An interesting study was referenced on the National Science Foundation’s website almost two weeks ago. The study was focused on researching success rates between younger and older, male and female hunting dogs. The research was conducted in central America and shines light on little-known areas of the topic.
Nicaraguan hunting dogs, credit: National Science Foundation
Older dogs and male dogs are better hunting companions than younger dogs and female dogs says the author of a new study on the hunting ability and nutritional status of domestic dogs in lowland Nicaragua. In addition, he says, dogs are more suited to wildlife sustainability than other hunting options.
“I was a little surprised to find that male dogs are harvesting more than females because few anthropologists have commented on sex-related variation in hunting ability,” said University of Cincinnati anthropologist and lead investigator Jeremy Koster. “In fact, when anthropologists have reported anything along these lines, it’s usually to report informants’ claims that there are no differences between males and females.”
Koster and anthropologist Kenneth Tankersley, also with the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, recently examined key demographic variables such as age and sex on the amount of harvested game that dogs contribute from subsistence hunting in an indigenous community, which has a long and important role in community survival. The research was one of few projects to study these differences in hunting dogs.
Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, the study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Dr. Koster’s and Dr. Tankersley’s research findings make a crucial contribution to understanding human subsistence strategies in tropical rain forest environments,” said Deborah Winslow, a program director for NSF’s Cultural Anthropology Program. “Such knowledge is essential for preserving these environments while still allowing sustainable economic exploitation. On a larger scale, the research also helps us to understand our evolutionary past, including the reasons that dogs may have been domesticated in the first place.”
Koster and Tankersley found that as both male and female dogs reach three years of age, they tend to increase their hunting success and produce greater harvests. Older, male and female dogs in the study population returned more game to their owners than did younger dogs.
Image of a Mayangna hunter and his dog resting in a dugout canoe. With talented hunting dogs as companions, hunters exhibit return rates that compare favorably to hunting with projectile weapons, including modern firearms, says a new report appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. credit: Menuka Scetbon-Didi
“The increase in hunting success with age could reflect learning via experience,” said Koster, director of graduate studies in Anthropology at UC. “On the other hand, the apparent age-related increase in ability might indicate that only talented hunting dogs reach advanced ages, perhaps because unskilled hunting dogs receive poorer care and die relatively young.
“We expect that hunting ability would eventually decline as dogs get older, but the reality is that few dogs reach eight or nine years old because even well-treated dogs often succumb to snakebites or jaguar attacks.”
There also seems to be a trend that bigger dogs are able to track and corral bigger prey, said Koster, which increases the hunting return rates of their owners, and in general, male dogs are bigger than females. Even so, more work needs to be done to determine if males are better hunting companions at other locations in which locals use dogs to harvest prey, he said.
Koster and Tankersley conducted the study in Nicaragua’s Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, which is part of the largest unbroken tract of Neotropical rainforest in Central America, north of the Amazon Rainforest. The researchers based the study on the hunting activities of the Mayangna and the Miskito, two indigenous ethnic groups, who live along a tributary of the Coco River, not far from the border with Honduras.
Community members in the region capture about 85 percent of harvested mammals with the aid of dogs, according to the report.
“Conservation biologists are justifiably concerned about the impact of subsistence hunting on wildlife populations,” said Koster, “but if sustainable hunting is the goal, then hunting with dogs might be a better option than the alternatives.”
Koster argues that hunters with firearms tend to disproportionately hunt prey that lives in trees, including slow-breeding primates that are easy to over-hunt, whereas hunters with dogs tend to harvest relatively fast-breeding animals such as agoutis, pacas and armadillos. He says these populations are harder to deplete, partly because they adapt well to the heavily-used forests near human settlements.
“Overall, then, if you have a choice of hunting with guns or hunting with dogs, the latter will more likely result in long-term sustainability in many settings,” said Koster, who promotes Amazon Cares, a non-profit organization devoted to the welfare of dogs in rural Latin America.
Most dogs in the study were mutts observed one of Koster’s colleagues at the Saint Louis Zoo. Koster personally observed that there didn’t seem to be much managed breeding of dogs, if at all, among the study population.
The finding leaves open the question which type of dog makes the best hunters, although hunters in the region talk about the different breeds that one encounters in the reserve.
Meanwhile, dogs that are not good hunters are almost never taken on excursions. Instead, they are allowed to lounge around the house and “patio.”
“Perhaps they’re valuable as watchdogs, deterring would-be thieves,” said Koster. He said the researchers didn’t find evidence they received less care than good hunters, but additional study is required for a more authoritative determination.
“It certainly seems like the incapable dogs don’t look as healthy,” said Koster. “They seem to get more mange, for example. Perhaps an owner is less likely to buy medicines for a dog that doesn’t contribute something as a hunting companion.”
The research was funded by a Dissertation Improvement Award from NSF’s Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences. In addition, the Hill Foundation, a William Sanders dissertation grant, the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center and the University of Cincinnati Research Council supported the research.
Join Colorado Ron & Bubba Davinci on their show tonight 8 pm Central on the Preparedness Radio Network. (Click the image for the link or click HERE.)
This week 1/27/2012, on Self-Reliance Expozed, the official Self-Reliance Expo radio show, your hosts Colorado Ron and Bubba DaVinci will be introducing themselves and discussing what the future brings for both the Self-Reliance Expo and Self Reliance Expo’zed.
Tonight they’ll have a special guest who is a long time supporter of the Self-Reliance movement and creator of one of the best solar back-up power units on the market The Humless Sentinel. We will also be introducing a segment called “Radiation Watch”.
BHM Radio and Self Reliance Exposed will alternate weeks in this time slot, Friday at 8pm Central. Please join us again next week for our BHM Radio Show!
With the Dallas’ Self-Reliance Expo right around the corner February 10-11, we want to give individuals and families the opportunities to win FREE tickets to the Self-Reliance Expo! (It’s actually gonna happen in Mesquite, just east of Dallas). What we are looking for:
Entertaining videos which highlight/demonstrate your most innovative Self-Reliance Creations, Contraptions, or Inventions (this can include modifications to products that you use or a tool that you created to fit your needs)
A brief & entertaining instructional video that teaches a Self-Reliance Skill or Short-Cut
A 2-3 minute silent video on anything Self-Reliance themed:
Comedy/Parody
Educational
Entertaining/Creative
Product Review
A humorous video that features a song you write & perform on:
Self-Reliance
the Benefits/Joys of being a Prepper
Buggin’ Out
Things Preppers Say
Life on the Homestead
We have plenty of tickets to give away for the most creative, fun, and entertaining submissions, so have fun & be SAFE! Only selected submissions will win tickets to the event. Winners will be selected by judges from the Self-Reliance Expo, based on creativity & entertainment. We look forward to seeing your content!
It almost goes without saying, but please remember that the content should be appropriate for families to share & we will be featuring the winners on the Self-Reliance Facebook fanpage, an interview, and will likely be featured on other websites online. By submitting the content, you are allowing the Self-Reliance Expo to use that content in a promotional manner, with the opportunity to win a prize of tickets for admission to the Self-Reliance Expo referenced above. You must be the original producer of the content that you submit. Any prizes awarded for selected & featured content do not hold cash value, void where prohibited, winner must confirm contact, blah, blah, blah…
Several Ways to Submit Content:
Upload your content to your YouTube account & Email the link to david[at]selfrelianceexpo[dot]com, or
Send an Email to: david[at]selfrelianceexpo[dot]com with a link to your content outside of Youtube & Facebook
Winning submissions will be notified via email and announced here & on the Self-Reliance Facebook Fanpage. Content will be accepted until February 6, 2012, with the earliest announcement of Ticket winners beginning this Saturday, January 28, 2012. We are accepting submissions from anywhere and everywhere. Remember: be safe, have fun, and be creative!
I’m thinking that if we get enough submissions…we can open it up for a grand prize winner to be announced at the February’s Self-Reliance Expo…the Grand Prize will be awarded to the winner there. The Grand Prize is yet to be determined….but it’s gonna be GOOD!
Our friends Wilson & Chaya at PantryParatus.com wrote a great article, and we are featuring it here with their permission. Enjoy!
Convenience is pretty expensive. The just-in-time logistics system has changed our shopping experience in the Industrialized world. If you pick up the last bottle of ketchup on the shelf, there is no such thing as “the back room” for someone to check to see if there is more.
I have bargain hunting in my genetic makeup. I come from a long line of blue-collar immigrants who worked beyond modern imagination and were determined to get ahead in this great country. My grandmother lived through the Great Depression in a family of ten children. Her pantry was stocked deep at any given time. She gardened actively throughout the summer and always had food in the refrigerator. To her credit, I would put that below the fishes and loaves miracle when you consider how many grandsons she had. If you left her house hungry, it was your own fault. Her basement could have been a Cool-Whip museum for all of the washed, dried, sorted and organized-by-size containers that she kept down there.
So when I passed by this bottle in the break room at work, my upbringing kicked in and I reflexively picked it up to examine it and see what other purpose it might fulfill. After all, the price was right—it was being thrown away. Here is a short list:
Lightning bug catcher—it is winter in Montana, bummer
Food storage container—yes, my grandmother would be proud!
Then the idea hit me that this bottle had a capacity in fluid ounces, but how much food could it store for me?
Great thoughts often sneak up on you, and it eventually came to me that frozen vegetables were on sale at the local grocery store. We dehydrate with our Excalibur 9 Tray pretty much all the time. Bananas were on sale this week and so we have banana chips in process as I write this.
First of all, why glass? As fantastic as plastic is for space exploration, medical devices or fishing line—not all food plastics are the same. We typically reuse all of our glass jars in our house. A spaghetti sauce jar is on a one way trip when it leaves the store. With this experiment, I wanted to reclaim something from the waste stream that can be used for our profit. A post-consumer glass bottle can be taken to the dump or to the bank.
Secondly, why fill the bottle with dehydrated food? I have seen some interesting experiments done with commodities such as rice, oatmeal and wheat in post-consumer bottles before, and I do like the idea. Storing food in a five gallon pail is great, but if you want oatmeal do you really want to break the seal on a five gallon pail for one or two breakfast servings? Ditto for wheat or rice in a spaghetti sauce jar.
There are lots of great posts on the internet telling you how to store water–slightly chlorinated in a two liter soda bottle under the bed is great peace of mind. And it is mighty cheap insurance if you are in earthquake country.
Lastly, why frozen vegetables? Anything that goes into the dehydrator with as much cellulose and fiber as a carrot or corn kernel needs to be blanched first. If you are not familiar with blanching, here is a great article on it from our friend Sharon Peterson at simplycanning.com. Basically you dip the item in boiling water to soften the outside so that you avoid “case hardening” in the dehydrator. You would have to look long and hard to see the down side to something that is blanched (dehydrator ready), pre cut and on sale!
Step one: wash and dry bottle.
Step two: dump frozen vegetables on dehydrator tray.
Step three: set time for dehydrator.
Step four: put dehydrated vegetables in the bottle.
Step five (optional): add oxygen absorber
Here are the vegetables at 12 hours:
Here are the vegetables at 24 hours:
Done!
Later, when frozen vegetables are not on sale, you can still enjoy them in a soup or stew anytime. They will always be on sale to you because you preserved them minus the risk of freezer burn.
I managed to get two one-pound bags into the bottle. As you can see, 2 ½ pounds would have easily made it in there. These will go on the shelf without any further cost to store them.
Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Laurie Gawronski of G & R Foods, Incorporated. Laurie heads the sales of Ballantyne Butter and Bega canned cheddar cheese. Although G & R is based in Wisconsin, they are the largest domestic wholesaler of New Zealand’s Ballantyne butter brand and the nation’s exclusive importer of Australia’s Bega cheddar cheese.
Laurie confirmed that not only will samples of the butter & cheese be available at the Expo, but there will also be an incentive for group purchases of the products. According to her, group buys of the product are popular because of their established and well-known quality. In fact, I also learned that G & R will also have a newer product available at the show. I will let you know more about that product within the next couple of weeks before the Expo, running February 10-11, 2012 in Mesquite, Texas.
Ballantyne's Red Feather Creamery Butter
Ballantyne Butter
Ballantyne is the world’s largest producer of canned butter. Sealed airtight for maximum freshness, this canned butter delivers convenience in the form of extended shelf-life and easy distribution without the need for refrigeration. Take it anywhere. It’s ideal for camping, boating and remote areas where refrigeration is not available. There is no defined expiration date because its shelf-life is primarily dependent upon storage conditions (temperature, humidity, altitude, sunlight/shade, etc.) G& R Foods, Inc., does guarantee the shelf life for two years however, the actual shelf life of the butter will ultimately depend on the storage conditions (temperature being the main factor) and the seal of the can remaining intact. Protection from exposure to oxygen & extreme temperatures will make the butter last for a very long time. Oh, and there are no artificial colors or preservatives. Ballantyne butter is a product of New Zealand.
Bega Cheddar Cheese
Bega Cheese
Bega has been making cheese since 1899 and has found a way to put great tasting cheddar cheese in a can. This product has a natural cream color with medium cheddar flavor and a pleasing texture. The cheese is easy to cut, grate or slice. It’s great melted on a burger, on hashbrowns or just straight out of the can. There is no expiration date on the cans, only the date of production. These cans are guaranteed for 730 days, but if stored properly, will last much longer. This cheese is also hormone free. There are no artificial colors or flavors.
Announcing: Have you wanted to add Backwoods Home Magazine (BHM) to your Red Shed of Self-Reliance Tools? Have you read one of the great educational articles available in their publication? Well, now is your chance to win a FREE 1-year subscription to the PRINT edition of BHM!
BHM has partnered with Red Shed Media Group and the Self-Reliance Expo to air their internet radio show on the Preparedness Radio Network. BHM Radio will air every other Friday at 8 PM Central Standard Time. The BHM Radio show strengthens the magazine’s commitment providing others with practical ideas for self-reliant living.
Tonight 1/20/2012, on BHM Radio , the official Backwoods Home Magazine radio show, your hosts Colorado Ron and Bubba Davinci will be introducing themselves and discussing what the future brings for both BHM Radio and Self Reliance Exposed.
Tonight we have two guests who are long time writers for BHM, Jackie Clay, who specializes in homesteading, and Massad Ayoob, a guns and weaponary specialist.
Follow these steps for your chance to win a FREE 1-year subscription. (In order to win, you MUST create a Username with Blogtalkradio) Follow these instructions to create your username with Blogtalkradio:
Click the Show Link to go to Blogtalkradio, or CLICK HERE.
In the upper right corner of the screen click CREATE MY TALK SHOW
Select Choice #1 & Enter a Username, your Email, and a password. Confirm your password before moving on.
Deselect “Email me occasional updates” if desired.
To finish registering, click the link “Click here”
You will then need to check your email for a confirmation link.
Once you have your confirmation, simply follow the link to the LIVE radio show and join the chat!
Colorado Ron & Scott will ask a question about Backwoods Home Magazine during the show. The first listener who is logged in to chat NOT AS A GUEST but with a registered screen and who answers the question correctly in the chatroom will win the 1-year subscription to Backwoods Home Magazine! If that happens to be you, Ron & Scott will need to follow up with you to claim your prize.
For those of you out there who enjoy the free samples given out at Costco, Farmer’s Markets, or In-Home Presentations, you’re in for a treat at the upcoming Self-Reliance Expo just outside of Mesquite, Texas in three weeks. A team of select Independent Consultants from Shelf-Reliance® & Thrive™ Foods will be there, coordinated by John & Diane Runnells. The Runnells are based out of North Richland Hills, Texas and are excited to share their experience and knowledge of their products.
Shelf Reliance® Consultants will include (click on any one of the links to visit their independent sites):
John & company will have fresh samples available as well as a display of their practical shelving options for storing & rotating home food storage cans. They look forward to answering your questions & arranging free consultations for individuals as well as families. Having tasted tons samples of the Thrive™ Foods, I can vouch for their quality and goodness!
Please be sure to visit their websites where there are many valuable tools available to guide your food storage. Some of the free online tools available through Shelf Reliance® include:
Their online store of course!
Food Calculator- calculate your family’s food storage needs
Recipes- get tastefully creative with your food storage!
How to host a Food Storage Party in your Home
The Thrive™ Q- develop your own personalized food storage solutions
& Many more…
We look forward to seeing you all in Dallas! Please visit www.SelfRelianceExpo.com for details. To order discounted tickets, please visit the Self Reliance Expo Fanpage on Facebook & be sure to Like it.
The following post is re-published with permission from our friends Dr. Bones & Nurse Amy at DoomandBloom.net on December 6, 2011.
Hey Preppers,
We’re heading into winter, and the inability to stay dry in cold weather can cause hypothermia in no time at all. If you remember the movie “Titanic”, you saw hundreds of people bobbing in the freezing ocean after the sinking. Exposure of a large area of the body to cold water causes heat loss very quickly, and you can bet that just about everyone in the water was beyond medical help within 15 minutes. In the unlikely (I hope) event that you find yourself in cold water, you’ll need to have a strategy that will keep you alive until you’re rescued. First, we’ll talk about falling into the water when your boat capsizes, and then we’ll talk about falling through the ice on a wilderness hike.
Water doesn’t have to be cold to cause hypothermia. Any water that’s cooler than normal body temperature will cause heat loss. You could die of hypothermia off a tropical coast! To increase your chances of survival in cold water, do the following:
Wear a life jacket. Whenever you’re on a boat, wear a life jacket (did I really have to tell you?). A life jacket can help you stay alive longer by enabling you to float without using a lot of energy and by providing some insulation. The life jackets with built-in whistles are best, so you can signal that you’re in distress.
Keep your clothes on. While you’re in the water, don’t remove your clothing. Button or zip up. Cover your head if at all possible. The layer of water between your clothing and your body is slightly warmer and will help insulate you from the cold. Remove your clothing only after you’re safely out of the water and then do whatever you can to get dry and warm.
Get out of the water, even if only partially. The less percentage of your body surface out of the water, the less heat you will lose. Climbing onto a capsized boat or grabbing onto a floating object will increase your chances of survival. However, don’t use up energy swimming unless you have a dry place to swim to.
Position your body to lessen heat loss.Use a body position known as the Heat Escape Lessening Position (think H.E.L.P.) to reduce heat loss while you wait for help to arrive. Just hold your knees to your chest; this will help protect your torso (the body core) from heat loss.
Huddle together. If you’ve fallen into cold water with others, keep warm by facing each other in a tight circle and holding on to each other.
How about if you’re hiking in the wilderness, and that snow field turns out to be the icy surface of a lake? Whenever you’re in the wilderness, take a change of clothes in a waterproof container so that you’ll have something dry to wear if the clothes you’re wearing get wet. Also have a firestarter that will work even when wet.
You might be able to identify weak areas in the ice. If a thin area of ice on a lake is covered with snow, it tends to look darker than the surrounding area. Interestingly, bare ice without snow appears lighter! Beware of areas of contrasting color as you’re walking.
Illustrated by Jason Lee, Wired.com
Your body will react to a sudden immersion in cold water by an increased pulse rate, blood pressure, and respirations. Keep calm. You have a few minutes to get out before you succumb to the effects of the cold.
Get your head out of the water by bending backward. Tread water and quickly get rid of any heavy objects that are weighing you down. Turn your body in the direction of where you came from; you know the ice was strong enough to hold you there.
Now, try to lift up out of the ice using your hands and arms. Kick with your feet to give you some forward momentum and to get more of your body out of the water. Lift a leg onto the ice and then lift and roll out onto the firmer surface. Do not stand up! Keep rolling in the direction that you were walking before you feel through. This will spread your weight out, instead of concentrating it on your feet. Then crawl away until you’re sure you’re safe. Start working to get warm immediately.
Armed with a strategy to deal with unforeseen circumstances in the wilderness, a disaster or a collapse, you will stand the best chance of having it be a bump in the road and not the END of the road.
Lehman’s-”the world’s purveyor of historical non-electric merchandise technology”- is hosting a drawing for a recipe which utilizes cast iron cookware in one of four possible categories:
Main Dish
Dessert
Bread
Breakfast
I want to point out that this is a drawing and not a contest to select a preferred recipe. All submissions/entries must be received by Lehman’s by February 1, 2012 at the latest, and the drawing will occur approximately one week later. One winning entry will be selected per each category, with each winner receiving a gift card, redeemable at Lehman’s for products they sell.
Once the winners are selected, their names will be posted on Lehman’s blog. Please visit Lehman’s.com for full details regarding the drawing, and GOOD LUCK!
This is a great & simple video on planting sugarcane stalk from an experienced farmer. These are the kinds of basic skills that we need to preserve in order to foster greater self-reliance for generations to come.
Well, many of us are into our technology as well as our basic self-reliance skills…and we know that CES is still going on right now in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s happening at the Las Vegas Convention Center/The Venetian through Friday, January 13. With so many exciting consumer gadgets, and James Bond-like contraptions, there is a lot of buzz about nifty products Inspector Gadget would be proud to own!
Here’s one of the craziest things I’ve read in the last 24 hours via SFGate:
[SiGNa Chemistry] is ready to sell [the PowerTrekk™ Fuel Cell Charger] that can put the juice back in your cell phone, iPod or GPS device just by adding a little water.
And if there’s no water available, it works with urine.
That’s right, they are promoting their product’s pee-power-production-for-phones! Now, I am not terribly anxious to unzip to recharge, but the idea is pretty cool…if you get stuck in the boonies and are able-to-get-cell-coverage-to-make-an-emergency-call-but-need-to-charge-your-phone-first. Seriously, this product sounds like more of a novelty item for several reasons:
The retail price point is too high (for my taste) for a product that is more of a convenience gadget than a necessity. I’d rather put $200 toward splitting a cow, or getting a new Sun Oven™ , or tons of Sport Berkey® bottles, or toward a Humless Power System!
If I find myself stranded in the wilderness outside of cell range, one of the last priorities I have is to power my electronic gadget…water, food, & shelter are first on my list…and this device will tax the precious blue-gold you are trying to conserve…or at least its golden by-product.
Again, how inconvenienced must I be in order to spend $12 for the chance to charge my phone 6 times ($2 per phone charge)? Perhaps this is best suited for business people who rely on their cell phones while traveling internationally…
...like this guy
I like the ingenuity & commitment it takes to produce a product such as this cell charger, but we’ll see how many REIers use this on the homestead.
Can you think of a creative/funny scenario where you would want to use this product? If so, write us an email and we’ll post the funniest/most creative response we get! Send responses to david[at]thomesteadbasics[dot]com.
The following post quotes an original article written by Emily Guy Birken at CashMoneyLife.com. I am posting my thoughts on her points in that article titled Mistakes Frugal People Make.
Emily’s first example of attempted frugality does a great job at reminding us that many times cheaper is more expensive!
After my son was born, I decided that I wanted to start running to get back into shape. I knew that the best jogging strollers were expensive, but I also knew they were like any other fitness equipment: people used them once or twice and then let them collect dust. I went on Craig’s List, found a jogging stroller in nearby Indianapolis, and happily handed over cash, feeling smugly superior to those retail-paying saps out there.
Except this purchase was a big mistake. The stroller was badly worn, missing a cup holder (a necessity for runners) and seemed to want to pitch my son on the ground anytime I went faster than a trot. I later found out I could have gotten the same stroller new for only about $40 more than I spent…
Craigslist has helped me save a ton of money. There are tons of similar sites which provide the same convenience of “free and quick.” There are also lots of scams to avoid. It may sound trite, but my rule of thumb in using classified sites and buying products: I don’t buy it unless I’m OK with throwing that money away. Some things are worth the cost of buying them new or from a reliable source, like:
expensive electronics or expensive equipment- with little or no documentation on maintenance/performance, you’re risking using a product that is faulty. It may turn on and work for a while, but it might have a problem which motivated its sale for some quick cash.
software- Example: If you find Adobe’s CS5.5 for way under it’s lowest price on reputable sites like Amazon, for like 50 bucks, then I’d keep shopping. It will likely prove pirated, may not function because it is a copy, or have a bunk activation code.
jewelry or genuine precious metals- I am not trained in jewelry appraisal and would not recommend this unless you’re pawn-store sidekick best friend is willing to join you in exchange for lunch.
Emily shares the following four examples to illustrate. Here is her list (my thoughts are italicized):
1. Using credit for the rewards.
While there are many great credit cards that offer cash back and other rewards, sometimes it’s easy to forget that you’re using a credit card that will charge you interest. It can be tempting to look at the percentage you get back for each purchase and whip out the card for everyday and extraordinary expenses. That’s why the credit companies offer these rewards. But if you’re not able to pay off the card each month, it doesn’t matter what perks are offered: you’re paying interest. Only use credit if you have a plan to pay it off each month.
Point 1 Response:
Pay off your credit card monthly…it’s as simple as that! She references points and rewards and stuff, but ultimately the main strategy in using a card is to leverage the lending offer of credit card companies…EXTENDING CREDIT. Although you may not be rewarded by the issuing credit card company for using their money without giving them any, lol.
2. Overplanning.
I’m a big believer in planning ahead as a method for keeping control of my finances. However, there is such a thing as too much planning. When I purchased pounds of organic carrots on sale to make into baby food and freeze, I thought I was being savvy. Unfortunately, my son refused to touch carrots leaving me with a lot of frozen orange mush. Always plan for a little uncertainty. Too rigid a budget, monthly menu plan or grocery list might end up costing you in the long run.
Point 2 Response:
She really is talking about knowing your consumption behavior more than planning your budget here. Being savvy about a great sale is not relevant if you would never use the discounted products…unless you’d resell them! Even so, plan your work & work your plan.
3. Spending a dollar to save a nickel.
This is a common problem among the frugal types. You may be able to get cheaper groceries 20 miles down the road, but is it worth the gas to get there? What about talking yourself into buying a house because you will be able to claim the mortgage interest deduction in your taxes? Don’t let your frugal mindset make you forget the big picture.
Point 3 Response:
The reference to grocery savings vs. money lost in gas is only one aspect of saving money & is old. Perhaps the most important factor in spending is the ability to make purchases of quality; products that will last & perform well! ROI ring a bell?
4. Forgetting what your time is worth. I used to bake bread weekly—it was cheaper and tasty. But as my time becomes more and more crunched, it’s worth it to me to buy store bought. For anything DIY, from cooking to home improvement, take the time to weigh how long it will take you versus how much it will cost you to contract it out. Sometimes it’s worth your money to have more free time.
Response to point 4
I’m a real idealist, meaning that I materialize my ideals. Bread-baking is one of those ideals: the ability to consume fresh whole wheat with minimum cost & simple preps, and enjoy it with family & friends. I will continue to bake bread weekly…to me it’s about being a productive consumer. I don’t blame her for wanting to leverage her time…just be careful about the “weighing time” in analyzing. There is such a thing as analysis-paralysis, that is counter-productive. It’s OK to spread tasks over time. Just be sure to run your schedule, not the other way around.
Cinnamon serves uses beyond bread pudding, french toast, and tea. In fact, Pliny the Elder referenced an unknown native people’s guarding of a pricey cinnamon by “a terrible kind of bats,” circa 77 AD.1 Both bark and flower have their practical application. Following are some important facts about cinnamon which should prove useful to you.
Both cassia and true cinnamon come from the genus Cinnamomum (C.), and the Lauraceae family. Although related, cassia (Cinnamomum aromaticum or Cinnamomum cassia) is not to be confused with true cinnamon, Ceylon cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum or Cinnamomum verum). Cassia identifies cinnamon originating from Southeast Asia and which is the commonly available ground cinnamon here in the States.
Constituents of cinnamon include coumarins, gum, mucilage, sugars, tannins, and volatile oil.1
Bark
Ceylon cinnamon and cassia are easily distinguished by their unique roll structures, texture, and colors:
Ceylon cinnamon have an identifiable single roll, are thin, brittle, and tan in color.
Cassia rolls look like scrolls (double-roll), are thick, hard, and dark brown.
Typically, the bark of cinnamon is used orally. My copy of Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database 2 cites the following ailments/conditions associated with its oral application, as a(n):
anthelmintic- used in addressing parasitic intestinal worms
antidiarrheal- used to treat diarrhea
antiflatulent- used to reduce intestinal gas
antimicrobial- kills or inhibits the growth of microorganisms
antispasmodic- used to suppress smooth muscle spasms within the gastrointestinal tract
appetite stimulant
Twigs
The Chinese name for cinnamon twigs is gui zhi.
Traditionally, the Chinese use the twigs (gui zhi) to stimulate circulation in the hands and feet, enhancing warmth. Its ability to promote sweating assists in caring for individuals with colds.1
Essential Oil
Cinnamon in the essential oil form is often produced via steam or water extraction from the inner bark of the tree.
References
1 Ody, Penelope. The Complete Medicinal Herbal. 1st ed. New York: DK Publishing, Inc.; 1993: 192 p.
Kate Ferry is a beekeeper in Custer, Washington. Her blog is SacredBee.net and offers great information about beekeeping, as well as many matters focusing on self-reliance. She writes:
Are you fascinated by the honeybee?
Do you have access to a bit of land? Anything over about 20 feet by 20 feet will do just fine.
Are you interested in reaping the benefits of a well-pollinated, seasonally rounded garden?
Do you have a spare hour every two weeks or so?
Do you have a sweet tooth for honey?
And, last but not least…
Can you check off the “no” box on the doctor’s information form that asks “Are you allergic to bees”?
If you can answer yes to these questions – any or all of them – then beekeeping might just “bee” the thing for you.
I first became interested in honeybees while studying anthropology in college a few years ago. The social structure of the honeybee is unlike any other living organism and the level of organization, community and work ethic is second to none. Inside the hive, they are truly remarkable creatures. Outside the hive, they are both critically beneficial and incredibly fascinating to study.
After graduating from college, I enrolled in a six-week course at a honeybee learning centre just outside Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was an intense learning environment and it only fueled my interest and determination to bring honeybees into my life.
That next spring I jumped in headfirst and haven’t turned my back on them since. For the past seven years, I have enjoyed keeping bees at my homestead in northwest Washington. And, through trials and tribulations have managed to keep the honeybee a sacred part of my life and that of my family.
But, back to you and keeping YOUR bees…
1 - First things first – Read up on honeybees. Get familiar with the terms and the level of time involved. Start to understand the basics and what you will be tackling when you make the commitment.
My absolute favorite book on beekeeping goes by a somewhat embarrassing moniker, but it’s loaded with quality information that is presented in an easy-to-follow format – whether you are a complete novice or well-practiced beekeeper.
Beekeeping For Dummies by Howland Blackiston and Kim Flottum
The second and third book worth taking a peek at are Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture by Ross Conrad & Gary Nabhan and The Backyard Beekeeper – Revised and Updated: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden by Kim Flottum.
Still ready to keep going? Good, because you’re gonna have fun!
2 – Find your local beekeeper’s association and check it out. And, if you are lucky enough to find one or get to a meeting and meet one – try, try, try to hook up with a mentor that you can observe in the field and go to with question after concern after inquiry.
3 – Get your ducks, er bees, in a row. Find that plot of land to keep your hives. Order your gear through a local supplier or a number of online retailers including Mann Lake and Glory Bee. Start-up cost for one single hive and all brand-new gear is going to be about $200 to $300. Be on the lookout for used beekeeping gear (hat, suit, smoker, etc…) but, be wary of used equipment (hive boxes, frames, tools). Hive parts can harbor diseases and parasites that may have infected the previous colony and transfer over to your new, healthy bees.
4 – Scout out sources for acquiring your bees. A box of bees is going to run you about $80 and a nucleus colony is around $100.
Order them online through a retailer of choice
Get in with your local beekeeper’s association and join in on their group order
For the brave at heart – capture a swarm (a.k.a. FREE BEES!!)
5 – Enroll in a formal course. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, check out the Honeybee Centre in Surrey, B.C., Canada. Otherwise, you can check out your nearest university and ask to speak with their agriculture department. Most state universities offer extension courses at the very least, but a number of them have an apiculturist on staff, too!
Well, if you know you aren’t planning on keeping honeybees, thank you for sticking with me and reading the past 600 words. The next bit pertains to those interested in welcoming honeybees into the garden and providing a safe haven for an endangered insect.
The past five years have seen an enormous decline in honeybee colonies.
The honeybee population is vanishing at an apocalyptic rate and keepers are opening the hives in spring to find them empty. The fate of the honeybee is particularly worrisome when considering that over one-third of the food on our table is the direct result of honeybee pollination.
So, even if you aren’t interested or can’t keep honeybees, you would doing a world of good to educate yourself on how to help keep them relatively safe and enjoy the benefits of their industrious work ethic.
How can you help?
Keep that garden natural – a bonus for the honeybee, your home, your health and your environment! Avoid pesticides at all costs and work with natural, environmentally friendly products. Or, embrace the weeds.
Try to have a variety of flowers and plants in your yard that are in bloom all year round. Think early spring to harvest time – work with the dandelions in April and finish with some sedum in late fall.
Get those wasps. Wasps are carnivores that feed on honeybees. A hive can be severely incapacitated by a wasp attack and the only evidence for the keeper is the body remnants after wasps have dissected the abdomens of the bees. Wasp queens are all that live over winter and are responsible for starting the entire hive on their own come spring. So, each wasp you kill in late winter or early spring (you know those sneaky slow movers that come out of the wood pile?) is one wasp hive down. An affordable and effective organic bait for wasps is half orange juice/half water in any sort of trap. If you use a sugar bait – you are going to be killing honeybees, too (a big no-no).
Host a hive. Contact your local beekeeping association and let them know you are interested in hosting a hive. Your provide the land and an experienced beekeeper provides and cares for the bees and gives you a portion of the honey harvest for your support and participation. Can you say win-win?!
Keeping bees is a wonderful hobby, but is understandably not for everyone. Even if honeybees are not an integral part of your life, they can find nectar and pollen from organic sources in your yard.
Give beekeeping a whirl – it’s truly a delightful pastime and a special stewardship to the honeybee.
The following article is a featured post by Donovan Baldwin. He covers the essential principle of frugality, a practice ALL homesteaders cherish! Enjoy:
One of the things that takes some getting used to, especially as a senior citizen on a fixed income, is living on that fixed income.
credit: moneysense.gov.sg
Even if you have a healthy retirement income; investments, a 401K plan and Social Security benefits, when you stop working, your income comes out of that nest egg which is, for most of us at least, a diminishing bucket of funds.
So, anything you can do to protect your money and economize means that little pot of money will last longer, be there for you when you have an emergency or be available for fun things which is what retirement is supposed to be all about.
If you are someone who is able to continue to prepare your own food, you are already well ahead of the game because one mega expense for any budget at any age is the food budget. And, if you are buying food for a spouse, older children still at home (common these days) or you are helping to raise the grandkids (not un-common), you might see a food budget that can get out of control.
So, it pays to come up with some tips for how to slash that food budget but do so in away that does not hurt the quality of food you eat or feed your family.
Like charity, economy begins at home; so, you can do a lot before you even get to the grocery store by learning to use everything you buy.
An investment in some quality storage units so you can keep leftovers fresh or keep fresh vegetables or fruits on hand will help you eat everything you buy and cut down on waste. In fact, if you like to garden, you can even take the organic waste such as coffee grounds and apple cores and make your own compost which can go into your garden to help grow your own food next spring.
But, still, the key to saving money at the grocery store is to be a smart shopper.
Remember that grocery stores stock lots of items that are made to appeal to people who want convenience over low prices. So you can save a lot of money by avoiding fast foods, frozen foods or “TV dinners” and buying the ingredients to make your own meals every day.
NOTE: Years ago, I worked in the grocery industry, and every inch of the store is designed and intended to help you part with your money. Nothing in a grocery store is where it is, or how it is, by accident. One of the ways to defeat the “superior” advantage these stores have is to make your shopping list at home and stick to it. If you realize that you need something NOT on that list, start a new list with it when you get home. If you have to go back to the store for one item now and again, that is better than adding item after item that you “forgot” once you are in the store.
Being a smart shopper also means knowing when and where to shop and how to find the good values in food and grocery supplies at the store. Some core principles of smart shopping are as follows:
1. If you can buy in bulk – do so.
Most items are cheaper at the unit cost level if you buy larger quantities. So if you can buy and store more food at once, you can take advantage of those savings. However, in the last few years, the grocery chains, and independents, have caught on to this. Take a calculator and do the math for yourself.
2. Avoid impulse purchases.
Stores carefully place items that are appealing so you will buy higher priced items. Work from a list and stick to your list. Exactly as I said earlier.
3. Slice your own cheese.
Pre-sliced cheese comes at a higher price. Buy a good cheese knife and buy cheese in blocks and slice it yourself. In fact, almost anything which requires preparation before the purchase will cost more.
4. Buy fresh produce. Fresh foods are not only better for you nutritionally, they are cheaper. As in number 3 above, it takes preparation to get that food into a can…and you pay for the can!
5. Know your town.
Each grocery store has certain categories they do best at outselling the others. Know what stores are good with produce, with meat and with everyday savings and create your shopping lists accordingly.
NOTE: However, if you have to burn a $3.00 gallon of gas to save $2.00 on groceries, it isn’t worth it. I used to live in a small town where the three grocry stores were within a half mile of each other, however. I took their ads and made my shopping list accordingly and saved a bunch of money each week by buying specials at each store. One store always had the cheapest meat, so I always shopped there. I flirted with the female butcher too, and that helped.
6. Know your store.
Each week, your store marks down certain items in preparation for the weekend. Routinely they will slash the prices of fresh meat to get rid of last week’s supply in preparation for the higher priced specials for this week. The Kroger down the street from me is a prime example, no pun intended.
If you know when that stuff hits the shelves, you can score big savings and freeze what you buy to use over the next few weeks.
7. Know your items.
Saving money on groceries works best if you treat it as a business. Learn your price points of what is a good price for each item on your list. Try to buy under those price points so your budget is controlled.
8. Buy store brands.
While you may find the occasional tough piece of asparagus in the store brand, overall you will save and get good tasting, nutritous food products. Even more, such things as store brand toilet paper, paper towels, and pet supplies can be just as good as name brand items.
When generics first hit the market, many were pretty bad. However, a whole new industry has sprung up and there are companies providing quality items under various labels to cover different store brands. About half of what I get at the grocery store is store brand.
9. Use coupons.
Don’t turn your nose up at using grocery coupons. Saving ten cents off of a dollar item may seem like chump change, but it’s 10%! Take 10% off a weekly grocery bill of $100 and you save $10 a week or $520 a year.
Actually, if you treat grocery coupons like a business, you can save even more. My best performance was the day the cashier rang up $120 before the coupons, and I paid her $20 and some odd cents after coupons.
Would you like to save $100 a week on groceriea?
It can be done.
10. Leave the rugrats at home.
Sorry, don’t mean to sound disparaging. Too many years in the army , I guess. However, the fact is that children will generally add dozens of items to your shopping cart, distract you from your mission (army again) and slow you down.
Leave them out of the picture and you won’t have to buy their impulse items and the trip will go faster too. Remember the list? Was Cocoa Pebbles on it?
“But Grandma………..”
By being a smart and savvy shopper, you can stretch your food budget and see an impressive savings on what you spend on groceries. That, in turn, helps you stretch your retirement savings which means a longer and more prosperous retirement and one that is more worry free as well.
Speaking as someone on Social Security and military retirement, that is worth the extra effort.
Today’s featured post comes to us courtesy of Dr. Bones & Nurse Amy from Doom & Bloom! He has wonderful articles full of practical information for homesteaders, preppers, and the rest of open-minded folk!
“Have you ever wondered how likely it is that you’ll be able to produce all the calories you’ll need on the piece of land you have? How much land for livestock? How about those solar panels you were thinking about? How many square feet of panels will provide you with the electricity you’ll need? The folks at one block off the grid, that’s 1bog.org have figured this out for you.
Let’s start by talking power.
In a collapse situation, you’ll probably be able to rely on the sun and wind and not much else, unless you’ve built a watermill. The best answer might be installing some solar panels on your roof. This is a commonly available option that many people are considering nowadays.
Let’s say part of your roof is facing South (the best place for a solar panel) and you get 7 hours or so of sunlight, on average. To get the amount of power that an average home uses in a year, you’ll need 375 square feet of panels. These things aren’t cheap, and that much hardware is going to be beyond the average family’s financial reach. This means that you’ll have to make decisions regarding how to ration the power you ARE able to produce.
Look around the house, and you’ll probably see lots of things that are plugged in that you can eliminate if the you-know-what ever hits the fan. This is part of the planning you’ll need to do now, so that you’ll be better prepared for times of trouble.
How about food? If you have a family of four, you’ll want to provide at least 2000 or so calories per adult, more if you’re a big guy, maybe a little less for kids. The formula is simple: At least 30 calories per kilogram of body weight. One kilogram equals 2.2 pounds, so an 80 kilogram adult would weigh 176 pounds. 30 x 80 = 2400 calories/day. Less for kids, of course. You’ll need to provide 8000-9000 calories a day to maintain your family’s weight.
One block off the grid separates your garden out in three categories: fruits, berries and vegetables, then wheat, then corn. If you went totally vegetarian, you would need a little less than half an acre per person to provide all of those calories. That means a family of 4 needs almost 2 acres of farmable land! If you stock up on wheatberries and use your handy dandy Wondermill, you can cut that down a bit. Corn isn’t a very land-efficient crop, but you might need it for your livestock. An alternative if you need to trim that acreage more is to stock up on bushels of corn feed; that’s about 56 pounds of feed for about $8-10. This is a good idea, but you’ll use a lot of it. It takes 10 bushels of corn to get a hog from weaning to slaughter. Btw, corn prices are going higher, they were less than 5 dollars a couple of years ago.
Don’t forget, you’ll need some land for hog wallows, goats, rabbits and chickens. All of these animals can be raised in relatively small amounts of space. A good 200 square feet for 3 hogs, more if they have piglets, less for each of the other animals. You might have to forget about cows, they aren’t land-efficient. If you want milk, think about goats, especially Nubian Goats. This variety can produce 1800 lbs. of milk a year, according to 1 block off the grid. That’s a lot of milk! How about eggs? The average family of four will eat 1000 eggs a year or so. To reliably get this quantity, you’ll need about 13-15 birds in your henhouse, depends a lot on the breed.
You could probably squeeze this all in with an acre and a half of land. If you don’t have that much property, now you know you’ll need that much more food storage to make up for the difference. This is information I thought was important for me to know, and now you know it too.”
Bikes and motorcycles of various kinds and sizes were the rage a couple summers back when gas prices went through the roof. Will they again gain popularity when fuel prices get as high as they did before?
Will bikes be in our foreseeable future because of economic considerations? Or, are we locked into our normal routines of transportation?
I’ve got a recommendation that may be better than a bike for you. Consider the adult sized tricycle.
No kidding. Don’t laugh.
A trike has a lot going for it, especially if you’re unable to ride a bike for any reason at all. I could never ride one, so an adult trike works great for me.
There may be good reasons one will be a solution for you, too. For example, you may be someone who doesn’t have the sense of balance you used to have. Or perhaps you’ve put on extra weight over the years.
What if you have a disability or some sort of medical limitation that keeps you from riding a bike? Or what if you’re afraid a bike isn’t safe for you to ride? Then why not get a trike?
A trike is a low cost, alternative means of transportation just about anyone can use. A basket behind the seat can be used to carry groceries or other items. Because a trike is stable, you could pull a small trailer for transporting a child. Or you could put camping supplies in it.
If there’s an electromagnetic pulse in the not too distant future, it’s likely cars won’t be going anywhere. But you’ll still be able to travel on a trike. That makes a trike a great means of survival transportation.
Of course, you don’t have to wait for society to collapse first. A trike will let you go on short errands nearby and leave the car at home. Imagine getting trikes for the whole family and going on little excursions such as to the park for a picnic.
The comfort of a trike ride will enable you to go farther than you might think. An obvious benefit is the exercise you get, in addition to the fun.
Give it some thought. One day you may enjoy the simplicity and fun of survival transportation with the third wheel.
One of the reasons I have a such a great time traveling to Utah is because of the almost endless amount of creative products & services having to do with Self-Reliance, Homesteading, Emergency Preparedness, and just plain old frugal living. I recently met two brothers who have created the coolest functional and neatest looking site aimed at helping people calculate the basics for food storage…and emergency supplies…
I started off with the free version and experienced just how simple it is.
After I set-up my account & inputted where I’m currently at, I decided that I wanted to extend my goal & customize my plan.
In order to customize your plan, you’ll need to pay for the upgrade…only $3 a month!!!
Once you upgrade, you can also input your current inventory of Emergency Supplies & customize that plan too!
Their site is super simple to navigate…and it’s a great looking one too!
Another aspect I liked about their customization option is that it allows a family like mine to address dietary requirements specific to our situation…same goes with the Emergency Supplies option in their “recommended account”. The recommended account is their way of referring to the paid version.
Colorado Aquaponics is one of our newest exhibitors of our upcoming Self Reliance Expo. They offered us a tour of their facility. Here is a brief video showing their setup. Check them out! I am seriously close to pulling the trigger on setting up my own aquaponics setup.
Below is a great presentation given by David Christopher at the Self Reliance Expo. David’s father is the one who started The School of Natural Healing. He offers some great advice about how to heal yourself naturally where there is no medicine.
Today I have the opportunity to start our very own radio show. For our first episode I wanted to do something fun. A lot of emails come in asking me what the best “do-it-all” type vehicle is available. I will cover this topic in depth over our 30 minute show. Its today at 4:30 MST. Hope you join in!
In order to keep you and your family and safe, we are providing you with a list of the possible allergens in each of our THRIVE products. If someone in your family has a food allergy, please pay close attention to this list. Included in the list is the information about which of our products are GMO free.
With the Dallas’ Self-Reliance Expo right around the corner February 10-11, we want to give individuals and families the opportunities to win FREE tickets to the Self-Reliance Expo! (It’s actually gonna happen in Mesquite, just east of Dallas). What we are looking for:
Lehman’s-”the world’s purveyor of historical non-electric merchandise technology”- is hosting a drawing for a recipe which utilizes cast iron cookware in one of four possible categories:
This is a great & simple video on planting sugarcane stalk from an experienced farmer. These are the kinds of basic skills that we need to preserve in order to foster greater self-reliance for generations to come.
Point 3 Response:
I first became interested in honeybees while studying anthropology in college a few years ago. The social structure of the honeybee is unlike any other living organism and the level of organization, community and work ethic is second to none. Inside the hive, they are truly remarkable creatures. Outside the hive, they are both critically beneficial and incredibly fascinating to study.
No kidding. Don’t laugh.
