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This is What Happens When We Play Election Cycle American Idol

From SHTF Plan – When It Hits The Fan, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You

Congressman Allen West takes aim at President Obama in his latest Fox News interview:

Perhaps one of the things that many people need to understand is that the truth needs to be said…

…That speech that was given last week Wednesday, was absolutely beneath the statesmanship, or the atmosphere, or the aura, the personality, that the President should show.

I am sick and tired of this class warfare, this Marxist, demagogic rhetoric that is coming from the President of the United States of America. It is not helpful for this country and it’s not going to move the ball forward as far as rectifying the economic situation in our country. And I’m not going to back away from telling what the truth is.

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When you look at what a community organizer is turning out to be, it does seem to be like a low-level socialist agitator.

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When I talk about the chickens coming home to roost – when we continue to play this election cycle American Idol in the United States of America, this is what we end up with, with someone that, really, is not in tune with the American people.

Video:

Don’t leave home and expect others to take care of things

From What if IT is today? – A Survivalist’s Blog

We are back from our trip to Southern California.  It was a fun trip.  We got to visit friends and relatives, which I always find enjoyable. 

Girl is in fourth grade and in California this means studying missions.  Things have changed since I was in 4th grade.  Sure it was a million years ago according to the grandkids, but so much of history has changed in order.  Now the Spaniards were evil mongers where when I was a child they were kind religious people trying to modernize the Indians.  Of course I don’t believe that they were all kind, in most cases they were very harsh to the Indians.  But grandson got it right.  The main reason for the missions was to make more Catholics. 

I brought the kids to the mission in Ventura last Sunday.  We walked through the mission courtyard into the side door of the church during the middle of services.  Sshhhh I told the grandkids.  They are praying and we need to be respectful.  Boy grabbed a palm leaf and started twisting it into shapes just like the other little boys were doing.  Then the priest started speaking.  What language is it?  Latin.  In Catholic services they speak Latin.  Oh, said the boy.  “Those people are Catholics!  Just like when the missions were here.”  We are still in the mission’s church, so yes they are Catholics.  Boy was very impressed that next year he is…

Chickens: Easy and Fun Food for Your Family’s Survival, by Southern Miss

From SurvivalBlog.com

Raising chickens is a wise investment in your survival, especially if you are now living on your rural retreat. We live in the deep southern United States, so it would be much different the farther north you live. I can only speak out of my own experience, so you will have to take what I say, combine it with all the other things you have read, heard and experienced on the subject, and modify it for where you live.

Housing
You need to have plenty of room for the chickens to live. If your chickens free range every day, less pen space is required. We keep our chickens in 10’x10’Xx6’ dog pens with chain link fence. The roof is recycled roofing tin, attached with recycled electric fence wire. In a pen that size, I keep one rooster and about 12 hens. If they never free ranged, they would need about twice that much room.

Down here, we don’t worry about winter temperatures, since winter is very mild and short. In the winter, we give them a wind break by tying either roofing tin, recycled plastic feed sacks or other tarp-type material onto the sides. We have chickens that are cold and heat tolerant, though the heat is the biggest concern.

We have a dog, which is essential to the life of the farm. He stays in his own 10’x10’x6’ dog pen with metal roofing, while the chickens are out free ranging. When the…

Chickens for Survival and Self-Reliance

From SHTF blog

I want to thank Don R at eFoods Global for becoming a SHTF blog advertiser. He has quick-fix meals with long shelf lives.

Today’s post is our first entry into Safecastle’s Freedom Awards writing competition, New Dawn Survival‘s submission. There are great prizes to be had, so check that link out and send your entry.

Chickens for Survival kinda reminds me of my old Battle Peeps blog post. For those of you that miss the bikini rifle babe, you can get a glimpse of her in that post.

RM

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Two Australorps, two Buff Orpingtons and a Silver Laced Wyandotte

For those living in the country, having chickens should definitely be high on the survival list of things “to do”.

Chickens would provide many advantages.

The first one would be a protein source in the form of meat.  The amount of meat from a chicken can be consumed at a single meal by a family, eliminating the need for refrigeration (electricity may or may not be available in your area, for the refrigerator).

The second advantage would be a protein source in the form of eggs.  A much higher quality egg than the ones produced in the commercial chicken factories.  Those eggs would make an excellent item to barter to the neighbors that did not have chickens.

Other minor advantages would be a source of fertilizer…

Odds ‘n Sods:

From SurvivalBlog.com

Does anyone out there have an original barrel, barrel extension, and adjusting collar for a takedown Winchester Model 1897 12 gauge shotgun? I need those for one of my project guns here at the ranch. I’m willing to pay a reasonable price. (Or I have lots of great full capacity magazines available to trade, if you’d prefer barter.) To get the parts I need, I’m even willing to buy a complete spare "front end" (barrel, magazine, and slide assembly) from a takedown ’97.

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Trapper Mike sent this: Future farm: a sunless, rainless room indoors

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Pierre M. sent us a link to an interesting site on van modifications–showing real world experience with both four wheel drive and photovoltaic power systems.

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Bill in Virginia sent this: Hanging out at the Sensible Preppers Conference (in South Carolina.)

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F.H. recommended this article: North Dakota the First to Pass New Tactic Against Federal Debt

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G.G. liked this one: Feral chickens have proliferated in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina

Cutting back on driving

From What if IT is today? – A Survivalist’s Blog

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Not by osmosis

From Paratus Familia

Last week, Miss Calamity and I were preparing a case of chickens to can.  It was a wonderful time of working side by side, talking, laughing and just being together.  As I looked at my young daughter, I was reminded of the priceless hours I have spent working side by side with her older sister, Maid Elizabeth.  When my daughters and I work, it is never a solemn, tedious time, but a joyful, riotous display.  Just as my time spent in the kitchen with Maid Elizabeth has wrought many tender moments it has offered endless opportunities to share my values, passions and wisdom gleaned from years of living and learning.  As I stood in the kitchen with Miss Calamity, I realized that, once again, I had the great honor of passing wisdom and values to the next generation.

In the process of preparing the chickens for the jar, we were skinning them, deboning them and putting huge chunks of chicken meat on a plate to cut up and can.  I handed Miss Calamity a chicken and said “go ahead and debone the chicken and then we will cut it up and put it into a jar”.  She attacked the chicken with enviable enthusiasm, however, when I looked at her chicken, it looked like the dogs had gotten to it and dismembered it with reckless abandon.  I started to cry “No!, you never do…

Going Galt

From Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest

The topic of “Going Galt” comes up now and then. The relatively recent bail outs and health care legislation have made some normal productive and even successful people consider a radical change in lifestyle. Having just finished Atlas Shrugged last night I have some thoughts.

Bottom line up front the premise of my belief is to do whatever is best for your life as an individual or a family unit.

Continuing along that premise. Unless you are a doctor who just found a cure to cancer or a physicist who just figured out cold fusion or the like what you do as an individual isn’t going to make jack squat of a difference to anybody who is outside of your family or is seriously economically involved with you. If you run a business that employs 40 people in a town of 750 there would be some impact on the town. However if you have 3 employees (or none) and live in a town of 5k do you think the town as a whole, let alone the county or nation will feel a difference if you decide to stop working? No is the simple answer.

Yeah if everybody did the same thing the county/ state/ nation would change but you don’t influence (let alone control) everybody, just yourself.

Also I have a hard time seeing how one can truly “drop out” unless they decide to go be a hermit in…

Moving day for (some of the) chicks

From Rural Revolution

The chicks were getting WAY too big for the stock tank (and the house was getting WAY too stinky with this many chicks indoors).

Although their sleeping habits — piling on top each other — were pretty funny to watch.

Nonetheless, they were seriously overcrowded. The weather is moderating a bit, so we decided to take the bigger ones and put them in the chicken coop, where we have a cage within the coop.

But first I needed to give the coop a deep cleaning, something I do about twice a year. Time to get rid of the accumulated waste and put down some fresh straw.

Matilda stopped by. Our cows are obsessed with the chicken coop because they know all those delicious forbidden chicken crumbles are inside.

(Notice our high-tech cow barrier: an extension ladder laid sideways. Hey, whatever works. Chickens can get out but cows can’t get in.)

After a couple hours of hard work, the coop was clean with a fresh layer of straw, with wood shavings in the little cage for the chicks.

Time to move the chicks. These are some of our Cornish Crosses, a meat bird. They’ll be ready…

Letter Re: Predator-Proofing Your Property

From SurvivalBlog.com

JWR,  
I particularly enjoyed John L.’s article about predator-proofing property. My family has lived on a 40-acre former farm since 1990, and for quite some time we kept pheasants, chickens, and quail. At times we had nearly 100 birds. To a lesser degree, we did garden as well, though the local whitetail deer tended to make a mess of it. The game birds helped keep the local wild population up and the chickens provided us kids with valuable opportunities to learn how to keep animals for food.  

While not living in mountain country, we had our share of predation as well. The chicken wire we had counted on to protect my 25 chicks brand-new from the Murray McMurray hatchery proved no match for a weasel, which slipped in through the openings and killed and hauled off half of them before their first night at the farm was over. We caught him the next night in a rat trap baited with one that he left stuck in the chicken wire. We also had various other predators come by with less success- including opossums, raccoons, and skunks. The foxes and coyotes on our place never bothered with the pens thanks to a vocal beagle and a couple Labrador retrievers nearby. None of the smaller predators ever made it into our well-built and covered aviaries, but they did set the birds into a panic on a regular basis. A couple of these birds flew up into the wire so hard as to kill themselves. After…