Saturday Stockpile Item

Be sure to stock up on Dehydrated Water...

Have a wonderful weekend, and remember use common sense when you are prepping!

Living the Simple Life Tips Part 2

This is a continuation of the previous post. Please understand that prepping or living a prepper's lifestyle is not all about hurry up and rush around like a chicken with its head cut off. Prepper's must be able to assess each situation that is cast our way, and if we are too busy we may miss specific signs or cues that we need. So here are a few more tips on living the simple life.

4.
Change your menu for the next month. Make 14 recipes (or seven if you can) and repeat it twice. Stick to the menu, and use fresh or homemade as much as possible. Do not make more than you will eat, and if everyone has a smaller portion that is okay. Make notes on your measurements so you can finagle them to make more or less as you eat the meals. Perhaps it was not Julia Childs, but someone earlier, no matter- somewhere along the way, we decided that we showed our wealth and how Cosmopolitan we were by serving so many diverse, complicated recipes. Take a break...If you still desire to dabble in diverse cuisine, then take one day a month and do what we do on the farm. I call this day: Where in the World, and I create a menu and background about the food we will be eating. Be creative! Oh and you do not need small children to do this as it is fun for all.

5
Go computer free one day a week. Actually, when trying to slow down, this is a good way, as it is very easy to get caught up in the momentum of surfing the Internet and losing track of the time. I bet you have projects all around your house that need tending to. In fact, I bet you have friends, neighbors, and family that would be surprised if you sent them a letter(snail mail) as none of us has done this one very much since e-mail!!

The whole idea of Living the Simple Life has nothing to do with living a less than American lifestyle. It means that one Living the Simple Life is prepared for the worst, but lives each day expecting the best.

p.s. This is how I live every day!

photo credit: taken by me! It is almost the direct backside of the mountain I look at each morning! Pretty amazing isn't it?

Living the Simple Life Tips Part 1

Slowing down on Double Nickel and enjoying the views

1. Stop spending money

I write this often. Have you decided that today is the day that you can do this? There is no prep item as important as using your common sense. We must learn that a large portion of the economic crisis is due to off the chart out of control spending that we do in this nation.

2. Challenge yourself to learn one skill this month

Prepping is not about accumulating items. It is about learning how to survive or come through a situation or crises. The more skills you have the better you will fare in any crises. Ideas? Basic first aid, canning fruits and vegetables, making cheese, making bread, changing a tire, changing oil in your vehicle, sew a blanket by hand, make shampoo, make soap, make candles, butcher a chicken-get the idea?

3. Slow down

Slow down. Sit on your front or back porch and just breathe. Take in the sounds, sights and smells of your home, neighborhood, and surroundings. This is so critical to learn. Many people have been pushed and get impatient when doing nothing. Newsflash- your body needs to rest. Sleep is not real rest in America. So take the time to slow down today.

Homemade Deodorant~Reposted

I wrote this post a while ago and think that it is a great reminder on how one can make many things on their own with just a few base products. Have a great day-

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Can it be so easy to make a product at home that is like what you buy at the store? Will the homemade product work? Is it hard to make? Is it really cost effective to make at home? The questions I have written go through my mind every time I research making something at home. In addition I have been researching making things that have limited preservatives or chemicals as I am unsure exactly what side effects they may cause me. I have been amazed at what things are in items that we use on a daily basis, and although I am neither a doctor nor scientist, wonder if the rise in cancer is the result of chemical overload.

I make my own toothpaste, hairspray, shampoo (not sold on its ease so still working on) hair gel, facial cleanser, soap, and as of today deodorant! Yes, I made my own deodorant today. I will confess that not wishing to smell has been the reason I have delayed making deodorant. I ran out of deodorant the other day, so I decided to get over my worries and just make it-pass or fail.

Wow, making deodorant has to be one of the easiest items I have ever made. The process took around 8 minutes, and 4 minutes was spent washing out my old deodorant container.


Empty deodorant container


The ingredients:
1/4cup corn starch
1/4 cup baking soda
1-2 TBSP coconut oil

Mix the dry ingredients first and slowly add the coconut oil mixing with your hands. The coconut oil is the bonding agent and you do not need too much to make the deodorant the same consistency as store bought. Then fill the empty deodorant container.


Here is the finished product! It has no smell and works wonderfully.
The total cost to make this:
coconut oil= around 10 cents
baking soda= around 5 cents
corn starch= around 10 cents
empty deodorant container=free
total= 25 cents! Amazing


And for the record the baking soda is the odor fighter, the corn starch keeping dry, coconut oil bonding agent-3 ingredients safe and simple.
(c)Double Nickel Farm
Jennifer

I wrote this post for my farm blog. You see for me prepping and living simple are the same thing. I am preparing on relying on my brain to make things for my family, if and when I can no longer go to the store anymore. Once I discovered the volume of chemicals and garbage in so many products, I threw myself into this full force. You see even if the world changes and our economy tanks I am still me and wish to maintain some normalcy. In any crisis, comfort items do make all the difference. Having clean clothes, being able to wash up are stabilizers for many of us. If you prep long term it becomes a lifestyle and then making every day items become a snap!

Before the Farm

I wrote a post that linked to some blogs that used pop bottles as planters...and mentioned that I have used milk gallons as greenhouses and planters. Here is the follow up to share old pics of what I have done. The laptop that had farm pics crashed and I did not save greenhouse pics- so if the pic was not on line- I lost them. These were from my homeschool blog 2007.
Before we bought our farm we rented to get to know the region we had just moved to. We are from the southwest but not from NM so we wanted to get a feel for the area before we purchased a place. These photos are from the rental we lived in while in town. The back yard was trashed and rough so we opted to plant a small patch of grass, lay some paving stones, and make a "secret garden."

This photo is how I gathered water- we have serious water restrictions in the town(Alamogordo) and we were only able to water 1 day a week in 2007. I then began learning water collection etc. We eventually stopped watering our teeny lawn and converted that to a watermelon patch.
Another photo of gathering water from the monsoon. See my lovely paving stones? I loved that grass did grow between them...I watered it using a water spray bottle!
I planted 300 sunflowers...and in this region of town many began to refer to our home as the sunflower house! I just wanted to increase the privacy fence and we love sunflowers!
Here are tomatoes and zucchini...I maximized space by creating garden beds that we made trenches in so we could incorporate flood watering.
Here is one of my potato bucket plants. I love growing potatoes by this method because potatoes are finicky to the southwestern sun, so we move the plants to follow the shade around the house. Btw- this is a GREAT workout!
My photos are out of order so enjoy jumping around with me! These are sunflowers breaking through on my east wall of my yard. The lot was a 1/4 acre lot to include the house, garage, and front desert landscaped front yard- translation, my back yard was small but grand enough to grow a tremendous amount of food!
This is the view that I had from my rental kitchen sink- you can see why the mountains captivate me! Note the center area never grew anything as we did not water. I collected tons of rocks to make walking trails and to out line the garden beds.
Here is the first week of gardening in 2007. As you can see from the previous photo, it was very drab before we began our Secret Garden.
Even after I planted my garden I continued to baby the plants and would cover them at night with my milk gallon green houses. I used skewers to place the tops on...as then I would not crush any small plant...or if the wind would pick up the top would stay on.
Here are some green houses with the lids in back. During warm sunny hours I took the lids off, and then at night I would cover them. Yes that is an old ironing board. I am a bit eccentric and like how it looks with plants on it!
Here is a view of more milk gallon green houses. The milk cans(hmm sense a theme?) hold up the board with the plants on it. I grew so much it would be hard to list. If you look at the yard we grew you can note it was even larger than the first photos. We slowly reduced its size as the season went on so we could maximize our water allotments. As a former Ohio girl I just love walking barefoot. In NM for my feet it is somewhat hard on my soles. My kids are used to this region and do not miss a grassy yard...oh it is so funny how opposite our memories are!!
Check out my blooming garden! Pumpkin bed in front, peas, green beans, and broccoli in the middle, and tomatoes and zucchini in the rear. The sunflowers follow the fencing. The bucket gardens were along the paths and well everywhere.
This photo shows both my bucket garden method, and the greenhouse method. I grew herbs, potatoes, marigolds, and cucumbers in this years bucket garden...but I have grown everything in the 5 gallon buckets. In my city-fied days I spray painted the buckets to have some aesthetic beauty...but since moving to the farm...I find the beauty in the plant and no longer use the facade. Perhaps when we can slow down from projects I may begin this again.
Close up of the green houses. Usually I stored the tops behind the container, unless it became too windy.

As you can see many things can be taken from this post. Water conservation is important- not because I am a green crowd fanatic- no water conservation is important as every year in nearly every region of the world there is a drought of sorts. To learn how to collect rainwater or implement grey water you can be prepared for anything.

In addition to water conservation, one can see that living on a farm or in the sticks is not a requirement to gardening and prepping. To be honest many neighbors were amazed at what we did, and almost all have begun doing the same thing in their small spaces. While we were seeking our humble farm- I still was enacting my plans. We must not put off plans but live and change as we go. Do not wait...start today.

One can also learn that container gardening need not be store bought-recycle containers. We had a friend save milk gallons for us(and I did too). The fast food restaurants utilize many containers that are tossed daily. We have a fast food place in town still gather buckets for us. We use them for planting, animals, and because they are food grade I store beans, flour, and sugar in them.

Please remember that prepping is not something to do as a fad. It is a wonderful amazing way to live and it is a present tense word...so be a continuous prepper- live it, do it and enjoy it. I must confess that it has made all the difference in my life!
Jennifer
(c) Double Nickel Farm

10 Steps To Destroying American Society

[I saw the comment below on this post: On China Obama says US must address currency rates]

Rewrite the Constitution and break down its firewalls through Judicial and Bureaucratic fiat.

Concentrate all meaningful power in the Federal Government.

Suppress and Repress the Individual by attacking his Unalienable Rights through laws and constant torment.

Eliminate Private Property through Confiscatory Taxation and Regulation and wage constant war against Business Enterprises and Entrepreneurs.

Control Institutions of Education at all levels and turn them into Indoctrination Centers for the State.

Change the Citizenry by opening National Borders to virtually all comers and changing the qualifications for Citizenship to include mostly poor, uneducated illegal aliens.

Destroy the Private Financial Institutions that have funded the Greatest Production and Accumulation of Wealth for the Most People the World has ever known.

Destroy Capitalism and replace it with Redistributive Policies by Destroying the currency and Replacing it with a new currency or Revaluing the old currency.

Eliminate American Sovereignty through arrangements and agreements with Foreign Countries and International Bureaucracies.

Use American Foreign Policy not to improve American Economic and National Security, but to advance the Notion of One Government Globalism.

Thanks vcue 15 who left this comment

Pop Bottle Gardening

I have used milk gallons as mini-greenhouses but never pop bottles(or water bottles) this way...
Link 1
Link 2- pop bottle pole planter
Link 3- pop bottle salad maker
Link 4- interesting conversion
Link 5
Link 6-bottle herb farm

Perhaps we all should consider this simple idea to increase our garden size and to use otherwise wasted items.