Today and Tomorrow??

 Hello Everybody, Frank here.

It's a beautiful Saturday morning here in southeastern Oklahoma. Sun shining, light breeze, nighttime temperatures were above freezing. We have clear skies forecast for a number of days. It's just plain ol' beautiful.

I wanted to drop you a short note today. It involves preparedness.

We all know there is an election coming up Tuesday. And we all know there is a chance of civil unrest.

Where I am today is beautiful and I expect it to stay that way here for a number of days. But that doesn't mean it's beautiful everywhere today and in a few days it may be quite ugly in some places.

This is just a reminder. If you're going to use any item in the next month, let's say. Go get it today or tomorrow, or maybe Monday and Tuesday. Go during the daytime if you can. If you pull up to a store, let's say Wal-Mart, and there are people outside rioting, keep going. Go to another store and pay more.

I know that sounds unbelievably simple and insulting to anyone of average intelligence, but we read about people everyday that drive into situations like that. Teenagers and adolescents don't always make the best decisions. Now may not be the time to experiment with an adolescent.

So what I'm saying here is, if you like ice cream, get a couple of extra tubs today. While you're at the store think about things you're going to buy either way for the next week or month. Stuff like toilet paper, batteries for your flashlights and anything else that uses batteries, general food items - canned, boxed, frozen. If you need fresh foods, buy them. Today or tomorrow. Get a few extra, things that will last.

Some people will find this next area to be a bit offensive. If you smoke or drink alcohol, you might want to get some extra because you may not be ready to quit just yet. Forgive me for saying what I'm about to say, but if you use illegal drugs you may not want to quit right now. 

There are items you may not think about, things you use everyday. Prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Feminine products. Anything you're going to use in the next couple of weeks or month, get now.

Our goats are dried up right now and we are buying milk. It happens every year. Pasteurized milk will last for a long time in your frig. If it does go bad, your dog and chickens don't care. Also get dog and cat food. I know some people believe Fido will turn back into a wolf if necessary, but I'm relatively sure that ain't gonna happen.

I do believe it's too late to buy items for protection. You might still find some places that have firearms. Good luck on procuring ammunition.

Something I rarely talk about. If you are trying to find home protection, you're not going to find an AR type rifle and .223 or 5.56, you're just not. You have missed that boat. But you might be able to find a shotgun and get whatever ammunition you can find for it. Don't do something stupid with it. It may be too late to practice, but know the safety rules. Again - don't do something stupid. If you have waited this long to get family protection, then you have already waited way too long.

Make sure all of your vehicles gas tanks are full. If you have a generator with extra gas cans, good for you. Make sure they are full. If you have camping gear, get some new mantles for your lanterns and a couple of cans of white gas. 

By all means, don't forget water.

The next couple of days know where your loved ones are. As you well know, a short text message will get through much faster that a screaming, out of control, voice message will.

You need to talk to your neighbors. You don't have to tell them everything about your life, just talk to them.

Just walk around your house. Look at what you may need for the next couple of weeks. Make a list. If you need entertainment items, especially if you have kids, give thought to coloring books, crayolas, puzzles. Adults like to color too, by the way. Kids will color a whole lot longer if an adult is coloring with them.

A little bit deeper philosophical thought here. There is a possibility our system is going to shut down. Everybody in your family does NOT have to be a trained ninja soldier and neither do you. But you need to have your head screwed on right. You need to be prepared to do the unthinkable if the time comes. You need to be right with God.

No joke about knowing where your family is. You do not want that stress in your life. Especially if there is no electricity or water.

I hope next week that we have a declared President and that you're eating week old ice cream. But if by chance that's not the case, you can drink that ice cream, too. Try it on a bowl of Cheerios or Captain Crunch. You're going to need all the sugar, salt, starch, calories, protein that you can even imagine if this thing goes sour.

But I really do hope that when you get that ice cream out, that your spoon bends.

Before your spouse gets up, get all your kids around and have a bowl of ice cream for breakfast. Then you go play golf and let your wife deal with kids bouncing off the walls.

Have a good day. May God and Peace be with you.

GO VOTE!!

We'll talk more later,  Frank

The Incredible Pinto Bean

In these times of food uncertainty, nutrition and calories are paramount in my books. What I am going to write about pinto beans could generally apply to most shell beans, such as lima or navy. I have had some questions about canning pinto beans so I will include what I know and have experienced here.

First off, if you can find dry beans, I would recommend you buy them. As many as you can afford and find available. I tried to look up bulk pinto beans in preparation to write this article and find that many bulk providers are out, or only have one pound bags or like Amazon, who has a 24 pound bucket for $63.92!! or a 25 pound box for $57.69 or a 20 pound bag for $54.25. I am afraid most people cannot afford these prices. If you have waited this long to try to stock up some long term nutrition, I am afraid you probably waited too long.

We received an email with some information about bulk food items that may be useful to you. We appreciate the effort this person made in sharing a resource with all of us. Here is the email in part:

You mentioned, however, that bulk foods are getting difficult to find. I am LDS and have used the LDS Home Storage Centers for years. You may know all about them. But in case you don't, they are open to everyone and carry bulk items. You can choose to buy 25 pound sacks of wheat or you can buy #10 cans of wheat in cases. You can buy it In a home storage center or you can buy it online and have it shipped to your home. They just want people to have food storage, so there is not a huge markup. Most of the packaging is done in Salt Lake by missionaries who are donating their labor. The older couples who run the centers are also donating their labor.

All of their locations are listed here:

https://providentliving.churchofjesuschrist.org/self-reliance/food-storage/home-storage-center-locations?lang=eng

Here is their product and price list:

https://providentliving.churchofjesuschrist.org/food-storage/home-storage-center-locations-map?lang=eng

Many of their items are out of stock with all of the crazy buying that has been happening over the last few months, but my local center has restocked many of the products that I use and my brother, who uses a center close to his home in Virginia, tells me they have many items back in stock as well. I just bought more white wheat, red wheat, elbow macaroni noodles, and spaghetti. So if you are interested, it is worth calling the center nearest to you and asking what they have in stock.

I don't know if this is of any interest to you, but in times like this we should help each other however we can. 

Nutrition. Everyday, but now more than ever, I turn to foods I know will provide good nutrition. This will be crucial as food supplies continue to be impacted by the Plandemic and resulting economic disruptions. I use this website for comparing nutritional values on many foods.

Beans, pinto, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, with salt

As you can see, one cup of cooked pinto beans with water and salt packs a powerful punch, thus our preference for it. It is often said that beans and rice make the perfect protein. We don't eat rice, but we do eat wheat in the form of sourdough bread or tortillas. We prefer wheat to rice for the comparative nutritional value the wheat provides.

We have a number of buckets of pinto beans that we have had for at least 10 years, which by the way, came from the LDS Home Storage Center in Oklahoma City. We bought in bulk and stored in our own buckets with Gamma Seal lids. If you're not aware, LDS stands for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or commonly called Mormons. I have long thought theses beans would be too hard to cook and eat, and that is true. I also thought they would be too hard to can. This is one of those instances that I was more than happy to be wrong.

Last winter I wanted to get more pintos canned and on the shelf for everyday eating, and to have if the country and world went south. I bought several four pound bags from Wal-Mart, before the virus when they were still available, and we canned a batch of 32 pints. Then recently, we decided to find out if those old beans were still usable. We put three pounds of beans in eight quarts of water and brought them to a boil in the late afternoon. Let them boil for five minutes, then let them sit until morning. I turned the fire on low when I got up around 6:00am and let them simmer until morning chores were done and we were ready to fire up the canner. Here are both types of beans. Both great, on the shelf and ready to eat. The 2010 beans turned out great, good texture and flavor. The older beans are on the left and the Wal-Mart beans are on the right in this picture. Some of the benefits of having beans canned and ready to go is that if you want a quick meal, or the world doesn't allow time to cook a pot of beans, you have nutrition, water and salt ready to nurture your body.

This summer one of my goals is to grow, harvest and can as many pinto beans as possible. In a survival scenario we need calories for energy and adequate protein. Pinto beans provide 245 calories per cup, a healthy form of carbohydrates that does not cause an insulin spike with a quick drop off in energy, and a good level of protein. In my books, an excellent form of nutrition any time.

Our first harvest of beans yielded 10 1/2 pounds from about two 30 foot rows of plants. Now this is not equivalent to the same weight of dry beans because they were fresh. Some were partially dried, but most still retained a lot of moisture. We canned 32 pints with enough beans left over for another 3 pints. I was very pleased with the yield and hope the plants will continue to bloom and provide another harvest or two before fall.

To can fresh or dried beans, we bring them to a boil the evening before, then let them sit overnight. In the morning, simmer until ready to can. We use the liquid from the pot to fill the jars. In pint jars, fill with beans about 2/3 full, add 1/2 tsp. non-iodized salt, fill to within 1/2" of the top with bean liquid, then pressure can at 10 pounds for 40 minutes. This timing comes from our Stocking Up canning book.

Jacob's Cattle Beans

Something I learned about canning fresh beans as opposed to dried beans. Fresh beans tend to be much softer when you cook or can them. I prefer a bean with a more firm texture, like the old beans and the Wal-Mart beans. We grew Jacob's Cattle beans a few years back. It's another shell bean very similar to a pinto. We also canned them fresh and they were much softer, just like the pintos we just harvested and canned. I always thought the softness was just the nature of the Jacob's bean and never thought about the difference in canning fresh instead of dried. Accidental learning can be a very interesting teacher. Now, instead of canning our next harvest fresh, I will dry them first and see if I can get the type of canned bean I prefer instead of the softer variety. One benefit of the soft beans is the ease at making a type of refried bean for tortillas. By the way, if you have trouble finding pinto bean seed to plant, the ones from Wal-Mart work just fine.

A few years back we tried a different method of canning beans we had read somewhere. In quart jars we added dried pinto beans to half of the jar, filled with boiling water and 1 tsp. salt, then canned according to recommended time (I don't remember now how long.) They were tough and crunchy. I don't know how old the beans were or any other details, but we found out for us, this process didn't work.

Ground pork, pintos & salsa with sauteed cabbage

There are many different ways to add beans to a meal for a nutritional boost. I've already mentioned refried beans and a bowl of beans. You can add them to soup or to just about any dish. Like this. But folks, nutrition and energy is, and will be the name of the game as our future continues to unfold. I pray the day never comes that I can't sit in my comfortable, air conditioned home and type on a computer on the internet. Just how much infrastructure has to remain in place for me to continue doing this? How long will it last?

We will never forget someone asking us why we go to all this work to raise and preserve our harvest. Why do all that work when you can just buy it at the store, they asked. Because now you have a hard time finding or affording the humble pinto bean at the store. Grow it or buy it, food is of utmost importance right now for everyone. Like I've said before, regardless of the events surrounding us, peace or anarchy, without food, you are dead.

Until next time - Fern

Control - The Noose is Getting Tighter

Folks, the world is getting stranger every day. There is just too much going on to even begin to talk coherently about it.

Here are two videos we saw today that really gave us the chills. The choices we will be making in the days to come may drastically alter our personal lives. In my view, we will have no choice because I am not getting on the bus, being taken from my home to a quarantine center, or eating bug meat for dinner.

Please watch these and share any new information that you have that can help all of us make wise choices about our immediate and not so distant futures.

It would appear that we are being driven or forced to accept a particular mindset. We're being told it's for our good. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. These things are moving too fast.

We've talked for years that all of our normal disciplines are under attack - religions, schools, commerce, customs - just to mention a few. Our freedoms are being eroded, not just a little bit everyday, but a whole lot everyday. We don't know where this thing is going, but have the distinct, gut feeling that it's not going to a place where most of us want to go. I'm sure there are some good people in government. We have to believe that. But our government is lying to us and we're not sure why.

There is so much more going on in the country and world that will play out in the midst of these two scenarios that it is impossible to see clearly the big picture. The only advice we have is hold on tight. It's going to get very dicey.

Be well, stay safe.

Frank & Fern

We Were Born For Times Such as These

We had a very interesting comment the other day that said, "We were born for times such as these." That struck us at the time and has stuck with us.

You, all of you that read here, were born for times such as these. That's why we're here. That's why we write, that's why you write and share your thoughts and experiences, and try to get those around you to wake up and smell the collapse that is pounding them in the head. Where does that headache come from? The pounding of reality slamming into your head, you idiot. But then, it's too late for you to wake up and smell the collapse, notice all the shortages everywhere? Too late. The train has left the station and you missed it.

Just some observations from our neck of the woods and our personal analysis of all of the information.

Frank and I keep saying - there is something sinister going on that we're not able to see, read about or discern yet. Unfortunately, we may not be able to do so until it's out in the wide open staring us in the face.

Yesterday Frank looked around online to see if there were any rifles available that shoot 223 ammo. Most major sites were sold out of almost everything, even the Ruger 10/22 that shoots 22LR were sold out. 223 ammo? Forget it. Not available. There are some places that have the ammo, just no longer in bulk.

Some of the young family men we have talked to recently, both 30 somethings, are scared. They see the world falling apart, collapsing. They both have young children and wonder if they will be able to provide for them and protect them - from the virus and the violence of the world they see coming down the road. And did we mention shortages? You know, food.

The virus? There is so much conflicting information out there, who knows what is real and accurate. Are the numbers actually reflecting the number of people that died from the virus or from their underlying conditions? We don't have the statistics of people that die of the flu with underlying conditions because they died from the flu. We don't have the number of people that were tested for the flu, or strep throat, or any number of conditions and how many died or recovered. Those statistics are not kept and correlated. So what is real? 

The government is lying to us. We understand that there are times when the government needs to keep things from the public, that is understandable. But don't tell us that because a company that once in the past made ventilators, is going to retool in a number of days to manufacture complicated medical equipment. This is impossible. They're just blowing smoke up our skirts. Listen carefully, it is impossible.

Let's try on another lie for size. We need to get back to work as soon as we can. But, we're also told that the peak of this virus may not be for six more months. It's the government that shut down the work place and we're hearing stories of we'll be back to work by.......maybe Easter? Somebody, ladies and gentlemen doesn't know what the left hand is saying because the right hand didn't tell them. Somebody is lying. We've talked about it before here, lying has become the norm. We are being told things on a daily basis that we know is just not going to happen. They, the government, are the one that shut down business for our protection. Every day that we are shut down, will make it much, much more difficult to restart. It has taken our country a couple of hundred years to grow and develop the economic system we have. We have effectively crippled supply and demand. You can't restart this in a day or two. It is impossible. 

Who is going to pick the food? Who is going to can the food? Who is going to label the food? Who is going to drive the truck that carries the food? Who is going to maintain the truck? Where is that truck going to buy diesel? How is that truck driver going to eat on the open road? Who is going to stock the shelves, operate the cash register? And on, and on, and on. They are lying to us. There is something much more sinister going on here.

Why are the governments of the world shutting down the world?? What is really coming that needs to have the world population shut down, at home, contained? What is coming? Why do we all need to be so controlled? What is going to happen that would cause people everywhere to be out of control?

Food shortages?
Total economic collapse worldwide?
Anarchy?
Mass rioting?

How else could governments across the globe convince mass numbers of people to peacefully give up and sit at home awaiting the coming storm? Scare them to death with the threat of death, that's how. Not violent government take over kinds of death, but death by the invisible enemy. It's got everyone quaking in their boots. Literally. Yes, people are getting sick and dying and I mourn their loss. I mourn that I cannot go see my mother in the nursing home and I worry about her. 

We have voluntarily contained ourselves, curtailed our activities and in some cases our livelihoods. For what? Why do they need us locked down, in fear. Something truly evil roams the land.

Prepare accordingly, for the unprepared are going to take from the prepared. They will do it in an official manner, after all we are in a national emergency. Those of us that have prepared by the sweat of our brow, will now have it taken by the brown shirt thugs. They will take what is ours, mine, yours and give it to the fat, lazy and stupid.
 

Years ago we read about the golden hordes pouring out of the cities in search of food and trying to escape the violence erupting there. Is that what is going to happen? I don't know.





We're going to reopen the economy? When? How? What kinds of work can be deemed essential? Everything accept entertainment? 

Why do we have to wait for the FDA to approve a drug that's been on the market for decades? What kind of insanity is that?

Please chime in and and add your thoughts.

You were born for times such as these. Stand up to the plate and swing away. This is our time. This is why we have lived this life, prepared, trained and learned for decades.

This is your time. Make it count. Follow what your mind and heart gives you to do. Fight the good fight. It's what you were born to do. Prepare to do the unthinkable. It's here boys and girls.

Now we're going to go work in the garden. We have food to grow, for it's going to be a very, very hot summer and you can't print food.

We'll talk more later. Until next time - 

Frank & Fern

What are you doing NOW?

Hopefully, the holes in your supplies and preps are filled like Frank talked about in the last post.

We have all been reading/listening/watching the data and advice on how to avoid/diminish the chances of infection from COVID-19 and taking every precaution available to us. Some are still going to work, some aren't. So now what?

During President Trump's press conference yesterday [Monday, March 16th] one of the reporters asked him to reassure the American public. She said people are scared. How true. We all are. Not only are we worried about our own personal health, the health of our families and friends, but the nation and world as a whole. One thing is certain. When we see the other side of this, we being whoever is left, things will not be the same. We will not be living in the same world we left behind just a few short days ago.

The economies of the world are and will be changing. The manner in which people physically interact with each other will have changed. So many other aspects of life will be changed in ways we can't even begin to imagine or fathom at this point.

Frank and I have been describing events as 'unbelievable' for some time now. You know, our political sphere, the anger and division among the peoples of our nation, etc. We had a brief laugh yesterday when I reminded him of this, because the situation we find ourselves in NOW is truly UNBELIEVABLE!!

Frank has long thought some type of contagion or plague would be the mechanism TPTB use to bring down the world, bring down the population numbers. So far, the death rate from this virus has not greatly diminished the global population, but in the long run, will it? At the beginning I was one of the people saying the standard, run-of-the-mill flu was killing many, many more people, what's the big deal? Obviously, something is very, very different than the average flu or the whole world wouldn't be shutting down. 

So what are we doing? For one, we are not going anywhere except for a few select places in our general area. We have to go 25 miles to make it to a town that has a big box store, a pharmacy and regular grocery stores and we are just not going. We are stocking up on more animal feed.

We have baby chicks hatching and more coming in the mail in the next day or so.

The garden is tilled and partially planted with turnips, kale and cabbage. We have a few carrots out there that have overwintered. We are in a heavy rainy period, so it's mostly mud, but it's good, healthy, fertilized mud.

 












The tomatoes, peppers, carrot and beet seedlings are planted in the greenhouse. I cut the tops off of the large tomato plant that has been growing out there all winter and put them in water to root. I also ordered more seeds. Seeds are gold, better than gold. They represent more food. Food that may become more precious than any 'thing' we can have.

 

The garden? Well, with age and aches and pains, it was going to shrink quite a bit this year. Now? I have altered that plan quite a bit. I will be adding more human and animal crops to the garden in the hope we will have enough to eat.

We have revisited our plans if we lose power and water. They have changed somewhat over the last few years. And as always, we discuss the protection of our home and each other.

My thoughts go always to keeping us fed and healthy. Frank's are of protection and safety. We naturally focus on our own strengths, talents and areas of responsibility.

The uncertainty of our times and the outcome on the other side of this event, for lack of a better description, is a daunting experience. So, tell me, what do you see for our future six months from now? A year from now? What do you think the world will look like? Do you see riots and anarchy around the corner? Food shortages? There is a lot of hype about medical supplies/services being inadequate for a pandemic. 

Please share. What are you doing now? And what do you see for our future? I agree with President Trump. We're all in this together. 

Blessings to you all. Stay safe and healthy.

Fern

Without Food, You Are Dead

Everyone needs to read the opening dialogue from Ol' Remus at the Woodpile Report this week. He's right. Food is a Weapon that can, has been and will be used against you. There is a reason Bison Prepper is always writing about food first, wheat, calories, wheat, wheat, wheat. Without food, you are dead. End of story. Not to mention the disease and debilitation that comes from malnutrition and starvation. 

I've been thinking about sharing our fall/winter growing plans for a while and the thoughts from Ol' Remus decided for me that today, I had better get with it. We are working on putting most of the garden to bed for the winter. We're in the process of taking down the tomato/pepper/green bean trellises. After they are out of the way Frank will brush hog all of

the plants, including the okra forest, into a type of organic mulch.

Then we'll clean out the chicken house and barn and add that to the garden and till everything in for the winter. If the weather isn't too cold by that time, it usually isn't in our latitude, we will broadcast some winter peas for an edible cover crop. It's good for man and beast.

 
This is the plan for most of the garden anyway. The two ends, east and west are planted with a few more food crops. Not to mention these volunteer squash plants that came up in the yard close to the compost pile. We're enjoying a few last meals of squash. The first frost we had, we covered these plants with a frost cloth which prevented death, but did not keep the plants damage free. We'll be covering them again this weekend to see if we can get a few more meals before winter takes it's toll.

We have a small patch of turnips planted for greens. These are seeds we saved this spring from the turnips we planted last fall. It seems to be a good cycle to get into. We were also able eat fresh greens well into winter, again in the spring and even canned a few jars in June. Our permanent turnip bed idea didn't work out, so maybe this cycle is a better alternative.

On the other end of the garden we have planted some beets for canning, if they make it that far. 

Some carrots for winter eating.  
 

And some cabbage. We still have some frozen, shredded cabbage we grew in the spring of 2018 that we are using in soup. It's a great addition. If these cabbages make, I'm hoping we won't have insect problems this time of year, we'll eat some fresh and freeze the rest to continue our soup making routine.

 

This small bed on the east side of the house is the only place I have successfully grown spinach. We have had our first salad with miniature spinach and lettuce leaves. I was too impatient to let them grow any bigger before we had our first taste.

In the greenhouse we have started our winter salad collection.

We have two kinds of lettuce. Romaine

Black Seeded Simpson

Russian Kale

Pak Choy from seeds we saved this spring.

Cress









I have also planted a tub of amaranth since it is supposed to be good in salads and we know it's packed with nutrition.

Even though I don't expect success, I planted some of the tomato seeds we saved this summer. I wanted to make sure they were viable and wanted to try one more time for winter greenhouse tomatoes.

On a whim back in the spring I bought a six pack of sweet potato plants, put them in some rather rocky ground under a trellis, and pretty much ignored them. They made a few potatoes, more than I expected. We'll try one for supper tonight with some of those turnip greens we canned in June.

I tried keeping the vines when we dug the potatoes and planted them in a pot in the greenhouse to see if we can use this for our plants in the spring. I don't know if they will make it when the weather gets cold. We'll find out.

This is the first year we have had anything close to an apple harvest from the two trees we planted about eight years ago. The apples are good, not too sweet, but homegrown which means a lot to us. We have one with lunch almost everyday. 

 

So, food. What do you have? Is it enough for everyone you need to feed? For a while? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? Can you replenish the supply on your own without any outside assistance? 


Food has always been used to control people. Always. Think of Joseph in Egypt. His father and brothers had to come and beg for food. They had the money to pay for it, but that didn't mean they would receive any. It's no different today. Look around the world. Look at how interdependent everyone is. Some countries have oil. Some have water. Some have the type of land and soil that will grow food, some don't. If any one thing goes wrong, one spoke of the wheel breaks, all systems fail. No water, no food. No oil, no fertilizer, no commercial farming apparatus, no food. No transportation, food rots in the field. No workers, no food. 

Food can and will be used against you as a means of enforcing your compliance to any and all demands. Moral, immoral, just and unjust. Be ready. Provide for yourself and those you love. Otherwise....... 

Without food, you, and everyone you love, are dead.

Until next time - Fern