Faith To Bondage

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that
voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loss of fiscal policy which is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage.

What stage do you think we are at?

-- Post From My iPhone

My Purpose

I thought it would be a good idea at the outset to define my purpose in writing this blog. Why am I bothering to write it? What do I have to offer? After all, there are plenty of people more knowledgeable that have been at this for a much longer time than I. Why are we on this journey toward self-sufficiency?

In 2001 Oklahoma experienced a bad ice storm. I remember it very well. We were living on an Air Force base at the time. The day it started, the electricity to base housing went out. That evening I drove through a darkened town to purchase groceries and supplies. The shelves at the store were practically bare. Only one gas station had electricity and it soon ran out of gas. I had failed to fill our tanks up before the storm. As a result neither of our vehicles had enough gas to get us out of the local area. We were stuck. It took the base three days to get generators running in base housing. Many people in the surrounding area were out of electricity for weeks. During our brief period of "ruffing it" we camped out on our living room floor, played games and kept warm using the coffee can heaters that I'll post about another time. It was amazing how quickly things shut down. I was not adequately prepared. To the best of my ability I never want to be caught in that position again.

I was not a Y2Ker. I am not necessarily preparing for an 'end of the world as we know it' scenario. Although, if we try to prepare for that we will be prepared for ice storms, hurricanes or a broad range of other local or regional disruptions. What I am speaking of is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. An attitude of being as ready as we can be to survive, thrive and minister to others at all times even the difficult ones. It's sad that not even 100 years ago the knowledge and skills I am attempting to gain and put into practice would have been commonplace. Now many of them have been all but lost. I want to change this - at least in my home.

So with this in mind my purpose is twofold:

1.) To document for myself and my family where we have come from, what we learn along the way and where we are headed.

2.) Hopefully, by documenting our journey and discussing our lessons learned, our plans and our ideas we will benefit others who desire to move toward greater self-sufficiency.

I feel it necessary to be clear that in all of this we acknoledge and rest in the sovereignty of God Who governs and directs all His creatures and all their actions. May He richly bless and prosper us and may we glorify Him in all we do.

-- Post From My iPhone

Two Is One

I heard a good saying today about being prepared. It goes like this, "Two is one and one is none.". Makes good sense. For instance. We have a well. There has been at least three times since we've lived here that our well has gone down. In the past when this happened we had no water to the house or for the animals. Last fall I had to replace our pressure tank. In the process, I was able to install a hand pump capable of pumping water from 300' deep. It really is a nice system. You can read about it at www.simplepump.com. Now if we lose electricity or our well pump goes out, I can still get water to the house.

We also have a Berkey water system - www.goberkey.com. These are great manual water purifiers. If your water source becomes comprimised, a Berkey is still able to provide safe drinking water.

So, when all we had was a well we only had one source of water. When that one thing went down we ended up with none. Now that we have redundancy we are much better prepared.


-- Post From My iPhone

Sprouting

This may not seem like much of a feat to some but we have successfully broken the seal on sprouting! After spending about an hour watching YouTube videos (both good and bad) on the subject, we pulled down our jars and lids and are now eagerly awaiting the appearance of our first sprouts.




Here my daughter is rinsing off the seeds and preparing to let them drain.





After rinsing them, we set them on the rack to drain. We'll rinse them again later today and let them drain again. We will do this for 2-4 days depending on the seed.





We're looking forward to incorporating sprouts into our diet. What a great way to have power packed greens available even in the winter months.

I'll let you know how they turn out.

-- Post From My iPhone

Emergency Heat

We recently had a large snow and ice storm here. I thought this would be a good opportunity to share something my father-in-law taught us that we have used throughout the years to be prepared both at home and while traveling. It involves a small coffee can, rubbing alcohol and a roll of toilet paper with the cardboard center removed.








Scrunch the toilet paper roll and force it into the coffee can like this.







You can store these items for future use by putting the plastic lid back on the top. When you need some emergency warmth, simply remove the lid and pour the bottle of rubbing alcohol over the toilet paper in the can. Light it off with a match. It will provide a soft blue flame and clean warmth for hours. If you continue to add rubbing alcohol from time to time it will last a long while. However, if you let the alcohol burn off you will start to get some smoke and smell.

As I mentioned above, this is a good combination to keep handy in your car just in case you need it in an emergency.

-- Post From My iPhone

Slavery

I am a slave. This may sound shocking but when you really sit down and analyze it most of us are in some way or another. There are many manifestations of slavery in our lives. If you are employed by another - you're a slave. If you are in debt - you're a slave. If you rely upon the local grocer for your food...yep - a slave. If you're reliant upon the utility company for powering the appliances in your home...you guessed it - a slave. Where's your water come from? How about your clothing? The list could go on and on. The important question to ask is what will you do about it? Do you even care? I do. As a result, I have decided to make strides towards reducing or eliminating my dependence upon others for what my family needs to support itself. This is the journey we have been on for a couple of years now. In these pages I have purposed to document where we've come from, where we're going and what we learn on the way.


-- Post From My iPhone