Saturday, March 23, 2013

Blessed with Girls!!! Cute Pics

I love my goats!!!  They are smart, funny, Bossy and give us a supply of fresh yummy milk.  So far two of my darling ladies have kidded.  I have ended up with 3 does and one little buckling.  The first two Peter and Tinkerbell are now 5 weeks old.  They jump on me every time I go out there.  Now we have 2 more both are precious little girls.  Yes we are nerds (according to my teenage step-daughter) they are named Megan and Jenny for the Delaney sisters off of Star Trek Voyager.  The momma is full blooded Nubian and their Daddy is fiull blooded Alpine so one ended up with floppy Nubian ears  (that one is Jenny) and the other with some funky half up half down ears (that one is Megan)




Jenny has the floppy ears and Megan has the straight ears

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Prepping... Not a new way of life

Lets get into the way back machine.....  To the time of prehistoric peoples that were hunter/gatherers.

During the warm summer and fall months food and supplies would be laid in for the winter.  If they did not prepare for the up coming winter they would have starved by spring.  They prepared their shelter and kept guard for dangers.  Prepping was normal and if you did not you would starve.

Now we can move forward many thousand years to our ancestors.  The farmers of the new land.    There were stores or "mercantile" then but they were few and far apart.  It could be more than a days ride to go to a store and then many things had to be ordered from a catalog which would in turn take many days to get to you.  UPS and FEDex were not around.  They too had to lay in their crops and supplies during the warm fruitful months or risk starving.  They knew they had to have extra in case of a failed crop.  Prepping was normal and if you did not you would starve.  Food preservation was a normal way of life, smoking meat and canning was normal and was passed down to the next generation.

Now we come to our age in time.  The disposable society...  A store is never more than a few minutes away by car.  Many people do not keep more than 3 days worth of food in their home.  They are comfortable that those stores will always be there.  I even know of a few that shop every day for the next days food!  Now you must be crazy to keep a years worth of food.  Now to prepare for any unforeseen disaster is not normal.  Canning and smoking is now considered an "art".  Biscuits are no longer made with flour instead they come out of a can.

What happened???  What was normal for tens of thousands of years has now been changed to crazy in only a few hundred.  I remember the stories of the great depression from my grandparents.  Stories of being hungry and having to stand in line for rations.  That was less than a hundred years ago.  The farmers that produced their own food was not hit by the onslaught of the depression nearly as much as the city dwellers that depended on money and stores.  My Grandparents taught me the value of preserving and putting away supplies for in case of an emergency.  The depression happened without warning and if you had asked just before the economic crash of the depression you would have heard just like now.  "The chance of something like that happening is remote"

Well folks I hate to tell you that "remote" chance became reality!!!  Now again they are saying there is a "remote chance" of an economic collapse...

So as for me and my family... I am not listening to the "remote chances" and I am plan on being prepared to the best of my ability for whatever is down the road.  If I just rotate my preps for the rest of my life and nothing happens then so be it.  That will make me happy.  But to not be prepared and something happen would be a very bad thing.  And also sad because if I was not prepared then that would mean that all the speeches from my elders were for naught and I will not disrespect them in that way. 

I was raised to respect my elders.  And respect them and their wisdom I shall!!!