So we have been very busy around here that last couple of weeks--here are a few pictures of the things keeping us busy
BELOW--These are the little doelings that were born February 16th--My, how they have grown--They bring great joy to our little farmstead!
BELOW--A few of the hens and the only rooster we have right now--Our buff rooster got killed by the rooster you see in the picture--They were fighting over a hen--we couldn't get to them in time to break up the fight--such is life on a farm I suppose
BELOW--These are the roosters that will become dinner in a very few months--
BELOW--Ok, these will be dinner come end of summer--They have enjoyed playing in the dirt the past few days that it has been really warm!
BELOW--These are the Blueberries--they are just beginning to leaf out--We have 6 plants--2 did not survive the winter--they will be replaced next week or the next--
BELOW--These are the 2 peach trees we have--
BELOW--These are the strawberries--looks as if we lost a few, but no worry as they spread rapidly--we are going to add another bed this spring--
BELOW--These are the taters--we will add more tires filled with dirt as the taters grow
BELOW--The Greenhouse(not quite finished in this picture)
Ok, so thats some of what we have been up to the past few weeks--Busy,but we love it!--as spring progress' we will even busier--we have many plans in the making--we are hoping for this to be the year we complete our homestead endeavors and can sit back and enjoy what we have built--Self-Reliance is on the horizon--God is good!
Hubby and I have many reasons why we want to be self reliant--the 1st reason is because it is what God has called us to do--secondly we have to realize that at some point no matter how much food you stock, if there are no stores or there are rations you will eventually run out of that food--then what?--We are working toward getting stocked up for the here and now, but also preparing for the further down the road--When all those food reserves are gone--whatcha gonna do?--We are hopeful that we will be ok--With a little bit of forethought and planning you can survive for a very long time right where you are--
So here's our thinking--
Hens--We are adding a few more this spring--more of the broody type hens(buffs, bantys) and will let them set clutches of eggs--this will replenish our flock--they may not be the heritage breeds I have now, but cross breeds can lay eggs too!--LOL--All roosters will go in the freezer--period--no if's, and's or "oh mom that one is so cute can I keep it"--nope, can't happen--ain't gonna happen!
Roosters-- We now have 50 roosters that will be going in the freezer in a just a few months--will save 1 or 2 for helping in replenshing my flock--roos in the freezer--hens in the nest box!
Pigs--We are extending our pens to be able to add some females and begin a breeding schedule--this will give us meat, plus a small income from selling or even bartering when needed--
Goats--we are keeping the kids just born since they are does, they will be bred this fall(8 months or 80 lbs is breeding time) and they will help start a small herd--females will be kept, bucks will be sold and or bartered--males could be butchered in a pinch--Does will provide milk if no other source is available to us--could use the milk to make butter and cheese--
We live in the woods--plenty of fire wood--plenty of deer and wild game such as rabbits, squirrels and what have ya--
We have nut trees growing on our property, and wild berries if needed--of course we have our various asundry of berries and fruits that we have planted--
We are on a well, so water is not an issue as long as we could pump it from the ground--we are looking into a hand pump that will pump from a very deep well--Ours is either 360 or 380 feet deep--so we need a pretty good pump--found one just gotta get the $$ to get one--
Of course well know heirloom seeds can be used for years if saved correctly--so we have invested in lots of those not just for our veggies, but also herbs--again, we all know herbs not only serve as great seasoning for foods, but if medication were not available--you could use natural medicine--your medicine cabinet would be your front yard!
Gardening--We are building several raised beds this year for veggies--I also have a greenhouse now for fall/winter gardening--All that we will plant are heirlooms so seeds can be saved for next year--Lord willing--
Fruit-We have 2 peach trees--1 apple tree--and one meyer lemon tree--will be adding a sand plum tree this year--We also have strawberries, blackberries, blueberries & grapes we have planted--more will be added this year
Books--I do think its a great idea to have books about gardening, herbal medicine, survival skills etc... on hand--I think it was Denita that mentioned a binder full of things you find here on the internet--Awesome idea!
Our goal is to only need to purchase those things we cannot grow ourselves--salt, sugar, flour etc--Just like it used to be done--we are almost there!!
Finally it is also important to surround yourself with others that understand why you are doign what you are doing--people that don't get it alot of times will make you feel bad or bring ya down--Find those 'likeminded' indviduals, share ideas and help one another--you may find someone that really compliments what you know and vice versa--I know I have! :0)
Lastly I want to say--choose wisely who share information with--No need to tell everyone you know that you have 467 cans of green beans--LOL--it is not gonna serve the friendship necessarily, but could serve to be your undoing and your going hungry if they decided to rip ya off!--
The warmer temps have drawn us outside and have started our minds working overtime--LOL-so much to do, so little time seems to be the feeling around here lately--We are making wonderful progress to our goals this spring and summer, but much still needs done--
In December I wrote out these goals--here is we are:
Get fencing done(property and critters)
Build the garden beds(will start today)
Get herb garden started
Purchase meat birds(DONE)
Get barn from my dads and reassembled
Add 2 more dairy goats(MAYBE)--(DONE thru the the mama goat birthing does)
Get house addition done
Organize the yard/garden tools etc.. (WILL BE DONE THIS WEEK)
Continue pantry stocking(STILL WORKING--ALMOST WHERE I WANNA BE)
Get Greenhouse built(by March) (ALMOST DONE)
Get at least 3 months ahead on land pymts
We have made quite a bit of progress, I think--Once our tax refund comes in, more will be accomplished, specifically the pantry stocking with that we should be able to finish up what we have started--I am so excited to have this 'extra' money to persue our goals--God has really been good to us since living here--A few year ago I would never have imangined being where we are, right on the brink of self reliance--its a wonderful, satisfying feeling and one you cannot grasp unless you have lived it--There is peace in knowing you can take care of your family in the event of disaster--But we also realize it could all be taken away from us in the blink of an eye--this is where we trust the Lord--He did not bring us this far to leave us--He has a purpose for us here--somedays I think I understand it and then there are days I don't--but like Noah--we do as we are instructed and in the end we feel we will see what it was all for--and it is possible we never will--What we know for sure is that we are working towards a goal--we are still not 100% what the end result will be, we are just following the prompting of the Lord--so many times throughout this past 2 years I have questioned where the money would come from to finance some of our endeavors--I remember one time I was sitting outside just having time with God and I said--"Lord, I can't do that--We don't have the money"--he answered--"you don't, but I do"--and sure enough he provided--It's all about trusting what the Lord says--This year we are getting the biggest tax refund we have ever gotten--it will provide everything we need to meet our goals for this spring and summer--How cool is that?--Many times I don't give the Lord credit for all he has done--it is something I need to work on--that is my personal goal for the year--
China this morning reported 4.9% price inflation for the month of February, exceeding analyst expectations of 4.8%. With China now mimicking the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and taking steps to artificially manipulate their consumer price index (CPI) numbers as low as possible, it is likely that real price inflation in China is now closer to 10%. China was at least smart enough to raise interest rates last month by 25 basis points to 6.06%, while the Federal Reserve continues to leave interest rates near zero with there being absolutely no talk of the Federal Reserve ever raising interest rates again. China will be successful at containing inflation, as U.S. inflation spirals out of control and becomes the greatest economic crisis in American history.
China this week reported a $7.3 billion trade deficit for the month of February, its largest trade deficit in seven years, which surprised many global economists. NIA believes China's trade deficit is temporary and that China will quickly return to having a trade surplus. The Federal Reserve's QE2 along with China's destructive monetary policies, which artificially devalue the yuan, have led to a massive rise in China's raw material costs this year. NIA believes that in the upcoming months, Chinese manufacturers will raise the prices of their products that get exported to the U.S., to counteract rising commodity prices. With most products used by Americans today having been manufactured in China, this will mean Americans will soon see massive price inflation in just about all consumer goods they use. NIA projects that by the end of 2011, we will begin to see the U.S. CPI increase by 4.9% or higher on a year-over-year basis, with real U.S. price inflation rising north of 10%.
The mainstream media is proclaiming that China's trade deficit will silence calls for the Chinese to allow their currency to strengthen against the U.S. dollar. The fact is, China's government has for long been making the major mistake of printing too many yuan in order to artificially prop up the U.S. dollar. Their fear was, if the U.S. dollar was allowed to decline too rapidly, prices of Chinese goods would rise in terms of U.S. dollars and Americans would no longer afford to import them.
The truth is, if China allowed the yuan to strengthen, the Chinese would have enjoyed a much higher standard of living. Sure, prices would rise in dollars and Americans would import less, but the Chinese would have the ability to consume more of their own products. Now, as a result of China expanding its own money supply in order to keep the yuan pegged to the U.S. dollar, Americans will be forced to pay a much higher price for Chinese goods anyway. The same higher prices Americans were going to pay as a result of exchange rate appreciation, Americans will now pay as a result of inflation. For the Chinese, the exchange rate appreciation route would have been a much better route to take than the inflation route, because now the Chinese will also be forced to pay higher prices. In the very short-term, China might actually suffer more than the U.S. because they lack the social safety nets that have been implemented here in America.
The U.S. government has been successful at temporarily paying off Americans into not rioting in the streets like in Arab nations. It was just announced a few days ago that the number of Americans on food stamps in the month of December of 2010 was a record 44,082,324, up 13.1% from one year earlier and 1.1% from one month earlier. That is more than 14% of the total U.S. population! Combined with President Obama extending unemployment benefits up to 99 weeks, American citizens are too busy and distracted playing with their iPad 2s and gossiping on Twitter about Charlie Sheen, to have any time to protest in Washington, DC.
NIA believes the U.S. government's entitlement spending is currently having the unintended consequence of making Americans dependent on government. It is like when you take wild animals into captivity and you feed them, teach them to do tricks and take care of them for a period of many years; if you just dump them one day back into the wild, it will be very difficult for them to survive. Americans who have become dependent on unemployment checks and food stamps will likely soon abruptly find out that they must begin to fend for themselves without any help from the government. The result will be many Americans turning into wild animals and becoming so desperate that they will have to rob and burglarize their fellow neighbors who were smart enough to prepare, or else they will risk starving to death
As a result of QE2, the Federal Reserve is now buying 70% of U.S. treasuries, up from previously only buying 10% of treasury bonds. Foreign central banks are now buying just 30% of U.S. treasuries, compared to previously buying 50% of treasury bonds. The U.S. budget deficit in the month of February reached a record $222.5 billion or $2.67 trillion on an annualized basis. With the Federal Reserve now monetizing our debt in full swing, a complete and total loss of confidence in the U.S. dollar could be imminent.
Just like how nobody in the mainstream media was calling for the collapse of Egypt's government a few months ago, almost nobody in the media believes a collapse of the U.S. dollar could possibly take place anytime soon. NIA members are educated enough to see that the writing is on the wall. The Federal Reserve can deny all it wants that the U.S. is experiencing inflation, but with the cost to print a single U.S. dollar paper note rising by 50% since 2008, massive inflation is here right under Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's nose. Every day that goes by, China is quietly implementing more and more steps that expand the yuan's use in cross border trade, in order to position the yuan as the world's next reserve currency.
So few Americans are presently preparing for hyperinflation that if hyperinflation broke out today, approximately 90% of Americans won't have the means to put food on the table or put fuel in their automobiles. During the upcoming hyperinflationary crisis, food stamps will no longer have any value at all and all U.S. entitlement programs will come to a complete halt. Americans will take to the streets like the world has never seen before.
The biggest question NIA has today is, will the U.S. government resort to firing at its own citizens, if major riots take place in Washington, DC. On Thursday, police in Saudi Arabia shot and wounded three protesters. The price of oil rose by a few dollars per barrel as soon as this news hit the wire, which shows just how nervous the world's financial markets have become in recent weeks. The fact that the Dow Jones has declined significantly in recent days, in our opinion means that the odds of QE3 being launched as soon as QE2 is over, are now much higher than they were several weeks ago.
The other big question NIA has today is, if in the unlikely event there is no QE3, who will fill in for the artificial buying demand currently coming from the Federal Reserve. After all, with no QE3, the Federal Reserve will go from buying 70% of treasury bonds to being a seller of U.S. treasuries. NIA is 100% sure that foreign central banks aren't itching to jump back in to fill the hole. While in the past, the private sector may have picked up the slack, we believe individual investors will now be more reluctant to jump into government bonds, especially with bond king Bill Gross reducing the government bond holdings in his Pimco Total Return Fund down to zero. The bottom line is, no QE3 means interest rates will fly sky high and destroy the phony so-called "economic recovery".
From April to August of 2010, the last time the Federal Reserve allowed its balance sheet to shrink, the Dow Jones fell by over 1,000 points. If Bernanke doesn't soon begin to leak out the strong likelihood of QE3, we could see the stock market decline by 1,000 points or more, which will force Bernanke into launching QE3. If we see a major sell off in stocks, NIA doesn't necessarily think that precious metals prices will follow. In fact, we could see gold and silver rise along with the Dow Jones falling. NIA projects the Dow Jones to gold ratio to decline to 6.5 in 2011. This means even if the Dow Jones fell to below 11,000, we still believe gold is likely to rise to around $1,600 to $1,700 per ounce this year, with silver soaring to around $42 to $44 per ounce. NIA believes the worst decision any American can make is to sell their gold and silver and go long U.S. dollars, hoping to buy their precious metals back at a lower price in the future.
It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at:
EMP Attack Would Decimate America
Monday, 05 Apr 2010 08:58 AM
By Ronald Kessler chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.
America is totally unprepared for an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that would set civilization back to the 1800s, Dr. William Graham, who was chairman of the bipartisan congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack, tells Newsmax.
An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes in the atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast would fry microchips, which are at the heart of electronic devices, throughout North America.
In a rare interview, Graham, who was Ronald Reagan’s science adviser, predicts the vast majority of Americans would die from starvation or disease or would freeze to death. Yet he says that while the military is largely protected from an EMP attack, the government has done virtually nothing to address the effects of such an attack on the civilian sector.
Without that infrastructure, the military would find it difficult to operate as well. Since microchips control vehicles, trains, and airplanes, most would become inoperable.
No one could get to work.
An EMP attack "could not only take down power grids, which are fragile anyway in this country, and telecommunications networks, and financial networks, and traffic controls and many other things, but in addition, there is a very close interrelationship among those national infrastructure capabilities," Graham says.
"So, for example, we need telecommunications to re-establish the power network, and we need the power network to keep telecommunications going for more than a few hours. And we need the financial network to continue to operate to maintain the economy, we need the transportation system, roads, street lights, control systems, to operate just to get people to the failed power, telecommunication and other systems," he adds.
Life after an EMP attack "would probably be something that you might imagine life to be like around the late 1800s but with several times the population we had in those days, and without the ability of the country to support and sustain all those people," Graham says. "They wouldn’t have power. Food supplies would be greatly taken out by the lack of transportation, telecommunication, power for refrigeration and so on."
Yet life would be far more primitive than even that because in the 1800s, Americans had food from their own farms and police who rode on horseback.
"We don’t have as many horses, and we tend to depend on radios for communication now, that again need power," Graham notes. "Radios themselves tend to be vulnerable to this if they’re not designed with protection from EMP in mind, because they’re connected to antennas. Anything that looks like an antenna can pick up the EMP signal and conduct it to the electronics, causing it to fail."
Most computers would become inoperable, Graham says.
"Most computers are connected to things that either are antennas or look like antennas," he says. "Even a mouse cable looks like an antenna to an electromagnetic signal. Certainly power lines, telecommunication lines, all act as antennas to pick up EMP signals and check them in the computers. And we have done tests with computers, and EMP tends to burn out the computer circuits."
Stock and banking transactions would also be wiped out.
"Most financial records are stored electronically. ATMs, which depend upon both power and telecommunications, would not be available; banks, which try to back up records but in general aren’t strongly aware of the EMP problem, would face the problem of unprotected storage and computer systems," Graham says. "And so it’s very likely that financial and stock brokerage records would at a minimum not be accessible and might not be available at all."
An EMP attack could be launched by a country such as North Korea or Iran or by terrorists, Graham says. A severe geomagnetic storm — which will definitely occur one day — could cause nearly as much damage.
"The intelligent way to address this is to look at all of these threats and to develop a protection against all of them, not just against one at a time," Graham observes.
Unlike protection against a nuclear blast, shielding to protect against EMP is a relative bargain. As noted in the Newsmax story "EMP Attack Could Wipe Out U.S.," the 300 transformers that are critical to the power grid could be protected for $200 million to $400 million.
Yet so far, neither power companies nor banks, stock brokerage firms, nor other industries have seen fit to shield their facilities against an EMP strike.
"In talking to the various commercial organizations, they have said, "’Look, it’s not our job to protect the country against a nuclear attack,’" Graham says. "’It’s our job to have the country operate under normal conditions. It’s the military’s job to protect the country in a nuclear attack.’"
Just as the U.S. was unprepared for the 9/11 attack, so is it unprepared for an EMP attack that would be millions of times more devastating.
"Having been confirmed into three different government positions by the Senate, I have some experience in dealing with the bureaucracy," Graham says. "Bureaucrats never like to deal with a problem before it happens the first time. It’s much easier to ignore a problem that might happen, until it happens."
The blame rests with both Democrats and Republicans.
"It was a failure in the last administration; it’s a failure in this administration," Graham notes. "No one has been given the job of marshaling our capabilities — governmental, private, and military — to prepare for this problem."
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.
We still need to get the door in and the countertops(which we have) but here it is all covered--We are also going to add plywood about 2 feet up all the way around--so still a bit to do, but its usable now!
