Best Thanksgiving and Christmas Ever

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Sis at her Junior prom in 2015. (Steady boyfriend too!)

I should have been asleep by now but Wifey is watching YouTube videos with Macky in my bed and having a roaring good time. One of those late night guys doing silly skits or something. We killed the cable/satellite years ago in Mesa. It was such a blessing.

Now that we live in southern Idaho and no longer have the mother-in-law living with us (can I get an AMEN?!) we an enjoy our home in its beautiful surroundings. We're in a lovely little town not too far from Twin Falls and are slowly getting used to Idaho weather.

Right now we're in a fog warning and I shared a WeatherChannel warning that says we can expect to see no farther than 100 yards. Snow, fog, rain...I'll take it. That heat back in Mesa, Arizona was such a drain on everything: car batteries, VHS tapes left in the backseat, my behind on a leather driver's seat. No thanks.

Community events every other weekend in rural Idaho 

Bring me the snow and I'm happy. I post pictures of snow and family in Arizona replies with a chuckle as if to say "ha ha, sucker." Joke's on them. I love this stuff. Along with the snow comes low crime, no pollution and a small town atmosphere that boasts of community spirit and knowing your neighbors.

I've taken a small break from blogging even though it is something I love to do. Writing has been enjoyable for me every since I took Writing for the Professions at Arizona State and had a wonderful woman teach me the joys of writing.

These days, along with my 8-5 job in town, I'm keeping my toes in the ecommerce world by dabbling in arbitrage. If you aren't familiar with the word, give it a google. These days it is super easy to sell a widget to any corner of the world. You don't even have to own the widget to sell it. You can post an advertisement about the widget and could end up selling it to someone half way around the globe.

Sister's 18th birthday (+ beau) and all 5 sisters going to lunch.

I'm enjoying eBay and Amazon at the moment. I pick items from Amazon and post them on my eBay account. I mark it up a few percentage points and "dropship" the item straight from Amazon to the eBay buyer. With the right software, you can automate the whole thing. All that is left is responding to customer questions and at the moment, I have that task farmed out to a fella in Bangladesh.

Anyway, I just thought I'd hop on here and drop some thoughts. I don't expect many of my old blogger friends to be around much any more. Not sure if blogger is still something many folks do or if everyone has moved on to new adventures.

Thanksgiving in our new home = best year ever. 

If you do stop by and read a few words, try to leave a comment and say hello. The notification should still go to my cell phone and it would brighten my day to hear from some of my old blogger friends. Let's see who's still out there...




PS. I finally got to play Santa Claus this year. I rented a suit for an employee Christmas meal and handed out trays with a peer at work. Since I had the suit for the whole day, I took it home and had Wifey drive me around to about five neighborhood houses. We stopped at church members' houses who had little children. I don't know who was having more fun...the kids or me.

Parents happily reported that many a chore was completed for the next week thanks to a visit from Santa.

Holiday Prep Essentials

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: seasonal storage bins, LED string lights, and a gift wrap organizer.

Holiday Prep Essentials

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: seasonal storage bins, LED string lights, and a gift wrap organizer.

No Post in Eight Weeks

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Wow,  has it been that long? We've been busy enjoying life (finally).  Idaho has turned to out be everything we've been looking for in an American Redoubt community.

Sis is a cheerleader for her high school.  She's finishing up her first 4H project (Hercules,  her swine).  She was elected Honor Queen of her Job's Daughters Bethel.  She is in the high school choir and drama club and has her first official,  father approved boyfriend. She turned 18 last Saturday. I've never seen her so happy and involved.  She started off her birthday by not doing just one act of service but TWO!  From 8-10am she served at our local church Temple and from 10-12 she cleaned the fairgrounds with her 4H club. #ProudDad

Macky is finishing up her 4H swine project too.  She's looking forward to track season as she seems to have a knack for throwing discus and shot put.  She submitted her short story to Deseret Publishing but was turned down.  Now she is tweaking her book in hopes of making it just a little bit better. She is very interested in criminal investigation and crime lab stuff.  Like looking at blood splatter on a wall and determining the angle and trajectory from where it originated. She was also nominated Outer Guard by her Bethel.

The Queen is starting freshman year and made the cheer team with Sis.  She's as pretty as ever and super excited that the nearest town now has an Ulta (makeup store).  Her 4H swine is named Queenie and likes to eat dead mice. She enjoys church socials and dances and is having a great time in her elected position as Junior Princess in Job's.  She gives me near daily hugs now without me even asking...at age 14!

Boo is the most involved with her swine and enjoys walking "Bacon"  around the pasture. She is a Jobie to Bee and attends all the parades and stuff with her big Sisters.  She helps me feed the chickens,  swine and Lucky and is really into animals. 

Running out of phone battery.  Will complete post later tonight.

OJD

Everyday Essentials

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: a set of storage bins, a daily planner, and a durable tote bag.

SurvivalBlog Appears to be Down Again 2015

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Update: SB appears to be up again. Not sure if I just experienced a glitch or not. Glad to see it back nonetheless.

Also, the Swedish server appears to be nixed and replaced with the following, albeit still under construction:

http://50.193.232.247/

------------------------------------------------------

I intended to re-read a recent article about the recent decisions of our Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. Unfortunately, SB seems to be down again. In the past, Rawles gets hacked on extended weekends by hackers that know he will have an extended period of time when his server will be unattended. Last I checked, Rawles does not have a server in his home and is dependent on commercial servers.

These companies tend to staff lightly (if at all) on holidays like most other American companies. He did have a server in Sweden last I checked so I would think that it would be up. However, neither of the IP addresses I have on file are working at the moment:

Please bookmark both of SurvivalBlog's servers:
http://64.92.111.122/ [U.S. Server]
http://95.143.193.148/ [Swedish Server]
One or both of them may go down.

 My guess that this is the same DoS attack he tolerates every year and if we wait 24 hours, we'll probably hear something from him.

 It is Sunday, so enjoy some time with your families.

 ~OJD

Backup Options When Online Prepper Resources Go Down

Outages like this are a good reminder that relying entirely on a website for prepping knowledge has a real weak point. Keeping a couple of solid physical survival reference books on the shelf means the information is there even without an internet connection, and an external hard drive is worth using to back up any digital guides or PDFs you have collected over the years. Websites come and go, but a good physical library does not depend on a server staying online.

Our Own TV Series!

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The producers of Gold Rush interviewed us this morning.

I know, it's silly...but we did an interview this morning for it. A production company in London called RAW TV has interviewed our family to potentially be in a short tv series on living the self-sufficient lifestyle.

Apparently this is a popular thing across the pond right now? I guess you can say America is kind of waking up to the idea too. For several years now we've been trying to move farther away from the big city and closer to rural America.

We were tired of the crime and pollution...the 90 minute commute time to work (one way!)...and all the other joys that come with living in an overpopulated area. So we moved from Arizona to rural Idaho.

My children now ride their bikes on a private dirt road that has but one other house on it besides mine. We have enough land that we can grow as much food as we want and raise several animals. We currently have around 27 chickens (lost five last weekend to Lucky) and 5 pigs. We've planted six fruit trees and one of our apple trees has popped out three little baby apples (we're SO excited!).

Anyway, this film company thought this was all very interesting and of course my girls thought that having their own reality show would be a hoot. It would be nice to offer something to the American public that was a total polar shift from the Kardashian junk on the tube now.

So what do you think? Would you do a tv show if asked?

Let me know in the comment section...if there is anybody left out there.

OJD

Everyday Essentials

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: a set of storage bins, a daily planner, and a durable tote bag.

5 Pigs Added for 4H Projects

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Working on becoming friends first...

Now that the 32 chickens have room to roam, we've gone to the next level. We've added five pigs to our homestead to raise for 4H. We got them on Sunday (today is Tuesday) and we'll be raising them until the county fair in September.

At that time, the girls will show them to the best of their ability and if they do a good job, maybe even come home with some ribbons.

Wifey hanging with the boys

We're learning as we go and having tons of fun doing it. Idaho and the American Redoubt has been very good to us. We are so happy we moved here.

Lots of friendly people and wide open spaces to explore and enjoy.

I'll try to post a video of the day the pigs were brought over. I didn't have a trailer to load them into so the folks we bought them from were nice enough to deliver them.

They have even offered to take them to the fair for us. The girls are SO excited!

~OJD

Supplies That Help a 4H Pig Project Go Smoothly

Raising pigs for a 4H project takes more day-to-day gear than people expect. A sturdy feed trough cuts down on wasted feed compared to tossing it on the ground, a reliable stock tank heater keeps water from freezing during colder months, and a good show halter makes training pigs to lead a lot easier before fair season. Little details like these make a big difference over the life of a project like this.

All Are Gathered Now

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Frosty pulling the Jeep home to Idaho.

After four months, I finally had enough cash to make the last run to Flagstaff and retrieve our last two cars. The Jeep Cherokee, which is our daily driver, was hauled back with the use of a U-Haul trailer. The old pickup truck, with it's oversize tires, was left behind becuase it would  not fit on any trailer that could be rented.

Thanks to my best friend, it was successfully driven 750 miles to our new home. Not without a few pains, of course. Needless to say, all that went wrong was a power steering line blowout. When we first discovered it we thought we had cracked the block. I checked the oil dipstick and noticed it was normal color.

If you crack an engine block, water seeps into the oil pan and turns the oil a milky white color. This was clearly not the case and so we pressed on...careful not to drive over 55mph just in case something else went wrong.

That made for a very long drive. What Google Maps says should have taken 11.5 hours took 17 hours total. We left Saturday at 0930 and arrived home around 0300 Sunday morning. I had a rental car on standby and my buddy drove it back to Flagstaff where his truck was waiting to return him to Phoenix.

It wasn't cheap but I finally have my cars in one place. The old Suburban that I bought back from the fire for $400 can finally be retired for emegencies. We nicknamed it Frosty because it melts in the heat (the house fire burned all the plastic on the outside, enough that the insurance company totaled it.) Once I fix my power steering, I'll drive the old truck daily to work and back. Wifey gets the comfy Jeep Cherokee for her daily driver.

In the back of the pickup was an additional bonus: all of my fencing supplies. I can now finish fencing in the garden, new chicken coop (still being built out of pallets) and have some left over materials for additional fenced areas if needed or wanted.

I just wish weekends were longer so I get do more of the stuff that I WANT to do.

Everyday Essentials

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: a set of storage bins, a daily planner, and a durable tote bag.

Everyday Essentials

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: a set of storage bins, a daily planner, and a durable tote bag.

OFF GRID HOMESTEAD SEEKS COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

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Building an Off-Grid Homestead Community

One of the things we have learned living off-grid is that self-sufficiency does not mean total isolation. Trading skills, tools, and know-how with neighbors who are also working toward a simpler, more self-reliant lifestyle makes everyone more resilient. The video below covers some of what that looks like in practice on our own place.

Gear That Makes Off-Grid Living More Manageable

If you are working toward your own off-grid setup, a reliable portable solar generator is one of the best first investments, since it covers small electronics and tools without running a noisy gas generator all day. A good gravity water filter is just as important if your water source is not already treated, and a solid pair of leather work gloves will get used almost daily no matter what project is on the list. None of this replaces good neighbors, but it sure makes the work easier.