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Thursday, June 28, 2012

Helping Hands and it HOT!

Did I mention it's hot?  The next few days are going to be miserable around here, all 100F+!  My deepest thanks to 3 people, Charles, Caryn and Irene for giving me a helping hand.   A little more time to get my ducks in a row and make a serious go of this, beyond anything I've done here before.  Feeding us was the easy part compared to what I need to be doing now that I'm all on my own.  I'm a little worried about the winter months but we'll tackle that bear when he gets here.  I'm out of default danger for the next 30 days and that's a huge relief.  One less this to stress over and more time to focus on hanging on.  Now pray for rain!  Not only do we need it desperately but I have a big fencing job lined up that can't be done with concrete ground!

Okay, as some of you know, I have spent millions of hours over the last 4 years helping to build what is now a huge preppers network.  Something happened to make me seriously disappointed and disgusted with it and I am no longer participating in that whole mess.  The attitude there goes against everything I am and everything I believe in.  I'm not a prepper anyway.  I'm a homesteader.  Self sustainability thru growing and producing my own food is my entire goal.

So, anyway, someone close to me has shown me some things I hadn't noticed before.  I guess it's the old frog in a pot syndrome.  I'd been there so long, worked on it too much and didn't see the forest for the trees.  That's all over now.

So, here I am with a small farm the produces enough food for me.  It's a little late this year to grow a huge excess, but I can do a few things to improve what I've got here for later on.  I still have a few crops I seriously over planted back in the spring that will bring me some mortgage money if I can keep it all watered enough.  Just need to make it to harvest.  As the goat auction prices have bottomed out for the year, it won't take long for them to start going back up and that will be a big help too.  I can avoid the stress of being insulted by people who are trying to take advantage of me for their own profit.  I did get to throw a couple people off the farm, that made me feel a little better.  I've got 10 babies that are growing.  Their sale price will pay a few bills and feed their Mommas thru the winter.

So, let me tell you about my friends and the Thunder 5 Ranch.   met via meetup.com.  A local page set up via the monster preppers organization I worked so long on.  We've now got a pretty good group of people who get together to work on being more self sufficient and better emergency prepared.  As a matter of fact, I really need to be over there right now to help finish up the last minute projects for this weekends meet up. Thunder 5 is hosting this one.   But, after that, we will be working on a LOCAL homesteaders group, an alliance of sorts.  Ideas between the 2 of us will build something pretty unique and something we've never had in this area before.  Our goal is to network homesteaders and provide a one stop healthy food outlet along with a set up trade/barter between local homesteaders/farmers.

Okay, enough procrastinating, it's only going to get hotter the longer I sit here!

5 comments:

  1. What a blessing!! Am so happy things worked out and you will be keep on homesteading. We have a local Farmers Swap forum and have swap meets the first of every month. I would love for us to start going to each others farm for lessons on things. Yours sounds perfect! Thanks for sharing the link and the idea!

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  2. Well good for you. I think you are on the right track with the plan you laid out. Not that my opinion matters but as I said before I believe the time of small farms and agriculture is once again returning to an economically viable place. Being in Illinois may still be a pain though but maybe if you guys make it a membership type thing you can get around some of the regulations.

    As you said now we need some rain!!!

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  3. Happy news! I was sure you'll find a way to go.
    Wishing good luck and all possible blessings to you
    Päivi from Finland

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  4. lord have mercy, we sure do need the rain for a few days of soaking...we have been up to 103 degrees today. and i have been watering the gardens twice a day. i am also very thankful that here in mississippi, we keep our forests cleaned up good and so far have not had any major or minor fires. i am thinking of rigging up some "shades" for the garden if we dont have some relief real soon. a homesteaders group sounds really great..wish there was more interest in that here in mississippi..well, there might be if the economy collapses..

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  5. Sounds good ,glad things are turning around for ya MM.You will be thriving before you know it.DON'T GIVE UP.

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