SELF-RELIANCE
INFLATION BUSTING
Prices are rising. I'm not sure how much... Prices are definitely going up and the "official numbers" don't show it accurately because they don't measure the things I buy. Milk stayed about the same at the big store, but chicken food went up first 12%, then about 20%...
EMPTY SHELF COOKING (“No Fear” meals)
I went shopping right before the pandemic. Things looked good. There was bread and milk. Less than a week later, lines wrapped around the store and shelves were empty. People rushed the fork lift guy for water. They cleaned out the toilet paper aisle--then bought junk...
EXTRA EGGS? HERE’S WHAT TO DO
What to Do with Your 10M Eggs Egg overdose is not just for Easter. It's a very real thing on a homestead. Many homesteaders--even poser homesteaders fall victim to "chicken math" whereby you think chickens are cute and you get too many even though you only planned to...
BUY HALF A COW
With pink slime, mad cow, salmonella, and other industrial food supply contaminants, it's hard finding good beef. You have two choices--source your meat correctly or raise it yourself. If you're a real homestead, you're probably already raising your meat this. But if...
FIVE PESTS THAT MUST GO
War on homestead invaders... Ever fight an urban squirrel? It's not pretty. I like squirrels, but there are some creatures that need to go. I wasn't happy when they took one bite of every tomato, then left it to rot, but when they ate my house, that was it. That was...
YOUR PANTRY IS YOUR BEST FRIEND
For $2999 I can get an entire year's worth of freeze-dried "desserts," powdered drinks, and... things I'd never eat because I'm not an astronaut. None of the marketing mentions taste--it's all about "price per calorie." There are 30-year tubs that'll last longer than...
SHOULD I GET CHICKENS?
"I need help from a chicken guru." I got a question from someone who wanted to started a flock. I'm not a guru. I'm not even a real farmer. But, I've had chickens for eight years, and most survived. If I calculate chicken survival rates as baseball percentage, I'm...
WASTE LESS
here's a woman I follow who fit two years of her trash in a jar. Two years! There's another woman I found who goes around Manhattan to CVS stores rescuing things getting tossed as garbage--"almost" expired products, perfect or seasonal unsold...
HOW TO FIND ANYTHING (WHEN SHELVES ARE EMPTY)
Covid shopping got you down? I wrote this in the beginning of Covid. We're out and about now, but in some places shelves are still empty. I keep seeing posts about what people don't have... no cream cheese? Dog food shortage? Chicken shelves empty? Shop at...
“CAN I FREEZE THESE FOODS?”
Freeze food now. Avoid shopping and cooking later. "Can I freeze...." It's the trending Google search in the UK right now. At first I thought Londoners were having a cold snap hunting down ski coats. Not so. They're freezing food. With people on lockdown and supply...
NO SPACE? GET GRAFTED FRUIT TREES
TL;DR: Get some fruit trees. Grafted fruit trees can really save the day. Don't kill them. Don't let the birds and deer eat your fruit. "How can I stop buying fruit every year and be more self-reliant? I don't have much land..." If you've got a smallish Poser...
WATER PITCHERS AND PROBLEMS
People everywhere are hunting down two things--toilet paper and bottled water. Many states are on lockdown for the Corona virus, and those are the two things people are frantic to buy. I watched lines that made Disney lines look amateur in the warehouse store. I put...