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/

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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.

Care for Your Water Canal to Ease Flow

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Tilled garden, starting to fence it in.

In my last post I mentioned that I bartered for a tiller. It has been of tremendous use around the homestead. Not only did I till up our new garden area but I was also able to till out the water canal by the street. This canal, as it was explained to me by a neighbor, is my responsibility to keep cleared out so that when adjoining farmers begin to flood irritate their crops and it comes flowing into my runoff canal, it doesn't back up into the street.

If it gets to the street because my canal is clogged with debris, the city comes out and shuts off the water...to EVERYONE. At least, that's what I was told. So I dutifully spent a few hours trenching out the canal to excellent condition. My only options were digging out by hand with a shovel or tilling it out with my new Husqvarna.

The tiller option was not necessarily less labor, as I thought it would be given it is powered by a motor, but served to be quite a struggle to hold in place as the front mount tines dug through years of overgrowth and uneven canal walls. By the time I was finished, however, the canal was equal distance from side to side and the same depth all the way down the canal. I was quite impressed. My shoulder and back muscles...not so much.

With that project complete, I've turned my focus back to our new garden. There are still fencing bales remaining so I began to put up a perimeter fence. I placed the t-posts ten feet apart which in retrospect seems to be too far apart. I unrolled the bale and hooked my new garden tractor up to it. With the aid of the tractor, I was able to pull the fencing taut and tie it with wire. Two loops around and twisted at the top, middle and bottom of each post held it good and tight.

My new garden tractor pulled the kids around the yard

I got as far as my supplies would allow and am now waiting for more posts to complete the project. About ten more posts should do it as I have ample fencing wire for this project. I'm now eyeballing the area adjacent to the garden for a possible goat pen.

Oh, and I bartered for the garden tractor. I traded to full-sized arcade games that we had in storage. The kids weren't too thrilled but, then again, they weren't the ones responsible for mowing three acres. The Craftsman riding mower is awesome. It's used and worn but I still love having it.

~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.

What If You Run Out of Money?

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My new tiller

Let's face it...who hasn't run out of money at some point in their lives? The point of this post is to show you that cash isn't always king in the real world. Handheld physical assets will always be an acceptable form of exchange.

Trust me. I just did it tonight.

One thing we sorely needed on our new homestead was a tiller to begin our new garden. Tillers can be bought from stores for hundreds of dollars. They can also be rented from equipment rental stores by the day or week.

We are low on funds from our recent move to Idaho so I had to think outside the box. One method of finding things you need, which I have shared here before, is using a CraigsList application on your computer or cell phone to notify you when someone posts something you want for sale. I input several items into my app like "tiller", "freezer", "shed" and such. Then, when someone posts an add selling something with those keywords in the title, I get an email or text notification.

The quicker you act on the notification, the better the chance you can score it. Tonight was just such a night for me.

Someone posted a used Husqvarna tiller for $300. I looked up this tiller on Google and found it for sale (new) at Sears for $459. Having no cash, but knowing what items are ALWAYS in demand, I quickly contacted the seller and offered a trade.

I said "Your tiller is just what I'm looking for to start our garden but I have no cash. Would you be interested in trading for something that goes bang?"

His immediate reply was "Absolutely!"

I sent him a few photos of my 12g shotgun bought at last years Black Friday sale over at Cal-Ranch in Flagstaff. It was a $300-350 semi-auto that they had on sale for $199 (only seven were sold at that price.) I had only fired it twice so it was still in pristine condition.

I quickly headed to his house and reviewed the tiller. It barely showed any signs of use and fired up on the first pull of the cord. I was sold! I showed him the shotgun and the deal was done. We wrote up a quick contract of sale and down the road I went.

With no cash to speak of and payday still three days away, I am now a proud owner of a shiny new ORANGE Husqvarna front tine tiller.

Garden, here I come!

Don't be afraid to think outside the box. Offer services (like yard work, babysitting, etc) or items for trade and you'll be surprised what you might get.

My past barters:

• 10 mini bantams & 3 hens for one silver coin.
• traded ultrasound exams for a giant bounce house (birthday party)
• lent out my 4x8 trailer for several trash bags of oranges
• trading bathroom goods for bathroom goods

Tools for Smart Budgeting

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: a cash envelope budgeting system, a home expense tracker, and a paper shredder for financial documents.