[Homesteadingfamily] FW: Is Your Arsenal Up to the Task?

Good read, especially last paragraph!

Jeanne

http://community.webshots.com/user/atasetofcreole

http://atasteofcreole.wordpress.com/

Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger
of state and corporate power - Benito Mussolini

From: sfsweeklynews@aweber.com [mailto:sfsweeklynews@aweber.com] On Behalf
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Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 1:38 PM
To: Jeanne
Subject: Is Your Arsenal Up to the Task?

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Dear Jeanne,

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Letters to the Editor

Re: Robert R. Army vet's comments on shoes, etc.:

Don't go to Walmart - go to a thrift store and get shoes MUCH cheaper and
support the thrift store while you're at it. In our rural area there are
THREE thrift stores in different places, all run by churches. We buy
clothing, candles, etc. there too.

Regarding goats/horses/etc.: The government is already moving to stop animal
ownership via the "animal ID" scheme. Our family has been immersed in
stopping this monster for going on five years now. It sucks in your real
estate while they're at it. This is something that MUST be stopped or you
will not be able to have even one goat or one horse to survive with. In
addition to this, having animals such as these, especially big ones like a
horse, means feeding them. Hay costs are already going up and grain prices
going up (like wheat is doing right now) will only add to the cost of
expensive commercials feeds. You might be able to get through the spring and
fall with the animal finding food to eat, but winter - you have to have hay
or something like it. If you are going with a horse - get a large,
well-broke PONY(14 hands or so) that will ride *and* drive. They are easy
keepers so you don't need as much hay/feed and they are easier to hide - and
easier to handle. And you would be surprised the weight they can handle,
too. If you get one already broke to drive in harness, you need to get the
harness, too, and learn how to drive and use everything. Our family used to
breed and raise registered Horses, so we do know how to do these things.

Regarding goats (we also used to be nationally-known dairy goat breeders) -
there are smaller breeds that are easier to feed/handle/hide, but they don't
give a lot of milk. That could be a good thing if you don't have a fridge
anymore. Consume or ferment the milk when fresh (kefir, etc.). Learn how to
do this before you HAVE to. Goat milk is not good for making butter unless
you have a cream separator - cow milk works best for that because the cream
will rise to the top of the milk and you can just skim it. Goat milk doesn't
separate so well (smaller fat globules - that's why it's easier to digest)
and it's harder to get the cream by skimming. If you have a separator that
doesn't use electricity, that will work for the goat milk but it is a mess
to clean up all the parts of the separator. We make our own butter, but we
use cream from the cow milk for that. We have a couple of goats, Swiss
Alpines, for our other milk needs. They give 2 gallons a day per goat.
That's PLENTY of milk for quite a few people, There are small cow breeds,
too - miniature Jersey, Holstein, etc. but they are expensive. Dexters are
good dual-purpose cattle that are naturally small. Our family has a
Dexter/Jersey bull that we are crossing on our black baldy commercial cows
to breed *down* the size of the next generation and up our butterfat in the
milk for more butter making. One thing about cattle - they take years to get
from breeding the parents to a daughter grown and milking. Goats are ONE
year from breeding to a daughter milking. Lots faster which can be important
if things are falling apart fast.

Goats can be noisy and give themselves away if you have to hide them (don't
want some hungry person stealing them to eat for instance). Nubians in
particular are well-known for being "vocal". Other breeds are quieter -
Nigerian Dwarfs and Pygmies are small and quieter. There are other smaller
breeds, too, but they are rarer and more expensive. If you want to stock up
on hay/feed for goats, buy alfalfa hay. You can even buy it already ground
up and in 50# sealed plastic bags. (It used to be call U.S. Alfalfa but
don't know if it's still going by that name.) This would be good to store as
the plastic keeps out moisture and it's easy to stack. The bag is still
small enough to handle without need of a tractor, etc. With goats, you can
also go out and bring them tree branches to clean up, etc. They are
browsers, not grazers like cattle and sheep. Less likely to pick up
parasites because of that, too. You don't need commercial feeds if you are
feeding alfalfa hay as the protein is high enough. The goats love it and eat
it real well. With the hay being ground up, there is less waste. The goats
tend to pick off the leaves and leave the stems so grinding up everything
stops that - they just dive in and get a big mouthful. We've even had the
hay ground up with some oats/corn in it too, so it's all ground up together.
We stay away from corn now, though, due to most of it being GMO. If you want
the most milk from a goat you can get, milk her three or four times a day.
And milk CLEAN - or the milk won't taste nice. Same for cow milk. You can
milk just once a day if you want to, but you'll get the most by milking more
often (more demand so the goat's body produces more). Goats are good to eat,
too, very healthy. The milk fed kids are like veal. Yes, we eat our goats,
too. If you don't know how to butcher, learn now, not when you are starving
already. Have a couple of good sharp knives, one of them for skinning.
That's all you need. (Slit the throat, don't shoot - shooting makes noise
and gives you away.)

Another word of warning for people wanting to grow their own food--have a
garden, etc. There is a bill, S510, that will make it illegal to do anything
like that anymore (goes after Farmer's Markets, too). It's called a food
safety bill but it's not - it's a food CONTROL bill, pure and simple. Puts
the FDA in charge of all of this so it cuts out our elected representatives
and no longer gives us a voice on what they are doing. Same for the animal
ID using the USDA to implement and enforce it with outrageous fines and jail
time for non-compliance. S510 needs to be STOPPED immediately! We tried to
stop it in the House in July 2009, but they pulled some illegal shenanigans
after the first vote (and they lost) and voted on it again the next day and
it got through by one vote - and then they scrammed for summer break. The
Senate made some changes and made it even WORSE. It may be the most
dangerous bill to date that we've ever seen.

I could go on and on, but I'll spare you -

Anita M.

Dear Anita,

Thanks for the great letter!

Regards,

The Editor

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Is Your Arsenal Up to the Task?

As you sit and marvel at your vast collection of guns, your chest bulging at
the immensity of the firepower before you, you may want to squint and
consider how it might look to you the moment after the EOTWAWKI. When you
consider the staying power versus the firepower, is your arsenal up to the
task of digging in or bugging out for the duration?

The debate on the best calibers to own is endless and is mired in personal
preferences and prejudices that will leave it eternally unsettled. Still, as
you view your collection through the haze of smoke left by mass destruction,
you may want to seriously consider which of your guns will see you through
the chaos.

During times of scarcity, the quantity of ammo will become more important
than the quality of your weapons. The guns you treasure the most may have
little value if ammo is not available. Does this mean you will have to
completely sacrifice quality and optimum firepower? Not necessarily. It just
means you might need to think through your WTSHTF arsenal strategy.

Ammunition shortages are already a reality, especially for odd-ball calibers
or surplus marketed guns. Your concern should be whether ammo can be bought
or scavenged during times of uncertainty. If you are forced away from your
own stockpile, and you run out while you're on the move, you will want your
more popular calibers with you as you are more likely to be able to find
ammo replacements.

Your core arsenal should cover
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Intro to Chicken Farming

If, as part of your emergency preparedness, you have been considering
options for creating a long- term, sustainable food source, chicken farming
has proven to be one of the best. As an ongoing source of nutrient-rich eggs
and lean meat, raising chickens for food is within the reach of anyone with
the space to house them. It's not without its challenges, however, so it
would be wise to understand all that goes into raising chickens for food.

If it were as easy as setting up a coop and then running down to the feed
store to scoop up a brood of chicks, then many preppers would be doing it.
In addition to knowing which breed is farm friendly, the chicken farmer must
be ready to cope with the daily ordeal of feces covered eggs, the unruly
behavior of renegade roosters, and unproductive chickens.

The very first mistake to avoid is to purchase "factory" chicks that are
bred for mass egg production. If placed in a small farm setting, these
chickens will not likely come home to roost. In other words, while they may
be great egg layers, they lack the brooding instincts to hatch the eggs.
Commercial egg production farms have their own mechanisms for hatching the
eggs, so these chickens are not "engineered" to do so.

The best place to find chickens with natural reproductive instincts are at
the smaller farms. Small chicken farmers often run into an over-capacity
situation where their chicken population exceeds the space available.

If you can find the
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Reality Shock: Your Hospital May be Killing You

Just when we thought it was safe to go back to the ER, there is now an
emerging reality that your next trip to the hospital could kill you. In the
midst of the political wrangling spurred by the highly controversial health
care reform legislations, the debate rages on as to the quality of health
care here in the United States. And, while there is plenty of evidence to
show that a person who needs a lung transplant would fare much better in the
U.S. than say, Canada, there's a growing concern that our hospitals are
turning into death traps for the masses.

Long suspected (and little discussed) the dirty little secret is that our
nation's hospitals have turned into breeding grounds for mutant diseases and
infections that have become impervious to even the most advanced
antibiotics. Couple this unsettling fact with the alarming rate of deaths
caused by malpractice, incompetence, over-medication, under-treatment and
avoidance of preventative medicine, it's not difficult to believe that our
hospitals now rank as one of the leading causes of death among all
Americans.

Consider these startling facts:

The CDC reports that each year nearly 2,000,000 hospital patients develop
some sort of infection and that nearly 5% of those cases end in death!

Deaths due to improper or mistaken medications increase by 10% each summer
at medical school hospitals. Why? That's when freshly graduated med students
take over the ERs and ICUs of those hospitals.

Understaffing of overburdened ERs have led to
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For Nutrition on the Run - Eat Like Davey Crockett

Preparations for the flight to safety after a cataclysmic event always
include, at their core, emergency food contingencies. Most preppers take the
measure of stockpiling foods that can survive a long shelf life and that are
suitable for light-weight travel. Dried foods typically dominate the shelf
space as they are the most durable and travel-friendly food alternative.

Just about anything can be dried or freeze-dried, so there can never be any
complaints about variety. The real issue is which foods would provide the
family on the move with the best possible chances of surviving a trek of
unknown duration.

Space limitations are always a critical consideration in emergency travel
and while everyone would like to have some variety of choices, the selection
of foods should be based on packing the most nutritional punch into the
smallest space. Contingency planning for any bug out has to include the
possibility of foot travel, which more severely limits food storage
capability.

To narrow down the choices to those foods that provide the greatest
nutritional value while keeping within the space and weight limitations of
the emergency traveler, one only has to look back in history to the survival
menus of the early-American frontiersmen. Traversing vast patches of
wilderness for weeks or months at a time, these venerable survivalists
required a constant intake of calories and nutrition that was readily
available when game and wild plant food wasn't.

Many of the foods that were found in the packs of yesteryear's backwoodsmen
and soldiers
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