I have a new and FREE homesteading course for those of you who are interested you can get that here – Free Homesteading Course. Also, two other free courses that you might be interested in – Free Prepper Course and my Free Blogging Course. Yes, they are 100% free with no hidden catch attached!
Well, folks, it seems that my switch from a “survivalist blog” to a “homesteading blog” was a great decision! The response has been overwhelming in support of the change and most have said it is a great improvement.
One concern that many readers of my old blog (www.thesurvivalistblog.net) did express was about the loss of the content on that site when it is taken offline and asked for a CD or thumb drive with that content archived.
Well, that’s a good idea, however, I think that a better idea would be to pick and choose the very best articles and then combine those into an anthology and make that available in paperback! What do you think about that idea?
Let me know what you think of that idea in the comments below and also if you have favorite articles from www.thesurvivalistblog.net then, please mention those with a link to the article in the comments below.
Also, let me know if you have any ideas for other free courses that I can put together for you all, article ideas and or any other improvements to this site. I want this to be the best homesteading blog with a prepper twist that’s online…
Okay, now what happened on the homestead this week…
I cleared up an old dead tree that fell on my property, repaired some fencing, planted some roses, organized my tools in my shop (still not finished with that), and a few other small jobs.
Unfortunately, my biggest plans this week were thwarted by a garden tiller that refused to run.
Now, that the threat of frost is over (I hope!) I had planned to till my garden area and start planting, unfortunately, my tiller which is only three years old refused to run long enough to get the job done. So I’m taking it to have it repaired today.
Hopefully, it will be fixed by next week and I can get to moving some dirt and planning some seed.
Okay, that’s it for me this week… what about you?
I’m back in first
Sad news I had to put our other puppy down…. She was 19 1/2 years old…… I will miss you Yoda
Puppy is looking around for her and I think he knows we buried her n the backyard.
Freeze dried bananas, chili, zucchini and squash and peppers & onions. That machine is great.
Bought anothe container for the freeze dried food. I can separate into categories, veggies, meat/eggs, desserts.
Bought deep Wood’s bug spray.
Bought more dirt for potatoes
Bought another shelf for long term food storage
Bought more fire extinguishers.
Cleaned other air filter and changed water filter.
Cut the back 40 and trimmed
Son trimmed the front 40….LOL
Pressure washed the back porch, porch furniture and internal gas grill. Ready for Summer !!!
I want one of these but alas its not in the budget….. LOL
I am looking at a new jeep though…
Sorry forgot text
https://youtu.be/pHu-PkzA3Cw
Thor1,
Sorry to hear about Yoda. 19.5 years is quite a long time for a dog and I’m glad you got to spend so much time together. Poor Puppy too. Looking for his friend is such a sad thing to visualize.
Thor,
So sorry to hear about your fur baby.
How ironic, New York , the land of the environmentalists, sends its poop by the train load to other states, what???
Buy gas, a Texas refinery exploded.
Thor:
The train loads of sludge started back in the 90’s. Mixed reviews from the farmers on the high plains.
I wonder what part of New York does that. I’m going to guess “The City”, because this state is fond of sending train loads of toxic waste to my county. I’ve heard some of it even comes from Canada. I can’t wait to get out of this state.
In other news, I’m still looking at homes for sale in TN, and have checked out a few in KY and AL. In the meantime, I’m starting to pack up seldom-used stuff.
NANN!,
And yet it’s one of the states that won’t allow fracking, a revolutionary technology that along with guided horizontal drilling is making states like North Dakota wealthy and cutting their unemployment rate to near zero. Fracking is also done in Pennsylvania and in some cases may actually be extracting oil that NY could be getting.
TOP, did you feel the 3.6 M earthquake in Ohio ???
Thor1,
I’m afraid not. I’ve lived through perhaps a half dozen quakes here and missed all of them. I had friends years ago who were sitting at the dinner table when one occurred, and while they didn’t feel anything, the hanging lamp in the middle of the room above the table did start to swing. The only things we keep really close track of are the thunderstorms that can have high velocity straight line winds and spawn tornados.
I participate in weather nets during these times and in this modern era we can watch the same Doppler radar the weather service is watching with only a slight delay.
Ohio is still a pretty good safe place to live.
The Alabama Shoals – Frankljn county is the Appalachian foothills – beautiful country. The closer u get to any of the lakes in North Alabama, the more u pay. Just over the AL line in mid to SE TN an excellent choice, as well.
nanni,
read “confessions of a crazed cattlewoman’ for info on how they moved to kentucky.
And they also move to the South and try to tell us how great New York is. If they love it so, stay in New York. Not to sound too negative, I’ve fished Upstate New York. I really enjoyed it. But, I would never want to move there.
Sorry to hear about your pup being put down. For folks who don’t live with dogs, they don’t understand that the dog is part of the family and it really wounds your soul to lose one.
So sorry to hear about your other puppy Thor1. You took really good care of her for her to live that long. I’ve never heard of a dog living that long. I still miss my puppy, and it’s been since 2004. I still haven’t gotten another one, mostly because I’m away from home a lot. My 2 kitties will have to suffice for now.
My sympathies. Old dog here is almost 15 and I dread that day.
Sorry to hear about your fur baby. We do hate to lose them.
Thor. Sad to let four legger go.
Good puppy Thor1.
Thanks everyone your condolences. She had a good life, an old poodle who was on here 3rd German Shepherd. She would hold her ground and bite them in the nose or ear to show them who was boss. She was going in circles, wrecking into walls and pooping blood. It was time. In dog years she would have been 133.5 years old. Wow….. I wanted her to make 20 years old but she needed Mercied.
So sorry to hear about your dog. They are part of the family for sure. You must have taken great care of her to make it to 19 years. Small dogs live longer, but that was quite a feat to have her so long. Makes missing her even harder. Bless you.
thor1
i always have the other pets look at the body and sniff it.
that way they don’t wander around crying and searching.
My condolences on Yoda’s passing. I thought ours was old, when she died naturally at age 15 a couple weeks ago. Wow! 19.5! But it’s the quality that counts. We were thinking we would have to have Janie put down, but she died before it could be done. She had a tumor near her spleen that ruptured.
My Lab, Gabby has been gone 3 years and I still miss her. Sorry to hear about the demise of your four legged family member.
Yes ,a book would be super and if I’m lucky maybe I’m the first to post ! Yeah .i would buy a book ..great idea ,maybe have a period to get ideas and suggestions for what the pack would like to see in a book ?
Will be looking forward to it
Northern – agreed maybe a simple list from each person via email- combine list and add as needed
Ref: Survivalist Articles
Make them available as .PDFs for download individually, or by year, and as a group for a SD card either for a fee or a user provided SD card. That way many can choose which articles to obtain. and print as needed.
Northern wolf & MD,
I have more than enough books with several thousand in my library and think something computer readable would be better, with an inexpensive thumb drive perhaps the easiest to produce. With my vision issues I rarely purchase paper books anymore, since I can store a lot more information in a smaller space, with easier access. On the computer it is also more easily searchable and many people now use E-Readers to carry entire libraries with them. In my case, text to speech not only allows easier access to the information, I can often be doing other things while listening.
I have been wondering if it is practical to buy another tablet just for storage, not Internet, with several thumb drives filled with my docs, and music, stored in a Faraday cage.
Any thoughts?
Shirlgirl:
Personally, I have several. They come out to be charged and updated, then go back into Deep Storage. I look for sales, then pick ones that fit the size (7″ for reading, 10″ for ones with illustrations) as needed.
Good idea. Do those run windows? Guess I need to work on that next, in my spare time… What’s that? Not much of that anyway…
JP, what kind do you have?
Almost There:
Mostly I have RCA 7″; usually around $20 – 25 each. DW’s main and one of mine is a 10″ Fusion 5 (these are more, bur available on Amazon).
They do not run WIndows (as such), they are Android-based. But I do have MS Word and Excel loaded on them, along with Adobe, to read my e-books inventories, and documents. The newer ones all can be charged off a micro-USB (a requirement for me). Some of my older ones will require more equipment t recharge.
Thanks JP. Yes, it would be better to have all the toys using one kind of connection. Thanks again.
Almost There:
You are welcome.
Shirlgirl ,
That’s absolutely a good idea.
Most tablets are or can be charged via USB power and in an emergency that can be obtained from hand crank devices like the Kaito Voyager radio or the 10,000 mAh Hiluckey Solar Power Bank that was recently reviewed by Jesse M. I just received one of thos to play with and @ only about $20.00 on Amazon; it’s another good option to have on hand.
A heads up for those needing another inexpensive power backup. woot.com currently has the Omega Pro 80600 (6000 mAh) Power Bank Jump Starter for $37.99
Here’s the direct link for the Omega Pro Power Bank Jump Starter: https://tools.woot.com/offers/omega-pro-power-banks-your-choice-3?ref=_4
Where is everyone? Usually by the time I read M.D. s articles the comments are full.
Well, I just popped in after a few months.
MD:
I love the idea of a paperback anthology. I will spend some time this week reviewing articles and can either post here next week or send an email direct. Thanks for all the good work.
This week was more repair than prep. We had a series of strong wind days and quite a bit of damage still remains for this weekend to work on. We did have electricity cut out two nights in a row. Our saving for a whole house automatic generator was worth it, A good long term prep that will be needed by anyone looking to move away from populated areas with steady electrical service.
Anyone looking to blog I highly recommend listening to M,D, and his sources. It has worked for me.
Stay safe everyone.
Moe,
Thank you. An email would probably be best and easier for me to keep up with. Glad you are having success with your blog. That’s awesome to hear!
We were in a very rural (no roads, just canals and boats) in SEA a while back for 6 months.. Blackouts were the norm, three of four a week. Sometimes two or three a night..
The criteria for tour Blackout “system” is: automatic bright light upon power failure and later, Then night light with bright light when needed.
The solutions was first a power failure lanterns, a local 230VAC product, with about a 5 hour light span using a compact fluorescent tube. It is designed to be plugged in all the time.
The first hour or so was used to calm people down, get flash lights, kerosene and candles going and help the neighbors. Coffee and hot chocolate were made for the big (adult) and little kids. Depending on the time, a meal was prepared .
All the thermoses were refilled with hot water (also a nightly SOP).. Our personal Thermos and Klean Kanteen vacuum bottles had hot water (64 oz), and rice and/or oatmeal (32 oz. wide mouth).
I wish Klean Knteen would get their 64 .oz vacuum bottles in production.!
After the first hour or so, the the lanterns were turned off to be used for bright light tasks later.
We have two personal flashlights.
A “big” Fenix E12, 1 AA cell which provides 20 hours of light on Low @ 8 Lumens.
A “small” Fenix E99Ti, 1 AAA cell which provides about 3 winter/4 summer nights long night light @ 4 Lumens. Once your eyes are adjusted to the dark, that is enough to walk safely.
slowly. The E99Ti is out of production. The aluminum LD02 (zero two) has the same light output. in a pretty much the same package.
Both lights will stand on their tails to reflect light off the overhead.
Bob,
My go to battery LED lighting has become several items from the “As Seen On TV” products and a headlamp from Rural King.
The Atomic beam lantern & atomic beam flashlight
The flashlight takes 3 AAA cells in a cartridge or can use a single rechargeable 18650 and the lantern takes 3 AA cells. I use generic NiMH or Panasonic Eneloop batteries with the Panasonic being IMHO the best option.
The headlamp is $5.00 and comes with batteries, here’s the link: 80 Lumen COB Headlamp HLPY
Another week with not much in the way of supplies getting bought, but we did spend enough.
Free Stuff: gravy mix (4), HD buns, tomato sauce, sour cream
Had a business meeting out of state last weekend. Our furbaby was staying with DD1. She and their dog got into a tussle and mine came out the worse for it. Stiches, drain tube, et. al. Not happy with 15 yr. old grandson who sent them outside unsupervised, after being told not to. We have made other arrangements for future trips.
We are losing the last anchor store in our mall; even the theater is not renewing its lease. These people provided mid-range clothing, and if you shopped wisely you got good stuff for a discounted price. So now it’s small “uptown” specialty stores or Wal-Mart. DW found out Thursday at work that starting Friday everything goes into liquidation. So, full retail and 10% off. We went Thursday night. Spent $175 on business wear for both of us and saved over $350 dollars! The last time we shopped there was the Black Friday sale; did good then too.
I did pick up some more 9mm to run through my new guns now that the weather is better and the ground has dried out.
I understand about projects being put off due to equipment failures. It happens. Fortunately, (?) I have plenty of projects that I can pick up on. Cleaning, building shelving, sorting, and storing are the current ones. I still haven’t got anything finished.