On the Subject of Legumes

I'm trying my hand at canning dry beans.  Y.A.M. and I found good prices on 4 and 5# bags of beans at the Indian market nearby.  I looked up how to can dry beans and the first batch were done today, they happen to be adzuki beans.  What many of the canning and preserving websites and books will tell you is how to can dry beans with a standardized recipe that appears to cover all kinds of dry beans.

They don't.

There are quick cooking dry beans and slow cooking dry beans, all of which need different pre-cook times and soaking before getting put into jars and canned.  One thing is consistent: your pressure for canning dry beans is 75 minutes at 10#. (adapt as needed for your altitude)  

Beans that I would term as quick cooking, needing a VERY MINIMAL amount of pre-cooking (bring them to temperature and that's all) would be: adzuki beans, black eyes, and large lima.  These are really delicate beans that will cook to death if you follow the "pre-cook for 30 minutes, then put into jars" method.  Remember, you are cooking these little guys for 75 minutes after being put into jars!  For a bean that needs 40 to 60 minutes of cooking in the real world, I would really say it's all combined into too much damn cooking.

I can't find the reference, but one blog had mentioned just soaking your beans, topping with boiling water, cover and can.  I am very strongly leaning in that direction, adding cook time to long-cook dry beans like: baby limas, kidney beans, garbanzos, pink beans, small white beans, and likely black beans.  I think I would cook them no longer than 15 to 20 minutes (boiling) before putting into jars.

Legumes are good protein, but you do need to eat them with a grain to take in a complete protein.  If you don't, you body will just take from your tissues the amino acids to create a complete protein, and that really gets you nothing, unless you are feeding in a particular amino acid that you are short on (and not many of us really are).  The highest protein per calorie is coming out (in my research so far) as the black eyed pea.  Good to know, but legumes are still fairly high in calories and carbohydrates to truly exchange them for animal proteins in the diet.  Now, when the ZA happens, animal proteins are going to be tough to come by, so legumes/grains might be the way to go, and we'll need those extra calories, as food will be harder to come by, too.  Something to consider there.  

The benefit here is that SD can just go get a jar of beans and some other stuff, heat and dinner is done, so that's the bonus for us.  Dry beans also will go bad after 6 months to a year, getting tough and taking longer cook times for an inferior product, having them canned encourages use and rotation of stock, because it's easier to deal with.  Also to think about is during the ZA, fuel sources and water might be scarce, so cooking your dry beans might be neigh on impossible to do.  Keep your options open.

The Obscenity of the Current State

http://news.yahoo.com/obese-third-grader-taken-mom-placed-foster-care-201731761.html

What I had discussed is happening: the GOONS are giving themselves power to take children away from their families and homes due to obesity.  Obesity caused by our industrialized food systems and media influenced lack of activities.  I can't emphasize enough!  Grow your own food! turn off the TV!  fight back!  It's just a matter of time before it becomes normal to have children taken away and "reeducated", perhaps chipped, logged, and tracked, like many drones for the state.

If the GOONS can't track your whereabouts by putting unwanted tracking units in your vehicle, they will find a way to do it on an individual level.  Keep yourself off the radar, literally and figuratively.  If the GOONS can't track you, you have freedom.

Any science fiction deals with loss of freedom, and we see it when future-based films and stories deal with "the company", that runs everything, from all restaurants being Taco Bell to the company that will sacrifice anything or anyone for a specimen for its weapons division.  This is what happens when there is no animosity between big business and the GOONS, and as it is, they are becoming one an the same quite rapidly.  Not only will they control what you eat, but by removing children with a flimsy excuse, reeducating them, eventually chipping them, they will be able to control where they go, and very likely restrict what they are allowed to do.

ZA aside, if the perfect storm happens, if we're not careful and fight everyday to control ourselves, we will be controlled.

I Never Really Mourned You

It was brought sharply to my attention that you left and I neglected to say goodbye.

Others have gone, but you were always there with me, now you are with me only in spirit.

When it came time for sweets, all I could do was cry and think of you.

The hunters are out in the field, and you are only there in spirit.

The deer await you, I never really said goodbye.

The cake on the table sits, I miss you more than ever.

Like us all, you never really leave, do you?  

Is that why is seems like only yesterday when I last saw you?

Were you there, standing behind me, with my other angels?

I think you were, I think you are.

I'm still not ready to say goodbye.

Using Dehydrated Stuff

DH Strawberry Muffins

 425 degrees for 25 minutes

Soak enough strawberries to fill a 1 cup measure, dry with 2 TBS honey, 1/2 tsp rosewater and enough boiling water to cover.  Let sit for half hour or more until berries are rehydrated.

Sift together:

1 cup whole wheat flour

2/3 cup oat flour

1/3 cup resistant starch

1 TBS baking powder

2 TBS sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Beat one egg until frothy.  

Pull strawberries out of liquid, set up to chop.  Add to remaining liquid:

1 scoop whey protein powder

skim milk to make 1 cup overall.

Mix together liquids.  Add in chopped, rehydrated strawberries.  Mix all into dry ingredients, mix until combined.  Pour into greased muffin cups until cups are 2/3 full.  Bake 425 degrees for 25 minutes or until done.

They're not going to be very sweet, but they're basically good for you.  I may add more strawberries next time, as they do seem to disappear a bit.  Quite good served warm.

Ethics and Integrity

I could go on for pages about ethics and integrity, but will give you the short version.  If you would like to learn  more, that's where a philosophy/ethics class comes into play, for now, I'm just going to give you a gentle reminder.

Ethics and integrity combine to create something that many these days are very sadly lacking, and that is honor.  Now, we've all seen honor portrayed in the media as some kind of strange, 8-headed monster that destroys lives and generations, and that is not honor.  Just because someone way back when killed the pet frog of another clan, doesn't mean you need to pay for the sins of the frog-killer, it means that someone somewhere out there might step on your foot to hurt your foot and mean it because they can't put their big-girl pants on and grow the hell up.  

With honor, you need to understand that you cannot change the past, you can't change people, but you can influence what you do, how you do it, and what you say.  Those around you will change in accordance.  Every family has it's own concept of honor, unfortunately, many families have a very weak of concept of anything resembling honor, and you can't do much about them except avoid them.  

They're no good anyway.

If you happen to belong to one of the above-mentioned families with an unfortunate honor concept, consider starting with you.  You are the first generation on which to build honor and integrity.  If where you came from is no good, remember where you came from, and go to a different place on the map.  Build your family reputation at that ground level.

When you practice your ethics, it means looking at the overall picture of what is right and what is wrong and doing the right thing, even if it is unconventional to do so.  If someone comes to you for help, places their trust in you, believes in you, you are in a position to help, you help them.  Helping the person in need doesn't mean turning your back on them, lying to them, cheating them or in many other ways I can't think of, violating their trust.  It also doesn't mean killing yourself to do it, always save yourself, so you can save other people.  If you are not capable of making the commitment to help another grow and stand on their own feet, you have no business engaging.  

Ethics means not hurting another person needlessly, it means looking down the long road to see if what you are doing NOW will adversely affect them later.  It means giving your soul a workout.  Every day.

Integrity is strength, integrity means you will not betray your dearest held beliefs to accommodate someone with no honor.  Take integrity out of a human context and speak of "structural integrity of a building", if it's high, it will hold up to storms, if it is not, it will collapse.  Bring human context back in, if your integrity is high, you will survive, if it is gone, you will collapse.

When your back is against the wall, and the zombies are approaching, do you want to be with others that will protect you as fiercely as you protect them?  Now think about the people you surround yourself with, think of yourself; are you the type of person people want on their team?  

Our family has it's own standard of honor, we're not exactly Klingons in our passion for it, but our honorable name means the world to us, and we protect it by being what we expect our family to be.  That is honor.  We protect and guard our own, even the far-reaching ones we don't see.  Sometimes we do unconventional things to achieve our ends, but it is mostly done with ethics, integrity, and most of all, honor.

Keep your honor, give your soul a workout everyday, do the right thing, even if it makes people wonder what in hell you're up to.  Some day, (and, by the way, you're soaking in it...) the zombies are going to come, the GOONS aren't going to protect you, and you're going to be up against a wall.  Who are you going to be up against a wall with, and are you a good enough person that they'll want to keep you with them?

Think about it.

When You go Visit the Monsters

S.D. and I spend time being spooks, for a few reasons, none more important than any other.  When we're being spooks, though, we get a lot of comments, reactions, and wonderment at the simple fact that we put on make-up and scare the piss out of people to raise money for charities.  I'm going to attempt to respond to the many reactions and comments we've received over the years.

Do those contacts hurt?

no, but they itch like crazy and mess up my night vision.

They allow you to do this?

not only do "they" allow us to do this, but we are asked to, and all of our friends do it.  Turn off the TV sometime and check out your community, chances are, you can get involved, too.

Are those your real teeth?

no.  they're someone else's, what the hell do you think?  We went through great expense to have custom made fangs, just so we could more effectively become monsters to scare you to raise money for charities.

Your breath stinks!

really?  I hadn't noticed.  For one, I'm wearing fangs (see above) that keep me from closing my mouth all the way, and that makes one's breath turn ghastly in very short order.  For two, what do you expect the undead to smell like?  minty fresh?  You're lucky we bathed last night to get the latex out of our hair!

Wanna tick tack?

see above and be glad we aren't allowed to hit you.

You're hot. wanna kiss?

no, especially not you.  If I wanted to kiss an obnoxious drunk, I'd get SD drunk and kiss him.  Oh, and hitting on the monsters to act cool? yeah, not so much, it makes us think that you're a big asshole, and, BTW, we talk about you disparagingly after you leave the set.

No No No! Just stop! I have to pee! (or.. I just peed)

good.  we did our job. (and, BTW, you just made our night!)

Doesn't it make you feel bad to make a developmentally disabled person terrified?

nope.  not even a little bit.

How long have you been doing this?

um.. about 13 years or so, and not gonna stop now.

I'm too scared to go into a haunted house!  How do you do that?  Aren't you scared?

no.  My closest friends are hanging out with me, we all dress up like monsters to have a good time.  Monsters don't scare each other, it's bad form.  If you want to be a monster, just contact your local non-profit haunted house, they'll make going through a haunted house not scary anymore.

I can't get my little sister/girlfriend/mom/aunt to go through a haunt, how do I get them to go?

remember this: real monsters don't wear tennis shoes.  If you look down and see tennis shoes, it's just an actor, okay?  And if they really don't want to go and you make them go, be prepared to go do something you really would rather not in the future.

I can't go to haunted houses since I was a little kid and my parents made me to through a haunted house and I was so scared?

yeah, your parents were what we call dickheads.  Believe it or not, monsters are NOT cool with parents who bring little kids through haunts not aimed at little kids.  We actually think you're an asshole for fucking up your kid that way and will often hang back, trying to ameliorate the damage that you're doing to the poor little bastard.  Just leave the kids at home until they actually want to come, and at that point, they'll find the Jaycee haunt in town all by themselves.

Why do you attack women?

because they scream and we like the feedback.  If you want monsters to pay more attention to you, react to them and act scared, no reaction will get you no attention.

And to sum up, no, the monsters don't want to go home with you, they don't think you're funny when you loudly joke, if you're too drunk to know or care what's going on around you, we're just glad you're going to leave.  We love people who come out, want to have the experience, want to be scared and want to have a good time, and if you're not into that, just stay home and watch Jay Leno. 

People who haunt do it for the love of the game, not for money or personal gain, we just couldn't do it if that were the case.  October is our favorite month and Halloween is our favorite holiday, and sometimes, sometimes, we'll take out our costumes, gaze at them, longing for fall, tip back a brew,  and dream of dark and spooky places.

Nothing Likes a Virus Like Company

http://www.livescience.com/15962-zombie-caterpillar-virus.html

Is the virus making the caterpillars change behavior?  It looks like it.  Are viruses changing the way humans behave?  Quite likely so.  Makes for a good case of being prepared, isn't it?  Just some food for thought.

Before you decide to go into work with a virus or cold, think, is it you that is stubbornly not staying home to get better, or is the virus controling you?  Will it continue to control you after you start to ooze?

Zombies Are Really Just Big Varmints

Something we have not touched on so far is firearms.  Many dislike them, many eschew them, feeling they will somehow prevail in hand to hand combat, some people feel all they will need to fight a zombie is a knife held between their teeth, as they attack the zombie, naked, with only a knife and the love of a benevolent god on their side.  I'm not one of those people, neither is S.D., we'd rather, honestly, steady our aim and fire with a reliable firearm from a safe and protected distance.

It seems the rational way to go about things.

So to discuss this further, I will trust S.D. to expound at a later date, but I'm going to give you my take on it for now.  While scurrying through the zombie infested urban wilderness, a good, solid sidearm is really nothing to scoff at, but for almost any kind of distance, a good, old fashioned varmint gun is what you're going to want to have.  Really, the zombie is just a large, bipedal, less-clever but more olfactory-endowed raccoon.  A varmint.  One that shuffles, unless it's one that's got the rage, in which case, you're gonna want to be at a safe distance, in a safe location, because they just never stop, unless a leg or foot part falls off.

My favorite varmint gun is the one we call "Blonde Gun", it's a .243 from the early to mid 1960's and is about as pretty as it is lethal.  In the hands of anyone who isn't completely brain-dead, Blonde Gun is a lazer beam.  You can shoot just about anything off of anything else at several hundred yards, and at a closer range, you can blow the back off the head of a zombie with phenomenal accuracy.

Now, we stopped BUYING ammunition for Blonde Gun, because S.D. likes to load for her, and makes some pretty good loads too, might I add.  I'd strongly recommend making your own ammunition, because it has a few advantages:

1. accuracy (this takes time to get it right, and is often boring to the onlooker (wife), but really pays off)

2. cheaper

3. is a quiet form of entertainment for long winter nights (did I mention quiet?  not sure about you, but when the ZA comes, we're gonna all be a lot quieter, sose we don't attract any undue, undead attention)

4. takes basic components that can be used in other applications if needed. (?pipebomb)

5.takes no electrical hook-ups to do, and face it, there likely won't BE electricity after the ZA

So, we have the pretty. pretty gun, we have wonderful ammunition to shoot the undead with, what could go wrong?  Well, if you gotta run, guns and ammunition are HEAVY.  I'm not a fan of black plastic, and won't carry it unless under dire need or duress, firearms ought to be a work of art and beauty, black plastic simply is not.  If we WERE going to have to run, it's revolvers in every place we can put them.  I don't care so much about more and more ammunition, those revolvers will hit like a ton of bricks and hit everything you point at them, I'll deal with 6 at a time.

I have no need to fight hand to hand with a zombie, never did, I'll deal with them in a much more long range way.  Undoubtedly, there are others out there who will flash a bunch of numbers pertaining to other guns and ammunition at me and get a testosterone charge out of it all, but this is where I'm at.  We'll talk more about shotguns and things like that later, for now, get yourself a nice varmint gun and get practicing.

Keep Your Friends Close

When it all goes to hell, you can be as prepared as you want, but it's the people you keep with you that can keep your own survival bearable and even enjoyable.  Having friends in more than one place keeps things varied and keeps you engaged (and if one group gets eaten by the undead, you have others to go visit).  

Stay in contact with your friends, maintain your friendships and keep them close to you, they're important.  We know a lot of preppers who feel it's best to "go it alone", but that's not necessarily the best tactic.  Who will you bounce ideas off of, if you are only talking to yourself?  Who will you learn from, and who will you teach what you have learned?  

Keep your sense of purpose, keep your friends and take care of them.

Just to Share.

A good friend of mine posted this, and I feel the compelling need to share it with you all, because I know you all think this occasionally.

 Because you know, you just know.

Big Cans or Little Jars?

We watch a bunch of things about getting ready for the ZA, and many people in our hobby get their storage up and running with #10 cans of product.  I find two flaws with that philosophy.

#1. how do we know there are no GMOs in those cans?  We grow, glean, shop local sustainable and organic to store for our own use, so we know what is in our stores.  I don't want to survive the first wave, only to eat the things that would turn us undead.

#2. Number 10 cans of food are huge.  Huge.  We were gifted with many cans of chickpeas in #10 cans, and when we opened one, we could not eat chickpeas fast enough, and the last 1/3 or so went bad on us in the fridge.  When there is no electricity, there will be no fridge, what are you going to do with fun size chickpeas then?

The solution I am sticking to is the simple one of using pint jars, or, when we get a proper sized canner, quart jars for things we'd otherwise use 2 pints for.  The biggest thing I'm finding of importance is to remove as much water from the product being saved as possible.  One pint of tomato sauce or one quart of tomato juice?  Pints take up less space.  While S.D. and I have quite a lot of room (and would have more if we were tidier people), how much do I really want to dedicate to storing foodstuffs?

We would rather have variety in our diets instead of forcing big chunks of sameness.  There's just us and the mascot here, so we would need smaller packages of goods.  My sister, F.J. has many to feed, and the #10 cans would work beautifully for her.  Except in a recipe when she might only need a little of something.  Once again, mighty inconvenient.

Just a small jar of food for thought.

Why in Hell We Prep

In a dim thunderclap, S.D. and I realized we're preppers, and that we're rather getting into prepping for the ZA (or as other preppers call it, when the SHTF).  I was reflecting why we do this, and first and foremost, because it's fun, really fun, actually.  We get to discover all kinds of things about ourselves and about others around us as we make our lives more snug and secure, and that's just really neat.  Secondly, it really gives us purpose and reason to keep moving forward by sometimes looking backward at how things used to be done, how it is done now and how to improve on the future process of things.

Both S.D. and I see the folks we work with daily have what we see is an incredibly drab and purposeless existences, where they work, go home, eat what they are told to do, and watch tv until it's time to go to bed when they are told to.  We build our purpose daily by turning off the instruction box and swimming upstream whenever we can, working around and against the system, doing not what we are told, but what feels right to do.  We feel purpose in forging our own lives and making them what we want.

Thirdly, we save money doing this.  I've been buying foods and produce in bulk and canning them up on otherwise lazy afternoons, foraging and gleaning has become a new hobby for me, too.  S.D. has figured out the savings on making our own alcohol from found and bulk fruit.  While I've encouraged him to keep track of expenses on this, he feels the layout of cash for equipment is something we'll just keep using.  Overall, the cost of things has been going down for us as we watch the cost of healthy food goes up all around us.

On a fourth level, we hate GMOs.  Only by being fiercely protective of our food supply can we avoid as many GMOs as possible.  This is for health reasons, not only for us, but for those around us. (more on that to come later)

So, you look for reasons, here are 4 for you.  Keep on it, stop doing what the television tells you to do, think for yourself, and start prepping.

During the ZA, Things Ought to Taste Good, Too

Ketchup has been around for a couple hundred years of so, and has only really recently become the flavorless, red, runny goo we now see in stores.  It was almost any color, made of a mixture of fruits, vegetables, spices and seasonings.  S.D. and I are rediscovering what ketchup really was.

To make ketchup, a couple things are really really helpful, one being an electric turkey roaster, the other being a kitchen aid with the proper attachments (Food Grinder and Fruit & Vegetable Strainer Parts), and a food scale that goes up to 10 or 11#.  We're really getting into recipes by weight when it comes to produce, because it relieves the asspain of trying to figure out how many tomatoes in cups or some such.

We did leave the tomatoes, peppers and onions just on slow rot in the roaster for about 36 hours, and a bit here and there got a little done, but it just made the tomatoes more roasted tasting, which is really not bad at all.

25# tomatoes, cut in half, at least

2.5 - 3# onions

10 - 16 oz garden peppers (we plant a hot mix, but also some bells.)

-Roast in an electric roaster, mashing and stirring occasionally, for about 36 hours, with the lid ajar to allow steam to escape.

-Run tomato mixture through the juicer of the Kitchen Aid, sometimes running the pulp back through until the pulp is rather dry and you have all the good stuff

-Stick 2 heads of garlic into the oven on 350 - 375 degrees to start roasting

-Cook your tomato mixture down to about 1.5 gallons

Add (and adjust to taste)

1c red wine

1.5c cider vinegar

2T celery powder (or 3 stalks celery, really finely chopped)

1T canning salt

1.25c brown sugar

2T Sweet Hungarian Paprika

2tsp dry mustard

1tsp cloves

1/4tsp cinnamon

2 heads roasted garlic, all mashed up

cook all in a non-reactive pot to mix and mellow flavors.  Process in pressure canner 30 minutes at 10#.  Label and put on the canning shelves.

Now, S.D. and I like things a wee bit snappy, but we did document the ketchup as we did it.  We did taste after the addition of each ingredient into the pot and adjusted.  You might want to do the same thing.

Really Useful Thing

When you are involved in as much food prep in the house as S.D. and I are, often your largest dishes and serving items are just not big enough to do the job.  I found a large chafing dish as a garbage score a couple years ago, and it owes us nothing at this point!  It's big enough to start a double batch of pickles (10# of squash), sort grapes in, process crabapples, and do quite a number of other things.  I highly recommend having one on hand, and we'll likely be going to a restaurant supply house to get another rather soon.

Another incredibly useful thing has been the large capacity Nesco roaster.  With the roaster, we have been able to pre-cook meats for canning, reduce plum and peaches for butters, and take the pan out to thaw wine making fruit in.  It has the added bonus of not heating the house up as it works.

So, big pans are always a help when it comes to prepping your stores, and roasters can take the burn factor out of making fruit butters.  A good thing to keep in mind.

Preserving by Making it Small

S.D. and I have been canning and preserving the summer's bounty as much as we can, and have observed that 2011 has been the year of the experiment.  One experiment that has gone reasonably well is dehydrating foods.  Generally, I freeze things or can them up, but some things just can handle dehydration well and take up far less room that way.  After my sister, F.J. had a power outage that lasted for about a week, S.D. and I started thinking about what would be lost if the ZA came to being, and there was no power anymore, how would we deal with things, then?

So we figure, food storage that lasts a while but needs no additional energy to maintain, that means canning or dehydrating for now.  So far, we've dehydrated peppers, tomatoes, celery, pumpkins, and onions, all of which are easily powdered for use in recipes as seasonings, sneaky vegetables, flour replacements, thickeners, and a wider culinary repertoire.  There is higher energy use at the start end of things, but less for long-term storage.

We're practicing FIFO and other forms of stock rotation, and labeling is a must for this situation, but so far it's looking pretty good.  It goes back to something I learned the hard way: there is often more than one right way to do things.  We're just figuring out which right way is best for us.

Along with the year of the experiment, we are keeping notebooks of what we're doing.  If humanity rises again, perhaps they might want a record of all that we're figuring out, or, we just won't make the same mistakes twice.  

As a bonus, while doing these things, the grocery bill has come down considerably, and we're eating less and less processed food with ingredients we can't pronounce, less GMOs and other nasty things.  Hopefully it will keep us alive longer and less like the walking dead.

Do It Yourself For Yourself

Do you ever stop and think about how much money you spend on some things?  Relatively small (or large) purchases add up over time.  A gallon of milk is a little less than $3 unless you live on a farm.  Eggs are about $2/dozen, again, unless you live on a farm.  Beer and wine can be anything from almost trivial to very expensive.  But none of this sounds like a lot, until you look at consumption over time. 

A family may go through 3-4 gallons of milk a week and that's $500 per year!  Say you drink 1-2 bottles of wine per week at $12 each.  That's not much for 2 people, and $12 can be getting off pretty cheap.  Still, that adds up to about $1000 per year in wine.  And that's not counting house gifts or dinner parties.

We had a trip to the South last year and visited a winery.  They didn't do much with grapes because the climate there wasn't good for grapes.  But they did a whole lot with fruit of all kinds, most of grown locally and in some cases sustainably.  This gave us some ideas.  So this summer we started home winemaking.  This was done mostly for the flavors we enjoyed but cannot obtain locally.  Sure, we can get 6 bottles of whatever we wanted delivered to our door for the low-low price of $240 (not!), but we really like to provide for ourselves.  We especially like to tailor our things to our tastes.

It was a trip to our local discount food store that really put us over the edge.  We picked up 3 flats of strawberries (8 quarts each) for $10.  Next stop, the home brewing store for a one time purchase of enough hardware to get us started (about $150, including some special equipment for fruit wines, but if we knew then what we know now, it would have been under $100).  That plus sugar and we were off to the races.  Total cost per bottle excluding durable goods, including the sugar and glass will be around $3 for strawberry wine.  Same thing happened the next week when we found 56 LBS of plums for $10.  Yield on these two batches will be around 2 cases of wine, per batch.

Added bonus: not this Chirstmas but next, a lot of people will be getting homemade wine for gifts.  They like that because they don't really want more stuff, it's something truly unique, and they can use it up.  Double-added preparedness bonus: if something awful happened to our economy, I can think of worse things to have to trade than 15 cases of wine.

Is processing fruit for wine time consuming?  Yes, but so it watching TV.  Is there risk?  Yes, we don't know how these will turn out.  They may be awful, and we know people that had bad experiences making wine.  But we also know people that routinely have very good experiences making wine, and don't shop in liquor stores anymore.  There are easier ways to do this; you can buy kits that are essentially everything but the water and yeast.  But what is there to learn in that?  If we rely on a pre-mixed product, did we really gain much other than a price break?

The best thing is to really learn a skill and understand a process.  It's been done for thousands of years.  Sure, biblical wine wasn't as good as we have today, and chemistry from the 19th century improved the process, but now we understand it at a fundamental level.  We can take what we learned and start over anywhere with some very rudimentary equipment if we had too.  We can also pay it forward by helping others to understand that modern conveniences, no matter what they are, can be learned and done at home with some good old fashioned learning and elbow grease. 

Freedom lives where there is independence, and little is more independent than providing your own shelter, food, security, and best yet, luxury items.  That is a statement of real personal power, so what can you do to be more independent?

You're Not Gonna Die From This

S.D. and I have been playing with the idea of making sauerkraut at home.  While this could conceivably be the stinkiest idea we've ever come up with, it could also be very rewarding.  

One of the things I kept hearing about on homemade sauerkraut was the possibility of botulism in your handmade product.  I had to find out, as how can you survive the ZA only to fall to botulism poisoning from your own preparedness?  Not a good idea!  So I looked.  And looked.  And searched.  

And came up with nothing.  No scientific proof of botulism from properly made sauerkraut.  na-da.  Oh, there were second hand accounts and "heard once upon a time" storied aplenty, but no actual scientific research, mention or proof.  This also jives with my chemistry background, (and micro and food science) as the pH of sauerkraut is at least one point more acid than botulism can survive and thrive.

The warning I did run into is to never make pickles with homemade and untested vinegar of unknown pH lever.  This is a far cry from "botulism from sauerkraut ate my baby" scare tactics that were going around all over the internet.  There is, by the way, a litmus test for pH of vinegar using, well, litmus paper that is easily acquired off the internet of from a science supply store.  And then you know.  Funny how things can get carried to an extreme simply by word of mouth and not by critical thinking.

In any case, I will be buying cabbage to do this experiment, as my cabbage did less than nothing this year, unless you count a dramatic death-scene that would've been good for a freshman in high school drama class.

I'll keep you posted on the fermenting news as it comes along.  In the meantime, don't get bit, know your exits, grown your own when you can, and stay prepared!

What if We Didn't Notice?

S.D. and I went on our annual state fair date, and among the shuffling hordes, shuffling along, were likely plenty of zombies.  These zombies were easily placated by fried foodstuffs on a stick, but it brought my attention up sharp!  If we were at a populous event and the ZA broke out, would we even notice until it was too late?

Unlike most (S.D. included), I have a strong mental map of the fairgrounds, so escape would not be difficult if necessary, but many other there would become brainy appetizers.  It also occurred to me that perhaps zombies would be easily distracted by shiny 4H displays and crop art, it seemed so at the time.

So, the next day, at home, we took a few more steps to make the house secure, lay in more provisions, and recuperate.  Most people won't understand or "get" the preparedness, so I just don't explain, I just let them think we're nuts.  It's a strategy that works.

Do you know your escape plan for when the time comes?  It could be mighty important!

Dehydrating the Excess

As much as S.D. and I love canning, some things are just better off dehydrated, especially when there is simply NO freezer space left.  The great advantage to dehydrated foods is the compact and permanent nature of the product.  The disadvantage is needing water to rehydrate your product for usage and that they are all very hydrophilic in nature, they need to be in an airtight storage container, or several smaller airtight storage containers to keep the product good for a longer period of time.

Like canning, there is an original energy expenditure for creating the stored form of the product, but then will stay stored without power or energy until used.  Our latest adventures in dehydrating have involved Scotch Bonnet peppers (1/4 bushel will dehydrate and pulverize down to a 4oz dry storage jar), and even more recently, celery.  Today we are venturing into the world of dehydrated onions.

We have a store nearby, and it is a discount grocer who sells almost expired produce at a mighty discount.  Last week, my dear friend, YAM and I took a trip there and I purchased #50 of onions for $15.00.  I felt pretty good about this and feel as though I can be justified in experimenting again.  It is my hope to convert the mass of onions into a lilliputian stored product.

Hang tight as we figure this one out.

Another Reason to Eliminate Your Yard

In the Midwestern city we live in, the Japanese Beetle is starting to encroach on our lands and way of life.  I may or may not battle the JB, I may continue to change our way of life, so to make our land, home and garden as inhospitable as possible, and thus minimize their effect on what I hold to be really important.  I wish to make the nurseries for their young small and undesirable.

Now, the GOONS have come up with a bacteria that kills them, but it takes 1-5 years to take hold and thrive in your garden, and a side-result is that you will likely have to hand-pollinate your flowers.  The drift I get from that is that Paenibacillus (formerly Bacillus) popilliae is going to kill much more than the JB, it will likely kill most everything else, although I do need to perform more research on this to be certain, the research coming out of Ohio State is that it is not terribly effective anyway.

I think instead of putting milky spore on my lawn, I will simply continue to eliminate my lawn.  Lawns as we know them are urban deserts and wastelands that suck resources that really ought not be sucked.  As our neighbors have gifted us with our very own batch of rapidly spreading creeping charlie, the side lawn will fall this autumn to the raised garden bed plan.  Very likely the front yard will get terraced and garden-ized when there are funds to do so.

With no grass to have larvae in, I hypothesize that I can minimize the JB right here and right now.  The neighbors to the west are turning their lawn over to garden, and the neighbor to the east is all thistles.  It is the expansive neighbor to the south that is the most concern, and for that, I shall increase my garden totals of garlic, kale, nasturtium, and anything else I can find that they do not like.

As though we needed another reason to eliminate the urban wastelands of lawns, I encourage everyone to start taking away their habitat, creating a friendlier habitat for all else concerned.

Loss of Freedom

Loss of freedom is the major theme of all science fiction.  This is a literary thing explained to me years ago in lit/comp class.  Reflect on various science fiction movies, where the government has been abolished, and now "the company" or some all-powerful entity is now in charge of everything, got there in the most corrupt way, and now small pockets of resistance fight against it.  Now reflect on the state of things in America today and tell me who is getting their way...

-food is already addictive and nutrient-poor

-Big Ag is making it more and more difficult to NOT eat GMO foods

-Big Pharma is teaching MDs and CDEs it is okay to have an unhealthy physique, as one can medicate the unhealthy situation as needed

-Big Pharma and Big Ag are in bed together

-the media creates a terrifying situation for parents, making them not wish to have their kids go outside and play (thus getting inadequate physical activity and staying unhealthy)

-GOONS are threatening to remove obese children from the home to "educate" them in healthy lifestyle

Let's see what gateways are being opened by allowing the GOONS to take children out of the home, shall we?  That's just the beginning excuse, will kids be taken out of all homes eventually?  What will the kids be "taught"?  Will kids be returned to the home?  What happens if they are not?

I'm connecting the dots, and I refuse to see what the pattern is forming into, as it is too unspeakably horrifying.  I find myself in a small pocket of resistance already.  Where are you?

Putting Together Some Little Pieces

Our mother in law loves jigsaw puzzles, how tiny pieces come together to create a bigger picture.  In a general sense, I'm not a huge fan of jigsaw puzzles, but will concede that the state of affairs in the United States is looking more and more like a jigsaw puzzle that is slowly coming together to show us (who care to look) the larger picture of what is happening.  

Recently, I read an article about a proposal to take obese children out of the home and put them into foster homes, as their own parents are not fit to keep them healthy.  A proposal to take children out of the home because of a weight issue.  Wait.

We're going to back up the bus right now and review some things that are going on in America right now because of BigAg and the GOONS: food is chemically designed now to make it addictive and basically nutritionally void.  Our packaged food is based off of a GMO science that is not tested and has dubious safety implications.  We are being placated by false bread and media circuses, being turned into obese, sedentary, easily controlled zombies.  With all this going on, unless you keep your child "healthy" (read: are complacent to the state) the GOONS will take your child away.

All this while taking away self-sufficiency in droves.  

There's never a complete loss of hope, though, but the GOONS don't want you to realize it: turn off the TV, limit your screen time in all forms, get you and your family off their duffs, plant a garden, raise your own food, learn to preserve it and reject the system.  Reject the system that has created the addictive, poisonous atmosphere that would make you and yours unhealthy and obese, dependent on drugs and toxic foods, along with your family.  Reject the system that does these horrible things to TAKE YOUR FREEDOM AWAY.  Reject they system that would take your children away.  Be strong and self-sufficient on your own.

Go on, turn the computer off, take the kids, go for a walk, make a plan.

Stop reading.
Go.

Check back with us later.

Easy Little Garden

If you need garden space, you need it now, and you have remarkably limited abilities to create a garden, here's THE most basic way of making a garden.  Very few steps.  Just ready to go....

1. get a cardboard box, a plain cardboard box.  I used the bottom half of a box some shelves came in for the laundry tomb, it's about 4' x 2' x 6" tall.

2. put the box on the lawn somewhere, pick a place you kinda want to have another garden next year.

3. open several bags of garden soil from the store, mix with bags of compost from the store if you'd like.

4. dump the soil into the box.

5. add seeds or baby plants.  water, or not if it's going to rain that night.

There you go, you've just made a garden.  The cardboard should suppress most of the grass and weeds, allowing them to die off over the summer as the box itself rots away, by next summer, that patch of dirt will be your garden, all ready to go!  As I'm not keen on tilling (and, BTW, second year after no-tilling last year, barely any weeds at all!), don't even bother next year, just move aside the big leftover chunks from last year, and put your baby plants in the dirt as is.  Mulching helps quite a lot, but isn't a total requirement.

This year, we indulged in a $30.00 purchase of a used (and loud) chipper shredder and used it to grind up all our yard waste (and our neighbors, and their neighbors) this spring to make into mulch. Cheap and easy to do, but it does take 2 people to make it really successful.  We have a plethora of earthworms and the soil is easy to manipulate so far.

With no-tilling gardens, I will fill in a couple gaps that were left out in my experience.  As long as you have a heavy coat of mulch, using seeds will be kinds difficult: many like actual dirt to germinate in, so move the mulch aside and make sure it stays moved to one side to get your seeds in.  Baby plants, just move the mulch aside, scratch the soil beneath just a bit and get the baby in, replacing the soil and mulch around it works wonders.  Nobody told us that, we had to figure it out on our own.  With no tilling, too, two days work is broken down into about 3 hours of work, because you just put your plants in; there is no extra work to aerate the soil (it stays pretty fluffy if you can minimize walking on it).  

So, lazy gardeners, listen up! stop tillling, you don't need herbicides if you mulch enough, don't be walking all over the place, and give seeds actual dirt to do their thing in.  You can get a lot done by pretty much doing nothing at all, hear?

Gaining Credibility and Staying Hydrated

The CDC has determined that the ZA may actually occur.  I don’t liken the CDC to the other GOONS, as the CDC actually seems to have its act together and actually helps people, so, in my book, the CDC is exempt from GOONS status.  I like their preparedness statements, but I think that truly, it doesn’t go far enough for preparation.

S.D. and I were discussing what we have, what we need, what is in the pipeline and what our plan will evolve into.  One of the things most immediately is the need for potable water.  As water is a fairly good heat sink, we will likely have water stored in the root cellar, so to ameliorate temperature fluctuations through the seasons.  As the ZA may happen before we get the cistern in, so we will have to take smaller steps prior to it happening.

Your water needs, per person, for consumption only varies between a half and a whole gallon.  As medical services will become scarce, avoiding dehydration at all costs will be paramount.  While the CDC assigns 1 gallon per person per day, that is for all cooking and drinking needs, I will encourage all to have 1 gallon per person per day for drinking only, and extra for cooking and extranea.

As bleach does go bad after six months or so, some people have turned to swimming pool bleach in powder form, which is used in minute amounts to purify long-term stored water.  The formula is basically: one heaping teaspoon of Ca(ClO)2of 78% (granular calcium hypochlorite) for 2 gallons of water.  This is your disinfecting solution (you’ve just made household bleach of sorts).  To then disinfect your drinking water, use one part of the solution you just made to 100 parts water to be treated.  Let the solution rest for at least a half hour before drinking it to let anything solid precipitate out.

The dry granular form of Ca(ClO)2 as in dry form in a sealed container, it will stay good rather indefinitely.  Once mixed into solution, it will degrade quickly (I estimate faster than household bleach), perhaps within a matter of weeks as opposed to months.  Only treat as much water as you would use for a couple weeks at a time.

While the gold standard of water purification is to heat it to 145 degrees for 6-10 minutes, after the ZA, fuel will very likely be in short supply and using it to purify water (instead of cooking pathogens out of what might be questionable food if you have to forage) could be addressed as wasteful.

Keep your health, stay hydrated!  Fight the zombie horde by outsurviving them!

is it going to trip you when the zombies come?

we are in the season of little things and emergence of the new.  If your tank is empty, refill it in the garden, where things are coming up, getting leaves, and becoming what they were meant to become all along.  It's also time to assess what to keep and what to dismiss.

 

Assess what you have, and look at what you need, does what you have further your gain, does it help you get by day to day, or is it just taking up space?  Is it somethong you are hanging on to because someone will make you feel guilty if you send it on its way?  Most importantly, will it help you survive the ZA?  or will it trip you?

 

Now, I come from a long and strong line of vetran crap-hoarders, but I fight against that tendency every day that I can.  There are hoarder months and bulldozing months for me as I fight genetics and learned behavior.  In recent times, I am applying a "use it or toss it" mentality much more than in the past.  It has made my garbage service less than thrilled with our household, but that's what they get paid for.

 

We endeavor to use everything at least twice before discarding it (although SOME things are very strictly one use items and will NOT be used twice.... no matter what), and to stem the tide of frivolous spending when those resources could be better used elsewhere.  Our grandparents lived through the Great Depression, and we can learn a great deal from them as we prepare for the ZA.  Finding the right balance of well-supplied and just having a lot of crap laying about is something each household needs to do for itself.  If I could not sew or fidget with crafty things, my primary form of entertainment would be gone.  For others, reading material is of utmost importance.

 

Learning to live without the television is coming easier and easier to Americans with the HD revolution where the GOONS sold out to the major entertainment corporations.  Non-electric means of making one's mind and hands busy will become more and more important. Discover what you have and what you need to dismiss, lighten the load so you can have a stronger bulwark in other places.  Start looking at what things are now and what they will grow to be: a problem or a solution?

 

Surviving isn't just having a pulse, it's having a life to go with it.

 

Doing it Because You Can

There are mornings when I would really rather not get out of bed.  Really.  But I think of people who no longer have the option of getting out of bed, and I figure that I don't want my choice to get out of bed or to not get out of bed taken away, so up I get, and put two feet on the floor.  It's not that I'm especially keen on getting out of bed, it's just that given the ability to, I should do it every day, as who knows when that ability might be taken away and I will spend all my time in bed (horribly hooked up to tubes and machines that go "ping!").  So I get up.  And I dress for my day, either for work at the workplace or for chores around the house.

I also find consolation in being able to go to work, for, once again, not everyone has that option.  I take the opportunity to play/work around the house (chores) and take pleasure in it, because it lets me be free.

People who don't choose to work their property lose their choice to eat untainted food and lose a great measure of personal freedom over their own destiny. (and then they become the walking dead... you've seen it)  So, I do it because I can, I'd rather keep swimming upstream instead of allowing myself to drift downstream into the jaws of the GOONS and those that would take away my freedom.

More for the Knees

When you are running from the undead in the ZA, your sore knees should not slow you down!  Many people train the muscles around the knee, to strengthen the joint, but few take into consideration flexibilty and strength of the joints above and below the knee; the hip joint and the ankle joint.

Fortunately, working a full ROM of the knee joint also works flexiblity of the hip and ankle, but additional strengthening of the hip unit can only help.  A standing glute extension is great for firing the glutes, which are traditionally a very lazy muscle group.  Remember to work that extension in all directions, as life does not happen in one plane of motion.

Life comes at you from any and all directions, just like zombies, and you need to be prepared for the worst of it.  Working your muscles in several directions really helps for this possibility. 

For the ankle joints, work flexibility, and small amounts of strength work well.  Try drawing the alphabet with your toe while relaxing at night, or under your desk during the day, A-Z with both the right and left  legs will help considerably.  Also, try lifting up on your very tiptoes about 15 times a day, flexing your ankles as much as you can.

Remember, the knee is not an island unto itself, the joints above and below are just as important!

Don't Tell Them What You're Doing

If, by chance, the GOONS give you a GPS unit to put on your car to allow you to pay extra fees for driving your normal commute, I strongly encourage you to say NO, and to back that up with whatever stern argument you can come up with.  If they insist, begrudgingly take said unit, get away from the GOONS as fast as you can, and get creative with it in the privacy of your own home.

Microwaves might help the GPS unit function better.  It's worth a try.  Other than that, setting them near rare-earth magnets might also improve them quite nicely.  I've heard that government issued GPS units are often thirsty, and need water.  Maybe they are dirty and need washing.  With soap and everything.

The GOONS have no business whatsoever knowing where you go, when you go there, and what you're doing when you get there and back.  Allowing the GOONS to follow you using modern technology is giving consent to invasion of privacy (more so than they already do) and gives them the tools they need to control your movements, should they decide to declare a police state.  I strongly recommend not making that easy for them to do.

On any level.

ever.

A Special Stock-up Item

Note to self (and others):  stock up on coconut cream and cans of curry paste.  A little bit of happiness will go miles during the ZA.

Are You Fit Enough?

Looking into the future to when the TSA finally zaps the shufflers enough to make them into rage zombies, and the ZA is ON.  Are you in good enough shape to outrun them?  Zombies don't get winded and there's always more of them running after you if the first one falls down.  You're going to have to know how to run, jump over and across things, climb over stuff, crawl under things, carry loads while doing all of this, and be able to turn around and shoot one if you have to.

That's a tall order.  Are you up for it?

To create your fitness plan, keep all the above in mind, and incorporate all the skills you may need during your workouts at least 3 days a week.  Other times, running is good (faster is better, my friend), biking is good, running while carrying your bike is awesome.  Your workouts should most times (if not always) incorporate the five basics of strength and conditioning: push, pull, 2-leg work, 1-leg work, rotation.  If you can incorporate these things,  you are fairly well covered until you are in shape enough to add power to your workouts (sprints, plyometrics, extended isometric holds).

As you start, remember to start small and build on what you have established.  Walking leads to jogging leads to sprinting.  Lifting light weights leads to lifting heavy weights leads to full range of motion with the heavy weights.

Exercise will not bring on asthma, heart disease, or other chronic conditions, but it WILL bring them to the forefront, so always listen to your body and seek medical attention if a chronic condition reveals itself.  Contrary to popular belief, running will not give you bad knees.  A study of runners showed that the population of runners have the same incidence of poor joint health as non-runners, but running brings it to the foreground and make people aware that they need to take care of their joints.

The exception to the rule is doing really stupid things while hefting weights.  Keep your motions as practical as possible, following what you would do with those muscles on a regular basis and you should stay safe.  Remember the shoulder unit is a fragile and poorly designed unit, so be smart about training it.  Any sharp pain is an indicator of injury, and you should stop what you are doing and apply the RICE technique (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation).

Does walking have a place in your plan? It sure does!  The ability to cross great distances on foot will be of vital importance, so keep your ability to do so, but remember, you will likely need to sprint here and there to survive!

The more fit you are, the better your survival rates.  Good luck out there.

Distraction Techniques

Awareness of what is going on around you, with the food supply your access to safe, untainted food and water is of vital importance.  Every week, our ability to get plain, ordinary, non-GMO, safe food becomes more and more difficult, but very few people seem to notice because they are being distracted by other things the GOONS and BigAg are throwing up to block the consumer from seeing what is going on in our world.  

We are seeing only what the circus masters want us to see, and if you can focus, simply by paying attention, you can see that the American public is being brought down the path of eating tainted food that is basically poison.  The senate has passed a bill that gives significant power to BigAg to attempt to be the sole provider of foodstuffs to the world.  There is pressure for all walks of society across the globe to eat what we would label a "western diet", and this is not sustainable on any level.  The western diet that we know has deeded us all environmental chronic diseases we know today, and is spreading it to other cultures across the globe.

The western diet is land-intensive on all fronts, and not a sustainable means of agriculture.  There are varied parcels of land across the globe, each unique to its own agricultural needs for its populace.  Simply because America has the Midwest and the "breadbasket of the nation", and we can grow just about anything doesn't mean that will work for other areas around the world.  

If BigAg has its way, it will control the world food supply, thereby controlling the world population.  That is something it doesn't want you to know about.  BigAg just wants you to think it's "feeding the world".  Please remember most modern famines are caused by political strife and power struggles.  The real famine will come when the misconstrued monoculture of plants is overcome by a superbug that Mother Nature will manufacture, and the GM crops fail (or IS IT Mother Nature?  Is it a power play to gain control?).  At this juncture, the planet will be so dependent on these monocultures, having lost their own cultural differences to BigAg and the GOONS, you can bet there will be an enormous wave of suffering and starvation the likes of which are beyond imagining.

Look around you, see what is happening behind the curtain, and change your food supply chain to be closer to home.  If you can control your own food supply, you can maintain your independence, and not become slave to BigAg, the GOONS and their poison food monoculture.

They Will Try to Stop You

When preparing for the ZA, be aware that people don't want you to be prepared.  They want you to wander along like the rest of them: sheep to slaughter.  You are going to have to not only buck the sheeple trend, but you are going to have to get inventive, and perhaps a bit shifty.

We have run across people who don't aspire to survive, think the GOONS will take care of them, are lazy, are uncomfortable with anything that does not conform to what they think are societal norms, think whatever purchased at the grocery store is wholesome and good for them, that medications will always solve the problem, and that the TSA is performing a valuable service.  We're learning how to side step just about all the above and slither away from others.

Something we were told and take partially to heart is the concept of not telling anyone what you are doing.  We're telling some people some of what we have planned and some of what we intend to do.  We don't tell anyone everything (except each other, that way we get more done) and are doing much on our own.  Part of being really prepared is to do exactly what the GOONS are doing, which is showing you one (shiny) thing to distract you from another (the thing that is really going on).  If the GOONS can do it, so can we, and so can you.

Good luck!

Avoidance Might Just be Safest

With spring comes the thaw and reactivation of the zombie horde (as opposed to the zombie hoard, which S.D. keeps in the basement and occasionally feeds a loose neighborhood pet to), and they start going out and about.  Currently, please be aware that zombies can still drive.  Perhaps not drive, per se, but they can make a vehicle go sort of where they want it to go.  To avoid interactions with zombies driving (randomly) all about you, it is important to be vigilant and to keep your vehicle in excellent running condition.  If you hit a pothole whilst swerving to avoid a zombie in a Buick, you really do not want a vital part of your car to go flying off, leaving you stuck or stranded, far away from home, and served up to the shambling hordes.

Another important thing is to know how to accelerate.  Get quickly past those slow zombie bastards!  Be aware, though, this may be a trap that you do not want to drive into, so look ahead and, once again, be vigilant!

Know your territory.  Having a good general sense of direction is best, and knowing back roads is VITAL.  GPS units are no good at helping you avoid undead hot-spots.  Be able to exit from the highway and get to where you need to be easily, avoiding minivans full of big and little zombies going to zombie soccer practice or zombie dance class.

This is a non-traditional world, you will have to take non-traditional means to get where you need to go, when is the only variable.

To sum up:
-keep your vehicle in good repair 
-keep your vehicle full of fuel
-be vigilant
-know your territory
-it's the long one on the right.  use it.
-beware of zombie traps
-don't go into the box in the first place.  always think and be outside the box.

Pumpkins all Year Long

I realize that somehow not all of you are "into" Halloween as S.D. and I are, and might not have the plethora of jack o'lanterns that we do, hence do not have the quantity of pumpkin seeds we end up with, but let me share a great way to use pumpkins all year long!

The day after Halloween, head out to your local farmer.  The local farmer will want to get rid of his pumpkins desperately.  We often buy enough pumpkins to fill the back of my pick-up truck, and make it steer funny for about $20.00.  Now, the farmer will likely have winter squash, maybe honey, perhaps some other stuff, too.  Buy that so you can support that agriculture, too.  Who knows? You may be helping a kid through college!

Anyway, what we like to do with the majority of our pumpkins is to set them out and spend the day shooting them as they advance (the Pumpkin Invasion).  I have no idea, nor do I care if they reseed in the field after this.  The few (10 or so) that we held back go back home with us to get processed.  When we process the pumpkin, we turn it into easy to use, year-round food product.  Sometimes we can simply store the pumpkin, but if there is any puncture or scrape in the side of the pumpkin, it will rot quickly.  This method keeps waste at a minimum.

The pumpkin gets cut in half, the stem area cut out, and scraped out of it's seeds.  Half the pumpkin gets put, cut side down, on a large cake pan (Wilton's half-sheet) and roasted for about and hour or two, closer to two at about 350 to 400*.  The pumpkin will collapse during this time, some or a lot.  When you pull it out of the oven, the skin peels off easily, and the pumpkin can then be put into baggies, cut into roughly 5x5" slices.  We then put those in one of our freezers, stacked up like bricks.  The second half gets roasted, so on and so forth for days.

The seeds get put into baggies and frozen, too, to get roasted later in the year. When we roast them later in the year, they get thawed and roasted (unsalted) at about 350* until done but NOT BURNED.  Burned seeds get junked into winter compost, as they will make everything they are put into taste burned. 

The seeds will get ground in the coffee grinder (long since we've stopped using it for coffee) in batches as needed.  I'll replace  up to half the flour in a recipe with pumpkin seed meal.  It adds quite a lot of protein, a nutty flavor (with out adding nuts, which is really nice when you have company with nut allergies!), potassium, magnesium and fiber! 

The frozen pumpkin gets thawed and drained (a LOT of water will come out!), then it gets pureed and added to recipes as a low calorie recipe stretcher, a moisture additive, and a taste enhancer.  It works wonders!

If your only source of pumpkins is jack o'lanterns, you can use the left over cuttings and scrape your pumpkins really thin (which makes them easier to carve!) to use the pumpkin pulp!  Of course, we have at least 10 jack o'lanterns, so there's quite a lot to keep from them, too!

Our next challenge is to preserve pumpkin products without using the freezer.  When the ZA hits, the freezer might just be a point of moot.

Another Guide to Help Avoid GMOs

http://www.garden-of-eatin.com/how-to-avoid-monsanto/

my big plan is to use up the seeds I have and replace with seeds from safe-seed companies.  I'll be throwing out the (very few) GM seeds I know I have.

The garden will have flowers among the vegetables, as I feel the need for a mix of colors and flowers are good for attracting bees and other pollinators.  So far it looks like I only have to order amaranth, onions and tomatillos, and perhaps any winter squash I want to try my hand at.

We're debating on having an elderberry bush set in the yard.  That decision will have to be made soon.

A Few Things to Look Out For

Some things to avoid during and before the ZA:
-trailer parks.  especially the ones all crowded together-like
-processed foods
-television
-commercials
-cologne ads in fashion magazines (with the scent-strips)
-image devices used by the TSA
-sodium laureth sulfate
-nitrates
-GMO foods
-caramel coloring
-Justin Beiber
-bi-partisan politics
-bottled water
-anything from California
-Top 40 music (see: Justin Beiber)
-poodles
-excess soy products (see GMO foods)

this is just a partial list of things you just want nothing to do with.  Now, if you live in a trailer park, live as clean as you can, and keep your guns loaded.  Turn off the TV and don't let your neighbors in.

Florida Would be Fucked

There is no gentle way of putting it: Florida will not survive the ZA, unless the residents are inland and in rural areas.

We've been traveling about in FL for a bit now, and have noticed a complete lack of sustainability in any form.  Not even a kitchen garden to be seen in any of the metro areas we've been in.  Add into that the sheer quantity of trailer parks (zombie incubators) and slow-moving retirees, and you've got a ZA disaster zone!


If you happen to be in FL, be sure to keep your boat fueled up, have a store of food stocked, and stay away from trailer parks!  There is opportunity everywhere!  Fence up your yard, put in raised beds within the yard, raise your protein, have an escape plan, and for goodness sake, keep the shotguns loaded and ready to go!  You will have to go out of your way to secure your compound, as it does seem that building materials standing in close formation often will pass as a secure residence.  


On the upside, real estate is cheap, so buying a big lot with an empty house is within easy reach.  Just make sure when you relocate, it's far away from the zombies in a can-yard.  Good luck!

So, how long do you want to stay dead?

I should rephrase that to be, how long do you want to stay UNdead?  I am fairly certain that filling oneself with preservative-filed "foods" (BARF) will keep one preserved well past the grave.  Eating whole foods, foods as close as possible to it's original form, sans preservatives will allow you to rot peacefully away post-mortem.

When the ZA springs forth (as observed, probably at the airport), eventually we may all come to an inevitable end as the walking dead.  We have a choice, to stay undead for a long long time, to get shot in the head, or to rot fairly quickly and have the whole thing over with.  Eating a diet of BARF will not only speed the ZA along, but will undoubtedly prolong one's tenure as a shuffling flesh-eater, and I really would not recommend it.

Now for the only warning about eating clean, healthy foods: People who eat clean and healthy foods tend to not be placated easily; they tend to be uppity and speak out against things that are obviously wrong, stupid, or impractical.  If you eat the clean foods, especially spicy foods, you may be more likely to become a rage zombie if infected.  However, infection is unlikely as you will be able to outrun and out think the shufflers that eat BARF.

Have a healthy life and a rotten death. :)

Just Enough Truth

I tell people to not listen or buy things from Kevin Trudeau.  This was an amusing read (and in large font, so it goes quickly) of charges brought against him from the FTC.  I was going to recommend only the first 13 pages, but the whole thing is a hoot.  He mixes just enough truth in with his bs to make it sound credible.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0323064/071121order.pdf

Snake oil salesmen have been around since the early 1800's, this guy is just another one of them.  High colonics and dianetics will not make you lose weight.  At least not in a healthy way. Might lighten your wallet some.

Have fun!

Fear This (and That and The Other Thing)

I'm getting more than a little of the perpetuation of fear in our society.  It seems more than ever, we are constantly exposed to extreme fear and paranoia over almost the most routine events.  Examples of this are legion.  The winter storm this week is just another example.  There are news stories of rushes on generators, food, water, and fuel.  It's as if a foot of snow and an inch of ice really could kill us all.  Yet this winter event is nothing new.  It's something like a 20-30 year winter event.  Big deal, that's not even a record.
    Another example.  Remember this guy?
http://www.salon.com/wires/us/2011/01/05/D9KI6E600_us_lt_gov_child_rescue/index.html
    Notice the part where grandma was about to punch him because he was trying to steal the children?  Never mind the smoke and fire, she's scared of the guy!  What irks me the most, is the total lack of reaction to HER fear.  Not of being burned alive in a vehicle, but rather her irrational fear of the children being snatched from under her nose.  Quick reality check: how many occupied vehicle fires happen each year?  Hundreds or thousands?  Now how many children are forcibly kidnapped while under direct adult supervision (e.g. in a car seat, in an occupied vehicle)?  Dozens?  If that.
    We allow ourselves to be goaded into a life based on fear by irrational what-if scenarios.  Sadly, to "protect" ourselves, we cede critical thinking and personal freedom to make our own decisions in exchange for some kind of superficial sense of safety.
    So what can you do?  First, start if you want to be sheople or people.  Assuming you chose the latter, consider NOT taking anything you read or hear at face value.  Ask yourself the question "why" several times and layers deep before believing what you are told about your safety.  If you can't get an answer, try some investigation of your own before assigning any value to an issue or proposed idea.  We have the internet!  We have Google and Wikipedia!  Use them, but don't blindly trust them.

Where to Shop to Avoid GMOs

Just found this: a good source for human food (as opposed to Zombie Food)!  While I'm sure some of these companies make organic BARF, they have made the non-GMO promise.  A word, though, on Whole Foods and a couple others: they have agreed to NOT fight Vilsack and his zombie-making  GOONS activity by saying that organic can live in peace with GMOs.  It won't be a big stretch for me to not shop at Whole Foods, as I do almost none of that (they're shifty in other ways), but this will make me REALLY not want to shop there.

http://www.nongmoproject.org/consumers/search-participating-products/

I think it's really important to have sources of food that will not make you and your loved ones into Zombies, so outside of growing your own food, these companies have pledged to stay away from GMO foods.

Oh, and so far the knee exercises are going quite well with no negative repercussions.

Getting in Shape to Outrun the Undead

As we don't quite know when the undead will actually rise and start coming after us, it's a good idea to get in shape so we won't become victims ourselves.  Shufflers are pretty easy to outrun, but when the switch hits (my guess is that it will be TSA inspired) and shufflers turn into rage, we had better be ready to RUN.

I have the misfortune to have gummed up lower limbs, feet, knees, hips, toes, everything.  If someone wants to use me for spare parts, they had better use my mouth, as my teeth and lips are the best engineered part of the whole package. In any case, I need to get my legs so I can run and jump (in other words, escape the rage zombies), as this can't be done in my current state, I had better get cracking before spring.

Societies where people squat down close to the ground with a greater than 90 degree angle flexion of the knee have virtually no need for knee and hip replacements (which I will be due for in <30 years) and very low instances of arthritis.  So, my plan is to squat in the same deep manner as these people in hopes of breaking up the arthritis, and in the meantime, strengthening my knees.

Also involved in the plan is more jumping, for power, height and distance.  There will also be carrying drills, as, if I'm in the airport when the TSA zaps one too many shufflers, I gotta run, and will likely want my bag.

I'll keep you posted on how this works out.

Soy = Zombie Food?

I must be very, very clear on one point with this post: Sally Fallon is a freak and a kook, but she appears to have done her homework for this article:
http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/avoid_soy.htm

I've never been a big fan of soy in the first place, miso is pretty yummy, and roasted soy nuts are an occasional treat for road trips, but soy is really not on the menu at our house and never has been.  We once had a bag of edamame that we got from a friend's freezer clean-out, and that was ok (except for the constant confusion with that and lima beans, which would make things quite unexpectedly icky), but for the most part, there's little to no use for it here.  Even in Asian cooking that we do here, it's only a condiment (as in: miso and soy sauce).

Soy isolate is used widely in the diet industry as a low-calorie form of protein, and as such has wide acceptance and acclaim.  I would recommend using a whey protein product instead, if you are trying to bump up your protein intake.

If you read the article, the parts about what soy given to infant males and females of the human variety are scary:  we, as a nation, are giving our kids zombie-feed right off the bat.  This is another instance of greedy big-ag manipulating the GOONS into pushing the ZA one step closer to fruition.  To allow soy products such a place of pride in school lunch programs will likely also have a similar effect, but we're talking about school kids anyway, and most of them are generally rage-zombies anyway.

This is a good case to recommend breast-feeding when you can, and teaching your kids to cook and eat real foods, and another reason to pack your lunch.  Don't help big ag and the GOONS turn your kids or you into zombies: shufflers or rage, it's all just no good, avoid the soy.

Hindering, not helping

A friend of mine today sent me this: http://www.diversityinc.com/article/8213/Obesity-Is-a-Disability-Says-EEOC/   I read it, and of course it made my head hot.  This is a steady, direct step in the decline of the American populace.  We now have the GOONS giving overt approval to the masses to stop fighting for their health.  Me thinks this is only a conspiracy theory in theory, but is now a conspiracy in practice.  So, let's get this line of thought straight (I probably need a Venn diagram for this): The public moves from a simple, agrarian lifestyle to a considerably more sedentary lifestyle. Big Ag gets subsidies from GOONS to produce BARF and make it widely available and cheap to the public.  The public gets sick from these two things.  The public needs medications to maintain their chronic diseases caused by BARF and gets them from Big Pharma (who is often owned by Big Ag), who pays quite a bit to the GOONS and uses dirty tricks to make drugs a "necessity".  The GOONS take Big Pharma's money (under direction of Big Ag) and money from the public to create food "safety" laws that make it more difficult to eat something other than BARF.  And the public keeps turning the handle on the gristmill of their own doom.

Now that we have a sick,  overweight population, dependent on drugs, made sicker by this cycle, the GOONS see that the fight to stay healthy might be something the public might possibly win, so the GOONS take incentive away to even try.

The tumblers are turning in the lock, and soon we'll be locked into an inescapable ZA.  I guess it's in our favor that if the zombies are big enough, they might be slow enough to out-run.  Can each of us help at least one person from being labeled as "disabled"?  Can each of us help at least one person avoid their zombie fate?  It might be worth it to try.

Dirty Tricks

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121609815

This is a bit how the drug companies work.  It's scary and it's putting a burden on the healthcare issue in America.  Doctors will eat up what the machine tells them to, but fear and fight something with an incredibly low profit center.  Calcium supplements, or in the diet, alone do not prevent bone loss.  One needs several minerals, attained through a varied diet that includes many different vegetables, dairy and meat products with a good dose of vitamin D.  How much is a good dose?  Current recommendations are .75mg for ever kilo of weight you are.  If you are a big person, that seems like a lot, but there is no reliable upper limit to vitamin D.  However, if you take too much, you can get at tummy ache.

Why is this not actively embraced by the medical community? because there simply is no profit in it.  Doctors are heavily influenced by drug companies who in turn are in bed with Big Ag, who are all in bed with the GOONS.

Do you see the cycle?  Chuck a rock at the cycle, stay healthy on your own and take responsibility for your own health.  Get off the bus that's hauling you to the ZA.  Eat real food, be physically active, and keep thinking critically.

what to achieve in 2011?

We all have great plans for this year, the thing I would ask is doing all these wonderful things, taking such wonderful actions, what is the ultimate set of goals to achieve?  I find that I don't so much care for New Year's resolutions, but finding a time to sigh and rest, gather energy and resources after a hectic time allows me to identify what I would like to achieve for the next 12 months of the calendar year.

Right now, I have no answers, only questions to ponder on.  The first thing, though, is to streamline and declutter in the house.  Once that is achieved, there will be space to create and do.