This is another excuse post for not writing.

Where have I been?

Here's the story.

In mid-April, I entered escrow to sell my 4 bedroom mobile home and be out in Mid-June.
I got things moved into two storage units, in anticipation of taking a 2 week trip to see a close relative who was not expected to make it through the year. We spent a great fourth of July together, and I enjoyed my time with a lot of my family for the annual gathering.
One month later, she died.
After I came back in mid-July, I reached an agreement for deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure on my commercial property, and my time gone and my property tax payment on the 4 bedroom house had basically depleted all my savings. So I started selling off a lot of my heavy possessions and projects to finance a move to a nearby rental property.
All I can say is that God was gracious and things worked out pretty well, though there were some minor hiccups. I got the rental paid for in September, and spent a month paying rent on two places for October.
I'm paying the bills by God's grace, even after hurting my back and getting sick.

I have to start the gardening over again, as I left my mulch, manure, and compost behind. The new house is in a tract, is fairly new, and the soil has been subexcavated 3' per building code, and the soil is just plain dirt.

Things are a juggle of posting on Ebay and Craigslist--selling more of my stuff. I find the sales are about equal to a $10/hour job as I don't spend any money on gas.

Wish you all liberty and grace.

Especially in light of the dependency on FEMA and other government agencies during the Sandy debacle (remind anyone of Katrina?), here's a link to free downloadable books on "prepping" or, as my scouting troop leader might have called it, "Being Prepared".

http://www.preppers.info/Free_Downloads.html

If you have a smartphone you can even download the articles to it, and charge it with a hand crank charger.

Here's a link to one at Amazon (I don't make any money on the links, just trying to save you, the reader some time)
http://www.amazon.com/SOS-Charger-Hand-Crank-Emergency-Flashlight/dp/B002WRKZZ4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352170849&sr=8-1&keywords=hand+crank+phone+charger

And you can even check out Ebay.

If anyone has a handcrank charger they recommend, or one they hate, please let us know.

Mental Preparedness

http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/the-color-code-of-awareness.htm#comment-38144

Good article on situational awareness, how to spot potential conflict, avoid conflict, and engage if necessary.

This is also how, I went about riding motorcycles after I was taken out on my first road bike after 3 weeks of ownership.

Quote from Gulag Archipelago

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

 

 

Resist.

OK, You Know I'll Get a Fatwah for Posting This

Assault on Small Farmers

This is a link to my FB conversation with a bunch of links to assaults on small farming operations.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=441221095904090&id=1347012610&comment_id=5883805

For those not aware, there have been  a number of assaults on farming freedom this year. The government has decided what you can eat and drink, or at least what you CAN'T eat and drink. The USDA and FDA have been doing a good job of protecting large agricultural businesses.

There's been a big push to have farm workers get commercial licenses and prevent minors from working on farms.

The government will confiscate your money without trial if you don't make your deposits the way they want.

This is just a link to a short piece of history in Romania regarding the centralization of farms under the communists.

A link to Lew Rockwell and Polyface Farms. Basic lessons in organic farming.

And in addition to the raw milk bans, Michigan's Department of Natural Resources has banned certain types of pigs--the ones that BigAg don't use--and using armed SWAT-type raids to force farmers to kill all their pigs. Really?

Sorry this post is so disjointed. I'm so mad. If you don't have the freedom to grow and eat what you choose, you don't have the most basic freedom to live. The assaults on micro-agriculture in the last year has been insane, if not downright evil.

Other cities have banned gardens, often using code enforcement to get rid of composting bins.

So it seems the government is intent on making us dependent on large farms and food processors. Will there be a day when we get nothing but the FDA-approved equivalent of pink slime?

I've heard the arguments of "It's just farmers who sell their stuff" and "It won't be used against individuals" but who could really believe that when government agencies have such a huge and documented history of overreach?

Maybe we can all eat the FDA-approved gruel-like-substance that looks like that stuff from "The Matrix".

DIY solar hot water heater

Here's something that's pretty cool. I didn't do it, and the final version has about $500 in materials plus time, so, It's about half of some commercial units available, but it's a nice example of things you can do.

If you use less expensive materials, you could get away with spending less money, but read the article and see why he used what he did.