Root cellars and cool rooms

I like reading other people's blogs because they give me good ideas about what I can do around here.  GI Jim wrote about root cellars and cool rooms the other day on his blog.  This is a great way to keep produce lasting longer.  Before you could find every fruit or vegetable year round at the grocery store most houses had root cellars, corners in the basement, or cool closets for keeping produce and other items.  Since I refuse to buy fresh fruit and vegetables from the store other than bananas, pineapple, mangos, and those fruits not able to be grown here, I usually dry, can, or freeze everything to make it so it lasts throughout the year.  What if I could make things last longer than just sitting in the fruit bowl on the counter or in the refrigerator?   

I've used a zeer pot when the refrigerator has been full.  You make this by taking two unglazed clay flower pots, one a size smaller than the other but both pretty big.  Plug up the holes at the bottom.  Put a layer of sand a couple inches thick on the bottom of the big pot then place the smaller pot into the bigger pot.  Put sand in between the two pots.  Pack it well.  Then pour water into the sand so it's saturated.  Put the pot into an area that gets air circulation.  Put your food in, cover with a clay lid (the bottom part that holds the overflow water) or even a thick towel.  The evaporation of the water will cool the air in the pot down enough to use it to store fruits, vegetables, even dairy.

I've thought about making a root cellar but I can't figure out where I'd put it that would be convenient yet out of the way.  The front yard has the septic system and leach lines so the front yard is out even though it's got some good locations.  The backyard has the water lines and that's where the kids play.  I could put it out near the barns but convenience is important.  I think I'd get lazy and go without sometimes rather than making the 200 foot walk out back.  So instead I was really interested in the idea of a cool room.

Apples, peaches, plums, pears, and tomatoes will release ethylene gas when you store them.  It's best not to store these with your vegetables because they will ripen the vegetables much faster than you'd want.  Not only that but some vegetables, such as carrots, will get bitter if they are exposed to the gas.  It may be better to can or dry the fruits and store vegetables in a cool room. 

When I made my home store I designed it to have a vent from the heater/air conditioner in the ceiling. Even if I don't run the air conditioner to cool the house during the summer I can still run it for 10 minutes and that room chills down.  That's great if we have electricity.  What if we don't?  Redesigning this room to make it a cool room would be easy enough.  The most ideal way to do this would be to cut a hole in the cement floor to get the cool air from the ground to enter the room.  While ideal, it's not going to happen!  The next best thing to do is to cut a hole in the outside wall near the ground.  This hole will need to have a good screen on it to keep out the bugs but it will still work to draw cool air into the room.  In the ceiling I'll punch a hole and put a vent pipe through the attic to go outside.  Jim suggested using a non-electric roof fan that would help pull the air out.  I don't know if I'll do that - putting another vent in my tile roof.  I will first try just venting it high into the attic but may end up putting in the fan after all. 

If the room can't cool down because it's too large I can always put up a divider wall and have half of the home store a cool room and half the same temperature as the rest of the house.  It will be a good project for the end of summer. 

Schools - grabbing money while taking away your rights

All I hear is that I need to get out of California and move to a more prepper friendly, less government state.  I don't know if there really is one anymore.  I'm thinking that almost anywhere you live, if it's not in a large city, you can be a successful prepper.  I know that folks in the city prep the best they can but they really have to work hard to stay under the radar. 

I've heard great things about Texas.  A family on one of the blogs I follow "escaped" from California to Texas.  They choose Texas because it's wide open and doesn't have too many rules.  I hope after living there for a while they still find that to be true.  Perhaps it's because they are in the country and not in the city?  Another blogger lives in a large city in Texas.  They seem to prep very well in their apartment.  I worry about them if the city closes in on itself and attacks itself.  Will they be safe? 

Texas schools have been in the news this past week with some really incredible stories about infringing on rights and also some stupid decisions by their courts.  The first story was about a 17 year old girl who goes to high school and also works two jobs to help support her sister.  Her parent split up and both moved away!  She is taking advanced placement and college classes.  An honor student, she is obviously keeping up with her schoolwork.  Unfortunately she misses a lot of school.  The Texas judge warned her that she'd better not miss any more or he'd put her in jail.  Why?  Because he needed to make an example of her.  He had to let people know that being a good student and working extremely hard isn't good enough if you don't earn the school district the money it gets from the federal government for having the kids show up to school.  She missed another day and he sent her to jail for an overnight stay and fined her $100!

That's not all the state of Texas is doing to try to get extra money.  They also write tickets for students who get in fights, curse their teachers or are generally “disorderly” on school campuses.  Children as young as the age of 6 have been ticketed.  The fines range from $250-$500.  I liked it better when I was growing up.  If a kid misbehaved they got sent to the principal and if they were really bad they got sent to the vice principal who was in charge of "swats".  Now, if the grandkids misbehave their teacher contacts me and they get "swats" among other things like having to do something nice for the teacher or student that they bothered.

Neither of these top tracking students by implanting chips in their student ID.  Chips in students IDs were proposed in California but was defeated in court.  (I can't always complain about the ACLU) Many Texas school districts are doing this.  They try to sell it to the parents as a way to keep their children safe.  But their real reason for doing so is to be able to locate the kids on campus to be able to count them as in attendance so they can get their daily pay.  They get state and federal money dependent on how many students show up to school.  The Northside Independent School District plans to track students at two school campuses and then eventually include all 112 of its schools and 100,000 students. 

The district spokesperson said they want to "harness the power of technology to make schools safer, know where our students are all the time in a school, and increase revenues."  For now the chip readers will be installed at the schools and on the buses.  This is such a slippery slope.  They will be tracking where kids sit on the bus, at lunch, who they play with, are they getting enough exercise, etc.  At what point are they going to be put in everywhere else that the kids go?  The mall?  The movies?  Who are the kids hanging out with after hours?  Are they getting enough exercise or sitting in front of the tv?  Oh I forgot to mention, only authorized people will have access to the information.  Right.  Get the kids used to it and they'll accept it when they get older.  Are they going into our driver's licenses next?  Credit cards?  Even our bodies?  Wait, that's already been discussed for alzheimer's patients and such.

I just got into it with the grand kids school.  Boy has been absent too many times and I got the official notice stating that he couldn't be absent anymore or I'd have to bring in a doctor's note.  I sent a note back to the principal pointing out the California Education Code which states what is an acceptable absence - just about everything is acceptable if the parent says so.  Nowhere does it say if you have too many you have to get a note from the doctor.  Of all Boy's absences, only one - a week after I received the note - was he out for actually being sick!  I, of course, refused to bring him to the doctor to get a note. 

No matter where you call home, if you have kids the outside world is doing its best to get into your business at home or make money off your family.  You have to stay on top of things whether you are in a good prepper state or not.

No bad news is not necessarily good news

Have you noticed the news lately?  There really hasn't been anything worthwhile that's been reported.  Perhaps it's because our "news" channel using an antenna is France24 or perhaps it's because the media is trying to sway people into thinking all is well?

Yahoo's headlines for today:
Blitzer says that Trump's birther remarks are ridiculous.  Now this is important isn't it?  His mother was a US citizen so where he was born shouldn't matter, unless the rule is you have to have two parents who are US citizens if you are born outside the USA or you have to be born in the USA.  That isn't clear to me although I'm sure someone will tell me.  After all, my nephew was born yesterday in England.  He is an American citizen.  Both his parents are Americans.  They are not pledging his allegiance to England.  He can grow up to be president.  Obama has been in office for four years.  Even if he loses this next election and it comes out that he shouldn't have been in office it's not like we can erase the last four years and have a do over.  (Maybe like the TV show Dallas -- that entire season was just a bad dream, everything gets to go back to the way it was.)

The head person at the National Weather Service retired due to a controversy.  His department was given money and he passed it along to the offices that needed it rather than spend it all in one place.  That was against the rules so he's now out.

Wildfires are burning in at least 3 states.  Welcome to summer.

Google wasn't much better:
Mitt Romney clinched the Republican nomination with his win in Texas.  And we were expecting ??? to overtake him?

Bob Dylan was given the Medal of Freedom by President Obama.  I've been waiting with bated breath.

Blackberry company RIM is not doing well.  This isn't expected?

US, allies expel Syrian diplomats over massacre.  Finally a story that's important news about what is going on in the world. 

But that's all for the news on the two biggest sources of news for most of the country.  I feel so safe and realize that prepping is for naught.  The world and the country are perfectly fine.  Or so I'm supposed to think.

I'm sorry to say that France24 has better headlines:
UN backed action in Syria is an option.

Second earthquake in Italy.  This one killed 16 including a bunch of rescue workers.

Thousands are protesting the elections in Egypt.  The two in the run-off are Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsi, and Shafiq, who was prime minister under Mubarak.  Protesters set fire Shafiq's headquarters.  The protests are because the youth who participated in the initial protests don't trust either the Muslim Brotherhood or the military.  Were they really expecting things to go well?  Muslim Brotherhood is going to win and Egypt is going to be set back decades. 

State of emergency in Peru after anti-mining protesters two were killed and a hostage was taken.  They are protesting the Tinaya copper mine which is the world's 4th largest copper producing mine.  I'm sure this won't help lower the price of copper or stop the copper thefts we have here in the US.

France has had a rash of suicides over the past couple weeks.  People are purposefully getting hit by trains.  According to the report 16 people per 1000 have the suicide "disease" as compared to the UK and Spain who only have about 7 people per 1000 with this disease.

Unity plans between Tuaregs and Islamists in North Mali collapse.  They now have a new Islamic state.  Just what the world needed...

I suppose I'd rather read the US news.  After reading what's really happening I don't feel as comfortable.  Either I'd better keep my head buried in the sand or I'd better get back to prepping. 

Good Memorial Day to you

Today is the day that we give thanks to all those in our military who gave their lives so that we can live in freedom.  I wonder how many of them wouldn't recognize the country that they fought so hard to defend?  Probably most.  I was thinking about those soldiers and realized that I didn't personally know any of our military folks who gave their life for our country.  I've known plenty of  military personnel.  My father, one sister and one brother, Army daughter and son.  Lots of friends kids too.  I suppose I'm fortunate that I've never had to suffer that loss.   

 

Our family went to a religious service this morning and had a wonderful luncheon there.  We came home and had about 30 minutes to prepare for our bbq dinner that we were hosting.  Fortunately only oldest daughter and her family were coming and they were bringing the meat and a dessert.  The people at the luncheon today had so many leftovers they had us pack up a bunch so the two desserts I made last night were all I needed to supply, along with some sun tea that I put out in the backyard this morning.

 

Oldest daughter loves chickens and spent most of her time holding each of the eight chicks.  As she was petting each chick she was announcing to that chick how she was going to cook it and what side dishes she was going to eat with it.  It was sort of morbid but rather funny as well.  Good thing the chick didn't know what she was saying!  She didn't have as much luck holding the ducks but she thought she'd be funny and put one of the ducklings in with the chicks.  The duckling wanted to go huddle with the chicks who wanted nothing to do with it.  Oldest daughter took out the duckling and put it back with the other 12.  My plan was to put the ducks out front but with the hawks out front I am rethinking that plan.  There is more shelter in the backyard so they'll probably end up there. 

 

Girl and other granddaughter picked a couple pints of strawberries.  I'm really pleased with the strawberry plants.  They are producing nice sized strawberries and I haven't killed off too many of the plants.  They get watered when the front lawn gets watered and a few just aren't getting enough water.  I water them by hand but need to figure out how to get the sprinkler to water them better.  The rainbird waters right over them and the water doesn't drop down on top of them.  I'll get it figured out before any more die off. 

 

The two baby hawks put on a show for the company today.  They flapped their wings and one actually flew across the front lawn. 

 

After the company left and the grand kids went to bed I had about 30 minutes of daylight left to do some outside chores.  I put up some more fencing and moved the sheep into that area.  I plan on planting my avocado trees in that space so I want the sheep to eat it all down, then I'll rototill, set out the water hoses, and plant my trees.  I have six avocado trees that I've started from seed.  The trees are about a foot tall and once in the ground should just take off.  Their first few winters will make or break them but I've got a plan.  I'm going to put down black plastic on the ground around them and make one long greenhouse to go over the entire row for the winter.  That should keep them warm enough.  Once they get established they can take a minor frost but they must be established first.  Any frost before that will kill the branches back and possibly the entire tree.  I've planted three or four avocados in the 15 years I've been here but none survived.  The last one would have survived except it got knocked over by oldest granddaughter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to destroy a garden in 30 minutes or less

After toiling for hours, days, and weeks, your garden can be destroyed in so many ways.  Let me list a few:

 

Drought.  Without rainfall you have to water your garden.  This isn't a problem as long as you have a spout near your garden or hoses that will reach.  If you have more time than anything else you can carry buckets of water from your water source to your plants.  This all works as long as your water source doesn't dry up - whether it be your spring, pond, or well.  Even your city water can burst a pipe and be shut down for several days.  That would be all it takes to destroy your garden if it is the middle of summer and the heat is turned up.  This is usually what kills my garden.  We don't get summer rain so that's not what I depend on to water the garden.  It's turning on the hoses and soaking the garden.  It's not hard to do.  My problem is I usually get called away to work during the summer often for a week or two at a time.  I have a neighbor that will come over to make sure the animals all have water but it's too much to ask for them to water everything.  So at some point each summer the garden dies a quick, hot death.

 

Hail.  Opposite of drought is the rain coming down in hard little frozen pieces.  Around here we had hail in April.  It destroyed my cherry crop.  In total we got three cups of cherries off of four trees!  If you have wheat or corn drying in your field and you get hail the moisture will ruin the entire crop, and the hail can knock it flat!  Fortuantely this isn't a big threat in our area. 

 

Insects.  Whether locusts, grasshoppers, moths, or tomato worms, bugs will eat your crop in front of your eyes.  There's been grasshopper swarms that have landed on crops in a big whirlwind and in a few minutes eat everything in site and swarm off to the next crop. 

 

Rabbits and squirrels.  These two critters will slyly get into your garden and eat your plants and your fruit.  I've walked out into the garden to pick a peach off the tree and come face to face with squirrels in the tree eating them.  I've gone back into the house to get the rifle and come back out to the tree to shoot them.  They are so bold they don't run off when you stand right next to them. Some ways to get rid of them other than shooting them are poisoning, trapping or to repelling them with mothballs. 

 

Deer.  We don't have deer around here.  They love gardens and people I know who have deer and gardens keep the garden fenced with 8 foot fencing.  Planting a border of chives, onions, garlic and mint are a good deterrent.  Deer don't like those smells and will tend to stay away, especially if there's something else to eat that isn't surrounded by the bad scent.  They love ripe fruit so keep up with your trees.  If the fruit is ripe, pick it!

 

Ants.  OK they take more than 30 minutes but if the fruit ripens on the trees the ants will get to them before we do!  The ants that we have in the garden are the biting "evil" ants.  They make it difficult to garden because they will swarm on you and bite you.  Putting cornmeal out for them to eat is an easy way to kill them.  So is pouring boiling water on their hills. 

 

Children.  Children running in your garden with no regards to your rows of plants is another garden killer.  Fortunately for me I don't have grandchildren who do that!  My sister has nieces and nephews who run through her garden knocking over plants.  It gets her so mad because their parents don't seem to care.

 

The sheep.  Today a big part of my garden was eaten by my sheep.  With all the fencing I've been doing around here, how would they get into my garden and eat all the okra, peanuts, tomatoes, and plum and apple trees? Read the item listed above - children.  Children playing in the barn and leaving gates open.  The sheep just walked out and started enjoying the garden.  I'm not a happy grandparent this afternoon.  Tomorrow morning Girl and Boy will be replanting.  I'd have them do it this evening but I'm too angry.  They get to spend the rest of their day in their rooms instead.  It's a good thing TS hasn't HTF where we must have this crop to survive. 

Hawks

Yesterday I had the good fortune to be able to spend some time up at GI Jim's store.  He told me about his new blog, http://preppingandsurviving.blogspot.com/.  While I was there I picked up my blue paracord.  I wanted that color to be able to make belts and things that were less military or survivalist looking.  He had some pink camo t-shirts.  Perfect for Girl, I think.  I never know with her...sometimes she wants only dresses, other times you'd mistake her for a boy.  Next time I'm up that way I'll have her in tow and she can tell me if she likes the pink camo. 

It's funny because one of the things we brought up were hawks.  I was talking about the two chickens being in the front pasture and wanting to put the ducks into the front with them.  I also want to take many of the chickens in the coop out and let them roam as well.  The front pasture is about 3/4 of an acre in size.  It will hold a lot of foul.  Jim told me to watch out for hawks.  He even gave me a suggestion of tying string across the pasture.  He said that the hawks will see the string and not want to fly through it to get to the foul.  Oh sure, I've seen hawks flying around but have never had any problem with them on the property.  On the other hand, of the four chickens I put in the front pasture there are now only two.  One died.  It's still out there.  One disappeared.  I figured that it ran away but thinking about it, it may have been a hawk or some other predatory bird. 

Now, I don't live in the wilderness area.  I live 10 miles outside a city of 100,000 and 15 miles outside a city of 500,000.  There's open space and farmland around me and a creek about 3/4 mile away that definitely has some wildlife in it.  I've had a mountain lion steal 20 of my sheep.  I've seen foxes come up to the door.  I've seen red-tailed hawks fly around and even an eagle has been observed nearby.  Even with all that I've never really thought about protecting my flock from flying predators.  That is until today.

I'm pretty laid back about some things around here.  On other issues I'm wound up tight.  It all depends on what it is and what my mood for the day or week is.  Really.  Aren't we all sort of like that?  Each year we get swallows building a nest at my front porch.  I have a brick post that sort of decoratively holds up a beam.  This brick post has a hollow spot because the cement doesn't come all the way to the top.  The swallows nest there and make a huge mess on the bricks and also on the front porch.  There are droppings everywhere.  I don't care.  It's cool to have a front row seat watching the baby birds mature. 

As I said, each spring I have had swallows...for the past 15 years.  Except this year.  I looked up there about a week ago and didn't see anything.  There seems to be noise coming from the post but I'm just not seeing any babies and very little droppings are stuck to the bricks.  I was dumbfounded today when I looked out the window and saw a baby hawk up on the post.  Then I saw a second.  I got the camera out and took a picture.  The second hawk was shy and went back into the post.  The first hawk, well, it loves getting its picture taken. 

One of the two baby hawks nesting inside the bricks on my front porch!

Putting up more fencing and Medusahead

I have enough fencing to put up 640 feet of new fence.  Since this property doesn't have irrigation for the pasture I wanted to separate out the back pasture into five separate sections.  Rather than the animals trampling down everything on their way to eat the best stuff I figure that if I keep them in one section at a time they will do a real good job eating down that section before I put them on another.  By doing this the other sections of pasture will be able to grow more fully. 

My plan is to have a driveway all the way down the property line until it reaches the furthest back section.  (Now I don't mean 640 acre sections, I only have five acres total.)  The property line is fenced all the way around.  I did that 15 years ago when I bought the property and Mr. Bug-out renter and I just went around the entire perimeter straightening up the stakes and fences.  Now it's time to finish the cross fencing.  The five pastures have a total length of about 750 feet, or about 150 for each pasture.  The first section was completed many years ago.  The rest, well sort of. 

The second pasture had previously been completed and I had started putting panels in the third pasture but then I took those fencing panels and moved them to the front yard pasture.  I also took a bunch of the panels to use as pens around my fruit trees that are in the front pasture.  Depending on the size of the tree each tree used either two or three 16 foot panels. 

This meant that the backyard sections were missing all their panels.  The t-posts are all pounded in but there's no fencing.  I use cattle and hog panels rather than field fencing.  The field fencing would be cheaper but I've found that between the animals and the grandchildren the field fencing always seems to fail in one location or another.  The panels can be climbed on, even by adults, and they don't bend or sag.  

Yesterday I put half of the new panels out in the pastures leaning up against the t-posts.  Tomorrow I'm going to take half the day off and work out in the pasture.  I'll take the rest of the panels and lean them up against the rest of the t-posts.  Then I'll start wiring the panels to the posts and the ends to each other.  It should take most of the morning but if I do it right it's not something that should ever have to be done again...at least not by me.  

In one of these pastures I threw oat seeds out last fall.  In another of the pastures I threw out wheat seed.  All the pastures have pasture grasses and a bunch of weeds.  It's all stuff that the sheep like and if the things are going well then I'll let it go to seed and let the animals graze on it. 

I found a small patch of Medusahead!  That's a horrible weed that will attach itself to you boot and crawl up your pants leg.  It contains a high level of the mineral silica, making it inedible - actually the animals will try to eat it.  The silica will wear down their teeth and not only that, its spiky head and seeds cut the mouths of animals attempting to graze on it -- from cattle to deer to rodents. Medusahead makes a thick mulch that crowds out other pasture grasses.  The best way to control it is with herbicides, pulling out each plant prior to it going to seed, or burning it.  I have to get on top of this - tomorrow and the rest of the weekend or my pasture is going to be a mess.  I could burn it but the burn window around here is over.  Next spring I will be on the lookout for this invasive weed and burn every plant I see.