TOTM January 2015 Prepping/Survival Goals

Here is proof that I have been attending knitting lessons. I do not think knitting is an activity suited for me but I will learn.

 

Good job Motomom! My wife usually does this as we are watching TV, or while she's listening to a book.

 

Important stuff here people. I did the same thing this past season and doubled our output of edible food. Certain things do not grow well here in our soil. Total failures were things like Melons while Butter nut squash grew awesome in size and numbers. Froze 20 quart ziploc's of Butternut alone. Zucchini also did awesome as did our tomatoes which we canned 36 quarts. We ate the Zucchini fresh and fed lots of it to our two Turkeys which we butchered this past fall. I stopped trying to grow small frail plants like peas, and potatoes really did bad here getting worms and such. Sweet corn does well but only when we keep the geese from eating the baby plants. We will plant zucchini, butternut squash, green beans and tomatoes next year. NOTHING ELSE.

 

Well, one of the goals is underway and has been mentioned before by others. I had originally built 2x raised beds using 2x6 and 4x4 (corners). They were 3 tiers high which was just way to darned much. So, this weekend we repurposed. I cut two individual tiers off of one of the boxes and one tier off of the other. Now we have 4x 1-high and 1x 2-high. The goal is to both be able to plant more and to have actual usable space. It took 10x the water because of the depth of the huge boxes and so hopefully it won't be so bad (the mix just sucked water up). All the cutting was manual with a hand saw because my circular saw isn't nearly big enough to go all the way through the 4x4 much less with an additional 1.5 inch of board.

We will be trying a few new things but hopefully with the additional boxes we won't dig into our (kind of) minimal yields.

We will be planting lavender at the ends of at least a couple of the boxes to attract bees and butterflies. In my opinion that has been the biggest reason our yields have been so low...few pollinators.

And I am really, really sore right now which is proving just how out of shape I am.

 

My goals for 2015 are.........to secure a location, build my off-grid home, and re-open an alternative medical practice for my community there (have the M.D. in holistic alt med already)

In 2015 I want to learn.........more about indoor gardens and non-ammo weaponry

 

Look forward to you posts, alternative medicine is a great interest of mine. Good luck on the home building.

 

Finish the remodel of the hill house and get more garden spaces. Photos being cleaned soon. OPSC

 

I took the big step clear back in 2001-- bought 200 acres about an hour's drive from the center of town. At the time, September of that year, we did not know if it would be the family bunker or the family cabin. Since then, I've been slowly working my way to moving there full time.

This year, I'm nearly about done with one of my big goals for 2015: getting CCW for KYHillCHick and myself. I'm not excessively worried about everyday packing. The problem is that we move a lot of firearms back and forth between OH and KY, and I've caught myself a few times doing things that were innocent by intent, but. . . well, you get the idea. The big issue is that we've received reports of coyotes getting jiggy with neighbors close to their houses. We're carrying a lot more, and a CCW cleans up a lot of ambiguities.

That's a goal right there: coyotes. We've never successfully hunted them. We've killed a bunch as targets of opportunity while deer and turkey hunting, but we have not done a whole lot to hunt them in their own right. I finally put together the proper kit last fall, but only made it out once. Angus is now going to be hunting on his own-- turned 16 this year -- so he'll probably glom onto this assignment. They definitely need thinning.

I started working on a goal last year at this time, and I'm not quite done with it. That is casting lead bullets. I set the goal of learning to cast .358 bullets and then working up a load for the 35 Whelen pump and the 357 Mag Lever. There was a lot of things that got in the way, and I got my first successful cast done back in October. This year, I'm hoping to have a better go at it. The 357 Mag Lever has been my primary anti-coyote carry piece. The 35 Whelen pump was my top deer rifle, but honestly it was overkill.

It's just wretchedly hard to do anything like crops or livestock when you're 60-some miles away during the week. What I have solved in the past is:

1) There is enough wild stuff on the place that we could last until spring-- one project KYHillCHick undertook was an inventory of wild food sources.
2) I'm not off the grid, but we have what it takes to live without electricity
3) Water is not a problem
4) Once the weather broke, we would build a chicken moat around a 1/4 acre garden. The garden would be cultivated using Hugelkultur. The double-fenced chicken moat would keep the deer out.
5) We would utilize the 5 acres closest to the house for cows and goats for starters.
6) Long term, the farm would be ideal for raising heritage turkeys and Highland beef cows, on subscription.


Ooops. Gotta run. I'll write more later.

 

i have started by re-felting to billiard table!!! you have to have extracurricular activities!!! Purchased a dehydrator and made first jerky.just about finished with the cj7 drivetrain overhaul and de-computerizing and some new tires. i will work on increasing my cattle herd and adding a few other animals to the farm. building a new secluded reloading and gun shop area. SPENDING MORE TIME IN THE FIELD WITH MY 3 YR OLD. CAMPING HUNTING AND FISHING.

 

@shaman, I bought about a dozen leghold traps in 'yotes size, and opened my hunting property to a local trapper who wants to teach his three sons how to trap. He no longer has traps, so he will use mine, my land, and run the trap line daily (as required by law) and we will spit any profit for pelts. If I can get the stink out of them, I may tan some, and make a hunting cabin rug out of them. Only good use for a yote, I can think of.

 

Yeah, I had a line on a trapper last year, but he never showed up. One problem in my neighborhood is that trapper often ends up as poacher. I have to be careful with who I give permission.

 

This guy and I do business. He knows better than to cross a line with me.

 

KYHillChick and I completed our Ohio CCW training yesterday. I'm filing at the Sheriff's today.

Some quick thoughts:

1) Do it. Some of you may be resisting, because you don't want to be on the record, or you want to open carry or whatever. After completing the training, I can say that having a card that says you can handle a firearm responsibly is a plus. I have always been a friend of LEOs, and I trust them a lot more than I trust most other folks. That is not to say I haven't had bad experiences through the years, but most of them have been good, and I expect this will do nothing but improve things.
2) Find the best trainers you can find. Mine were at Woodhill.com in Cincinnati. The state minimums are not enough. These guys went out above and beyond. We had to work through various live simulations. We paid a bit more,but it was worth it. I have a buddy that went through CCW last month, and it was mostly videos of lawyers reading the statutes. We got a lot for our money.
3) The main message from these guys was: This is the choice of last resort. Most of what we learned was how to avoid using the firearm.
4) I've never been afraid to open carry when I felt the need to do so, and I have never had trouble. Completing this course, I fully repent that. I get the idea of concealment now.
5) I am probably going to invest in a DA-only revolver. I did very well on the live fire training, but my full sized 45 ACP probably isn't the best tool for this job. KYHillChick used the Ruger GP-100 I gave her years ago, and she did just fine.

 

My goals for 2015 are learn how to can meat using a pressure cooker, past my amateur radio test, go to woodsmoke 2015 or dirttime 2015, build a gravity fed water system for my hunting shack, learn how to make soap, and meet some monkeys in my area. Btw I too owned a 260z , I loved that car should have never sold that 4 speed, dual carb, inline six beauty

One more thing build a organization/storage system for my five gallon/gamma seal lidss. I am tried of having to track stuff down when i am cooking

 

Two goals down. I can knit, though have learned that it is not a good hobby for me. I have learned that my hobbies need to be more active, thus knitting is to sedentary for me. I just became First Aid/CPR certified. I was quite surprised at the changes in guidelines- ABC (airway, breathing, compression) is now CAB (compression, airway, breathing).

Next up on will be a class, "Seasoning with herbs". I can grow herbs, now I need to learn to use them, both in the kitchen and in a healing manner.

 

Getting bees has been on the radar for a long time, but always put off. Well the Mr. and I went to a beekeeping class this month. I've got some experience with bees and hives, he has none. We both learned a lot, and he's really stoked to get started which is awesome. But best of all we met about a dozen people who live in this area who are also getting into bees, a couple with an eye on commercial production but the rest are more the self sufficient type. Preppers in deeds and not just words, so that was a nice bonus, plus we all got along. Even better, the Mr has finally agreed to build the hives I want... the start up cost was what had held me back for so long, that and I'm the worst builder in the world so if I built it they'd fall apart by June. So goal for March is to get 1 hive built (preferably 2 plus a couple of nucs but I'm not going to push my luck), plus swap some shine to get holes dug so I can drop the AP fish tanks in ground. We had to bring the fish inside and overwinter them in a dozen aquariums and let the aquaponics system shut down for the winter, don't intend to do that next winter.

 

@Yard Dart it is a local class plus I am going to take a Mexican cooking class. One of the kids suggested I take a cooking course. I figure Mexican will make them happy but seasoning with herbs will be more useful in the long term. I will share what I learn from the seasoning class.