The Digital Homesteader (Beta)

Mary and I have been fairly busy getting things done.  We added some MRE’s, a new Berkey Sport, and I finally got a new mantle for my beloved Aladdin lamp. Can’t wait for that.

Let me clarify a few of these purchases and why we got them. First the MRE’s. Mary likes to say that this just gives her a few days of breathing space until we have to be concerned with food. There will be a lot of concerns and finding food shouldn’t be one of them.  So each of the kids now have a 72 pack being built and they will have MREs.  Since we have 2 kids in college we told them that we wanted a square foot of their dorm closet space to keep the pack. One of them rolled their eyes. “Here go my nutty parents again”.  Too bad, we care and we want provisions just in case.

The Sport Berkey is a sports water bottle with a built in Berkey filter. The sport bottle will provide over 100 refills to give absolutely pure water. Since water is so essential we felt that this was VERY necessary.

Finally my mantle. I have been searching for a mantle for my Aladdin lamp for over a year. They stopped being produced and literally started shipping today. The price is a little higher than before, but it is worth it to me. The Aladdin is the finest lamp in the world. It produces a beautiful bright light.

While I have been TRYING to not spend a lot of money on the garden, there are times that I just can’t resist. Since this was a birthday present to me, it technically won’t go into the budget. I grabbed this mini-greenhouse which is perfect for starters at Lowes this weekend. If you are using Jiffy starter trays (72 per tray) you can get 216 starter plants per level or over 850 plants in the whole greenhouse. That is amazing to me! I don’t just use the Jiffy trays so I only have about 540 plants in there right now.

There are many added benefits to having your starters in a greenhouse like this. First, my wife loves having the kitchen table back. Having the plants in a vertical way really utilizes your space well. Second, this greenhouse is pretty portable. The warning stickers warn against moving everything when loaded, but I find that moving the greenhouse indoors at night ensures that I won’t have to worry about the cold weather at night.

I will likely move all my plants to the garden in the coming week, so I will have an empty greenhouse. I think that I will do some experimenting with ways to use this “off-season”.

The farther I go, the more I am looking at things for the purpose or recycling and doing my garden as inexpensively as possible. Today I found just one more thing that I can do for free, and it helps me and not some land fill.

Today I was delivering a coffee for my wife (it was one of THOSE mornings) and I started to look at the stir stick that I used to stir in her half-n-half. All wood and just the right length and width to use as a plant marker. I grabbed my favorite pen and listed the plant and for fun drew a little picture. I don’t think I will do the picture going forward, just too small. But, this is a great way to use something that you might normally throw in the trash and doing something useful with it. My coffee came from Starbucks and I know that they really work hard to recycle and reuse. My old coffee cups are becoming the pots for my starter plants (more on that later).

You don’t have to be a radical environmentalist to preserve the earth. It is really all of these little things that add up. If for no other reason, its something that you can do to help your garden for free.  But the end results are that these don’t help pack our landfills. As a wood product they are bio-degradable and they can just be buried in the garden at the end of the season.

Ferry Morse Company is terrific. I was just in my local big box home improvement store and I couldn’t help but walk over to the seed section. I was so surprised to see that they now have a nice selection of Ferry Morse heirloom seeds. Had I not already purchased my seeds this year I would have walked out with one of every variety that they offer. The next time you are looking for seeds, take a look at your local retailer for Ferry Morse heirlooms, and pass them on to your kids and grandkids.

This is a weird topic for a preparedness blog, but to do some things you need to have someone to hold you accountable when you have something that you need to do. So, this is my accountability to you, the digital world. I bought my seeds today! I didn’t get them all, I still have to get some corn, but I think I have the bulk of what I am going to get.

I got my seeds on eBay. I looked at a lot of places and just want to get some heirloom seeds in the ground and get this going. So far I have spent $11 and I got 20 different types of vegetables. I have to add corn yet, and I am probably going to spend $6-7 more for that. I just ran out to the barn and my tiller didn’t fire, but its freezing outside and a little ether in the carburetor will probably fire it up. A good task for later in the week (when I have some ether).

In 1944 amid concerns of food rationing (as was happening in Britain), American’s were asked to grow a Victory Garden.  We responded with 20 million of them and they produced 40% of the all the vegetable produce being consumed nationally.^[4] That’s pretty amazing! By the end of the war those gardens raised crops equal to $1.2 billion.

Its time to start thinking about Victory Gardens in a whole new light.  While our country may indeed be in a war again, the bigger concern is the war on poverty, or just survival! I recognize that not all people can grow a garden. I have family who live on a tiny lot with not enough space to put out more than just a few containers and friends who live in inner city lots that are not only deprived of necessary light, but would likely be a target for thieves if they tried. But for the rest of us there is a solution, Victory Garden v.2.

I see the vegetable garden as providing us with the freshest of vegetables at a minimum cost, and if we use heirloom seeds they provide a sustaining source of food. Could a person survive of what they produced in just their garden? Probably, but not likely in most cases. Our tastes require far more diversity than most people can grow. However, if we learn a little about canning and preserving we can greatly decrease our food costs. I think eventually we will begin to prefer the produce of our own gardens and may at some point eat only that which we can grow.

This year I am building a Victory Garden v.2 (or VG2). I hope you join me. If not, I hope you enjoy the ride as I blog about it here.

Whether preparing, surviving, or thriving, there are certain basics that I keep coming back to.  Security, shelter, water, and food. Everything else is extra.  Security can be maintained mostly through isolation and vigilance.  Shelter is either where you live or some place far away that is safer than the urban place where you are currently living. That is a choice that we all need to come to terms with quickly.

Water is a big problem in a lot of places, but not that many places in the USA.  Throw a tarp out and you are going to likely going to catch a lot of rainfall that will provide for the family.

But food is a whole other problem, and not one easily solved. We can store up a year’s worth of supply, but then what. Wouldn’t it be better if you had a perpetual supply of food? Heirloom seeds are the answer. Heirloom seeds are seeds which are not genetically modified and haven’t been implanted with terminator modification so that they can’t naturally reproduce as God designed. All hybrid seeds that you buy at your local farm store or big box discount store are modified so that you can’t reproduce with them. That means when you get that delicious ear of corn you can’t dry the seeds and replant them. This is a marketing device that requires that you come back year after year to buy seeds from that company. While they might be in business next year, we can’t be sure.

The solution is heirloom seeds. These seeds are natural.  You can plant them and let them go to seed to have as much seed in the future as you want.  You can spend as little as $35 for a collection or as much as several hundred dollars. Some market themselves as “survival seeds”, others just as collections of heirloom seeds. They usually will state that the seeds will store for 5-7 years. Of course you can seal them from oxygen and store them at 55 degrees and they will go a lot longer.

But the thrill isn’t in storing but growing. Make this the season that you will plant at least something heirloom. Eat 90% of what you grow and hold back that last 10% for next year.

First, sorry for the absence. I plan to be back at least once a week.

This week I want to present a challenge.  I saw an early TV show called “Food for $99 a Week” or something like that on the Food Network when the network first started. What a great concept! The plan was for a family of 4 to eat for $99 a week. Totally doable.  This is $15 a day, or $5 per meal for a family of four. Sounds a little tough, but this is really easy. Breakfast is typically a cheap meal in our house, lunch can simply be a sandwich. I would think that you could do $10 for dinner a lot, and have a really healthy and tasty meal. This show was 15-20 years ago, but I think that we can do it still today, what do you think?

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!