The Digital Homesteader (Beta)

This past week saw the arrival of hurricane Ike. Just like Katrina a couple of years ago, we knew that this was coming at least a week prior to it making landfall. But unlike Katrina hundreds of thousands of people wisely evacuated. The scope of the destruction is still being evaluated, but as I write they are aware of 28 dead and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Most American’s don’t live in the gulf coast, but still gives us plenty of reasons to stop and think about leaving if we needed to, and where we would go.  I live about 20 hours driving distance from where Ike made landfall, but the effects still caused downed trees here and power outages. It begs the question how far you need to go. I suppose that if I were in a trailer I would have faired well much further south so long as there were no trees nearby.  Now that the storm has past many people will start heading back to pick up the pieces.

72 Hour Plan

There are many, many sources on the web having to do with a 72 hour preparedness plan. However, different plans are for different reasons. People in the South might prepare for evacuation for a hurricane, while people in California might prepare for an earthquake. Therefore, all plans need to be regionalized and personalized. Some people might have special needs, some might have children to attend to.

The government recommends that everyone keep a kit of basic essentials to last them for 72 hours, or three days. Their reasoning is that no matter what problems arise they feel that they can restore services in that time.

The easiest way to plan for a 72 hour kit is to think about what you would need for a long weekend camping. This would include food, clothing, shelter, water, etc. Plan as though you are in the middle of the woods and you can’t run to Walmart until the trip is over. However, unlike the weekend camping trip, your 72 hour kit needs to have some things that you might need in case of a more significant emergency. These will include a medical kit, communications equipment (radio),

Some might feel the need to get it all at once, but a weekly purchase plan covering several months make it a lot easier on the average budget. Some of these items you will purchase regularly and use, just restocking when you need to. Those items are going to be extra water, some food, toilet paper, etc. Some of the things might not make a lot of sense, such as boots. But during many disasters people have reported foot injuries due to stepping on broken and jagged items such as a nail through a board that has come off a building.

The government recommends the following:

When preparing for a possible emergency situation, it’s best to think first about the basics of survival: fresh water, food, clean air and warmth.

Recommended Items to Include in a Basic Emergency Supply Kit:

• Water, one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and sanitation
• Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food
• Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both
• Flashlight and extra batteries
• First aid kit
• Whistle to signal for help
• Dust mask, to help filter contaminated air and plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
• Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)
• Local maps

Additional Items to Consider Adding to an Emergency Supply Kit:

• Prescription medications and glasses
• Infant formula and diapers
• Pet food and extra water for your pet
• Important family documents such as copies of insurance policies, identification and bank account records in a waterproof, portable container
• Cash or traveler’s checks and change
• Emergency reference material such as a first aid book or information from www.ready.gov
• Sleeping bag or warm blanket for each person. Consider additional bedding if you live in a cold-weather climate.
• Complete change of clothing including a long sleeved shirt, long pants and sturdy shoes. Consider additional clothing if you live in a cold-weather climate.
• Household chlorine bleach and medicine dropper – When diluted nine parts water to one part bleach, bleach can be used as a disinfectant. Or in an emergency, you can use it to treat water by using 16 drops of regular household liquid bleach per gallon of water. Do not use scented, color safe or bleaches with added cleaners.
• Fire Extinguisher
• Matches in a waterproof container
• Feminine supplies and personal hygiene items
• Mess kits, paper cups, plates and plastic utensils, paper towels
• Paper and pencil
• Books, games, puzzles or other activities for children

While meandering through the endless aisles of our local mega grocery store I happened upon a couple of carts of closeout items. These carts are worth noticing, we picked up a new coffee maker really cheap a couple weeks ago. This week they were selling a lot of emergency supply stuff. I picked up this really neat LED crank flashlight for $10. These retail for $40, so I thought it was worth a shot just from the savings factor alone. It has AM/FM, a fairly bright light (single LED or 9 LED), a flashing strobe with red LEDs added in and siren, a night light mode (which is being tested in a dark bedroom now) and compass. But one of the things that I really liked was that they thought to have a jack and cable so that I can plug in my iPod. During times of crisis it might be rather soothing to have a little Charlie Parker playing softly in the background.  It also has some kind of ability to charge your cellular, but the adapters won’t work with ours.  But hey, for $10 you can hardly go wrong. The best thing about it is that I won’t have to scramble around looking for batteries. The crank is supposed to charge the unit for 45 minutes of operation with just one minute of cranking. Early tests didn’t seem to work out that way at all, but its better than not having lights because I can’t find the batteries that I need when the lights go out!

They say that the longest journey begins by taking the first step.  I subscribe to that. But I also see that if I have taken that first step I am then farther than those who don’t take a step.  And in homesteading that is a big part of it. We need to push ourselves just a little at times to make sure that we are in the right direction. So,  each Friday I will post what that step was for me this week and you can share as well (in the comments).

Wheat! I drove to an Amish bulk store on the Kentucky/Tennessee border and got 150 pounds of wheat. It looks like a lot when we load it in the car, but I know that it won’t last that long. We use a lot of wheat at our home, and buying it in bulk really saves us. We paid about $85 (a LOT more expensive than last year) which works out to be 53 cents a pound.  That should keep us in fresh bread for about 6 months.

Several months ago I came to a couple of important realizations. First, I don’t have a very good memory and need to write everything down. Second, if the power goes off I am in trouble because everything that I need is stored on my laptop and backed up online. This isn’t usually a problem because I happen to have several computers and if one goes down I can usually be back up in an hour or so with my backups.  But there are so many times that the computer isn’t convenient or available. I have this huge 3 ring binder that I usually carry around, but it is a real pain at times because of its size.

The solution was found in my desk, a small pocket notebook - The Moleskine. I had been using one for a while to keep various random notes. I would write down web sites that I want to visit when I was sitting in a bookstore, ideas for business, etc. Then it struck me. This is the perfect thing to organize my homesteading thoughts. I forked out the $9 and got a new one just for this purpose. I got some small sticky tabs and made sections so that I could keep it orgamized.

To me, the most important section is what I call the First 72 and the 72 Hour Countdown.  The government says that preparing for 72 hours is essential, so I have plans on what to do in those first 72 hours (3 days).  But the most important thing for me is the 72 hours preceeding that time. Be it a hurricane, run on the back, impending ice storm, etc., I want to have an idea of those items that we need but don’t have. The list is somewhat prioritized (mut moves around a lot) so that I will know where to go first and what to buy. I have some items that are purposely listed from places that are open 24 hours so that I can make sure that I get to the places that aren’t during the daytime hours.

This isn’t a panic list, it is a list that helps me focus on what I need to do if I know that we might be without power for a few days.  Of course running to the gas stations and filling up is priority #1. Then I have a systematic approach to getting the essentials.  When people are flocking to the stores to buy everything off the shelf, I want to know EXACTLY what I need and where to get it.  Eventually I will want to have all of these items in our storage, but the realities of life dictate that sometimes we use the money to do extravigant things like pay the mortgage.

For a simple investment you will be doing yourself a great favor by buying one of these little notebooks. They are durable and will help you organize your thoughts as you prepare for your homestead.

I love looking at differenct cultures and learning. One of the things that strikes me every time is that the American culture is so used to our luxuries that we can’t possibly conceive of the idea of “going without”. But cultures that have never experienced these luxuries, or have eschewed them, don’t seem to be missing out at all. Now please don’t misunderstand, I am not saying that we need to sell everything that we have and join some primative community. I am saying that we can learn from them and possibly adapt some of our ways. Personally, I like have a toilet inside the house and plan to keep it.

All around us are people that have made conscious decisions not to have one convenience or another for a variety of reasons.  During the Great Depression people found that they had to cut back on a lot of things and make due. Wouldn’t it be a great practice to do so now? We have found that we don’t need the TV (shock!), we can get by without the phone.  I asked the family recently what they would have the hardest time giving up and the consensus is that we wouldn’t do well without air conditioning. That’s a tough one, but so many people for so many centuries have done fine without it. We have become spoiled.

I want to recommend a great fiction peice that I had never read until this past week although it is famous and has been out for 50 years. “Alas, Babylon” by Pat Frank. The premise is that there are a lot of nuclear bombs that fall on America and how the city of Fort Repose, FL adjusts to life after the bombs. It is very similar to the TV series Jericho in a lot of aspects, just in a different era.  It really got me thinking a lot about the value of what we have and some of the things that I would like to trade if we ever had need.  I don’t particularly think that a nuclear war is a significant threat today, but the priciples of what these people had to do to survive was compelling. Shelter, water, and food; everything else is secondary.

I decided that I will try to have regularly weekly features that will make this a little more enjoyable than just random posts on stuff that we all need to know. So Thursday is going to be “Tool Day”. I will introduce you to some of the greatest tools out there. Of course you can’t go far without using the best tool that we have - the brain.  Having our wits about us can do so much more than any fancy set of tools that we have, if we use it. Alas, I think that so often we get into a panic mode and act like we really don’t know what is going on.

Of course, to do this, you have to fill that gray matter with substance, and that is what this feature is really all about; knowledge.  The first tool is really one of the most essential books that you can have, and must have. Carla Emery’s “Encyclopedia of Counrty Living“.  Now I can already heard some of you: “Hey, I don’t live in the country!” Well the truth is that much of this book is indeed how to live in the country, but so much of it is just how to live off the land, wherever that land may be. Probably the best money you can spend!

I am so glad to be able to put together this web site. As a beta it will be hosted at one of my sub-domains, but should have its own domain shortly, and then a new name. The purpose of the site is simple. I want to provide a ready source of information to people all over so that they can become more self-reliant, not relying on “the system” to survive.  I will publish recipes for good and cheap cooking. I will explain how to raise your own food supply. I will share how to prepare for short and long term interruptions of service. I don’t plan to write this as some general information site however, it is a dialog between you and me, and therefore it is personal. You won’t agree with me all the time and that’s okay. No one agrees with me 100% of the time.  But I hope that I can impart some information that will at least cause you to pause and think about the way that you do things, and hopefully consider how you can do things better in the future.

I am writing this for you. You may live on a farm in a rural area, a suburb, or an urban mess of cement and steel (but I hope not!).  Since I don’t know your situation I am going to do a little writing to all perspectives. But I encourage you to read it all because the information that you gleen might help someone else, and isn’t that what its all about?

For the purposes of this site, I consider homesteading the intentional lifestyle choice of living off one’s own land. That land can be a quarter acre lot in the suburbs of California or a 1,000 acre farm in South Texas.  It is coming to a place where you don’t worry about whether or not the power stays on, the stores stay open, the water flows, or anything else disrupts what 99.99% of the population depends on every day. Why? Because we have had the wisdom to look at the future and see that nothing is certain. And so we prepare to protect our families and make sure that if anything does happen we are at least better prepared than those without a vision for the future.

I am not an expert, just someone along life’s journey with a little more passion towards this stuff than the average. I think “preparedness” almost all the time. I strongly consider purchases in light of what we may need in the future. I have been looking at preparedness and homesteading material for a little over 10 years, so I got a lot of stuff in my noggin. I have gigabytes worth of files that I am really looking forward to sharing.  I have some great tips that will help those just starting out as well as those who really have their stuff together.  I have made some mistakes along the way (a herd of goats comes to mind) and really don’t mind passing that stuff along as well.

People get into homesteading for a variety of reasons. Some just are tired of the “rat race” of city life. Some are escaping for religious freedoms.  Others (like me) see the economic indicators and feel that our economy might collapse and they better get ready just in case.

I hope you enjoy the journey with me.