The Cash Storm, Homesteaders Freedom...

With the warm coals from the hard wood fire, I sit in my warm house wearing my smiley faced pj bottoms and my traditional plain white T on. As the storm Sandy finally moves away, what is left in her path is beyond words, however lets take a closer look.

Held up by the force of wind, I once stood in the wind gale of a down graded category 3 Hurricane. As a natural entrepreneur minded man, I gather fuel, bar oil, sharpeners, chainsaws, straps and come along's,  timber jacks, ropes and cash. As I had already gathered basic 3 week supply of goods to take care of my family I was ready... As we sat in the eye for almost 15 minutes, I was already to get going.

Perhaps you might think that I was going to take advantage of people and charge outrageous prices to remove tree's from dwellings and other places... No, I was however using my money and skills to make money and provide people with a service. I made money after the hurricane moved through by having the tools and supplies on hand to get the job done right away as people wanted to get back to normal. I never charge to much and did dozens of jobs for what the people could afford or had on hand. I even bartered for some stuff....

As a young man, poor, I was always searching for new things to adventure into as long as I could benefit from it, and I enjoyed it, why not? I am positive this type of attitude of moving forward has helped me with running my own businesses as well as the risk of doing that. But Hurricanes and big storms always put a little green in my pocket. There was risk doing what I was doing, but I felt a need to take care of my family, money in my pocket insured I could buy supplies.

A few years ago we were hit by several big storms back to back. We had snow on top of snow on top of snow on top of snow... At one point, I had walls of snow that lined my driveway. But I didn't need to do as I had done before, nor was this storm any different. However perhaps my age now, maturity, knowing better, or just a more confident approach in getting through these types of natural events.

I remember sitting in the eye of that hurricane, in the dead still of air, looking at the coming wall, did I do the right thing and could we handle another 6 hours of this? We did in the end, but it sure was tough and scary. I thought I had 3 weeks of supplies, they lasted only a week.

As I sat here the other day while Sandy raged on, I thought about those days when I thought like that about money..... Today, I am just prepared for months if need be and I didn't go out of my way to do anything special. I don't feel like being in a panic to run to the store to buy supplies other than toilet paper. If I don't have a tin can of food, it doesn't bother me.

Being self sufficient has given me a confidence that I never knew it would. Sure you can say, well of coarse silly, but I can't explain the feelings of confidence I do have. I feel like we could be stuck here and we would survive and be okay. I know tons more about hunting, gathering, gardening and life skills. I feel like I could write a book and teach others the way I have adapted to this life of rewards and freedom. We that Homestead, step in and post a comment if you do, we have a sense of freedom others do not know or understand....

It compares to something like a right of passage, something you have learned and lived and now you can confidently execute the motions without thinking or worry...

By being self sufficient as I want to be, I think if the stuff hits the fan, we will be okay... That is a good feeling....

Winter Grains For Green Cropping in The Spring

As the weather gets cooler, the leaves start to die, the trees begin to fall asleep for the coming winter months. Daytime temps are a hit and miss as the weatherman tries to get us ready for the day ahead. The morning sun beams through the early morning fog as the dew drops from the blades of grass collect and drip.

The garden has given up the last of her bounty, and it is time to take down all that garden art that served to allow plants to grow and produce its food for collecting. Reflecting back to this years harvest, it has been a good year and the garden produced plenty of food as I had planned during the early spring.

It is time for me to get it cleaned up and till the soil over to turn in the skeletons and the last of the vegetable plants and the weeds that I allowed to finally win their space in the garden as it didn't seem important to pull out any more. A time does come, as a gardener, to just realize the garden is at a point where weeds can be allowed to grow.

A custom mixture of my own Grains and Legumes have been mix together and are now ready to be planted and allowed to grow before the winter snow comes. It is important to plant green crops so that in the spring it can be tilled in and nutrients from the green crop like nitrogen will be present. Side by side with my brown leaf compost that I will start building this fall, my garden will have a wide range of organic food to base my garden off of next year. Along with Chicken poo and cow manure, my garden will grow well again next year.

Here is a great mix that you can purchase already made for you. 

Sharing My Resources To Help You Along The Way

After a few years of getting my homestead in order or to a place where I can spend more time on my blog and share my ideas and resources. I can finally sit down, start and play catch up.

My first goal was to start listing items that new homesteaders or people just moving into a more self sufficient life can use and identify with. We get so many emails, private messages and post a day about how to, what to use, and how to you find what you need. So I decided to sit down and put together a game plan. This approach has been thought out completely so that we can help you quickly and with the right stuff.

I decided to put the categories in a well defined order so that the first tab is the most important and the last not as much. I can't tell you how much reading can teach you. The gadgets are things you can use to help you process better, faster and with a more positive results than ever before. The seeds are from well trust sources that I have personally bought from in the past.

Starting out or continuing to move forward can sometimes lead to a road block, and we want to be able to help you up and get going again. We have a small, yet dedicated team that will share the correct information with you. There are times or circumstances that we get stumped as we know a little more than general information but not experts in any one subject.

With all the digital products coming out, we are working towards making sure this is a readable site to everyone. If your on a phone and want to see more options, click the down arrow to the right to see more options. Then the tabs will come up and go from there.

Feedback from our community is important so we want to be able keep communications open, and we listen to all suggestions and ideas.

When you use our resources and make purchases from Amazon when you follow our links, we get a small kick back which gets split three ways. I am on a 1099 so all taxes come out first, than we have a projects fund and then the giveaway fund. By supporting this page this way, your giving back to the whole community. After people started stepping forward telling me how much I am changing their lives for the better, I thought about the items we give away and how much they could help others live a better, more self sufficient life.

Supporting this community is important to everyone here, including myself and other moderators. All of our moderators are volunteers at this time. They are giving back because they love and enjoy sharing their lifestyles. We are also here to make sure that this is a friendly PG-13 level site.

Last but not least, Thank you for your financial support through the Amazon Program and a huge thank you for being a part of our community. Be sure to share us with your friends.... Peace and much Love Jason

The Great Disconnect.... The Propaganda Lie

I understand that posting and promoting ideas lead people to follow me in many ways. It is also a powerful tool and comes with rules on how to direct people and share with them, in my case it is about living a more self sufficient life at the level you want to.

Perhaps I am taking this more serous than I should? A man saved $300.00 dollars his first month dehydrating. He started using the food right away and stretched it out over a few months, while buying everything on sale at the peak freshness time he could get it at. With a few directions, my sound advice buy only what you will like and eat, and pick up Mary Bells book found in my recommended reads section. Tweek the recipes that fit your taste buds after you make it her way. He continues his approach and now is putting soups and casseroles up in Mason Jars for long term storage, easy one step meals, and for gifts.

There is a woman living in Houston that took clothes back and bought a dehydrator, started doing some of my recipes, and for the first time in 20 years slept the whole night without wakening up. Her sleep patterns have come back, as stress from feeling helpless herself went away and she found freedom. As she followed some of my recipes, her children liked the food so much that they jumped in and now it is a family event.

Another community member was brought back out of a long term depression when I inspired her to start gardening again this year. As she dug her garden, she had a sense that her lost loved one was there with her encouraging her to move forward with her life.

A second story row house owner in Baltimore Maryland, took her second story balcony that is 3x6 and has turned it into a urban garden. She produced enough tomatoes to can herself seven pints of stewed tomatoes. We know that seven pints isn't going to sustain her very long, but she mastered two skills. Now she has decided to sell her place and looking for a small house with a little bit of land.

Each one of these people have been disconnected, and through me, connected back to who they are. If I only helped these people I have done my job. This is about eating real food, getting close to your food source. Being independent with your own food and understanding how that food needs to be processed. 

People are miles away from their food today, I don't blame the people. I would be a fool to think like that, instead I blame the Government, big food, pharmaceutical, and advertising companies for their role.

Products that feature a family pulls at our idea of wholesome, close focused and caring. Words like Farm Fresh relate to the quality as if it were grown on a wholesome farm. Some people think meat is grown in soil, or it is all a product of the store or man made. Stop laughing at me, I am serous people really do think like this. They are so disconnected from their food that they are completely clueless.

I still use open sites as well as a scope, and I get up close and personal with my wild game food. I raise chickens and process them for food. They taste totally different than what you buy and eat. They are also a different breed other than "broilers". I have three coops, one is a retirement home, one is a laying coop, the last is for chickens that will be eaten for food.

All those pictures and photos of factory farmed food being from a healthy family owned farm are completely misleading. The pictures on packages, wording and commercials paint a obscure picture of how healthy their food is. In fact the very food you eat is sustaining you in the short term while adding pounds of chemicals into your body. In some cases the food you buy is "food like" and I can physically prove that to you. Buy Heirloom tomato seeds, grow a plant in a pot, harvest that fruit, and side by side do your own taste test with a store bought tomato.

Veggies that you eat look perfect and are HUGE due to GMO science, and your body is paying for it, look at how fat we are, look at how many products have corn syrup in them. Why is Juice called juice when it has only 3% concentrated juice? Why are people getting sicker, and for 2000 plus years we didn't have all these problems? What does real corn taste like?

I am not buying what their selling, and at some point I had to say no way, I have had enough. Today I ate a tomato that was organic seed and grown the same. My mind was happy, happy, happy...