Hello Everybody, Frank here.
This
morning I was reading SurvivalBlog, as I do daily, and the main post
there caught my eye. I'd like to share it with you and encourage you to
also read it. The basic premise is how to reorganize, on a community
level,
after a collapse. Is it a perfect article? Probably not. Do I
agree with everything in it down to the letter? No. I've been married
for 30+ years. Do I agree with everything my long-term spouse says or
does? Well, that answer is obvious. So, if you're looking for a perfect
world, you're not going to find it here on earth. Nobody is perfect and no plans are perfect, and if you are in touch with reality, then there is no perfect solution. Now, let's get past this perfect thing.
If you want to be part of a solution after a collapse, then you, me and everybody else are going to have to accept the differences in people. We can either help or we can hinder. There's no room for those that won't help. I hope you get my drift here.
I hope you enjoy this first article, it was published today, Saturday, October 24, 2015 on SurvivalBlog.
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Howdy Folks, and Welcome to Our Neighborhood!, by ShepardFarmerGeek
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The
second article is by the same author. It was written a little while
back. It's the same general theme, but it deals with how to set up
structure and organization immediately after a collapse, or natural
disaster, or whatever the setting is. This second article, follow me
here, is the first link in the first article, but you have the link
right here.
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A Community Action Plan, by ShepardFarmerGeek
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, we are all strongly aware that some type of catastrophe
is coming. Let's take our blinders off and look around our world. I'm
not going to go into details here about possible scenarios or black swan
events, and I'm not going to try to reference this as being an apocalyptic type event, but it's coming.
I
think you'll like both of these articles. The first one caused me to
think. It's well done, and it's worth the read. Please share your
comments afterwards. Every chance you get, read SurvivalBlog, it's worth the read, too. Take care.
We'll talk more later, Frank
The leaves are changing and falling, the grasses and weeds are turning brown and scattering their seeds. The earth, in our corner of the world, is slowly dying and preparing for the deep sleep of winter. The animals have eaten heartily to store up a layer of fat for the lean times that are coming. The spiders quickly spin and repair their webs each day in hopes of another tasty meal before they lay eggs and die. The nights are cooler, even though the days remain warm, with a hint of the passing summer, it's not quite over yet, but it will be soon.
There are many things that will soon pass away from our world. Civility. Culture. Massive food production. Easy mobility. Just in time everything. Driving. Processed fossil fuels. Banking. Credit. Electricity. Cell phones. Internet. Information at the touch of a button. Our world has had it's day in the sun with massive growth in population, food production, manufacturing and technology. Just like the waning of the seasons, the stability and control of many countries is also waning.
Some folks like autumn, the crispness in the air, a time when the rhythm of life gradually slows down. As winter approaches, many people and animals prepare to 'hibernate' from the activities of the summer. As life continues to become less safe, more expensive, and less free, there are many that are planning where they will relocate and hibernate. Just like the ant filling it's colony and tunnels with food for the winter, many people are doing the same, and that is good, very good.
The pace of our work here is sometimes so fast that we can't keep up with ourselves. As we complete projects, one right after the next, it changes the way we live, and that is good. We now hang out the clothes to dry and have started growing food in the greenhouse. We now have three radio antenna towers in the ground waiting for the concrete to cure, so we can increase our ability to communicate. They will soon be powered by solar panels and a battery bank, which is another project on the list. The Survival Radio Relay Net is growing each time it is conducted. We are amazed at the distance between participants, and what that could mean for the safety of everyone involved. We have begun talking to a few folks about starting some sort of community trading post, and have had very positive responses so far. These are just a few of the activities that have occupied our time in the last few weeks.
We want to encourage you again to prepare every needful thing for you and your family, now, while there aren't many restrictions on doing so. If there is a financial collapse or major downturn, what will that do to your ability to prepare? If war breaks out somewhere in the world, how might that affect your ability to prepare? If there is a major natural disaster where you live, how might that affect your ability to prepare? If there is a terrorist attack, how might that affect your ability to prepare? If the government restricts your mobility, ability to buy, your money supply, or ability to relocate, how will that affect your ability to survive?
Let's face it, regardless of what this 'thing' is that we all know is coming, survival will be the bottom line. It is literally impossible for us, meaning all of us, to be ready for every possible contingency, impossible. What we can do is evaluate our lives, our survival needs and possible wants, to determine what areas are lacking in our preparations. THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. We have had people comment about friends and neighbors that say they know they need to buy some extra food or something, but they don't. We all know people that just laugh and tell us we're crazy. We all know people that think we should be turned into the authorities for hoarding or something. The time for warning our neighbors will soon be past. The time to be very, very serious about completing those tasks that will help increase the survival rate of our families is here. I pray, truly pray, that we are all wrong, very wrong, but unfortunately, I don't think so.
Every single day is filled with a drive to work and complete our survival projects. We have never worked harder in our lives. Literally. We've talked about it several times recently. Why would two retired people entering the 'golden years' work their tails off everyday? I hope that sharing our preparations will infect people with with an uncontrollable desire to do the same. I pray that this infection will be so contagious that it will become a pandemic. An uncontrollable pandemic of preparedness. That wouldn't be such a bad illness to suffer from, would it? Unfortunately, there are more people that have been vaccinated against this illness, than suffer from it. They are immune to preparing anything for themselves and their families, and when the time comes, their immunity will kill them. If you're not suffering from a full blown infection of preparedness-itis, work on it. Your example may be the one thing that infects another person, and you may never know it. Be a carrier. We pray that our example can somehow be infectious.
Until next time - Fern
Hello Everybody, Frank here.
A while back Fern received a question about our pond. Now, I didn't want to do this post, but you see, being the loving husband that I am, and wanting to maintain harmony in the kingdom, here is my article about our pond.
When we moved here, we took our 10 acre pasture and divided it into four sections. Two of the sections had small ponds, one of them very small. We decided we needed water in one of the quarters that didn't have a pond. You say, why didn't we put a pond in the fourth pasture? We had other plans for it. Some day we hope it will provide feed for the animals, myself included. So it's affectionate name is the garden pasture.
Back to the new pond pasture, which has evolved into a pig pasture, but this story is about the pond. Down the road from us, whom I will call a local man, is a local man that has assorted pieces of heavy machinery, construction type stuff. When he's not doing a big job somewhere, he does local work for local folks at a reduced rate. I contacted him, he's well known in the area, everybody uses him. I had used him earlier to do some fence row clearing for me and he seemed like a good, decent human being.
He brought out a backhoe, dug two five foot deep holes, maybe six feet long and two feet wide. He wanted to see what the composition of the soil and subsoil was. A few days later he came back, it was during the rainy season, and in his professional opinion, the land would support a good pond. A couple of days later he came back with a bulldozer, and I discovered that I should have put in bigger gates in our corral, because to get in the pasture he had to go through two 10 foot gates. It took him a good while to go through both of them. I have since learned that a 12 or 14 foot gate would have done a much better job. That is on my to-do list, way down the list.
Okay, back to the pond. He brought out his dozer, his surveying equipment, put a bunch of stakes in the ground, then he started scraping the topsoil off to one side. I didn't know that topsoil was a valuable commodity, but at the end of the project, or right near it, he returned a portion of this topsoil back to where the empty pond now sits, so that vegetation and like would grow back. You ask, what's like? Like is like. I'll let you chew on that one for a while, not literally of course, but figuratively.
Well, I told this man that I wanted a deep pond. He asked why. I thought it was obvious. What I really wanted was more water, deeper and less surface area. But what I told him was I wanted to be able to hide a pick up truck in it if I needed to. Did you know there are people that don't have a sense of humor? Oh well. It's deep, it's holds water, and it doesn't take up much surface area. Now forget about the pickup truck, and what was the real purpose or purposes for the pond? The primary goal is for drinking water. Animals primarily, and humans if necessary. It's also a secondary source of food for humans. That's where the next part of the story becomes relevant.
Well, we did some research about pond habitat, and we devised a plan. Stage one of this plan was to saturate the pond with minnows. But before we put the minnows in, we let the pond fill up with water. Yes, I'm a city boy, but I did know that the pond had to have water. Then we waited about six months, for various reasons, but the primary reason was because fish hatcheries only sell fish certain times of year. So, back to the minnows. Well, no, I'm going to go back to the pond. The real, real reason for waiting six months was to allow some type of natural vegetation to develop in the pond, that way the minnows would have something to eat. Actually, I expected most of the minnows to die, which would provide a natural decay and help start the natural cycle of the pond.
Now, a couple of months later, we stocked more minnows. You say, why minnows? Good question. They're inexpensive, relatively speaking. In a good habitat they will reproduce quickly, and in stage two or three, wherever I am, that was the stage for introducing a couple of different varieties of fish, which needed something to eat. Wa-la! A breeding minnow population. You know that a minnow can get pretty big if you let it grow. Just imagine that the next time you're eating a sardine packed in mustard, it's just a minnow. You know, fish food.
What kind of fish did we introduce? Of course, channel catfish, along with hybrid bluegill and redear sun perch, whatever those are. You say, that's it? Yes, that's it. We fed these fish some dog food a few times. I know some people buy Purina floating fish food, but dog food floats, too. It's cheaper than catfood for the catfish. How did all of those fish do? Not a clue. But, the following year, we put the same combination of fish in the pond again. Minnows, catfish, hybrid bluegill and redear sun perch. Now, I know there are fish in that pond, because a big, great egret visits it on a regular basis. Or it used to, anyway. Did you know it's against the law in my state to shoot an egret that's eating my fish? Things will change when I become king. Those fish sounds yummy, don't they? No, I'm not talking about the minnows packed in mustard, I'm talking about fried catfish, and it does sound good, doesn't it? Just today I had fried chicken with a sourdough batter and it was delicious. You say, this is a story about a pond, what does a chicken have to do with it? Well, it doesn't, but I have not caught one fish out of that pond in five years. Not one. But this is a story about the pond. Forget the fish. We've had a real wet year, so it's full. When we had goats in there the goats liked it. Now we have pigs in there and they really like it. I guess I would classify it as a good pond. It's deep enough to put a pickup truck in. The local guy still doesn't see humor in my stupidity, but he tolerates me since I pay him in cash.
Now, the person that asked about the pond? Here is your answer in detail. Tomorrow my wife will not ask me to do a pond story. No, honestly, I hope this answered some of the questions that you had. Our pond is a good investment, and provides water for the animals which is critical. And there are fish in the pond, because every now and then you'll see one. Now I've checked one more thing off of my list of things to do.
We'll talk more later, Frank
