My husband and I have talked about prepping a lot lately and as happens my daughter has been drawn into the conversation a few times. We talk a lot about self-sufficiency too, which is just on the other side of prepping, but as with all 11 year old children my daughter worries. I worried about nuclear war at her age with the cold war, and now she hears all this talk about prepping and wonders if she will face a disaster in her life time.

Here is What I Told Her

I struggled to teach my daughter the different between self-sufficiency and prepping, and why we would be exploring both lifestyles. As I did, what I said surprised even myself, but it hit home and made sense to my daughter as well.

I told my daughter that our society has become entirely too dependent on industry, technology, stores and government to take care of them. That they have given up their power and forgotten how to take care of themselves.

I asked her what she thought under those circumstances would happen if something big did happen? She gave me the answer that I was looking for, that most of them would die.  I went on to tell her that what self-sufficiency was all about, self-empowerment, taking back that power and knowing that we could take care of ourselves if the need should arise.

The Great Depression Should Teach us a Lesson

I pointed out to my daughter that the reason why so many survived the Great depression was because they knew how to take care of themselves, that the knowledge skills we were striving to gain had not yet been lost by the masses. I told her that if something like the depression happened now, many people would starve because they were dependent on the current order for their survival.

I also told her that I thought this is a lot of where prepping stems from, not that any certain disaster was imminent(although many do feel that way), but that we are all vulnerable, and that disaster can happen in an instant, with no warning. Look at Japan, and Haiti as examples of that.  Prepping is a way that people can feel less powerless, more prepared and in more control of their lives.

She understood this, and I think it made her more comfortable with the concept of what we are trying to do on our homestead. Sure we want to raise healthy food for our family but even more than that we want to weather any crisis that might come our way. We want to be one of those that never has to worry about what might happen.

Prepping Makes Sense for Everyone

I see that a lot of people are making fun of those who prep, with all the increased publicity it has been getting lately this does not surprise me, people tend to make fun of that which disturbs them and the thought of harder times is enough to disturb anyone. But I believe in prepping, I do not think that one has to go overboard with it, and our motto is not survival at all costs, but we do believe is that relying on the government to take care of us is wishful thinking and relying on others that are more prepared than we are is just irresponsible. We also believe that the cost of food and energy is not going to get any better.

My goal is to be able to weather any short term crisis, and to be able to take care of ourselves without any help if need be. We do not believe the goal of self-sufficiency is at odds with this, in fact we feel that both goals meet well in the middle. We also feel that it is irresponsible not to pass this knowledge on to our children, to have it there for those of them that want it. What are the odds that the knowledge we gain and share may save a life in future generations even if it does not save one now?

Every generation that goes by, the odds are more and more in favor that someone we know or love will meet with some sort of disaster so I want my daughter to learn to take care of herself. My other kids are older now, and not as receptive, it makes me sad, but I am happy to know that they will know where to turn if they ever need to.

What are your thoughts about being prepared and how seriously do you take the concept of being ready for a disaster? Leave us a comment to let us know your feelings on this. In the weeks that go by I want to try to do a few articles on prepping, as well as share the things we do.

I wanted to take a moment to wish all of my readers a happy Easter!! I have also added a few recipes to the database for Easter and will try to add a few more tomorrow if I can I will add them to this post if I do, so you can find all of the Easter recipes in one place.

The first recipe is near and dear to my heart, because it is different the typical Candied Sweet Potatoes Recipe you would normally have at the holidays, and it is one I have been eating all of my life and cooking for the past 30 years.

My Moms Candied Yams

No Old Fashioned  Easter is complete without Hot Cross Buns or Colored Eggs and since we are all about doing things naturally here, I have added some gentler and less expensive ways to color your eggs, I hope you enjoy and have a blessed Easter!

Hot Cross Buns

Natural and Frugal Egg Coloring Ideas

It has been a while since I have done one of these and I have had plenty to report too! I really want to get into the habit of updating this blog more often and along with it these updates. I am trying to keep a photo journal of everything we do here, as we go along, to go with my updates as well.

An early spring has put planting season into full swing, our neighbor brought over his tiller as promised and to my immense gratitude tilled up my garden for me. The garden is not huge, and I am pretty sure next year we will be enlarging it some, but planted wisely this garden will provide a lot of produce for my family.

I used an online planner to plan out my garden (more about that later!) not because I could not do it myself but because I really wanted to get as much in the garden as I could to ensure maximum yield. But after looking at the soil in my garden and realizing it badly needed some help and more help than I could give it this year, we decided to space the planting out some. We have a nice compost started, but it is going to take some time before it is ready for the garden.

Planting has started we have onions, peas, rhubarb, asparagus and strawberries in the ground and I just started a bed full of greens such as lettuce and spinach the day or two ago. I have about 30 starts of broccoli, cabbage and brussel sprouts to go in as well, hopefully that will happen tomorrow.

Everybody is out helping right now, my husband is putting up the fence around the garden, we had a deer use the garden as a freeway right before he started putting it up, so I urged him to move a bit faster. My daughter is helping with getting the sod out of the garden and planting, so we are making good progress overall.

We have ducks now, these are my husband’s birds not sure what he wants to do with them yet but he is certainly having fun with them. We have also purchased some Cornish crosses for meat and plan to get some more this weekend and have some Americanas that will be dual purpose birds.

On the other hand our layers are laying between 20 and 25 eggs a day right now, we put up a sign to sell eggs but so far we have not had any takers, It has only been up for a couple of days though so we will see how it goes. We already knew some of these birds might end up going to the freezer because it would be too many eggs.

My husband still has to finish permanent home for the ducks, they are still in a little pen, but we have a big shed and yard planned for them. Hopefully this week they will get their new home I will be sure to take pictures as it goes up.

Future Plans

Coming up we are going to try to get some berries in this year still, the local nursery has some beautiful raspberry plant starts we would like to get, and my husband wants blueberries as well. We want fruit trees but may have to wait until next year for that expense.

We plan to get goats soon, but it may be next spring before that happens, we have a lot of fencing to do first, and need to build them a shelter as well, but they will be our next investment in terms of food production.

Planting is ongoing, I feel very fortunate because the last couple of years, I have ended up having to plant my entire garden all in one week due to the weather, this year we have good weather and the garden is going in, in stages. Being as this garden is 3 times the size of my old garden this is a good thing, I don’t think I could plant this entire garden in just one week.

That is it for this update; I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and following our path. We have lots more coming, this year will be filled with a lot of things that need to be done, our ultimate goal is to get as close to self-sufficiency as possible on our 2/3 of an acre plot.

Many people would look at the life my husband and I have chosen and see it as the ideal American dream. We work at home; work for ourselves, are in complete control as to how much money we earn, where our business goes, and when we work. We have our small 2/3 of an acre plot which the jury is out on whether this will be big enough for us or would we want to upgrade in the future. We are on the road to practicing self-sufficiency, growing as much of our food as possible and working on renewable and low cost fuel and energy sources.

Self-Employment is Not all About Freedom and Independence

The thing is that being self-employed is not always a picnic in the park like so many people think it is. We may be in full control of our paychecks, but we don’t get sick days, work holidays sometimes and often late into the night in order to get everything done. Our world is based on how much work we do, so it is not forgiving, if we have a bad day or get sick, we have a smaller paycheck, while that is not the end of the world, getting contracts done on time, not falling behind on work that is scheduled can be a challenge that is often overwhelming and there is simply no lack of work and the to do list never gets shorter.

Running a hobby farm is as most people would tell you much the same, the livestock don’t care if you get sick and the weeds do not stop growing because you want to take a vacation. If it is zero degrees outside the animals still need to be fed and cared for and like self-employment there is no lack of work, and the list never gets shorter.

Its Trying to Fit Both Worlds Together That Can be a Challenge

I am not complaining, we love our life and every day we are grateful for what we have, but the life we live does get overwhelming and out of control sometimes. There are only so many hours in the day, and some days those hours are not enough for our paying job, and other days they are not enough for our work outside, but on those days when the hours are not enough for either one, is when it really gets challenging.

With spring here, we are both needing to spend several hours outside, we have a lot of extra expenses since this property is new to being used for food production, we have had fencing to buy, animals to purchase and tools, seeds and plants and much more to come up with. It is also tax time, so yes you guessed it we are pushing on our business to bring in more money as well. But there are simply not enough hours in the day for either one, nor can we ignore either one, so it would be easy to panic, but panic paralyzes and sends dreams out the window, and our dreams are far too important to let them go by so easily.

The excitement of that first egg, that pleasure of putting our own home grown meat in the freezer and lining the shelves with produce is a thrill that you never forget. I have done this before, but it seems every year the satisfaction of feeding my family just gets better and better, and my husband has caught that fever as well. It is worth every moment, every frustration and the stress that often comes with it.

Figuring out How to Make it all Work

We have however learned a few tricks about making things work, it is not a perfect symbiosis, in fact some days are stressful to the limit, especially as my husband has some medical issues he is working out, my daughter is in physical therapy and it seems like every day we have somewhere we have to be. Money is short, the expenses of a lot of traveling, and getting the essentials together for our new homestead have left us pinching pennies everywhere, but we know this is only temporary, when everything starts to come together money may still be tight but we will have plenty to eat and be debt free with minimal energy costs.

We Took a leap, to Jumpstart Our Progress

For weeks we despaired that we would be able to make enough money, plus get all the work done that needed doing, we were both stressed and frustrated, and wondered if we needed to put a hold on gardens and livestock. We always knew that it would take time to put it all together, but it seemed that just crossing the first hurdle was more than we could manage.

So we took a leap of faith, I cut my work load almost in half, shifting some of it to my husband, and giving some of it up, and now I only spend about 3 to 4 hours a day working on business. The rest of my day is devoted to my passion which is raising my own food and taking care of my family. I have always known I could make more money this way by what I saved in food and other expenses but it was convincing my husband that it would all work that was the hard part.

Finally he understood, when I worked full time, we spent a lot more money on eating out, or buying convenience foods, something had to go and if it was not to be the garden or my work it had to be cooking. Now I am back to feeding my family and taking care of the garden and the livestock, I am happier and I made a believer out of him. I am the logical choice to do this, since I have the most experience with all of the above and while he gets jealous sometimes, our new plan has allowed him to be a part of the action as well.

We Learned to Get Into A Routine

For months I despaired of making it all work, gardens, animals, work, house, family time, and somewhere in there a bit of sleep as well, I knew somewhere it was not all going to work the way I wanted it to. In addition to cutting my schedule we worked on getting into a routine.

This is not a schedule, nor is it getting organized, I find it hard to do these things, and really with the life we live a schedule would make it unbearable. I am however a creature of habit and a routine is essential for me, if I am going to make such a busy life work. By getting into a routine we did have a schedule of sorts, but it was one that was flexible enough to deal with the hiccups and unexpected challenges of each part of our lives.

Now we get up early, work on business until lunch, taking time for breakfast and morning chores, my husband would not miss these, there is something about collecting eggs and taking care of his ducks that never gets old. I get as much house chores done as possible then after lunch if the weather is nice, and this year we have been blessed with wonderful weather, we go out and work outside. Sometimes we each do our own thing; other times we work together it really depends on what needs doing.

At dinner, my husband goes back to work and I do whatever needs doing, whether it is kitchen work or more outside time, this is my time to catch up on whatever I might be behind on. Our routine is not perfect, I often fall into bed long before my husband does, but we are getting things done, and we even manage to scratch out a bit of time for family things along the way.

We learned to Be Flexible and Live Life in the Moment

Life has thrown us all sorts of curves this past year, more than either of us wanted to deal with, it has taught us a tough lesson about living life in the moment, not worrying about what has not been done, and what is coming up to deal with. We have learned to be flexible out of necessity, when we need to do more work on the business we dig in and get it done, when the property demands more of our time, we often stay out there until it gets dark. When doctor appointments take us away from home when we need to be there working we just deal with it. Most importantly we have learned not to be hard on ourselves, the work gets done, one thing at a time, and living in the moment lets us give our full energy to the task at hand, knowing that when that is done, we are one step closer to where we want to be.

We are very grateful for what we have, and fully aware of how lucky we are, it is hard work, sometimes harder work than we have the energy for, but it always gets done, no matter how much it might seem like it won’t.

To those of you that want to leave a job for self-employment or working a small hobby farm, it isn’t a fairytale life, running a fulltime business and trying to grow your own food will be one of hardest things you have ever done, but then the satisfaction you get at the end of the week and at the end of the year, is something beyond words and the ability to set goals and feel like you are not on the road to nowhere is motivation to keep going no matter how tired you get. We never look back and wish we were not where we are, we keep moving forward knowing that every year is only going to get better and better.

Canning and preserving can go a long ways to making sure that your family’s needs are taken care of over the long winter months. With the rapidly rising costs of food and the gas needed to transport it, it is becoming more and more of a necessity to do everything you can to make sure that you have plenty of food you have grown or have been able to get in season.

Start with a Plan

Get a Good Idea of What Your Family Will Eat

One of the biggest mistakes that new and seasoned gardeners and canners alike make is growing or canning food they are not even sure that their family will eat. Another mistake is to preserve far more of one time than you are likely to get your family to consume in a years’ time. To the best thing that you can do is to start with a plan.

• What does you family really love from the garden
• What did You use the Most of last winter
• What are the items you are most quickly refilling from Your Pantry?
• what sits on your Shelves and does not get eaten?

TIP  – If you have an inventory list, take a close look at it and find the items that are most popular, many things on your list can be preserved if you are not doing it already. Aside from plant based foods, meats can also be canned, as well as complete meals.

Make a List of the Items You know Your Family Will Eat

Start by making a list of the items you know your family will eat, and make an approximate list of how many jars, or other units that your family will eat in a year. Keep in mind that you can dry, freeze and can just about anything providing you have the materials and the storage space for it.

HINT : Canning is just one way to keep your food, You can also dry, freeze and smoke foods.

Make a list of things you ran out of last year and how soon in the year you ran out, this will give you an basic idea of how much you should can this year.

Drop Anything from your list that is still sitting on the shelf, there is a reason why it is not getting eaten, If you just canned too much of it, keep in mind that many can goods can last longer than a year if properly stored, so You can easily finish up and then add it to your list next year.

Make a list based on what you find from the notes you have taken. Prioritize your list by what you know will be of the most use to your family and what you can grow yourself.

Use Your List to Plan Your Garden and Buying

Most of us do not grow enough to feed our family, but if we have a list of what we Want to can this year, we can watch for sales, search for bargains or jump on freebies when our neighbors have more than they can use. A well planned list will keep you in the know and help you to organize your canning year accordingly.

Figuring out How Much to Plant

Figuring out how to plan your garden to feed your whole family is not an exact science, It depends on a lot of factors such as:

• How many People in your family
• How good your growing Year is
• How much of an item You will be using.
• Your growing Conditions

The best thing to do is to figure out the approximate yield in pounds for your garden, then calculate how many pounds per quart jar. The links below will give you some starter numbers to work with, but don’t forget that these numbers are just approximates.

Yields From Fresh Vegetables and fruits – This link will tell you how many pounds you will need per quart jar of food, the list is short but you should be able to approximate other foods using this list.

Pounds Per Row – This PDF was written for Virginia but it will give you a basic idea of the yield in pounds per 10 ft. row for a wide range of crops while this yield  is approximate depending on your location and growing conditions it serves as a good guide for planning how much to plant to get the desired harvest.

A Final note

Make sure to keep good gardening records, you can keep them in a notebook or on your computer, but make sure to note what type of harvest you got, the crop you planted, how much you planted and how many jars you got from your harvest. Also note what your family ate over the year, so you can keep track for next year and have a much more accurate idea of what to grow.

This post has been an idea on a sticky at my computer for some time now and may be a little late in coming but it is a topic that has been much on my mind lately. It has been 20 years since I have had a place in the country where I have needed to worry about power outages and while I still know the basics I have decided that just the basics are not good enough anymore.

I will probably write this post in two parts, because I can already tell as I write that it is going to be a long one, I want to start with a basic prep list for those that are new to the country and really it is one that will applicable even to those in the city that want to be ready for a loss of power in the winter. I would also like share our long term goals list for being prepared for a loss of power in the worst conditions.

As I thought about this issue, one of the things that really hit home for me, is how few people are really prepared for the possibility of wide spread outages, or being without power for more than a few hours. Keep in mind that I am not a prepper at least not yet, nor do I claim to have that knowledge, My only goal here was to point out to those that are not prepared how they can better prepare themselves for a storm in the winter.

It really does not matter who you are, or where you live, being prepared is always going to be a smart idea, don’t let yourself rely too much on the conveniences that our recent generations have taken for granted, be ready take care of yourself even if it is for a few days. FEMA Recommends being prepared for 3 days, in my mind that is only a beginning, there are plenty of stories of people being without heat and power for many more days than this.

The Basics

The Four Basic things You will Need if the Power Goes Out

1. 1) Heat
2. 2)Water
3. 3) Food
4. 4) Light

There are other things to be considered as well (which we will cover Later), but these things, especially the first 3 are essential and should be considered first.

HEAT

Our ultimate goal on our homestead is to have two wood stoves( indoor and outdoor) and solar panels to take care of the heat issue, for now, until we can install these we have a generator that can power our oil furnace or space heaters and we have an odorless Propane heater( be careful with these, I still vent them even though they are not supposed to cause fumes.) We have a plan as to where we would sleep, (also where we keep our lanterns) and which room to use for living spaces. Preferably these should be rooms that can be shut off from the rest of the house, it makes heating more efficient.

Generators are expensive, we are fortunate enough to have been given one, however if you do have access to one, be sure to keep fuel on hand when you know there is going to be a storm. You can also put a fuel extender in it to keep it from going bad or put it in your vehicle when the storm has passed if you did not need it.

In conclusion you will want some sort of heat for your homestead, it could be days before your power is restored.

Water

Water is going to be your next priority, for those in the country this means having a way to run your pump or having enough water on hand, not just for you but also for your livestock. Wells can be run off of a generator so if you think your water needs are going to be extensive then you may want to look into getting a generator.

If you live somewhere where your water is supplied to you then you have a different problem, there are going to be times that your water is not going to be safe to drink, such as when it floods. In cases such as these you may be able to boil drinking water, or just keep water on hand for that purpose. You should have a gallon a day for each person in your house, and don’t forget to add any animals you have!

Water storage is an issue as well but one we will talk about in our next blog post. Just know that you can also buy water purifier tablets for your water or find ways for long term storage.

Food

This is probably one of the easiest things to deal with aside from light, but one that a lot of people don’t think about. Unless you have a propane stove you are not going to be able to cook. It is on our list of things to do to put in a propane stove but for now, we work on stocking up foods that are easy to heat or can be eaten cold. 3 days’ worth for each person is minimum, don’t forget that your refrigerator will not be usable so you need to make sure you have things such as shelf stable milk if you plan on cereal for instance and that all of your items are shelf stable. Also make sure you have a hand can opener with no electricity you won’t be able to open your cans without it.

You can use a camp stove to cook on, but you do have to watch for propane fumes, use it somewhere where the ventilation is good like on your back porch.

If you have a generator that can handle the load it can keep the refrigerator and freezer going, otherwise try not to open them, a refrigerator will last about a day without power if you do not open it where as a freeze will go a bit longer about 3 days. Of course it does matter what you have in there, dairy or leftovers will not last as long as fruits or vegetables.

Light

Finally you will need some source of light; this is for safety reasons if for no other. We stock up on LED lights simply because they last longer than any other lights, are safer than candles and offer a bright enough light to make sure that you can see your way around and not get injured. Check the lights you buy to make sure that they have plenty of hours of light, and get ones that have replaceable batteries rather than rechargeable. If there is no power there is no way to recharge your battery. Of course you will want to stock up on batteries as well as make sure you have both lanterns and hand held lights.

Once you have covered the essentials, be sure to check your other stores as well, plenty of blankets is a necessity as well as ways to keep little ones entertained; board games are great for this. Warm clothes are a good idea as well and sleeping bags that can hold in body heat.  If you know a storm is coming and that it could cause a loss of power make sure to have all of your stores in one place in the house to keep them easy to access.

A radio is also a good idea there are models that are made for emergencies and they can offer you valuable information you are going to need, hand cranked or battery powered are both available. A first aid kit is also a good thing to add to your emergency preps, in case the emergency is a natural disaster rather than just a power outage.

One thing that people rarely think about when preparing to storms or other emergencies is making sure they have enough pet food, baby supplies and medications on hand until they can get out resupplying.  Also make sure that you have a good supply of rock salt if it is a snow storm, you may need it to make your walk ways and driveways safe.

Keep in mind that this post is directed at winter storms, if you are trying to prepare for disasters there is a more complete list here http://www.ready.gov/basic-disaster-supplies-kit.

Also Amazon has a good supply of emergency supplies that you can keep on hand for any time you are without power or want to make what is called a bug out kit.