Politics and Preparedness

 digital  painting I did using a program called artrage. Using mostly the oil paint setting. I find doing art relaxing and yet energizing at the same time. It tends to clear my head some.

As of late I have had some kind of ADD thing going on. Paying attention to the news from all over (finding new sources of news while I'm at it). Watching what is going on in politics which in the past the word politics would cause me to immediately zone out and go deaf. It was the most boring topic ever and right now I am really incensed over it. Especially with what I am seeing going on. It is like the people (who would love to be) in power are wanting to drag us back not so much to the dark ages as to the time of the crusades or something. I will rant on that in a bit. I have not lost interest in other aspects of the news but what I've been seeing lately is rather alarming. As much as it may seem like it I do have interest in other things and I do not spend all my time in some doom and gloom state ...I think of it more as a state of awareness and one of being prepared for whatever may come along that is with in ability to do something about. That in itself actually can reduce worry and bring about calm if you know you have one less thing to worry about. One thing that has been bothering me is watching the gas prices shoot up so rapidly. Knowing what that means for prices for food and commodity items. That is going to hurt as well as the fact that we have a lot of appts and therefor are always having to go somewhere. You can condense trips as much as you can but it doesn't always work. Here is a thought. I think they need to make one of these....electric from a bike and use that design to make one that say you use the bike to go from A to B and it somehow stores the power it creates much like this design does but while you are actually traveling ...not stationary then when you get home you can remove the power thing and use it to power items in your home. I am sooooooo tired right now so forgive me if I am rambling or not making sense but I hope you get the idea. Then it would save on gas (for places that were close enough to make the trip using a bike wouldn't help any on those hour long trips we have to make)...provide exercise (which people really need a lot more of including me)...and also provide electric to take the edge off your bills when you get home. :) If you wanted you could even incorperate the cheesy looking rain cover thing I've seen a few times. This particular model (the stationary one I posted) was about $300-400. Not something I could really afford but would be well worth it if I could afford it....I have 3 teenagers who keep griping that they are dying of boredom and two adults. 

Anyway and then there is this new bill being passed in Wyoming. Doomsday bill  This particular source is the Star Tribune but there are plenty of other news sources reporting on it if you google it. This is the particular article I chose to share CHEYENNE — State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.

House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.

The task force would look at the feasibility of

Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Miller, R-Riverton, has said he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon. But with the national debt exceeding $15 trillion and protest movements growing around the country, Miller said Wyoming — which has a comparatively good economy and sound state finances — needs to make sure it’s protected should any unexpected emergency hit the U.S.

Several House members spoke in favor of the legislation, saying there was no harm in preparing for the worst.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in this room today what would come up here and say that this country is in good shape, that the world is stable and in good shape — because that is clearly not the case,” state Rep. Lorraine Quarberg, R-Thermopolis, said. “To put your head in the sand and think that nothing bad’s going to happen, and that we have no obligation to the citizens of the state of Wyoming to at least have the discussion, is not healthy.”

Wyoming’s Department of Homeland Security already has a statewide crisis management plan, but it doesn’t cover what the state should do in the event of an extreme nationwide political or economic collapse. In recent years, lawmakers in at least six states have introduced legislation to create a state currency, all unsuccessfully.

The task force would include state lawmakers, the director of the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security, the Wyoming attorney general and the Wyoming National Guard’s adjutant general, among others.

The bill must pass two more House votes before it would head to the Senate for consideration. The original bill appropriated $32,000 for the task force, though the Joint Appropriations Committee slashed that number in half earlier this week.

University of Wyoming political science professor Jim King said the potential for a complete unraveling of the U.S. government and economy is “astronomically remote” in the foreseeable future.

But King noted that the federal government set up a Continuity of Government Commission in 2002, of which former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson, R-Wyo., was co-chairman. However, King said he didn’t know of any states that had established a similar board.

Read more: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/wyoming-house-advances-doomsday-bill/article_af6e1b2b-0ca4-553f-85e9-92c0f58c00bd.html#ixzz1nXWnIXnI

This to me says that at least one state has seen there are problems growing and that we may be teetering on the edge right now. I agree with the statement that it doesn't hurt to be prepared just in case. I'd personally rather have a plan in place and never have to use it than to have nothing. I think other states should maybe look into this. Though I do have to admit the whys of some of it (an air craft carrier???) I find somewhat curious. I notice I am not the only one questioning that part of it but all in all. What could it hurt to be prepared just in case? You would think with all the talk from FEMA and all wanting Individuals to have plans the states would each have their own anyway. ....I will continue my long winded rambling here in a few with a part 2. :) 

2012 elections ....WTH is wrong with these people???

Okay I have been getting more upset and more upset as I continue to read what these people have in mind for the future of our country and what they use to advertise that. Lets start with Mr. Randall Terry. He is running for democratic president. Now if you are from another state you might not have run across his campaign ads but a lot of people were exposed to them during the super bowl apparently...I do not watch football so I guess I missed out...(Thankfully!!!) but the other night as my hubby and I were in the middle of our nightly watch tv on the couch together and wind down thing that we do (Person's of Interest was the choice of show for the night) we start seeing a ticker across the bottom of the screen warning about a commercial that would be showing and that it warned against children seeing it and that the channel HAD to show the commercial....yada yada yada. Well we wait and the normal commercials come on so we are going wha???? Next thing you know there is now a full screen warning but at this point we were curious because we had not heard anything about this and figured it was prime time television on a local channel could it really be so shocking? Turns out it could. It starts out with a scene where President Obama is wearing robes (like choir robes) and talking to a group of people and then suddenly cuts away to this speech about how Obama is a baby killer who promotes abortion and birth control and starts showing images of dead babies on the screen. I about lost it. I myself have lost a child and this affected me more than I realized but even the next day I did not want to turn on the television for fear of coming across one of those commercials. I have since found out he bought a bunch more air time which he is going to be showing to a select group ...I think like 40 channels or something??? List of channels and times so you can be forewarned... Watch out list I can't remember in any case I do know that we are one of the places and I now get to look forward to seeing this if I try to watch evening news or Person's of Interest. When I went and read this mans page to leave an upset comment (or three so far) I also read what his wife says to tell children if they should see the commercial. This is his page Randall Terry campaign page  Apparently someone else who commented had a 10 year old son and this person had had a miscarriage recently and the son had glimpsed some of the commercial which upset him greatly. I can only imagine. This is the page for what his wife says to tell children Crazyness  This is a snippet of what she says: When they say these pictures are disgusting, agree with them. And then apply that same logic to other social atrocities that we
have already defeated. Use logic and words like this:
"Yes, we think that whipping your black slave is a bad idea....but we DO NOT EVER want to see the pictures of the slaves' scarred
backs because those pictures are upsetting."
"Of course you would never personally gas a Jew....but what one person chooses to do with their own Jew is up to them. And after
the Jew is dead, we do NOT want to see pictures of the dead Jews." (That's just downright offensive! And, rightly so.)
"Yes, we too object to children working in coal mines....but really....those pictures should NEVER be seen....it might actually change
the laws....and then how would we heat our homes?" 
Seriously -- children working and dying in coal mines was the problem, not how people heated their homes. Likewise, the crime of
murdering unborn babies is the issue here, not any other ancillary issue someone can come up with.Really? Comparing the babies to the holocaust? To a child? WTF??? Okay. One's opinion about abortion and whether they are against it or Pro-choice (Not Pro-abortion as some people put it trying to make it sound like people who are Pro-choice are just wanting to go out and kill babies...people who are Pro-choice believe it is a woman's choice....) is their own opinion but this man took it to a whole different level. To me my own personal beliefs are that it is not something I would choose for myself unless my life were at stake and even then I'd try every route possible to save both lives. I never thought I'd be facing that choice but when I became pregnant with my son having Trisomy 18 (full) I had drs pushing me to get it done and my husband and I decided almost immediately that we wanted to carry through with the pregnancy and we were prepared (as we could be) for his loss or if he were to live (which is very rare for Trisomy 18 babies and if they do they usually die within the first year or are severely handicapped mentally and physically) then we were prepared to deal with everything as it came. For more on Trisomy 18 and Trisomy 13 please go to http://www.trisomy18.org In any case that has heavily affected my point of view on this issue as there are so many parents on those boards having to make that very difficult choice as if they carry on they are normally faced with basically watching their child struggle every day until they die. The ones that have Mosaic Trisomy 18 though usually do fairly well despite handicaps. There are a very rare few with full that make it very far and they have health issues themselves but that doesn't mean their parents love them any less (they are normally girls). While I would not make that choice for myself I cannot condemn those who had to make that choice for themselves. That is my perspective on it. Also with a Mom who worked a lot of different aspects of the nursing field she worked as an OB nurse for a long time and has some stories to tell. When she became pregnant with me I was delivered by the dr she worked for. (one of them) I know that there are situations in which that (abortion) can be the best decision. Now the women who use it as birth control I don't agree with at all. ...
Anyways on to my next candidate: Rick Santorum. He himself has a Trisomy 18 daughter of about 3 if I read right. (at first I thought he was talking about someone else's) He used her as an example of why Insurance should not pay (in some places he said pay fully) for Amniocentesis....um having been through this himself I would not have expected this. I find this ridiculous. His opinion is that Amnio (or other prenatal tests) promote the idea of abortion yet even he himself said the drs push it. That is what I ran into. The drs DID push it. I will agree with that but I don't agree that it means you will decide to have an abortion. We didn't, I know a lot of people who didn't. I have another friend with a beautiful little mosaic trisomy 18 girl who is quite the handful and joy that didn't. I think he needs to rethink this. I think he needs to do something more with the drs that won't do anything to help a child with such a genetic health defect or disability. We had them pretty much sit there during my labor and tell us how they wanted to make sure we knew our baby was going to die. We fully understood that but we wanted our last few moments to not be like that. The predominant problem with Trisomy 18 is a heart condition. They could look into that. I think for him to assume that getting rid of the testing would get rid of abortions though? Not happening. The testing to me gives the parents a chance to know what they are dealing with and for us they did two ultrasounds (well 3 technically) before they even decided to do the amnio. It was a choice and we wanted to know what we were facing. Either way we had to prepare for an unfortunate and early loss of a child OR we had to prepare for the health care of a child who would need a tremendous amount of it. This is his article: CNN article He also recently attacked the current presidents beliefs....erm those are whose business? I am hearing alot of reference to religious beliefs and last time I checked there is supposed to be separation of church and state. This country is supposed to be a melting pot of cultures, beliefs etc. Then again we have a long history of forcing that on others even though the original settlers supposedly came over here to get away from all that...except they weren't really the originals.... There were people here all ready. That is a whole different topic though. Then there is this little beautyYahoo news Santorum (this also covers his attack) but something else he says caught my eye... This section: Santorum has said that he wouldn't try to take away the birth control pill or condoms but that states should be free to ban them. He told a Christian blog last year that as president he would warn the nation about "the dangers of contraception" and the permissive culture spit encourages. He's also questioned whether women should be in combat and said that "radical feminists" have undermined the traditional family by "convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness." 

Okay first of all did I miss something? What century are we in again? Where the hell is it radical for some women to want to accomplish professional goals rather than family ones? Or is it radical for men too?? I think he missed the boat there. Just because a woman does not want to stay home and be a housewife does not mean she's being all radical. Just the same if a man decides that he DOES want to do so. "Dangers of Contraception" and permissive culture? WTH???? Erm okay there has been a lot of this going on in politics lately. I think this is a bunch of BS myself because something else they are not considering is 1. Contraceptives are not only used by women (and hey guess what ??!!....men too if you count condoms!!) who are single and into multiple partners....they are also used by married women who have decided no more children right now or whose uterus needed a break or they didn't have the money to support any or more than what they have. I suppose that is promiscuous too...2. Women or even young adults who need to regulate their hormones. In some cases depending on the cause and effect ...women who lose too much blood (yeah TMI but important in this case) can become very anemic and this is one of the biggest remedies for those who have hormonal issues is to go on the pill for awhile to regulate things. Hormonal imbalances can become quite serious for some women. 3. Sometimes for ovarian cysts to keep them under control. ...oh and guess what in those last two examples sometimes the women ''gasp" aren't even sexually active!!! Those are only a few examples there are plenty more reasons. A woman can be on birth control for reasons other than just birth control. Besides what is wrong with birth control? To me it helps prevent abortions in some cases!!!  If anything birth control should be even more widely available. This is being used in some foreign countries to help with over population where there are food shortages and such also. You have a problem with women in combat? WTH? I think if they are willing to risk their lives for this country let them. OH I am a little amused by the typo from the article. "The permissive culture *spit* encourages" heheheh :) Okay and now on to Mitt Romney (I so far have not found a decent candidate and am disgusted by them all....) The man seems to have the same beliefs as the others and I now know him as the candidate who can't even take care of a dog right....I will probably have a lot more to say on this subject.

Eggs coming out our ears!!

 some of our first eggs (the brown ones...later we got green and blue) 

I had mentioned we have some pretty decent egg production going with the 6 hens and we needed a way to store them efficiently. I would like to direct you to this lady's blog which I found by accident but I had watched that new show "Preppers" and I thought her idea was great about using mineral oil on the eggs and my hubby went to the store and was looking at baby oil which is the same thing only scented so I looked it up and sure enough I completely by accident came across the blog of the person I heard about this from. :) She goes into more detail and I do know that you do not have to store freshly laid eggs in the refrigerator. That you do want to do that with store bought on the other hand as they are likely much older. Anyway here is her link :) preserving eggs in mineral oil. I plan to check her other blogs for canning information as she seemed to have a lot of good ideas. 
the short version is you basically want to coat the eggs in mineral oil and they can last up to 9 months. :) 

Food storage...and high grocery cost

snow pea from May 2011

We started a pretty good garden this last year only to have drought take over. We weren't the only ones with this problem. I was pretty proud of what little we had going though and we have some ideas in store for this coming spring/summer to hopefully combat the high heat and drought conditions. I will go into that later. Something else that has come up is the cost of food. It is really getting high. The last few times we've gone to the store I found the cheapest thing I really saw was a whole cut up fryer for like $5.00 and that was on sale. Which was okay but hamburger which used to be one of those cheap meats has gone up tremendously. Pork seems to be the other cheap meat. I have recently started reading up on canning which turns out to be one of those ..."Why didn't I learn that before?" things. I grew up on a farm/ wooded acreage. I never learned this. Mom said she just never really got into it though we usually had a large abundant garden. My dad had a green thumb when it came to that. Disgusts me that I didn't inherit that from him. I find my plants do great so long as I don't touch them or really water them or ...well look in their direction. I know how to kill, de-feather, and cut up a chicken but not that. Another thing I want to learn is something my grandma knew. She could go out in the wood and identify most plants and use them for a dinner salad. She also cooked old school. She could make squirrel and turtle, things like that. Things people might cringe at now but was fairly common back then. They didn't have plumbing til my Mom got older. Stories like that I actually found interesting growing up and am finding fairly useful now. I think people may find that they need to go back to their roots. Anyway....In my quest to find a good starter pressure canner (which I checked into it and apparently you want a pressure canner NOT a water bath canner to kill the botulism bacteria and such and you can can more things safely with it) I found that so far the Presto gets consistently high ratings and seems to follow the same make they've had forever. I tend to prefer the older model stuff because I truly believe it was made better back in the day. I think in these times we've become a disposable society. Everything is made to be thrown away or replaced with another cheap replica of the same item. I think I've found my starter canner kit. Presto 16 quart canning kit. Walmart sells it for around 74$ which is a pretty expensive start up cost for something I am inexperienced in but I really think in the long run it will save us enough to be worth it. I am a bit nervous about it but also very hopeful.  I like that this one has such high reviews (something I always check) and that it comes with a beginners kit. I want to do this so that we can buy meats and such on sale, make meals, and then store them without worry of refrigeration being a problem as we have lost food to that in the past. (Referring to the tornado) I have to admit I am guilty of thinking of mainly vegetables and jams when I thought of canning and hadn't even thought about the possibility of entire meals to be put up and stored. Wish I had of thought of that a long time ago. As for dried goods something else we recently discovered is an over looked storage container. We sometimes buy beans, rice, things like that to put up because they don't spoil. The problem is during this drought mice have become a problem for a lot of people. Coming in to look for water. We don't want anything getting into the beans and rice (or dried soups etc) and don't want to spend a lot of money on plastic containers. We also like to slip in a bit of recycling when we can. So something we came across recently was using empty pop bottles (which we tend to drink a lot of that ...a habit I'd been trying to break). You can store the rice and whatever in those after disinfecting and drying them. Here is a good link on a blogger who covers this. using soda bottles for storage. I have not tried this yet but I plan to this summer. My worry is humidity in the heat but they also suggest using those little packets that keep them dry. Another suggestion I have is we use a lot of peanut butter and thus have a lot of peanut butter jars on hand. My favorites are those huge commodity sized ones you can find at the grocery store but I'm sure you could use about any plastic or *glass < I worry about them being easily broken...containers that are you are done using so long as they are disinfected and dry and sealed. I am always looking for other suggestions too so if anyone has any feel free to leave a comment. 

Chickens

 Ziggy the rooster

A year or so ago we decided to invest in a small flock of chickens. We checked into our city laws (if you are interested you need to check to see if they are allowed as not all cities will allow you to keep them with in city limits.) If you plan on getting a rooster you might ask your neighbors about this. We were pleasantly surprised (and very lucky) to find that our neighbors actually enjoy hearing ours . We did sound proof the coop so that before he is let out (at a decent hour) he isn't too loud. He will also let you know if something is amiss by crowing. You don't have to have a rooster though for eggs just if you want them fertilized. Ours does not allow goats though we see them all over the city. I personally would love to keep a few for the milk etc. Anyway. I raised chickens as a teenager and was thrilled at the prospect. I have always enjoyed having them around. We picked up 3 black chicks from Atwoods and then went and got another two later (these two bantams) but something got into the cage and got them. In the end we wound up with two of the origional chicks and then when they were older about 6-8 months we got the rooster and three Aracaunas and wound up with a game hen. We took an old wood shed that was destroyed in a tornado in 2010 and rebuilt it as a chicken coop adding a run later when they got big enough. We now have a rooster and six hens which give us about a dozen eggs every two days (almost...one of them a game hen quit laying for the winter but the others 3 aracaunas and some of the black star (I think?) breeds both lay currently so we get 2 large brown and 2 green and one blue egg usually. The game hen lays white. We give them cuttings from whatever veggies we use (tomato ends, strawberry ends, the end of a head of romaine, and sometimes other things). Something I learned recently but have not tried yet is if you rub mineral oil on the shells it is supposed to make the eggs last longer. We've found they last longer of course than store bought and we tend to share them with our neighbors and family. There are always eggs around to boil, or fry, or use in meals. I would like to learn how to make powdered eggs and I am soon to start learning canning I think so may try pickled also. (not a fave of mine but I know others that like them) Chickens are also good for keeping pests like ticks and such out of your yard though I haven't been able to let ours free range. I hope maybe eventually when we get a fence up they can do a bit of that. You can also... if you have the time and don't mind putting the effort in ...make your own fertilizer for your garden. 

another road on my journey

 Tecumseh lake Feb 2012

I think I have a use for my main blog finally (Now if I could just get some time to start writing my stories for my creative writing one LOL) I am always wanting to learn new things and this one seems actually pretty useful and a positive life change.  Now I am sure many have heard of "Preppers" people who sort of take being prepared to a whole different level. That is actually not what I am trying to achieve  (well quite on that level) though I have learned there are some really useful ideas there. I am going to share those here as I learn them as well as if I get a chance to try them I will share how well they worked etc. I find a lot of the ideas you find there (depending on style) are actually very green ideas which is a good thing and there is an economical appeal there also. I can see why people do it. We experienced a mini disaster of our own a few years back when a tornado took us off the grid for a couple of weeks. Keeping in mind it was ONLY a couple of weeks but no phone (though interesting enough for some reason they kept getting 911 calls from our number even though there was no phone line connected to the house at all...we were somewhat amused by this) and no electricity etc. There is also the issue of gas prices sky rocketing and now food prices are following suit in the wake of weather that has become unpredictable and rather devastating on crops and such. Grains are not doing so well and in turn it is becoming more expensive to feed the livestock and drought conditions in the lower half of the states are contributing to this factor. We are one of those states and as of right now the water situation is rather grim. The lake we get our water from is nearly dry there is only a small amount (about the size of a small cow pond) There are wells beneath the Canadian River but they are not keeping up with demand. They plan on buying water from the neighboring town but they are supposedly talking about water rationing themselves. According to different weather sources this summer is predicted to be as hot and dry as last summer was. Last summer was nearly insufferable and was up into the 100's (usually about 110 F or so) and we were given a water cooler by a friend to use which I think pretty much saved us for the summer....the problem is it uses water. I have convinced hubby to get a rain barrel (would like to have gone a cheaper route but I am thinking this is much needed) Now we just need to pick it up and then we need rain to fill it. No pool to stay cool in this year either as we are under rationing. Another thing that is going up is utilities. We have run into some bad luck in this area. Our gas line broke and the gas company can not find it. (leaving us with having to hire a plumber to basically do a blind search and we don't have the money for that right now) so we have had to turn to using electric for everything. I am line drying my clothes which really doesn't work out so well when it is below freezing outside (popsicles!) thankfully my mom dries them when it is like that so long as I do her laundry since her washer needs work...it works out in trade. Saves some energy also. We keep a rubber rain bucket under a gutter where when it rains the bucket fills and we use that for gardening and such.  We are always looking for new ideas to save money, be a bit more green, and not use so much energy. 

So anyway what this blog is going to contain a lot of (among other things if I have any) is the learning of new techniques for homesteading (small town), green living, and learning some old school stuff like canning etc...that I find useful.