Showing posts with label pioneer preps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pioneer preps. Show all posts

Friday, February 25, 2011

Getting geared up for the summer!

Ok so I know I have been pretty absent (ok, totally absent for quite some time, but who's getting technical here?), but there has simply been nothing to blog about for a very long time. But now I have spring fever and I am ready to get ready. What am I doing to get ready, you may ask?
Well, for starters, I have got my garden planned out. Now I just have to wait untill the wnow melts to put that plan into action.
My chickens are getting ready too so I have to get the coop ready for them. This morning I braved the wind and cold in order to clean out the nesting boxes. Much to the annoyance of the hen who was waiting to lay in said boxes. I left all of the hay on the floor because it serves as an insulator and it is still just too cold to take it out yet. So I have one hen laying already and hopefully now that the boxes are cleaned out, the rest will follow suit.
Back to the garden. This year we are planing a new venture that will make my garden produce a thousand times more! Ok, maybe not a THOUSAND times but it will certainly make this year much better. We are going to be beekeepers! Yup, for real. I ordered my bees yesterday and with the next paycheck I am ordering my starter kit which includes my hive. I know this sounds like I am putting the cart before the horse, buying bees before I have a home for them but there is a reason. The bees will not arrive untill May but the hive will be here shortly. I have a neighbor with 20+ fruit trees and tons of flowers. I have a list of flowers that are favorites of bees that I plan on planting this year as well.
I am also working on getting back into the food storage game. Working on toiletries at the moment. A local grocery store has toothpaste and tooth brushes on sale for 98 cents so we got a few to put in the bucket.
I will keep everyone updates on my progress and hopefully this year will be a much more productive year than last year.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Pioneer preps part 5




These are just pretty. They are a permanent part of the pioneer museum we have here locally. I have seen many sunsets as beautiful as these. I am just glad I have the time to sit out on the front porch and enjoy them.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Pioneer preps part 4 hides and leather

Tanning hides and making leather is something I would love to learn. I hate being cold and hides and fur are wonderful ways to keep warm. Can you just see my family running around in buckskin, mountain man style? *sigh* Yeah, me too. I would still like to learn how to do it with basic ingredients like salt rather than some obscure chemical. I am going to work on that and tan the first coyote hide we get. Will let you know if and when it ever happens.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

preps are a lot easier now



Can you imagine having to pack everything you would need for several months into a wagon like this one? How would you balance your food needs with your tools, clothes, personal possesions and everything else you might need? Would you pack light on the food and hope you could hunt and forage what you need? Would you lighten up on the tools and hope nothing went wrong? Would you leave behind your possesions and completely start over? What would be essential to you? your children?

I would like to think that I would only pack essentials, but I know that if there were room, I have a lot of sentimental things I would really like to take. Luckily supplies are usually in packages that don't take up as much room now. Take the gun powder for example. Several cases of bullets would take up way less space than one of those barrels of gun powder. Pots and pans will usually stack fairly well. I would want a sewing kit with several different kinds of patches. Water would be a problem in our area but I think we could cut down on storing water by having a nice water filter to make water we find along the way safe to drink.
Flour and sugar and other dry goods can now be stored in containers that fit better in small spaces and can also be much more waterproof than those sacks. Instead of packing corn, you could take cornmeal which would take up less space and actually leave you with more food. Quilts and blankets would be a must and still take up just as much room. Clothing would also be a problem. I am a bit spoiled and could wear clothes for days on end without washing them, but I really wouldn't want to have to.


Tools are much more compact and effeciant than they used to be. A screwdriver and a hammer and ax or hand saw would probably be suffecient to fix most things. A gun cleaning kit would be nice. If you can't shoot your gun, you can't get fresh meat. I have a spinning wheel that is small and compact and I would like to take that if the SHTF.






This picture I just had to add because I don't think I have ever seen 50 lbs of lard at one time. I don't imagine that barrel would be pleasant to be around in 100 degree weather. I am so grateful that I didn't have to travel the way the pioneers did. Even if our family ended up walking across the desert, things would still be much easier than it was then. Or would it? Have we as a society become spoiled enough that it would actually be harder? What do you think?





















Wednesday, June 3, 2009

beautiful guns

These were just too cool not to share. I never did see any information on the hand gun. They guy who owned it was talking to someone else and I didn't get to ask questions. He said it wasn't a very old gun, it just looked like one. All of the silver on this is inlayed. Beautiful gun with amazing craftsmanship. They have nothing whatso ever to do with preps or survival, they were just something cool I saw at our pioneer festival and I wanted to share.























This rifle is a gun I would love to own someday. Not for any practical reason (obviously) just because it is so pretty. I know, its a girl thing. All of the silver was inlayed and the design on the stock is wire inlay. Coolest gun I have ever seen. Prettiest gun I have ever seen. I could get excited about guns if they all looked like this one! Here is one more.




Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Oxen, pioneer preps part 2



We got to see and pet a pair of oxen last weekend at our local pioneer festival. These things are HUGE! This particular animal was 6 feet tall at the shoulder. They were used to pull wagons in the pioneer days because they were stronger and more surefooted than horses. They were slower than horses but were more palatible if food got scarce. As far as using oxen nowdays, I think there are other animals that are much much more practical. Horses are more common but would still need hay to eat. In my opinion the goat is the perfect survival animal. They can be trained to pull a cart with minimal training. The nannies give a very rich milk that can be used for cheese and butter. They often give birth to twins, making herd building fairly quick. They can be used for meat and their hide can be made into leather. They can also eat almost anything! They could easily survive on brush or wild growing vegitation. I have also heard that in the case of nuclear fallout, goat milk will be the only foodnot contaminated. If anyone has any more info on that, I would love to know if it is true.

Monday, June 1, 2009

prepardness pioneer style





We took the kids to a pioneer style festival this last weekend. They got to see Oxen (huge!), they got to watch a blacksmith working to build a wooden bucket, they got to see tanned animal hides, play with pioneer toys, make butter and lot more. Hubby was way more interested than any of us expected. He really got into all of thee technical stuff like how to build his own bow and shelter building with sagebrush, ect. It was a lot of fun. I am going to break up the different parts of this festival into several blog posts, just because mylife is crazy and I doubt I will have much to blog about any time soon.