

Tracking your Energy Loss

  Saturday I went to an energy saving seminar at our local library. This seminar was about how to tighten up your house and how to find out where the energy losses where that were costing you money.One of the most interesting and useful sites we were given was Earth Aid, http://www.earthaid.net/, This is a free service that enables households to track all of your actual electric,gas, and water utility usage in one place online, compare your usage with friends and neighbors and find easy ways to save. You can also earn Earth Aid Reward Points based on how much energy and water you save at home- points you can redeem for discounts and offers at over 200 local, regional and national participating businesses. This also depends if your local utility is linked up with Earth Aid. Our electric is but our water co. hasn't set up with this yet, they are working on it.
 Information was also given about our local utility rebates and incentives. Call your local utility's and find out yours. I want to do a Home Energy Audit. This is where they come in and but a blower door in and then with inferred light track all ways your heating and cooling (money)are leaving your house, I know a big one in my house will probably be the fire place.
 You know how most folks make New Years resolutions and by March you have forgotten them already?  Well now you can make a Energy Resolution!  Go to www.ecologicalcommunities.org and sign up! Get your family, neighbors, kids schools and your town in on this. It can only save people money and the energy of our planet if we start taking these steps.

 Hope everyone has a great week,
 Blessed Be,

Happy Ney Year

Happy New 2010 everybody. I hope this year is filled with many blessings, some tribulations and lots of love.
I think this will be an exciting year for our family. We are in a new place, lots of anticipation for the new year.
I was talking with my friend/neighbor yesterday. We are so excited to be living next to each other. We talked about all the things we are going to plant, things to build and lots of ideas. It is so fun to have a good friend living next door and having so much in common.
I was excited to learn that the land we are on,which we thought ended just behind the house, actually goes back behind us for about tree acres. So much more to play with.
I am ready to order my seed catalogs and decide what to put in the ground. I must restrain myself from ordering more than I can deal with!