Self Sufficiency, not necessarily for Self

Well I was thinking about this whole self sufficiency thing today. Actually yesterday, but who is keeping track? As much as you may strive for self sufficiency you almost necessarily need others to help you or join you in your quest. Now, I am not saying you can not go the distance yourself, but let's look at a couple of examples.
What good would it do to be totally self sufficient? If you were the ONLY survivor left in the world, I guess that could be beneficial. If you and some other like minded people survive a disaster of some kind or the society you live in collapses into disorder and chaos and you and your like minded friends have already shared your desires to be 'self sufficient', you then know who you can count on to help you when you need help and who you can go to for extra protection, advice, security, food, supplies and strategies. Where I live, many of my neighbors share the ideas of freedom, less government, country living, self sufficiency, food production and storage, guns, God, and survival. I know this because we all got together for a barn raising of sorts several months ago, around Halloween. We don't get together often, as a matter of fact, can't remember another time we have all gotten together. We all know of each other. We all hear about one another through the local grapevine. We all knew we shared similar interests from what we heard from others. We finally got a chance to get together and see each other eye to eye. That makes a huge difference. You look a man in the eye and talk to him. You know his intentions when he speaks. You understand from the spoken words and the unspoken signs, what is meant or implied when he speaks. You shake hands, size each other up both physically, mentally, spiritually, and know where each other stands. You better understand the man's soul and spirit. You realize he is a man you can count on. He has a family, he has stuff, he has property, guns, horses, vehicles, dreams and desires like you do. You know then, you can count on him and you are willing to watch his back too.
So yeah, you can go it alone. Why would you?
We all decided the little black bear spotted on the hill was fairly harmless at this point. If he got to bold we would have to kill him, legally of course. We talked about projects we might need help with over the coming months. We talked about each other and our spouses. Checked on our friend who lost his wife far too soon, far to young. He says he is doing fine. We all know he is just doing. Surviving. We knew he was happy to have help with building his steel building and to have us all there at the opening. We all know he will be there on our projects, when he can, when we all can. What a life. Welcome to 'self sufficiency'.

Another Feedlot disease?

Ya know. I sit back relaxing, trying to recover from just a small bout with pneumonia, and I decide to look around at the Ag news to prepare for my weekend blogtalkradio show and I run into this story Milk supply contaminated, 68%. Now luckily I wasn't eating my cookie Mom just made or drinking a cold glass of milk when I read this. Apparently there is a bacteria that cause Crohn's disease and it lives in milk. Do you remember my blogtalkradio show on the National Animal Identification system? The Federal Government now has evidence of over 68% of the dairy cattle in the United States is infected with the bacteria that cause Crohn's disease in humans and what are they doing about it? Well, they have decided to irradiate the milk. They problem with this solution? The milk is contaminated with feces that contain the bacteria. So, the bacteria may die, I assume along with E. Coli, but you still get the feces in your milk. This condition exists due to poor, no, horrible sanitation conditions in feed lots and dairy farms. Thank God the US Department of Ag is looking out for us. Now, remember what I said about buying local, growing your own food and making allies?

Oh, and just in case you think you are safe doing it yourself, get ready, PETA wants you and your farm to disappear. In this article PETA: Domestic Terrorist Group Targets Family Farmers, RFD America reports about PETA "They have compared the Holocaust to farming and ranching with their Holocaust on a Plate campaign, and targeted children involved in 4-H, claiming that the program teaches that murder is cool" Here they come fellow homesteaders, remember when I advised buying extra ammo and guns? Here is just another possible assault on your rights to live free and be self sufficient. Your right to freedom comes after animal rights as far as PETA is concerned. Please go read this article yourself and watch the video that is attached.

On the homestead with Dr. Mike this weekend proved somewhat unproductive due to my fight with a lung bug, but, my buddy Rick pulled through and built my greenhouse with his son in four and a half hours. Not only that, but I also ordered some egg laying hens, Hamburgs and Rhode Island Reds. I also placed a tentative order for turkeys, meat chickens, and a pastel egg layer, just for fun and for entertainment and two women at my office wanted this bird to see the eggs. PETA, I am here, waiting for your arrival, please, I beg you, please come try your nonsense with me.

Weekly radio show

I am just saying, chimp attack

Hello all,

Between podcast, blog, twitter or tweeting, and blogtalkradio, I have voiced my opinion on my desire that everyone carry a concealed weapon, legally in most cases. More guns is good. More legal guns in the hands of trained civilians is even better. You never know when you just might need it.
Case in point, fictitious mostly. Let's say you are sitting around having a leisurely lunch with your long time friend. There is a little fruit bowl there on the table with melon balls, a cup of soup with crackers, a homemade BLT on a plate garnished with a pickle and some chips. You sit there with a napkin spread on your lap, having a drink of iced tea. Conversation is somewhat muted due to the fine dining you are enjoying with a friend. Then out of no where comes a freaking 200 lb chimpanzee furious as hell ready to chew gum and kick ass and he is all out of gum. You are directly in line with the bead he has used to target his anger, and the attack begins. What is the nearest weapon used to 'stop' the rampaging chimp? A telephone. 911 dialed, your ass is being torn apart while the line rings. Dispatcher answers, wants to get details. Your ass is still being torn apart by mad chimp. Caller is panicked, trying to get the message acrossed that her friend is being torn limb from limb by a psychotic ape. Dispatcher is confused a bit, needs caller to calm down while your ass is being ravaged by psycho chimp. You are doing the best you can to protect your vitals while your friend is trying to get the message across that you are being killed by an ape. Dispatcher finally gets the idea, a human is being slaughtered by a 'pet' ape. He dispatches police and medical, and they begin to roll from their respective hang outs. You have about given up. Just trying to survive now, until ems and police arrive.
So, whether it was a chimp or a thug, You have minutes at the very least to deal with the situation, and wait for someone else to save you and possibly your friend. In my view, it would be much better to have halted this attack rather quickly by drawing your own concealed handgun and shooting the ape yourself? I am not an advocate of killing house pets, but if they go 'ape' on you, and there is no control what so ever, you must take drastic action to save your self. A wild beast in almost every case I can imagine has the advantage on you. They have built in weapons. You have.... well, ah, a brain and more than likely a sedate life of comfort to defend yourself with. Good luck with that.
Imagine this scenario. Chimp makes a break for you and you realize something is very wrong. You go for your side arm, strong side shoulder holster. You are knocked to the floor by the initial assault and gun slips away. Your hand easily slips to your pocket or belt where you have a S & W Elite Ops folding knife always handy. You ready the knife and blade, and begin to defend yourself, trying to survive the onslaught. Ape recoils enough to give you time or opportunity to grab your backup from an ankle holster, which you grip tightly knowing the gravity of the situation. The first round rings out and chimp recoils, now with more determination and a chance to place a nearly point blank round into chimp you squeeze the trigger, game over. Dispatch answers the phone "911, what service is needed..."
I am just saying.

Entitlement culture

A friend and I were discussing people who feel like they are entitled to something, in many cases anything. I had quite an interesting response or reaction to this discussion. I had worked in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for about 16 years. I don't know how many times an inmate would ask me if he could get a crown on his tooth. Well, I explained to the inmate that it was not in the tax payers best interest to put a crown on his tooth. In the BOP, inmates get basic care. Keep them out of pain, do some routine care when needed, address emergencies daily, provide preventive care when possible. So, now let's look at the welfare populations.
There is an excellent example from today. A patient came in with a tooth ache. She had several piercing, cigarettes in her pocket, BF had lots of ink, both had cell phones. I addressed her problem, as best I could, and wrote her a prescription for an antibiotic for what I diagnosed was an infection in another tooth. Late in the day they called because she was in pain. They said they could not afford the two dollar prescription. My office had given them cash for a prescription the last time they were in the office. We gave it out of our petty cash drawer, or one of my employees gave it to them. My office manager and I discussed what we could do for them, and after listing all her medications, which included Morphine, among other pain meds, and listing all of the 'luxuries' they apparently had money for, we decided NOT to give them the money for the prescription this time.
Many times patients from the welfare system complain that the state does not provide coverage for braces for their children or for themselves. Or won't pay for root canal treatment or crown or bridge work. I often tell these patients that they can get a job and make the money to get that kind of care, but more often than not, they decide to either have teeth pulled, or of course do without the high dollar dental care.
I don't want to leave this blog without saying that there are many patients that want to work. They get out there everyday looking for work. They have a dream of owning their own business, or completing some schooling that will give them a needed skill to become gainfully employed. They have drive and motivation, they HATE being on the public welfare rolls.
We have created a population of dependent wanters. People who just want things to happen but don't do a damn thing to make those things happen. Our current ruling class, the dems, want more of those type of people. For democrats to be successful and to build their party, they need to increase the number of poor. The poorer the better for democrats. The porkulus package has far more money set aside to extend the length of welfare recipients, and to increase the numbers of welfare recipients than it has tax cuts to help businesses hire more people and create more wealth in this country. The package makes work, but does not create a single job. Have you noticed the dems and the pres, already telling people not to expect too much in the way of results from the current porkulus package? It was sold as such a crisis we had to act now, but, oh, by the way, we won't see any results from this for a long time. I am waiting for the announcement of 'Porkulus II, the sequel" coming to a government near you, summer of 2009.

The Fairness Doctrine

In case you live in a closet, or just find politics too overwhelming to follow, here is a short description of the Fairness Doctrine. It is an all out assault on freedom of speech, brought to us by the biggest whiners about maintaining freedom of speech. In case you are not aware, our founding fathers in their infinite wisdom placed freedom of speech in the first amendment of the Constitution. It was that important to them. It was the first thing they wanted protected.
Now the democrats want to pass the 'Fairness Doctrine' or at least have it reinstated. Their view of the 'Fairness Doctrine' is to shut down conservative talk radio and Fox News. They have targeted those entities for a reason. Those entities actually use logic and true investigative means, rely on common sense, not hype to make clear what politicians are actually trying to do.
My soap box example is the 'Born Alive Infant Protection Act'. Do you know what that is? It is an Act that assures medical staff, who are performing full term abortions, that if the baby accidentally slips out of the birth canal, alive and well, it can be placed in a sink, or on a table or whatever and left to die. That is 'protection' right? Now, if you only read the title of the act, you would never guess what was really behind it. Talk radio and Fox News, actually read stuff, and ask the obvious questions, like "Where is the infant protection in this act? Well, your slimy democratic senators and representatives don't want to actually have to discuss those minor details, they just want to sell you on a nice fluffy name. Sounds great doesn't it? We are just trying to protect the children is their common montra. Great protection if you ask me.
If you listen to conservative talk radio, you will regularly hear the hosts say "we have contacted so and so's office and they have declined our invitation for an interview." All the libs have to do to make the 'Fairness Doctrine' fair, is to actually accept those invites. They don't dare do it, that would be too easy. What they want to do is have fluff ball pieces on their friendly democratically owned stations like NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, HNN, etc. They know those entities will not dare challenge them. In fact, if tested, these same individuals threaten the stations with 'no future interviews if you make me uncomfortable'.
Okay, so if you are one of the 50 plus million sheople who watch reality tv, followed the messiah on the message of hope and change, and you think you are getting the full story, I challenge you to take a week and listen to Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, or pretty much any talk radio. It is mostly Conservative talk radio anyway because libs don't shop or support their 'Air America' which I don't understand since they save all that money from not paying their taxes.

Mike

The Rabbit Wringer, and show update

The Rabbit Wringer

On the show at http;//blogtalkradio.com/homestead for Valentine's Day I had Sal Pizzurro, the designer and builder of "The Rabbit Wringer" come on to discuss his device. I had used his device to process my first batch of rabbits and it worked flawlessly. If you have rabbits that you raise for meat, please check out the show and 'The Rabbit Wringer' at http://therabbitwringer.com.

I also talked about nuisance wildlife, government involvement in farming, ethanol from corn, and the 60 day challenge. Do something in these three catagories in the next 60 days. 1.) store some food, 2.) buy ammo, guns, both, or start concealed carry permit process, 3.) establish allies, at least one.

Thanks,
Mike

E. Coli, Mad Cow, Avian Flu, Oh my

I was sitting in Master Gardener class today wondering what I would discuss on the blogtalkradio program this week. While listening to excellent lectures on soil and pruning, I could not help but think of the show I did on the NAIS, or National Animal Identification System. A few of my classmates have small farms as I do, and they always discuss their animals, mostly chickens and rabbits, maybe a lamb or goat here and there. No one ever discusses the NAIS. My guess is that they don't even ever think that the government might want their critters. I was so tempted to start telling them about it, but for every season there is a time.
It is interesting to me, how little tolerance I have for crap anymore. Even in my class where I sit patiently learning all the ins and outs of gardening, so I can grow food. You know, listening to people talk about roses and rhody's, and landscaping there beautiful lots, wondering "do they have any idea what is headed our way"? Sept 15th 2008 our country had an electronic run on the money market. Damn near ended our economy in an hour. Friends, that was just five months ago. Do you think we are any more secure today? Who ever was responsible for that, they still exist. They are toying with us. The world economy would have collapsed one day, or twenty four hours later. How long can you survive if the economy came to a halt tomorrow. We weren't given any notice. In fact, we are just finding out about this now. When it does hit, you will not be warned. This is as much warning as you are going to get. What do you have to loose if I am wrong? A little time? You will have learned some new skills, maybe stored some food, made some allies you can rely on, count on, in the hard times. You think you will make it to your parents house if there is no gas, and the roads are closed by blue helmeted U N authorities or worse yet US troops? You better start making some plans. At least start talking about what you will do with your spouse and family. Hey, like I said before, it could be as simple as a natural disaster. Come up with a plan, start taking some steps. Look, I don't get paid for this, nor would I accept any funds ever. I just want people to start preparing and not to get blindsided by anything. Having a plan is a huge step toward surviving whatever.

Master Gardener Day

So, today is my master gardener class. On the agenda for the day is soil and pruning. We already had a pruning class, so, hope this is more information, but pruning seems easy. At least for trees. We have not had a soil class yet, so, it should be interesting.
I am taking this class so I have the tools needed to grow food. I have little interest in anything else, although the information on landscaping has heightened my awareness of some stuff I could improve around here, and has helped me understand lawns better. I used to think if it was green it should be paved over. Now, I rather enjoy the feel of soft plush grass. Until I get my own, I will have to use others lawns to get that feeling.

Off to class for me,

Mike

Are you prepared?

There is no better time than now to start thinking and preparing for food storage. The economy is in collapse, so they say, social unrest will follow in some form, no new jobs will be created by the stimulus or porkulus package, and where will all the newly unemployed go to get their food when there is none available in the markets? Where will you go when the market is empty? Prepare before a crisis.
Grocery stores have only three or four days of food available on the shelves and in the back. Even if you don't believe in total economic collapse and social unrest, prepare for even simple natural disasters, like hurricane Andrew, which I survived. Small steps can lead to large 'comfort' in difficult times.

Listen in to my show on blogtalkradio at homestead and learn some basic skills to prepare.

Watched a local icon die

It stood as an icon in the local community. Directions to drivers often included the phrase, just past Valley RV. If you needed an RV serviced, these people treated you well. I thought always fairly, knowing that owning an RV was also expensive for maintenance and repair, but they never hid anything from you. Not in my experience anyway.
Over the last few months I noticed a change. Instead of the 'free burgers and hot dogs' sign out front, there was a 'for sale' sign. I imagined the sign was for some property down the road from them. A couple of weeks went by and I noticed their back lot was emptying. The economic slow down had set in, so I thought, 'well, reduce inventory until the recovery happens.' Soon the back lot was empty, and their main lot started emptying too. 'Wow, could this really be happening?' A huge business that I remember most of my adult life, is going by the wayside. Did I mention, you did not have to buy anything to get a free burger or hot dog?
We all know RV's are notoriously overpriced like jewelry so sure, they could afford the free food. People enjoyed their visits to Valley RV. Most of the time there were happy shoppers, families looking at their first RV or upgrading to a larger, better rig. Anxious travelers who needed a quick repair. Folks like us in for maintenance. All enjoying the old 60's cafe setting and a free burger and a soda.
The lot is now empty. No one is buying RV's. There is no credit moving, apparently. Valley RV is gone. Not sure if they just closed the doors for the hell of it, went bankrupt (no notices in the paper), or just picked the right time to go. Hope it was the last and the people are all healthy, and financially sound. They did good work. They took care of their community. They took care of travelers, friends, newbies, seasoned owners, basically anyone who passed through their doors.
I hate to see that big empty lot. It is a sign of things to come. Grow food. Store food. Make some allies if you can not do it all yourself. Keep your job as long as possible. But a little something extra each trip to the store, and put it away. Make sure your family is strong. Keep your faith, but don't just hope nothing happens. Take control of surviving now.

What am I doing

I am a dentist by profession, and I own a small farm, just five acres, that I plan on turning into a food producing home. I started with rabbits, well actually, I started trying to grow some food last year when I really believed the economy was going to collapse. That garden failed. Clay soil. So, then I added rabbits, to help enrich the soil. Rabbit meat is great meat also. Very low in cholesterol. Better than chicken nutritionally.
I added laying hens about a week ago. Had to build a coop for them. A day after adding hens, I had my first egg. Luckily, I got mature hens from a guy who helps me with stuff around the homestead. He is a neighbor named Rick. Rick has his own five acres up here. He helps most of us around this hill out. We all live on Cherry Hill. A little slice of heaven.
Right now, I am concentrating on getting the greenhouse built and tending to the soil. Feed your soil to feed yourself. I will be ordering seeds tomorrow. Starting my early plants as soon as the greenhouse is built.
I am not a 'greeny' although I will NOT use poisons on my own food. I believe in eating meat, in fact I kill most of my own meat. I wish. I buy a beef from a local farmer who I visit from time to time. The beef is free ranged, or pastured. Red Angus, and excellent. I usually take a deer out of the herd on my hill, plenty of them and don't want the herd to be unhealthy. God's perfect protein.
I trap a bit, mainly to help control wildlife. I have a wildlife control operator's license. I also have a fur taker's license. I would rather catch a skunk than a coyote any day. Coyotes stink, lol.
I am currently in a Master Gardener training class. I am learning everything I need to know to begin the food growing thing.
That should do it for now. Hope you enjoy my blog. BTW, I am very politically active. I am sure you have guessed a conservative.

Out!

Another blog?

Okay, so I have entered the world of blogging. Along with podcasting and a show on BTR, it is all very busy. I decided to do these things to help people to become self sufficient. If you want to catch up to what I have been doing, check out
http://www.amateurhomesteadpodcast.com/

or the blogtalkradio archives to my live show

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/homestead

We will see if I keep this blog alive, or let it slowly and efficiently die,

Mike