Last Winter's Projects

Now that spring is finally here and since this is a year that many people are going to be
interested in survival preparations, it is a good idea to evaluate how well your last winter's
projects performed. Those projects that performed well should be retained and utilized
again for the coming winter. Those projects that didn't pan out will be either modified or
discarded. Winter climates will not be the same for everyone, so each will have differing
winter projects for survival and the homestead. My winter climate is long, cold, dark, very
snowy and it is either coming or it is already here, so winter is important to prepare for in
my part of the country. Count on winter in North Idaho to last from the middle of October
through the end of March and sometimes extending into April. Your climate may be
different, but you will still want to maintain a homestead and survival operation.
Your projects will likely be different and tailored for your own preps. I will examine a few of
mine here to give you an idea of how to evaluate the projects you may have undertaken.

First, I wrote about growing Duckweed as a green to feed to the chickens over the winter.
This only partly panned out. My intention was for the Duckweed to propagate, be harvested
and allowed to propagate and be harvested again indeterminably. Eventually, several tubs of
Duckweed would be grown inside and Tilapia fish would be added to provide meat for
chickens, dogs, cats and humans on the homestead. The Tilapia would eat the Duckweed,
both would be harvested and allowed to re-populate in the tubs. In practice, the Duckweed,
even when inside was not very hardy. Duckweed is a tropical pondplant and will die off over
our winters which is why I attempted to grow it inside. It lasted through December before
dry and cooler air did it in. Overall it was not a bad experiment, but good for only supplying
greens through half of the winter. In evaluation, I will scrap this project to grow a
conventional potted plant like clover or possibly dandelion to provide greens for the
chickens through the winter. I will need to add a grow light or sun lamp into the logistical
equation.

My second project was an experiment in making new garden patches easier to work in the
spring. Learning from a neighbor that one could cut the grass and plants down to the sod,
then cover with black or opaque plastic sheeting. This would insulate the soil and allow the
worms underneath to stay active over the winter. The worms would, then eat the grass,
pulling the blades under and tilling the soil for you. This would make the soil loamy and
ready to plant inthe spring saving the gardener a lot of work. While this did not exactly work
as intended, I still count the experiment as successful. I clipped my new garden area right to
the ground and covered with green colored fiberglass panels as that was the material I had
available. While this did not keep the grass from growing, it did help the worms stay active
and kept the soil drier and easier to work in the spring. Comparable to the last few springs,
the drier soil was much easier to work and till with only a spade. I will continue this practice
every year.

Experiment number three has still be be evaluated as not much experience has been gained
at it. I moved my blacksmithing operations into the chicken coop for the winter. This was to
keep the chickens warm in the coldest part of winter and allow me to work at smithing
projects. Unfortunately due to a couple of injuries I was unable to really get at any projects.
So far, however, it appears the noise and bustle is going to bother the chickens for too much
work. I will try again next winter and hope for zero injuries.

The new Survivalist Magazine has been mailed and I am looking forward to reading it. This
one has two of my articles in it. If you are interested in survival, self sufficiency and
homesteading you should subscribe at http://survivalist.com/ . Check in at
http://northwoodstraders.ecrater.com/ for new products for blacksmithing coming soon.

More 2012 Preps Considerations

A couple of entries ago we delved a bit into the 2012 fad and survivalism/prepping. Of
course, I am preparing. Not necessarily for the end of the world, but for general
homesteading, life and survival. Oh, yeah ....and just in case, the end of the world. After all
of the talk of earth changes, supervolcanoes, peak oil and solar flares, the most plausible
threat that I see on the horizon and has an ever increasing chance of actually happening
within this year is the threat of the suspension of Constitutional Law and the full
implementation of totalitarianism. Totalitarianism has already been encroaching within our
society and is increasing nearly daily. Why kid ourselves? Constitutional Law is already
being ignored. We have, in essence, totalitarianism already. There are just less bureaucrats
than there are people for now, so not everyone has felt the full weight of "administrative
law" yet.

That day is comming, however. In the middle of this economic depression, yeah, we are still
in the middle of a depression that began in 2008, there are municipalities that are creating
rules to regulate or even ban gardens. There are rules against how many chickens you can
raise, drinking the milk from your own cows or goats and the types of trees you can have in
your own yard. We have a marxist president with questionable creditentials of citizenship
who just signed a bill allowing himself color of law to "disappear" and outright assassinate
citizens (NDAA). Times are not going to get better anytime soon as marxism is firmly
entrenched in most of America's bureaucracies in most municipalities. Marxist economic
policies are not going to improve our economy. If you have studied history you will find that
wherever marxist policies were employed conditions became much worse. Marxism has
failed everywhere it was employed and will fail here as well. Unfortunately, it will make
things horrendously worse before it is finally abandoned.

Marxism cannot exist in an environment that will allow alternatives to or competition to
marxism. When offered the freedom to keep and use the fruits of one's own labor as one
sees fit, people will forsake marxism in droves. Therefore, marxist or those in what passes
for our government (our government is defined by our Constitution, not what we have now)
cannot allow citizens to provide for their own needs, utilize their own resources and trade
within their own communities outside of government influence. This would create a
competing economy to marxism and one which would allow more efficient use and trade of
resources. Whenever such alternatives to the marxist system is found by the bureaucrats,
they will send better men than themselves via police or military to attack, arrest or murder
self sufficient citizens. This could lead to a civil war. If it doesn't it will lead to totalitarian
tyranny. Either situation will make things horrendously worse.

As we can see totalitarianism happening in front of us to greater degrees day by day, I
believe this scenario should be in the forefront of every survivalist/prepper's preperations.
Belief in a 2012 Mayan proficy pointing to a great disaster should not be considered
nonsense. There is nothing wrong with preparing for a great disaster in whatever guise you
deem most logical. As I've stated, earth changing events have happened in the past and will
happen again. We all should be on consant guard and prepared for such events. What we
should not do is turn our preparatory interests into a fad pinned on a singular date.
December 21 of this year may come and go without incident. If it does, December 21 of
2013 will see me equally prepared. If a great disaster or even civil war does take place this
year or tomorrow, I will be ready.

I hear the latest issue of Survivalist Magazine will be out soon. I have two articles being
published in this one. One is on blacksmithing and metal working in a post great disaster
situation. If you wanted to know how to work metal tools with no electricity or infrastructure
and to rebuild society, this is an article for you. The other article will be on the Yellowstone
supervolcano. there are means to prepare for even this earth changing disaster. A later
issue of Survivalist Magazine will have another of my articles published in it on Survivng
The New World Order. This one will deal with Civil War within the U.S. and how to survive
it. I am currently writing an article for another upcoming issue on Pioneer Blacksmithing.
There are many tools and methods you will want to consider for metal working and
blacksmithing. Blacksmithing is a skill you may want to develop for yourself in the future.
This article will help.

You can subscribe to Survivalist Magazine by going to http://survivalist.com/. I
wholeheartedly recommend Survivalist to everyone in the survivalist/prepper movement or
if you are just learning.

Business

There always has to be one. A bad apple that is determined to spoil it for the rest. When conducting a business you always seem to run into one. Unfortunately, I just ran into one when I was least expecting it. If you haven't noticed some of the ads for North Woods Traders at the sidebars of this blog, I sale hard to find movies and a miniseries DVDs on my store site. These are otherwise unavailable to people who have seen these movies back in their day and wanted to share with a family member or just want to see again. They are burned onto DVD disks by my supplier and are VHS quality, but are really a hoot to be able to watch again and I own several of these movies myself.

Now, it is important to note that there is a loop hole in the copyright laws which allows my supplier to privately sale these DVDs because they are not available in this format. Therefore NOT illegal. Which brings us to the problem I had just encountered. After sending a set of DVDs off to a customer I found a dispute lodged in my PayPal account. I hadn't received any prior notice, no e mail or any contact beforehand, just a dispute. I e mailed the customer informing him of our return policy and let him know that I would refund his money. It was later that I read his reason for filing a dispute. He believed the DVDs were illegaly copied. The problem I had was that I had a customer who contacted me via e mail with a legitimate problem on the same day. I stupidly assumed that both problems were related to a flaw in the products and discontinued them from my store immediately. I should have looked further into things before acting.

The customer with the legitimate problem was a very sweet lady who wanted the DVDs for her mother and the DVDs weren't working on her player. She contacted me first to make the situation right. I contacted my supplier who thought that the type of DVD may have something to do with the problem and could use another brand to make another set so I could get them off to my customer free of charge. I informed the customer of this, but she had already worked things out with the original set and everyone was happy. It was after this that I had read the reason that the bad apple filed a dispute on my account. It was then that I realized I had what one store owner calls a "troll" on my hands. He tells me that he will sometimes run into a "troll" who will lodge a complaint, leave unfavorable feedback or file a dispute merely for the sake of upsetting things that are otherwise operating smoothly or for the hope of receiving free merchandise. And that's what I am sure I had with my bad apple.

Now that I know what is going on and that the DVDs are in good working order I am adding them back to my store. I will reinstate the ads and links on this blog. I do advise customers to be sure that their DVD palyers will play burned DVDs though. Because the one customer I had who had this problem was very sweet about it, I will replace DVDs that do not work or refund the money. I am also stating here that these DVDs are not illegal, they are hard to find movies and you will not view them on DVD any other way. I have now started a bad apple list of people that I will not accept orders from. So far, this list consists of only one bad apple and I will share this list with other merchants who ask via e mail. I will not let this bad apple ruin it for the rest of us. So far, I will continue to run the store and sale the movies as I have been. I believe that most people are not after something for nothing and are willing to work with you to help assure that you are selling a quality product. For those interested the movie and entertainment page of my store site can be found at: http://northwoodstraders.ecrater.com/c/655400/media-movies-documentaries-entertainment-books

Thank you to my customers and I will add more movies soon.

2012

This is the year many people have been alternately fearing and preparing for. 2012. The
Mayan calander seems to stop on December 21, 2012 leading some to believe the Mayans
knew something about the end of the world as we know it. In my own opinion, I believe the
Mayan calender merely resets at this point and simply begins a new cycle. It is a perfect
point in time to do so for a people who knew so much about astronomy and observation of
seasons and celestial movements. That does not mean, however, that nothing bad is going
to happen. Minor to major disasters happen all of the time as weather and tornados in the
Eastern US has just recently shown us. Earth changing events like major earthquakes, a
supervolcano, Pacific wide tsunami or EMP producing solar flares could all happen. Maybe
even this year. This doesn't mean they will happen this year, but have in the past and
probably will sometime again. Natural disasters haven't even covered what is a real, major
threat staring us in the eye right now. That is the threat of our America becoming a
totalitarian police state. I certainly don't think that the Mayans had the degradation of
society into a dictatorship in mind when they ended their calender on December 21st this
year, but it is necessary to note that throughout history nations have risen from the
necessity of securing their own freedoms and liberty to degrade into socialism, then into
police states to collapse and sometimes disappear. We are certainly seeing the degradation
and possibly the outright collapse of our society now.

Though, the year 2012 in and of itself is not a threat, threats are out there and, as always, it
is our duty to prepare for ourselves and our families against those threats. Since most of the
major threats include world wide economic, political and grid collapse it is in the best
interest of the survivalist to work toward becoming self sufficient. Survivors of the Great
Disaster, whatever and whenever that will be, will need to provide for their own needs, grow
their own food, purify their own water, provide their own sanitation, lighting, heat, power,
even fuel. There will be no more convenience or grocery stores, no more Wal Marts, no
more hardware stores, no more gas stations, no more sporting goods store. Electricity will
stop flowing through the wires, natural gas lines will be disrupted and cities could possibly
burn. Wow, that's a lot of doom and gloom if you're not involved in the survivalist/prepper
mindset. If you are a part of the survivalist/prepper mindset, however, this is not doom and
gloom at all. It is just a reset to what is really the backbone of society. A return to individual
initiative and the neighborhood or community as a source of manufacture and daily life. Yes,
Virginia, we can rebuild and provide for ourselves. We just need to begin at home.

I have been practising what I preach for a good many years now and it seems I learn
something new every year. This year I'm starting with garden boxes. These will give raised
garden beds which will drain well in our wet springs, improved soil, and I'll be able to build
them where I wouldn't normally be able to plant giving me more growing room. The garden
boxes will be hand crafted from forged tools and timber logged from the national forest by
myself on my homestead. This means extremely low cost, which means I will have as many
as I wish or can spare the time to work on. At least til I run out of space. This also means
more food for the winter of 2012. Firewood gathering season is also nearly here. I have
heated the homestead exclusively with wood for the past 20+ years. Once the core wood is in
heating the homestead through the winter of 2012 will be ensured no matter what
disruptions in the infrastructure occur. There are plenty of sources of water in my mountains
and access to springs, streams, rivers and lakes are not a problem. I will purchase some
new filters for the aqua rain this year and it is always possible to build a filter from
instructions included in Cresson Kearney's Nuclear War Survival Skills. I will, once again,
expand on the smithy. This will allow me to forge more tools and products which I am using
to build a homesteading business. This will also be important for trade in a post Great
Disaster world which will help to rebuild manufacturing and trade. Foraging will play a large
role in my food preps. Huckleberries, blackberries, plumbs, mushrooms, thimbleberries,
apples and cherries are all prevalent in my area. Fishing and hunting will bring in a lot of
protein for the table.

All in all I think I'll be ready for the winter of 2012. I'll post more on the subject here in the
future. Check in from time to time. There may be some ideas you'll want to incorporate into
your own plans. I have written an article for Survivalist Magazine that will be coming out
soon. It is about blacksmithing and building a forge in a post 2012 Great Disaster scenario.
It is meant as an idea to kick start a rebuilding of civilization. If you are interested in this
subject and would like to learn more about survival, you definately need to subscribe to
Survivalist magazine. Go to http://www.survivalist.com/ to learn more.
We have posted more movies and a mini-series at
http://northwoodstraders.ecrater.com/c/655400/media-movies-documentaries-entertainment
-books  We are still offering $7.00 movies, no shipping and handling. $7.00 is the price you
see and $7.00 is the price you pay. Period. We may have to raise the price in the coming
months, so take advantage of the current prices while we can still offer them.

Chicken Noodle Soup For Flue Season

I notice on the news that the first few cases of flue is making the rounds. There are only a few cases and it is not hitting hard. Being firmly in the naturopathic camp and highly suspicious of modern flue vaccines containing live viruses, carcinogens, pork products and mercuric products like thermerysol. The next time your doctor tells you this stuff isn't in there, ask to see the label. Thermerysol in the ingredients contains mercury. My grandpa used to tell me every flue season that the flue shot he had worked. It gave him the flue. I don't know why he kept getting one year after year. He always got the flue after taking the shot. There are much more gentle and effective ways to guard against the flue. Since practising reflexology, I have not had the flue. This has been for many years, over a decade in fact. If you should get the flue or a cold, however, there is a timeless remedy to lessen the severity and length of your illness. It is old fashioned chicken soup.

Now, my chicken soup isn't from a can. There are too many preservatives and over-processed foods in those. Best to make your own from scratch. You can buy store bought noodles to save time if you wish. Keep in mind that the homemade noodles do better, however. There is something about the chicken and noodles that produce a rhino-virus fighting agent when prepared together.

Bone your chicken and cut the meat into bite sized chunks. Brown the chicken lightly. Place these into a pan of spring or filtered tap water. Add the noodles and boil til tender. When tender, bring the water down to a simmer. Add one or two crushed cloves of garlic depending on size of pot. Garlic has anti-biotic properties. Add a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Cayenne pepper has warming qualities and helps blood circulation bringing comfort when ill. Add half a teaspoon of boneset. Boneset is an herb that acts as a diophoretic and will help your lymphatic system in removing viruses and waste from the body. Add three or four carrots, which add vitamin A to the soup and your immune system. Add a teaspoon of echinacea to help your immune system to produce white blood cells in fighting the infection. Allow to simmer, not boil, for another 15 minutes. Serve and enjoy.

With the boneset added to the soup it is possible to be rid of the flue overnight. I have actually seen this happen. It will definately lessen the severity and shorten the amount of time you'll be laid up.

Politics

Politics. What a dirty business. During the past month I found out just how dirty it can be. A lot of you know that I am still hooked up to the local water and sewer system. When I moved to my homestead it came with a prebuilt house and already hooked to utilities like water and sewer. That was a big mistake, but, being naive at the time, and the homestead priced so right, I jumped in. If I had do it over again I'd just buy raw land and build everything I needed on my own and with no utility hook ups as was my original plan. Now, I have a lot more work to do unhooking from our corrupt water and sewer system.

I have previously stated a plan for ridding myself of this tar baby and those plans are being built upon now, but as I am already a member of this system, I felt it was my duty to help my fellow members when asked. As water and sewer prices are currently 90FRNs per month and are about to be illegaly raised to 112FRNs per month, a neighbor and fellow water and sewer board victim looked into the matter and asked for my help in circulating a petition to remove the board's chairman.

It seems the board's chairman is a local real estate agent using his position on the board to fund expansion of the system to include land recently purchased by a real estate developer. As the local realator who helped the developer gain access to the water and sewer system at no cost, except to the poor victims of the water and sewer board, who do you think might be favored in any realty contracts? That is one among many reasons to remove this chairman.

As I stated, I did help to circulate the petition, which was very educational of itself. Here's where things get really interesting. When we turned in the signatures, the assessor threw out just enough, so that the petition wouldn't pass. Now, I spoke to all of the signatores myself. They all lived where they claimed, they were all victims of the water and sewer board. The signitures that were dissallowed was through the most minute of detail as to be ridiculous. One elderly lady, whose handwriting was shaky was thrown out because the assessor thought her 5 looked like a 9. Upon our examination, we could definately tell it was a 5. One lady, whose first name is Michelle, is married to her husband named Michael. The assessor claimed that it looked to her that she was trying to forge her husband's name and threw the signature out. This was a blatant lie. Another man's signature was thrown out because he wrote his address as Highway 3 just as he always did. It has only been a few years since Fernwood was assigned physical addresses and he forgot the string of numbers to write down before Highway 3.

Now, we thought this was very fishy, but couldn't figure why the assessor would rig the petiton's signature count in favor of the chairman. Well, remember when I stated that the water and sewer prices were illegaly being raised to 112FRNs per month? In Idaho a bond must have a 2/3 majority vote to pass. The recent bond election that will raise our rates yet again did not meet that criteria, yet the assessor entered the bond election as having passed. This is illegal and a fraud.

While the issue of our petition must now pass into legal hands, the fight for control of the water board will heat back up with the 2013 local election. I may be off the water and sewer system by then. If I am not, I will run for a seat on the board. As I am starting to extract myself from this corrupt system, however, I will probably be happily without their hassel and will be providing for myself. Goodbye to bad rubbage. They'll just have to get by without my money in their pockets.

Spring is coming. Look for new products in April at http://northwoodstraders.ecrater.com

Winter Finally Arrives

Winter has finally made a showing in the panhandle of Idaho. We've had some cold
temperatures, of course, but nothing below zero yet. That is somewhat unusual for my area.
By the last week of December we usually see night time lows steadily dip into the single
digits. By New Year's Eve we've usually seen quite a dip into the tens of degrees below
zero. I remember the year I had a chimney fire. I had to open the doors and windows while
the temperatures dropped to 33 degrees below zero. As soon as the chimney was cleaned
out and charcoal removed from the stove, I started the fire up again. My only heat source is
wood heat, so when its below zero you can bet there are fires going at my house. I keep the
chimneys well cleaned now. I run a brush through them at least twice a month and many
times get to them once a week. I put in some new pipes sevral years ago and haven't had a
chimney fire since.

This year, we have not had the bitter cold temperatures we usually get. We dipped below
zero overnight around Christmas week, but only a few degrees below. Since then, we have
seen the 40's for high daytime temperatures on several occasions and the daytime
temperatures have rarely dropped below 20 this year. Very unusual, but I'm not
complaining. Another unusual aspect to this winter pertains to our snowfall. This year was
supposed to be a La Nina year, meaning colder temperatures and higher snowfall. Now,
snowfall in my area is heavy during a normal year. We count our snowfall in feet and don't
bother with inches. A La Nina year is worse. The last two years in a row we've had La Nina
years and very heavy snowfall. During the last two years our area has seen several collapsed
rooves on homes and businesses. This year, also a La Nina year, has seen much less
snowfall than even a normal winter. I'm informed that this is due to a weather related
condition in the Mid-Atlantic that has been cancelling out the effects of the La Nina.

Snow is a concern in my area. Heavy mountain snowfall is what supplies our water through
the short, but arid summer months. It is not unusual for weather patterns to stop bringing
rain from the first week of July until late September. During this time rain can be a rare
occurance, depending, again, on the year, but normally rain is rare during the
July-September months. In that occasion, we are cruising on the snowpacks that melt off in
the mountains. We are dependent on heavy winter snowfalls for summer water and we very rarely have any problem expecting those snowfalls.

Fortunately, since the day before yesterday, we are finally getting those snows. Our first normal snowfall fell at that time. Currently we have just over a couple of feet on the ground at my homestead. I am in the valley at 2,714 feet above sea level. Snows will melt here by May in a normal winter. I don't know what will happen this year. We are getting more and can expect another 14 inches through tomorrow. Yes, that does cause some problems in travel conditions and I am removing snow from the rooves of outbuildings and cars. soon I will be removing snow from the roof of my house. Sometimes, however, a little extra chores are a blessing in disguise. This extra bit of work means more water this summer and more water sources. That is going to be more necessary than ever this year as the Fernwood water board is raising our rates once again to 112 FRNs per month! Time to quit these a-holes and remove myself completely from their system.