Hands on Prepping(with positive attitude)

Ernie wrote a good reminder on Indiana Preppers on harvesting local hay or grasses for your animals. On my family farm we work very hard to learn everything we can to prepare us for anything. Now we live in the desert so grasses do not just grow like they do back east. But we had major rains last year and my husband and I saw all the grasses and decided we would harvest a lot of it.

Prepping is so important if you can comprehend that it is not temporary but a complete and total change in attitude. I live to reduce cost and learn skills that complement this. Study your local area. Learn about the plants, animals, and weather as if it is a college course. Make notes, locate used books(buy new only as a last resort- as lowering cost is most important.) For me, I have mentally been preparing for the scenario that we may not have electricity for a good while. Now with the economy the way it is, and the leaders that seem only to be facilitating the demise of the dollar, I am happy for my prepping. I have decided that I will repost things I have written on the farm blog to share here with Preppers. Everything is tested by my family. We have live by the low-cost no-cost motto since his accident and have proven that money CANNOT buy the hands on experience.

Below is my post from Double Nickel titled: Farm? Only a Vision(at first)...I wrote this when I had several comment that if they bought a farm then they too could be doing what we were doing!(think The Little Red Hen)

Growing up in Ohio tainted my interpretation of what a farm was. I envisioned red barns, white fences and well green grass, trees, and a ditch or two. That is not the case here in New Mexico. Nearly every operation out here is referred to as a ranch. I was determined to be unique and therefore decided that we would live on a farm. But truth of the matter was that this humble piece of property that we have was never a farm, and most certainly only scrub desert. We saw beyond the thorns, cactus, sand, rocks and envisioned a FARM!

We are only one year into the operation, and it has left permanent scars on our arms, as the mesquite is not forgiving as you try to remove it, trim it, or work around it. Yet we continue. Our time line is at year 4 to look like the farm we envisioned. When our agent showed us the property we could not walk through and see much as it was overgrown. It took three weeks to realize that the back had a fenced in area for the yard!

So here are the lemons we have(you know-when life gives you lemons- make lemonade)


Clearing mesquite...click on the photo to see the thorns...I saw the beans growing on the trees(bush) and began to harvest them, and we dried them for the animals. Boy they love dried mesquite beans.


When the monsoon season flooded parts of the property and the native grasses grew...we harvested the grasses with homemade sickles...and had Jen sized bales for the animals!

We still have much of the property that is nearly impassible. Oh and shoes do not stop the thorns...one thing we have purchased excess of was tweezers and peroxide!!


Here is a photo near the front of the property with one of my sons wandering. We have clearings here and there that more dry, desolate things will grow in...
So although one may believe that we found a great deal on a fixer upper (former) farm, that is not the case. We just knew that often to make what you desire takes much more mental ability then actually things that are real.

Don't ever believe that you can't achieve something, as we here on the Double Nickel Farm know that with God-all things are possible.
Jennifer
@2008 Double Nickel Farm