I just went all the way to town to get gas and forgot my stinkin wallet.
new farm rule
Don't leave the house while talking on your cell phone. You will forget something important!
( posted using my new blogger phone app & speech to text)
Saturday, July 6, 2013
New Content: Farm Critters
New Content: Farm Critters!
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| Zzzzzzz...... |
But before I run out the door, I wanted to post a new tab on the blog called Farm Critters. I think it would be entertaining and helpful to some if I kept a log on the critters I came across at the farm. As I image the things I see, I'll also be researching each beastie. Some may prove to be beneficial while other will be thrust to the top of the black list.
One of the true treasures of the internet community is it's vast knowledge. There will be things I image that I won't have a clue as to what it is but somebody out there in the audience will undoubtedly know and post their knowledge in the comments.
Tonight I start a marathon work shift. I go in at 10pm (today is Saturday) and I don't leave the hospital until 5pm on Monday. Priority One is getting the family out here with me and that takes money. 'Nuff said. Git R dun!
~OJD
Friday, July 5, 2013
Why we are Moving to the Country
Why we are Moving to the Country
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| Our "nodding donkey" at sunset. |
It seems tough to put it into words right now for some reason. I guess because, over time, Wifey and I have seen so many things that have led us down this path that we simply can't remember them all. Every time we see a news article like Pro-Abortion Backers Tell Legislator 'I Hope Your Daughter's Raped'... and they Chant 'Hail Satan!' it screams at us that the world is going insane.
Then we read yet ANOTHER case where the government is BEYOND out-of-control like: State Dept Spent $630K on Facebook 'LIKES" and Obamacare Penalties are Delayed for Big Firms while Individuals are still REQUIRED to Comply.
Hell in a handbasket is a reoccurring theme and I don't want to get caught like the 72% of Americans who are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Which is exactly what I was doing up until a few weeks ago. Now don't get me wrong, I don't typically run around saying the sky is falling. I do my due diligence when it comes to collecting my news. That last article, for example, was solely based on a sample of 1,000 people. However, I believe it to be a pretty good reflection of our current society based on what I've seen post-Katrina, Irene, and other disasters where people ran out of food in a matter of days...as did the food stores.
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| Life isn't going to wait for you Pilgrim... |
We were talking about things and I decided to ask for her analysis on The Great Depression. So many people were beginning to compare the current financial situation to the 1930s and trying to come up with a nickname for our current troubles like The Great Recession, etc. I asked her, "What do you remember about the Great Depression Grandma?" To my surprise, she answered rather quickly and said: "Well, it didn't affect us much...we grew our own food on the farm." Wow.
Leigh, over at 5 Acres and a Dream, sums it up nicely in a guest post she wrote today: "My husband and I chose the homesteading lifestyle because we love to live and work close to the land. We love living in partnership with the natural world around us and our primary goal is to create a self-sustaining homestead. This includes a number of areas: energy, water, animals, and food, which includes feeding ourselves as well as feeding our animals." There simply is no such thing as a Golden Parachute anymore. Working your entire life for someone else no longer has any perks. And as far as I know, nobody ever said on their death bed: "Gee, I wish I had worked MORE."
So those are some of the reasons why we decided to head out to the country. I'm 42 years old and Wifey is 37. God willing, we have a handful of decades left on this planet. It is now my goal to create a self-sustaining farm that can provide for not only my immediate family and extended family...but for generations to come. Like one of my mentors, Joel Salatin, who has three generations working on his family farm and is doing very well. He was even invited to give a prestigious TED Talk (watch it if you have time, it is highly worth watching.)
For those of you who are reading this and thinking that you just aren't quite ready yet...I'd like to share something with you. When it comes to putting your mind to something and getting it done, there is one man in American history who's achievements speak through his amazing accomplishments: General George S. Patton. Here is what he said on the matter:
"A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, especially during that organized chaos called war. In war, a good solution applied now can save lives, materials, and time. You can spend all of your time rethinking and revising your plans and never get the battle started, let alone won. There comes a time when you must simply stop planning and put the plan into effect. If you continue to wait for a perfect plan or for perfect conditions, the enemy will take control of the situation, attack you, force you into a defensive position, and possibly destroy you. Too much analysis causes paralysis." - quoted from Patton's One Minute Messages.
If you substitute "solution" with "plan" and consider your fight to be self-sufficient and independent from the government as a personal "war" then you'll understand how I am tying this all together.
I hope this will help motivate some of you to follow your dreams. I am in the very first stages of following mine and I can tell you...I've never felt more alive nor felt that I was holding so many endless possibilities in my hand. Life is good.
~OJD
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Happy Fourth of July from Rural Oklahoma!
Happy 4th of July
our
Independence Day!
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| Found an old Flag in the farm house. |
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| Visiting the neighbors on the Ford! |
Have a safe and enjoyable 4th of July!
Survival Blog is BACK UP
Survival Blog is BACK UP
Outages like this are a good reminder of how much the preparedness community relies on a handful of major sites for daily news, product reviews, and practical how-to information. When a site like SurvivalBlog goes down, even for a short stretch, it highlights just how easy it is to become dependent on a single source for information that could matter in a real emergency. It is worth treating your favorite prepper sites the same way you would treat any other single point of failure in your planning.
A smart approach is to keep a running list of two or three alternate sources for the topics you care about most, whether that is homesteading, emergency medicine, food storage, or off-grid power, so a temporary outage never leaves you without information when you need it. Bookmarking key articles, saving PDFs of especially useful guides, or even printing out core reference material means you are not caught flat-footed if a site is down right when you need to look something up.
Downtime on sites like this is usually caused by a spike in traffic, a hosting issue, or in some cases a targeted attack, and most reputable sites get back online within a day or two. Still, it is a useful nudge to make sure your own preparedness knowledge does not live entirely on someone else's server. Building a personal reference library, digital or physical, of the articles and guides that matter most to your situation is one of the simplest ways to stay prepared even when your favorite resources are temporarily unavailable.
JWR appears to have the basic no-frills HTML up and running on the Utah server.To get your daily fix of Survival Blog, click here: http://64.92.111.122/
Headline from his site:
"A DDOS ("Ping") hacker attack on SurvivalBlog began just before midnight, GMT, on July 3rd. This was obviously timed for maximum effect since the hackers assumed that the Sys-Admins at our server site would be on vacation. Thanks for your patience while we get the full site back up and running on one of our backup servers."
Again, this is a GOOD REASON to get the ENTIRE SB database on CD for under $5!
click ===> SurvivalBlog Archive 2005-2011 <=== click
Thank you, Capt Rawles, for all your hard work. And Happy Independence Day everyone!
~OJD
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Survival Blog Site Down (SurvivalBlog.com)
Survival Blog Site Down (SurvivalBlog.com)
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| Utah server is attempting a dead redirect to Sweden |
Again, this is a GOOD REASON to get the ENTIRE SB database on CD for under $5!
click ===> SurvivalBlog Archive 2005-2011 <=== click
If you have the old off-shore address, don't bother. It has been taken over by someone else and is no longer affiliated with SB. I have deleted the link from my prior blog post.
I can confirm the Swede server is down at http://95.143.193.148/ and the Utah server @ http://64.92.111.122/ is still showing a redirect message (image provided).
Until JWR gets this handled, PLEASE do NOT try to visit SurvivalBlog.com. The last time it was down was due to a DoS attack (explained previously here) and the worst thing we can do is continue to "charge the gates" of his website. He'll get it back up soon. JWR is a smart cookie.
I'll keep you posted if I hear anything from JWR or Avalanche Lily. Pray for their safety and that this is a simple grid glitch.
~OJD
PS., while you're waiting for the site to come back up, pick up one of his incredible novels and enjoy some fantastic reading:
Book One: Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse
Book Two: Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse
Book Three: Founders: A Novel of the Coming Collapse
Book Four: Don't buy this one until the OFFICIAL BOOK BOMB day which is October 1, 2013. It will help raise the book's awareness level on Amazon if everyone buys it on the same day which helps drive the book up the Amazon charts.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
A Blessing Begets a Milestone
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| Courtesy of ccclongview.com |
Being grateful for what you have is important in my opinion to keep you humble. When you start to take things for granted and expect things to bow to YOUR command, that's when trouble starts. I saw this first hand today so it is fresh on my mind for conversation tonight.
As a new employee in the local hospital, I am capable of performing many tasks. One of which is Sonography (ultrasound exams) but the hospital already has a contract with an outside company to provide Sonographers around the clock. This has been the norm at this hospital for quite some time. Since there is already someone fulfilling the need of ultrasounds, I routinely perform X-rays and CT scans.
It was interesting to witness the contract Sonographer today as he expressed disgust at his lunch hour being shortened by thirty minutes by my boss. He snorted "He's not MY boss, he can't do that! I've always had one full hour for lunch." He also verbalized a distaste for the fact that his new unannounced schedule change put him working from 8am to 5pm instead of his usual 8-4:30pm.
As my boss walked in the room, a short but heated exchange occurred. Mr Spoiled Tech stated that his hours have always been 8-4:30 and he would not be staying until 5pm. My boss quickly pointed out that a paycheck is cut to the tune of eight hours of work each day to his contract company. 8-4:30 with a one hour lunch is only 7.5 hours of work. "Therefore," he stated matter-of-factly, "you WILL be staying until 5pm or cutting your hour lunch by 30 minutes."
The tech hastily left the room and my boss was visible steamed. "I've had it with that guy," he said. "I'm making an Executive Decision!" He turned, looked at me and said "Are you up to speed with ultrasounds?" I have been dusting my boss with suggestions that I could cover the evening hour calls for ultrasound and cost him much less than the contract company. It just so happens that it would also put more money in my pocket too...
At that moment, he declared the evening call hours were mine from then on. I would be paid $15 per night just to be "on call" and if I do get called in for an ultrasound, I'll get paid 1.5 times my hourly pay for the duration of my visit.
And for that, I was grateful. Mr Spoiled Tech has forgotten how lucky he is to be employed in this recession. He has taken for granted the fact that he has more work than he cares to do. He clearly doesn't realize that there are people out there who would be MORE than happy to relieve him of his duties/work/money.
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| The plan is coming together, piece by piece. |
As I considered some advice from several commenters, it dawned on me that I shouldn't take for granted that what I had already done to the tractor was correct. Turns out, the gasoline I had purchase under the belief that it was ethanol free regular gas was in fact diesel. Exactly what I questioned the young gas attendant about. Google searching taught me that diesel was dyed red in some cases and this proved to be what I had in my gas can.
A quick draining of the red tractor fuel and refueling with fresh REGULAR gas and I had the Ford 8N fired up in no time. The homestead's workhorse was now reborn. She'll need new filters and fluid changes but she runs like a champ. I look forwards to plowing gardens and tilling fields with her. For now, she is parked proudly in front of the farm house...basking in all her former glory. Right next to a big, beautiful Orange Jeep.
~OJD
New Rules for the Farm
13) Diesel is Diesel is DIESEL...no matter what they call it. Regular diesel, farm diesel, whatever. If you aren't sure, ask someone over 40 years old in dirty overalls. NOT someone under 20 in bluejeans and a tank top.
14) Trust your gut. If it tells you that you might be wrong, then maybe you are. There's no shame in that...unless you keep ignoring it.
15) Be thankful for what you have. Nothing lasts forever.
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I don't think I'll be posting for a while. Our house burned down today. All family, dog, puppies and chicks are safe. House, j... -
SurvivalBlog.com being DoS attacked and is down Update from (Avalanche) Lily Rawles (21:48 MST): Apparently, there's a raci... -
Rodent damage to our Hard White Wheat bags. Having lived in the city for the last 21 years, we have had to deal with ants, roaches, sp...