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Posts Tagged ‘self sufficient’

Self Sufficiency List

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

If you are thinking of self-sufficiency and being self reliant then the list below will be of special interest to you.

This list does not mean that you have to have absolutely every item on it in order to survive if the worst would ever happen. It is simply a list of items that will help you to be able to survive in times of disaster or economic struggle. The more items that you have, thus the better prepared you are to face adversity and the easier it will be for you and your family to get through tough times.

If you are well prepared then it won’t matter if there is a storm, an earthquake, loss of a job, illness-whatever happens you WILL get through it.

There is no better insurance than to know that no matter what happens that your family is prepared.

You may already have health insurance and life insurance so why not add your own brand of survival insurance?

Okay, Josh & I have researched and talked about it and here are the items that we want to have in order to be self sufficient.

An alternative heat source

-wood

-corn

-pellet

-solar

-wind

-generator

For the best protection it is a good idea to have 2-3 extra alternative heat sources

Alternative energy source

-solar

-wind power

-generator

Alternative water source

-hand water pump

-water barrels

-cistern

Storm shelter/root cellar

-protection from storms

-storage for canned food

-storage for garden produce

-area to grow mushrooms

Greenhouse

-to extend growing season for months

-when attached to your home could provide extra heat during winter months

Garden

-provide food during the growing season

-grow enough to feed your family during Winter months

-control over how fresh your food is

-control over whether your food is organic or use of less pesticides

Fruit trees, shrubs or bushes

-grow a wide variety of fruits

-use for fresh eating; can or dehydrate for use later

Nuts

-growing your own nuts can save you LOTS of money, provide protein and good nutrition

-good for snacking, make nut butters (like peanut butter) and add flavor & crunch to dishes

With nuts costing $8 and more per pound it won’t take long for a nut tree or shrub to pay for itself

Once you know that you have food, water, heat & lights no matter what happens you will have peace of mind.

Other items to help you to be more self sufficient:

A means of protection to keep your family safe is another good idea

Pay down your debt and try to be debt free

If you can then try to get your home & your car paid for asap. This could mean buying a little older model vehicle or a less expensive home.

When you are debt free and have food put aside as well as alternative heat, lights, etc. then if you would lose your job or have an illness in the family you can get by on little money but still be able to eat well and stay warm

If you can, it is nice to have a bit of property so as to raise your own chickens for fresh eggs and meat or to raise other animals and to grow your own food.

If you don’t have much property then you can still grow at least some of your own food. Plant a fruit tree or two & maybe a nut tree. You can grow a nice amount of vegetables by growing upward. Grow beans, squash, cucumbers & such on fences and you will be able to grow a LOT in small spaces.

You can also tuck vegetables into your flower bed, plant a strip of vegetables next to the garage. Every spot that you can grow something will help you to be more self sufficient. AND home grown foods will help you to be healthier too

Mushrooms are another crop that you can grow. These can be grown either in your basement or root cellar. They can also be grown outside in a shady area

Tags: alternative, beans, cellar, chicken, chickens, cucumber, fruit, fruits, greenhouse, grow, Heat, home, house, meat, pea, power, red, root, self, self reliant, self sufficiency, self sufficient, solar, squash, vegetable, vegetables, wind
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Want to be Self-Sufficient?

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

If you really want to be self sufficient or if you just want to keep your right to be self sufficientthen you need to sign this petition RIGHT NOW!

Big companies are trying to take away our rights to be able to raise animals and grow our own meat, dairy and eggs.

How?

They want to force us to have to tag every single animal under the premise that this is for our own good to stop the spread of disease.

The fact is that dieases are more apt to be found in animals being raised by big corporations than what they are when the animals are raised by small farmers or families trying to be self sufficient.

This is all a ruse to make it imposible for us to raise animals ourselves so that the big companies have control over our meat and dairy products. This way they can charge whatever they want to and there will be nothing that we can do about it.

If you have 12 chickens you will have to have 12 seperate tags.

The big corporations buy 100,000 chickens at once. They consider this 1 unit so they only have to have 1 tag.

Is this fair???

If your child has a rabbit that they want to take to the 4H fair to exhibit they will have to submit a report to the government before they will be able to do so.

Want to have a chicken for supper? You will have 48 hours to submit a rteport or you will be penalized. There is nothing definite on what the punichment will be but there are talks of fines and seizure of property.

You can read more about this in the current issue of Back Woods Home Magainve.

Mother Earth News has also been talking about this too.

Please help me to spread the word about this petition so that we can all put a stop to this NOW!

Do NOT let big companies or the government take away our basic human right to raise animals for food or pets.

Stop NAIS! Sign the petition and then tell every one you know

Thanks! :0)

Tags: chicken, chickens, grow, home, meat, rabbit, self, self sufficient
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Self-Sufficiency Garden

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Ok, so you are here because you want to become more self sufficient, right?

And you realize that growing your own food is a great place to start and and is probably the best way to be more self sufficient. What better way to be prepared for the worst than to have the knowledge that you and your family will eat no matter what?

But, if you don’t have a lot of room you may wonder what you should grow. What will provide the most food in the least space? What provides good nutrition? What is easiest to store?

Well, to get you started you need to make a list of what you and your family love to eat. It dies not matter how great a vegetable is if no one in your family will eat it. It will be a waste of time, space and money.

The less space you have the more careful you need to be about that.

If you have more room you can grow some other things but concentrate the most of your favorites and those that can be used in numerous ways.

So, I will give you a list of some top crops to grow in a self sufficiency garden but always check it against what you and your family will actually enjoy eating.

The best self-sufficiency garden will start with crops that can be turned into a wide variety of dishes.

Potatoes tops our list. You can grow a lot of potatoes in a relatively small space. For years people have talked about growing food crops in used tires.

Some people think that it isn’t safe while others think that it is. Use your judgement as to what answer you are comfortable with.

Personally I have read that you can grow as much as 50 pounds of potatoes in an area less than 2X2 ft.

How you wonder? Well, you plant 4 potatoes evenly spaced inside a tire. WHen the potatoes get tall enough you simply add another tire and fill in around the potato plants being sure that the tops are above the soil line. Keep doing this all summer untill you have it 4 tires high. Let the potatoes flower and grow all those fabulous potatoes. In the Fall they are so easy to harvest.

Potatoes can be baked, fried and boiled. You can use potatoes in so many ways that it is hard to get really tired of them. That is the mark of a great self sufficiencey crop.

Next?

Beans

Personally I prefer pole beans as you can grow more in less space and you don’t have to bend over to pick them. Grow them on fences or use posts to make bean tepees. Kids love them.

You can grow all types of beans. Yellow beans, Green beans, Purple beans, dry beans, soy beans, mung beans.

You can grow beans for fresh use, to freeze, to can, to dehydrate. You can evenn pickle them. Yes, I said Pickled Beans.

My Mom used to can pickled beans for me. They make a great side dish or snack and they are super easy to can.

Dehydrate and not only are they super easy tostore but they are quick amd easy to refresh too. You vcan use them in soups, stews, casseroles or as a side dish.

Beans have long been considered poor man’s meat as they are high in protein but they are very low cost.

Your best bet is to grow several different colors and types for a nice variety of meal choices.

Mung beans can be sprouted for using in stir fries or chop suey. You can use different types of bean sprouts fresh or in dishes.

Sprouts are also a great way to take a small amount of seed provide you with a large amount of food.

I cup can be turned into 2-3 cups and, depending on the seed you can turn as little as a spoonful into several cups of sprouts.

During the Winter a wide variety of dried seeds can be a great insurance policy that your family will have fresh vegetables to eat. When you can’t grow fresh vegetables you can still eat fresh vegetables and it is very low cost while providing great high quality nutrition.

You can use them fresh to snack on, use them in sandwiches, meatloaf, soups. There are a wide variety of ways to prepare them.

So, while saving seeds for next years crops remember to store some for soups and fresh eating.

Always make sure that any seeds that you use for cooking whether they have been sprouted or not, are NOT TREATED with chemicals.

Well, I must get to bed as it is late and I am tired.

I will add to this asap as there are lots of other great vegetables to add to the list for your self-sufficiency garden.

Free $20 Garden seed & plants with any $40 Order

Tags: beans, grow, meat, potato, potatoes, red, self, self sufficiency, self sufficient, tire, tires, vegetable, vegetables, wind
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Shady Gardening

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

No, I am not talking about illegal gardening. I am talking about being ablle to grow food even if the area is a bit shady.

Of course if it is too shady then you may need to cut some branches, remove a tree or try growing in a different place. But, if you have an area that is a bit shady but not a deep shade then you can try the following crops and you should be able to produce some very tasty and nbutritious food there.

Shady Garden Plants:

Beets

Broccoli

Lettuce

Spinach

Swiss chard

Arugula

Endive

Radiccio

Kale

Kohlrabi

Potatoes

Turnips

Mustard

Cabbage

Carrots

These crops will grow in partial shade. and will do well with

Your leafy greens will tolerate more shade than the root

vegetables. So, if the area gets a half a day or more of shade then you will need to stick with leafy greens.

Deeper Shade Gardening Plants

Lettuce

Kale

Swiss Chard

Cabbage

Mustard

Arugula

Radicchio

Endive

Some Shade Tolerant Herbs:

Mint

Parsley

Chives

These herbs are supposed to grow if they get 4 hours of sunlight a day. So, no matter where you live you should be able to grow something to help to feed yourself and your family.

BTW, this blog is to help everyone to become more self sufficient no matter where you live. We live in the country and so are able to take this to a level that someone in the city might not be able to.

If you are unable to raise cows or goats then that is ok. If you can’t grow a 1 acre garden then that is ok too.
Don’t have much money? We don’t either. We have certain self sufficiency goals in mind and are working towards attaining them. We can’t afford to do everything right now like we would like to but we do what we can continually striving towards our goal of becoming pretty much totally self sufficient.

If all you can do is grow a few plants in containers then by all means do so. Everything that you can grow yourself will help you to save money and increase your health.

Tags: beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, carrots, chard, cow, Gardening, goat, greens, grow, potato, potatoes, root, self, self sufficiency, self sufficient, spinach, swiss, vegetable, vegetables, wind
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Meat-Lower Cost, Better Taste & Healthier

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

As food prices soar, and especially the cost of meat, many are finding it to more economical to grow your own.

As someone interested in becoming self-sufficient you can never be truly self-sufficient until you grow your own meat.

If raising your own meat is something that you do not think that you can do you can start small.

As a means of becoming more self sufficient Josh & I decided to start with chickens.

We weren’t sure if we would be able to raise, and then slaughter, the animals for meat. By choosing chickens we were able to get dual purpose chickens. This way, if we were unable to process the chickens for meat, we could still benefit from their eating bugs, producing fertilizer for our garden, producing eggs for us to eat and they are fun to watch as they are very entertaining

Raising chickens is so easy that nearly anyone can do so. Chickens also eat mosquitoes which are prevalent in our area.

With the diseases that are transferred by mosquitoes raising chickens is an important part in becoming self-sufficient and helping to keep your family safe from diseases such as West Nile and Malaria- among others.

Our first chickens were Barred Rocks as they are a great dual purpose chicken that are also pretty calm and friendly. They produce brown eggs

This Spring we decided to try raising a few meat chickens. They are growing well and if we had continued to feed them corn we could have harvested them at any time.

But, to save money, get rid of more mosquitoes and produce a grass fed meat, rather than grain fed, we have switched them over to ‘free range’. They have been allowed to run around outside before but we fed them corn until such time as they were big enough to be able to eat the grass, and bugs, to feed themselves.

They still get scraps such as potato peels, apple cores, etc. but for the most part are self-sufficient as far as feeding themselves.

Other than making sure that they are let out in the morning, closed in at night for their safety and giving them fresh water- they are not difficult to take care of.

We clean their area when necessary and gather the eggs.

You can buy layers which are hens old enough to be laying eggs. This is a bit more expensive than buying straight run chicks and raising them yourself but it can be a time saver. It could also be cheaper in the long run as they would be of an age that they could be more self sufficient with feeding themselves and they would produce eggs sooner.

BUT, you would also lose out on the joys of raising chicks. They are a bit more work but nothing that difficult and a true joy and learning experience.

Tags: chicken, chickens, grow, meat, potato, red, self, self sufficient
Posted in Raising Meat | No Comments »

Free Solar Power Will Save You Money

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Is it possible to create free solar power without spending thousands of dollars? You may not think so but if you read this article you will find out that not only is it possible but that you too can actually do this.
Solar Power is FREE Energy Anyone Can Use…
For anyone with a few tools and a little time you can DIY
You know, they say that if you wait long enough that everything comes back into style and I suppose that can be said about the ‘new’ trend to switch to solar power energy.
You might not remember, maybe you weren’t around back then, but back in the 70’s there was an energy crisis (much like now). People were going to alternative energies in an effort to save money and become more self-sufficient.
Many people were switching to using solar for power. They realized that after the initial cost that their power would be free.
Now, with the price of everything skyrocketing we are seeing a trend to go ‘back’ to solar power in order to save more and gain our independence from big power bills.
But, there are many people out there that just can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars to have a solar power system installed. With the economy as it is many people desperately want and need free power but could never come up with the thousands of dollars necessary to have it.
Sure you can save a lot of money in the long run, and help the environment, but to come up with all of that money up front is just not doable for many in these tough economic times.
Now, what if I told you that if you have some basic tools with a little common sense that you could switch to solar power for a mere fraction of what others are paying?
Ok, so maybe thousands of dollars for free power is out of reach of your financial capabilities. But, what if you could get most of the supplies for free or pay just pennies on the dollar?
What if you could get those expensive batteries necessary for storing the energy for FREE?
Yes, FREE! Imagine the savings here.
These batteries can cost you a hundred dollars each or more and you need several but we can tell you how you can get them for free.
Even if you have no experience you could still manage to do this. Just get a friend, or family member, that knows something about DIY projects help you.
Use some common sense and basic safety precautions and you could have your own solar power system put together and installed, many times, within a matter of days.
If you could have free power for the rest of your life what would that be worth to you?
How much do you pay for your electric bill every month?
$50?
$100?
$200?
At $50 a month that would be a savings of $600 in a year and $6000 (actually more with inflation) over a ten year span.
Figure $200 a month for one year you would save $2400 and over a ten year span you could save over $24,000!!!
NOW do you see the sense in having your own solar power system?
Wouldn’t you rather have $24,000 in YOUR pocket. How about investing it for your retirement? The children’s college fund?
What if you could get all of the plans for free solar power AND we will include (at no extra charge) plans for you to make use of solar, how to make you own diesel fuel & MORE!
Many people pay $2-5,000 or more to have FREE solar power systems installed.
Imagine how great it would be if you could get the plans, and learn how to get your supplies free or really low cost, and be able to have your own solar power system built and installed for only a couple of hundred dollars.
If you would like to get out of the rut of paying for your power every month…
If you would rather have that money in YOUR pocket instead of the power companies?
Wouldn’t life be better if you didn’t have to pay a power bill every month?
Over 12 years of living off the grid has been the basis for learning first hand what works and what doesn’t.
This information can help you to become self-sufficient with your own solar power, solar power, diesel fuel, etc.
If you would like to learn more please get our free e-book by sending a blank email to
Get more solar info
Or go and check out our site.
Solar Saves Money & the Environment

Tags: alternative, fuel, power, red, self, self sufficient, solar, tire
Posted in Solar Power | No Comments »

Free Wind Power Will Save You Money

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Is it possible to create free wind power without spending thousands of dollars? You may not think so but if you read this article you will find out that not only is it possible but that you too can actually do this.
Wind Power is FREE Energy Anyone Can Use…
For anyone with a few tools and a little time you can DIY
You know, they say that if you wait long enough that everything comes back into style and I suppose that can be said about the ‘new’ trend to switch to wind power energy.
You might not remember, maybe you weren’t around back then, but back in the 70’s there was an energy crisis (much like now). People were going to alternative energies in an effort to save money and become more self-sufficient.
Many people were switching to using windmills for power. They realized that after the initial cost that their power would be free. And right now we are having a lot of people making the same realization.
Now, with the price of everything skyrocketing we are seeing a trend to go ‘back’ to wind power in order to save more and gain our independence from big power bills.
But, there are many people out there that just can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars to have a wind power system installed. With the economy as it is many people desperately want and need free power but could never come up with the thousands of dollars necessary to have it.
Sure you can save a lot of money in the long run, and help the environment, but to come up with all of that money up front is just not doable for many in these tough economic times.
Now, what if I told you that if you have some basic tools with a little common sense that you could switch to wind power for a mere fraction of what others are paying?
Ok, so maybe thousands of dollars for free power is out of reach of your financial capabilities. But, what if you could get most of the supplies for free or pay just pennies on the dollar?
What if you could get those expensive batteries necessary for storing the energy for FREE?
Yes, FREE! Imagine the savings here.
These batteries can cost you a hundred dollars each or more and you need several but we can tell you how you can get them for free.
Even if you have no experience you could still manage to do this. Just get a friend, or family member, that knows something about DIY projects help you.
Use some common sense and basic safety precautions and you could have your own wind power system put together and installed, many times, within a matter of days.
If you could have free power for the rest of your life what would that be worth to you?
How much do you pay for your electric bill every month?
$50?
$100?
$200?
At $50 a month that would be a savings of $600 in a year and $6000 (actually more with inflation) over a ten year span.
Figure $200 a month for one year you would save $2400 and over a ten year span you could save over $24,000!!!
NOW do you see the sense in having your own wind power system?
Wouldn’t you rather have $24,000 in YOUR pocket. How about investing it for your retirement? The children’s college fund?
What if you could get all of the plans for free wind power AND we will include (at no extra charge) plans for you to make use of wind, how to make you own diesel fuel & MORE!
Many people pay $2-5,000 or more to have FREE wind power systems installed.
Imagine how great it would be if you could get the plans, and learn how to get your supplies free or really low cost, and be able to have your own wind power system built and installed for only a couple of hundred dollars.
If you would like to get out of the rut of paying for your power every month…
If you would rather have that money in YOUR pocket instead of the power companies?
Wouldn’t life be better if you didn’t have to pay a power bill every month?
Over 12 years of living off the grid has been the basis for learning first hand what works and what doesn’t.
This information can help you to become self-sufficient with your own wind power, wind power, diesel fuel, etc.
If you would like to learn more please get our free e-book by sending a blank email to
More wind power info
Or go and check out our site.
Wind Power Saves Money & the Environment

Tags: alternative, fuel, power, red, self, self sufficient, tire, wind
Posted in Wind Power | No Comments »

Welcome to our self-sufficiency blog

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Welcome to our self sufficiency blog where we blog about anything to do with becoming self-sufficient. We blog about gardening, raising meat, wind power, solar power, alternative fuels, root cellars, greenhouses and more.

Bookmark this site if you want to learn how you can become more self-sufficient as we will be adding information often.

Join our community and talk about what you do to be more self-sufficient or ask questions about what you can do to become self-sufficient.

We are here to help you

Tags: alternative, cellar, fuel, Gardening, greenhouse, house, meat, power, root, self, self sufficiency, self sufficient, solar, wind
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Become Self Sufficient

Posts Tagged ‘self sufficient’

Self Sufficiency List

Want to be Self-Sufficient?

Self-Sufficiency Garden

Shady Gardening

Meat-Lower Cost, Better Taste & Healthier

Free Solar Power Will Save You Money

Free Wind Power Will Save You Money

Welcome to our self-sufficiency blog

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