Overdue Update

I know this update is well overdue, but I am just now finding the time to share.

Saturday morning found me giddy as a teenage school girl on her first date. I have been waiting and counting the days for the Self Reliance Expo to come to a city near me and it finally did.
I have seen my fair share of gun shows, but I have never seen anything like this and was excited to be in a huge building full of like minded folks all doing the same thing I do.

Whatever label you put on yourselves being a prepper, a survivalist, a radical, a homesteader or whatever you call yourself if anything at all, you are a minority doing what you do. It is hard to find people that think the same much less do the same thing and this was an opportunity to be surrounded by just those kind of people.

This is where the disappointment sets in. In my mind I pictured this to be a gun show on crack with booths and booths of tactical gear, survival surplus and everything you could think of that dealt with homesteading and living off the grid. I am not saying it was bad, what I am saying is that it was not what I had pictured.
Every other booth was selling freeze dried food, no guns and very little to no survival gear with the biggest item sold being the Life Straw and other water filters.
There were a few Homesteading booths selling mostly stuff for canning and one General Store type, but the Expo was mainly set up for the inner city prepper.
The two really cool things they had were the huge bunker set up outside you could tour and Jackie Clay from Backwoods Home Magnetize. She is an inspiration to all the Homesteading community and I got the chance to shake her hand tell her so.

I had fun and enjoyed being out and talking with the people that I talked to. I think I would rather stick to the Gun shows though.
Speaking of, there is one next month right down the road from me I might just have to attend.

I did pick up an old Mosin 91/30 this weekend and ran a box through it on Sunday. That thing kicks like a mule.

Until next time,
MDR              

A Unspoken Bond

"Just pull them up" the wife says.
"I just can't do it" I replied back.

Every year we go through he same cycle of Planting, Harvesting and Putting By. Then we start the whole thing over again.
There is one point in the circle of garden plant life I hate. It's when I have to pull up a food producing plant.

"It's just a PLANT!" the wife would tell me, but in my heart these plants have sustained life for me, given their all so I can live.
Yes, I know this sounds a little stupid and corney, but it is something I struggle with. The plants have to come out for the Fall gardens to be planted. We already have way to much food and the plants still keep giving. I am at the point where we are giving everything harvested away just so I do not have to stand in the Kitchen all day canning more.
The shelves are full with jars and jars of canned or dried foods. The freezer is over flowing with bags of produce. There is no more room. I will not be able to eat it all now.

Most of the plants are at the end of their life cycle anyway. Remember, I planted way early this year by about three months on some things and it paid off. As it is right now I don't know if I need to plant a Fall garden. I don't know where I would put it all.
I will at least do some lettuce. 

The hard part will be separating that special bond between the plant and the garden keeper, but I am sure I will get over it.       

Prepping The Soul

As far as the idea to prepare ourselves for what is to come, most of us are on the same page and are like minded to the fact we do it all to survive.
We spent countless hours stocking food, stacking ammo and learning new skills to insure we are the ones left standing when whatever happens, happens.
We raise animals and gardens for food, prepare our homesteads to be self sustainable and teach our children how to live right and work hard, all for the greater good of the family and the hard times to come.
We have food for when there will not be any, emergency packs to live out of when forced out, lights for when the electricity is no more, water for when it can't be pumped, weapons and ammo to keep us safe, bags of silver and gold for currency when our dollar fails and we even have predetermined locations for refuge if need be. 
 We do all this because we do not want to be caught unprepared for whatever is to come. Even with all the prepping, working and learning to be sure we will survive, we are still not sure on what and when it will happen. We can speculate, debate and discuss about politics, global warming and the collapsing economy all day, but in the end we still do not know for sure.
All we think or know is that something will happen and we have to be prepared for it.

The one thing you can count on is that yes something will happen, you are going to die. I hate to be the one to break it to you but it is the cold hard truth. There is no way around it no matter how much you prepare against it, it will happen.
You spent your whole life prepping for what is to come and how you can survive it, but what have you done to prepare your soul for the inevitable?
What good is a pantry full of food or a bug out location set up to sustain you for two months when you will not be around to use it? What good is that secret stash of silver you have buried out back when you don't make it back home from work one day? What do you think will happen to that beautiful self functioning Homestead you have spent a lifetime building when a drunk driver runs a red light and you are hit and killed this weekend?   

If you spent your whole life working on what might come instead of what you know will come then it is all for not and you just wasted it all. If you are not one hundred percent sure you are prepared for the real "IT" then you might want to take a step back and do just that.

From now on when I am asked what is the first thing one should do to be prepared, I will simply tell them, "First and foremost, take time to prepare your soul and get right with him, the rest really doesn't matter."


FYI:
I did not want to write this post. It was put on my heart for some reason or another so I had to.           

Weekend Warriors

My Boppie

We spent the weekend out on the Lake. The place where we were at had their 4th celebration going on and it was a blast. The fireworks show lasted three hours with the band and other festivities were still going on when I threw in the towel at midnight and headed for the camper.  

Can you believe our ugly little wet dog won Cutest dog in the dog show. I should say, she was all dressed up for it though. Here she is in her bathing suit.  

 The girls found a fishing dock they decided they just had to jump off. They are too tired to clean their rooms but will jump off this thing for hours.


Yup, that's me on the left sitting in the shade with a cold drank and watching the show. That is BEB on the right.

It was about a ten foot jump. The wife wanted to but chickened out on the rail.

Look at that nasty camp food. It was so hard to eat. I might have to keep cooking it over and over until I get it right.
What a shame. 











Why is it that while I was camping I was up at 5:00 AM ready to go have fun without the alarm. This morning when the alarm went off at 5:00 AM, I had to drag my big butt out of bed to go to work.

This week, party at Mom and Dad's on Tuesday.
This weekend, fishing. The next weekend, camping again. For the rest of the summer just repeat what I just wrote.
What a horrible way to spend the summer. I just don't know how I am going to get through it.

Just Real Quick

I know I am suppose to to be on blogger and a farm vacation but I wanted to say Howdy to two new readers of Modern Day redneck and brag a little on the farm.
Welcome to Lynda at http://thekingsplus2.blogspot.com/
and to Papa Toney over at http://papatoneys.blogspot.com/
Thank y'all for for hitting the follow button while I am out of sight and out of mind. I will return to my normal blogging in a month or so so in the mean time there are plenty of good blogs you can read in my side bar.
Thank y'all and again, welcome.

Here is a quick Farm update. All but eight chickens are gone. All but three goats are gone. All but two geese are gone.
It is quiet here on the Mini Farm.
Even in this heat the gardens are producing about 30 pounds of food every three days. Our shelves are overflowing with canned goods, our freezers are packed with produce. This is no vacation! We are canning almost every night.
OMG, how many ways can you put cucumbers up. Lets see, Dried Cucumber chips, Sweet pickles, Bread and Butter pickles, Dill Pickles, Sweet Relish, Hot Sweet Relish, Sweet Pepper Relish, Dill Relish, Hot Dill Relish, Cucumber Cole Slaw, Cucumber and Onions and I know I am forgetting some.
It is the same with everything. I tell you what folks, the secret is the shade. I am loving it.

Pigs, the pigs are gone. We got the first one back last week and he yielded 70%. The one inch pork chops I grilled over the weekend were to die for. Rich in flavor, Sweet and Juicy without adding anything to make it that way. Home grown pork is the way to go if you don't mind the high price and trouble it takes to get it on the table.

That's about it. The camper stays loaded, The fishing poles have are being used, the wife and kids are all healthy and happy, Life is good my friends, hot but good
Stay safe over the holiday weekends to come and I will talk to you then.

I'm out,
MDR           

A Song We Should All Be Singing

Fathers Day Weekend With The Kids And Wife

Buck creek, Lake Ray Roberts Texas

My New Fishing Pole At Buck Creek

Boppie At Buck Creek

Spending The Day At Lake Bridgeport, Texas 

Date night with the wife, Concert in the Park, Aubrey Texas

See Ya On The Flip Side

Sale, Sale Sale, At least that is what the Craig's List and Facebook adds read yesterday morning. By bedtime last night, 1/3 of the animals were already sold. A couple of dollars under premium price and you have yourself a sell. I told the wife who is handling all this, do not sell anything if we will loose money. It is too counterproductive and that ain't gunna work.
I am hoping by the end of the weekend we will be down to the remaining animals we are wanting to keep just for the homestead.

Here is the way I am looking at it. I know you can never be prepared enough. I know that you can never prepare for every thing that may happen. I also know that homesteading is a full time job.
All I am doing is trying to simplify the simple life. Instead of selling three to five hundred chickens a year, I am wanting to scale back to having just what I need. Same with the goats, geese and whatever else comes through here. I should not be pushing myself this hard to live simple, It's stupid.

Call it a midlife crisis, an epiphany or whatever, but living the simple life should not kill you. I already have what I need set in place for survival. If you work as hard as I do to live simple, it's not working. I look around and ask myself, what else do I need just in case I need it. I am at the point of creating things I might need instead of building the things I have to have. The one project I still don't have the way I like it is the outdoor kitchen. If the worst happens, I do have an area I can cook all my meals outside now but it is not a full fledged kitchen. I can work on that as time allows.

I still plan to garden, can and preserve for the winter. I still plan to continue to blog in the future and to build smaller projects when I see fit. The one thing I am changing is to free up some time to live while I still can.
Instead of blogging about my losses due to the heat or how I cant afford my next project because my feed bill is killing me, I want to blog about how warm the water is at the lake, how many fish I caught, how many miles we covered hiking that day and what we saw on the trail. 

If you don't understand like some of the emails I have gotten asking why, then let me put it to you this way. I have lived this way my whole life and only until I started blogging found out other people do this for recreation. I don't have a city house to escape to during the week and only come back to the farm on the weekends. That is not what I want, but I am tired of working till dark during the week and working sixteen hour days on the weekends just for simplicity. Call it burn out, Call it what you want.

So, I am going to take some time off, have fun, relax and do what "normal" people do. (That's funny right there)
My email is moderndayredneck@gmail.com if you want to stay in contact.
I will be back in a few months with some of the How-To books ready to go and hopefully a new focus and direction.
Thank everyone for their continued support and being a part of Modern Day Redneck. You are all like family to me and I hope to hear from you.
Come see me sometime. 

Saying all that, I guess I will see ya on the flip side. Stay safe.

MDR   

  
               
  

Ebbs And Flows

My Giddy Up Go was busted for most of the weekend.

I did get to spend a little time out on the lake chasing Sand Bass until my buddy's boat broke down and left us stranded on the water for about three hours. Either way, I was still on the lake fishing.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing. My definition of relaxing and yours might be two different things though. My relaxing consisted of fence mending, mowing and gardening. Plus we had chicken customers coming and going and also gave a tour or two of the Mini Farm. Thank goodness I just mowed.
One of the ladies on one of the tours had a very graphic vocabulary so to speak. Lets just say she liked the "F" word, a lot. It was funny. "Those chickens are so "F"ing cute", "This garden is so "F"ing amazing", or the best one of, "You people are so "F"ing cool".
My head was so "F"ing big when she left I could barley get through the door.

I have decided to move forward with the How-To books and will get the first one done whenever it gets done. I don't want to set a date for me because that would be added stress I don't need, but it will happen.

I am also at a cross roads on how I do things here at the Mini Farm. The goals I set a couple of years ago are getting further away day by day. So I am thinking on just letting those goals go and create some time for the wife, kids and myself to have some fun.
What it boils down to folks is that I am tired. 
I guess I can be a CSA when I get older.                  

AHHHHHHH.......

Rain Days Are Still Productive

With the rain this week it has been tough to get much going. We needed the rain and I am thankful for it. I am also glad it came slow and easy this time instead of the way has been.

Even though I did not need it, the time off from work was welcomed. The wife and I took the time and got busy in the kitchen putting away some of the garden stuff.

She forced me into making two cases of pickles yesterday. I say forced because I do not like Dill pickles. So the way I figure it, being that I helped on the Dill, she has to do some Bread and Butter for me.

We also put up several bags of Green Beans, Squash and Tomatoes.

The peppers are all being dried right now. We either leave them in slices or grind them down almost to a powder and store them in the pantry for future use.

I also picked some Sweet Pumpkins yesterday so the wife can make me a homemade pumpkin pie. I hope that happens this weekend.

I don't have a clue about what I am going to do this weekend. I guess I will let whatever happens, happen and go with the flow so to speak.
I do know that it's date night tonight so I think the wife is wanting to try out a new Chinese Buffet place that just opened up here in town.
That makes me wonder, the last time I was through town I did not see as many stray cats running the roads as I usually do, hmmmm.......
Oh well, put enough BBQ sauce on it and it will taste just like chicken.       

I also wanted to say thank you to everyone on the input about the books. I think I will start the first one on the Hand Powered Washing Machine this week.     

Tell Me What You Think

I've been thinking..........

 I know, I know, yes it does hurt, A LOT.





No really, I have been thinking on my next project. The solar laundry room is in full go and I will be done with it as money allows. I still need to put a shade over it, build a folding station and restructure my clothes lines in a more user friendly configuration.
Being I am half way though with that project I need to start thinking on my next build so I can have it figured out by the time I need to start it. The problem is I can't come up with nothing.
Of course my project list is still several pages long, I just don't know what I want to start on, if any.

My work shop has been at the top of the list for a long time now. It is always shuffled down because it is such a massive cost and time consumer. Even with collecting scrap and crap, I will still need to purchase a lot more materials to accomplish such a huge undertaking.
I am thinking on just saving up and buying a completed building. I have waved the cost and I can get a bigger bang for my buck if I did. The one problem with that will be time. It will take over a year to save up for it meaning there will not be any extra money for other projects.
I don't know, I'm conflicted.       


On another thought, tell me what you think about this. 

I have been bouncing around in my head about writing up some illustrated, step by step how-to books on the projects I have built here at the Mini Farm.
I just don't know if it will be a big waste of time or if there was enough interest to make it worth it.

If you don't mind, tell me what you think on this and any pointers would help.