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Self Sufficiency Requires Knowledge, Tools and Parts

April 1, 2016

Self Sufficiency Requires Knowledge, Tools and Parts

When most people think of self sufficiency they think of seeds, garden tools and canning jars but there is a lot more to consider. Being self sufficient also means you must build and fix things yourself to a large degree. It is easy today to take your problems to someone else and have them fix them for a fee but the day may come when you either cannot find someone to do the work or you cannot afford to pay them for the work. True self sufficiency means you must become a jack of all trades to get by with the least expense.

A few weeks ago I had a flat tire on one of the trucks. When I went to inflate it I discovered the problem was a broken valve stem. Under normal circumstances this would require a trip to the local garage. In my case, I simply removed the wheel from the truck, put it on my manual tire changer and broke the bead. Then I looked through my cabinet of small repair parts and pulled out a new valve stem. I removed the broken stem, inserted the new stem with my valve stem puller and re-inflated the tire and put it back on the truck. This all took about half an hour. A major problem was reduced to a minor inconvenience. Just this week I rebuilt the carburetor on another truck.

When something you need is broken you can either replace it or fix it. Fixing it will require knowledge and parts provided by you or someone else. If someone else does it that is going to cost you.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Self-Reliance Strategies: Resources for Setting Up a Prepper’s Homestead Quickly and Inexpensively

March 31, 2016

Self-Reliance Strategies: Resources for Setting Up a Prepper’s Homestead Quickly and Inexpensively

This week, the self-reliance report is about the resources and strategies I’ve used for setting up a prepper’s homestead quickly and inexpensively. A lot of research went into swapping environments – I moved from a low country rather dry farm to a cabin in the mountains to set up a homestead in the forest.  As always, I followed a thrifty budget to get things done.

The Self-Reliance Weekly Report is a collection of strategies, made up of the articles, books, DIYs, and products that I found useful on my own little prepper’s homestead.

Prepping

I recently spent a great deal of time searching for the perfect prepper’s retreat. This article discusses my search and offers some tips for finding your own perfect retreat. If your plan is to rely on your homesteading ability to survive when the S hits the Fan, it’s essential to get started now. There’s a steep learning curve and many will fail.

Following, find a collection of some of the most interesting prepper resources around right now.

Homesteading

The past couple of weeks my focus has been getting my new homestead set up as quickly as possible. Here are the resources that I found pertinent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Self-Reliance Manifesto: More Than 300 Resources to Guide You on the Path to Radical Freedom

March 6, 2016

The Self-Reliance Manifesto: More Than 300 Resources to Guide You on the Path to Radical Freedom

Self-Reliance. It’s a revolutionary word these days and I thought it deserved a manifesto.

Manifesto: noun man·i·fes·to \ˌma-nə-ˈfes-(ˌ)tō\

A declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer.

~~~~~

Have you happened to notice that our society is out of balance?

The consumers outnumber the producers at such a rapid clip that we can’t possibly continue like this. But who has time to produce when they are indebted and working overtime to finance their current lifestyles in the hopes that they will finally be able to buy “enough” to be happy, fulfilled, and loved?

We live in a society made up mostly of rabid consumers.  As soon as the advertising pros on Madison Avenue point them in a given direction, people flock to it like the zombies on The Walking Dead lurch toward a fresh human, completely oblivious to everything else.  They yearn for these things that are produced across the world and then delivered at a cheap price.  They fill up on cheap food that has been government subsidized, making it unrealistically inexpensive.  They are enslaved as they work to pay for it, or in some cases, accept a handout to pay for it. More people are deeply in debt than ever, living a fancy First World Lifestyle that would crumble with one missed paycheck. They are slaves and they don’t even know it.

They don’t care that the newest clothing and gadgets were produced in sweatshops across the world. They don’t care that some items are produced by slave labor. They don’t care about the processed offerings at the grocery store, the pesticide-laden produce raised by corporations instead of farmers, or even the feedlots that are the scenes of the worst animal abuse in the country, completely free from prosecution.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IEA recommends more government funding for energy sector

February 25, 2016

IEA recommends more government funding for energy sector

New report suggests public support for research is dwindling in Canada

Canada should increase funding to the energy sector, according to a new IEA report.

Canada should increase funding to the energy sector, according to a new IEA report. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

Canada’s energy industry needs more research and development funding from government, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Financial resources are “under pressure” and that’s why the IEA suggests a federal energy research and development strategy could help coordinate the work being done by industry and provincial governments. Such a strategy would focus on clean energy technologies, carbon capture and storage and environmentally beneficial methods for unconventional oil and gas production.

“This will contribute to reducing the environmental impact of energy use and production, as well as the cost of natural resource development, notably for oil-sands operations,” the report states.

In its first in-depth review of the country’s energy industry and policies since 2009, the IEA notes other challenges facing Canada. The country is one of the most energy-intensive nations belonging to the IEA. In addition, changes to electricity generation, such as reducing coal use and nuclear reactors reaching the end of their economic life, threaten the self-sufficiency of some provinces.

Oil Change International protesters COP21

A demonstration by the group Oil Change International at the COP21 climate conference in Paris urged countries to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

In general, Canada needs to adapt to the downturn in oil and natural gas prices, which is impacting government revenue and the country’s economy. The importance of the energy industry to Canada is clearly outlined in the report. In 2014, the sector contributed about 10 per cent of gross domestic product, employed about 280,000 people and accounted for 30 per cent of Canada’s total exports. In addition, the energy sector contributes about $20-$25 billion in taxes, royalties and other payments to federal and provincial governments, each year.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fumbling Toward Independence

January 21, 2016

Fumbling Toward Independence

Foggy road

Some blogs focus on single-word subjects like knitting or superheroes. This one wanders a bit; one week I might write about our neighbors here in rural Ireland, the next about our garden, then about old black-and-white movies or reading with my daughter. All of it, though, deals with our attempts to discover an older and better way of living, and learn the values and skills that were normal before everything became cheap, fast and easily discarded.

Thus, I study the past to see what worked better. Our elderly neighbors grew up without electricity, cars or mass media, and I see how different their village culture was from our own frantic and lonely society. I read diaries and letters from a century of two ago, and see a complexity of thought and language that gives college students trouble today. The writers — in colonial America, Victorian Britain or 20th-century Ireland — might have been farmers, but they often grew up reading the same classics as their forebears — Hesiod and Sophocles, Livy and Marcus Aurelius, Aquinas and Dante. Now I’m reading these works one by one, and teaching what bits I can to my daughter. For that matter, I’m learning how to genuinely read again, and not just scan text on a screen.

We try to learn the ways people used to provide for their own basic needs rather than relying entirely on companies and governments, so we built a chicken coop, got bees, grow a garden, and learned to forage wild plants and mushrooms. We have make our own pickles, sauerkraut, beer, bread, wine and jam, and have taken courses in tree grafting, oven building, black-smithing, wood carving, and so on. We fail a lot, but we have fun learning.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

There’s Nothing Heroic About Stealing Water From the Commons

June 12, 2015

There’s Nothing Heroic About Stealing Water From the Commons

It’s not every day that someone who steals water from the commons for private use on his large estate gains folk hero status in the sustainability movement. But thanks to a few irresponsible members of the alternative press, and a well-earned reputation in several states for having complex rainwater catchment regulations, that’s what happened to Gary Harrington. For over a decade, Harrington diverted massive, river-sized runoff water from snow and rainfall into large reservoirs on his land. That water was part of a watershed, and was supposed to supply the town of Medford, Oregon. When, after repeated attempts to negotiate with him, the state finally prosecuted Harrington, he painted himself as a folk hero and a rebel against government overreach.

The libertarian alternative media, with their connections to the sustainability and self-sufficiency movements, drank the story up like water. They ran pieces saying things like “a rural Oregon man was slapped with fines for collecting rain water on his own property”; referred to the “simple act of collecting rainwater on his own property,” and lamented that, in this era of government control, we aren’t even allowed to collect rainwater for personal use. The articles sounded alarmist, sanctimonious tones about self-sufficiency and the dangers of Big Brother, how it’s now illegal to collect rainwater on your own property, how the government claims to own even the rain.

None of them were remotely true. As the Oregon Water Resources Department stated in a press release dated July 29, 2012, and reprinted at Snopes.com, it’s perfectly legal in Oregon to collect rainwater for personal use. You can collect it in barrels or tarps or off your own roof. What you can’t do is alter or collect from flowing bodies of water.

– See more at: http://www.occupy.com/article/there’s-nothing-heroic-about-stealing-water-commons#sthash.v9NIgGmF.dpuf

 

 

Becca Martenson: Building Community

May 11, 2015

Becca Martenson: Building Community

How to increase the value of the relationships in your life

As we often stress here on PeakProsperity.com, nearly none of us can expect to become completely self-sufficient. It’s the (very) rare individual who can successfully live as a true ‘lone wolf’ — and being honest, who would want to? That’s a hard, lonely road.

Which is why we so strongly advocate integrating into a supportive community, or building one of your own if there’s none readily available. Having multiple trusted social relationships is a form of wealth in many ways more valuable than money. These are what support and sustain us when our plans fail us, when the situation calls for skills we lack, when we’re physically or mentally compromised. They also enrich our lives in ways money simply cannot, nourishing us as well as encouraging us to become our better selves.

But building community takes time and real effort. Especially in today’s society, where many of the old social norms that fostered community during our grandparents age have been severed by suburban fences, the rat-race workstyle, and the false sense of belonging offered by television and the Internet. So how exactly does one do it?

In this week’s podcast, we invite Chris’ wife Becca to share her expertise on the subject. Those who have attended our annual seminars in the past know her deep experience in this area, experience that she’s honed over the years advising Peak Prosperity readers looking for ways to better forge valued relationships in their own lives.

Community is built around a nucleus of relationships. So, you can think about community building as just starting with relationships. Think about building relationships with people where you have shared passion, shared interest, and shared values. Because it’s through the activities that you do where you intersect, overlap, and meet up during the week with others that you build that continuous connection that then expands to become community as more nuclei of these relationships come together.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article and listen to the podcast…

How to lower your foodprint | Queen of Green | David Suzuki Foundation

November 22, 2014

How to lower your foodprint | Queen of Green | David Suzuki Foundation.

Your “foodprint” — the choices you make about what you eat — can make as big a difference for the environment as how you get around.

This fall, a team of Queen of Green coaches are helping a community of Canadian families go from ordinary to extraordinary when it comes to eating more sustainably. You read how they tackled waste. Prepare to be inspired as they reduce their foodprints during Module 2 (of 4)! (Go ahead, be a copycat.)

Meet Renu, Tom and son, Coen, of B.C.

Renu aims to do:

  • More home cooking
  • Fine-tune composting
  • Grow more food
  • She courageously advocated for healthier choices at her son’s daycare and tries hard to provide edibles without packaging when it’s her day to contribute.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

German village Feldheim the country’s first community to become energy self-sufficient – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

November 10, 2014

German village Feldheim the country’s first community to become energy self-sufficient – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

The rural village of Feldheim, 80 kilometres south of Berlin, is at the vanguard of Germany’s energy revolution, boasting a wind farm, solar plant, biogas and biomass facilities.

Germany is undergoing an energy transformation called Energiewende, which aims to reduce carbon emissions, increase the use of renewable energy, and stop all nuclear power.

Feldheim is the country’s first community to become completely energy self-sufficient.

The village now attracts thousands of ecotourists every year and has set up an educational group to spread the word.

The New Energy Forum’s Kathleen Thompson told the ABC it all started back in 1995.

“A student by the name of Michael Raschemann decided as part of his studies he’d like to install some wind farms,” she said.

With the support of local council, Feldheim’s 145 residents were quickly convinced of the wind farm’s merits.

One of those residents is 73-year-old Joachim Gluck, who has lived in the village his whole life.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New England Can Feed Itself. Here’s How. | New England New Economy TransitionNew England New Economy Transition

October 21, 2014

New England Can Feed Itself. Here’s How. | New England New Economy TransitionNew England New Economy Transition.

Speakers Brian Donahue, Eva Aguedelo, Karen Spiller, and Brett Tolly

By Sarah Byrnes & Orion Kriegman

On Wednesday October 8, one hundred people gathered at a church in Jamaica Plain, MA, to consider: Can New England Feed Itself?

The answer is yes, New England can feed itself – halfway. Food Solutions New England’s Food Vision, a rigorous analysis of New England’s history and natural resources, claims that our region could produce at least half of our own food if we farm three times as much land (up from 5% to 15% of our landmass) and shift from a “Business as Usual” diet to the “Omnivore’s Delight.” In a different scenario, called “Regional Reliance,” the Vision finds we could produce 70% of our food within our six states. Either of these scenarios represents a vast improvement over the current system, where only 10% of food is produced regionally.*

But before we get any further, it’s important to remind ourselves why we want regional food. “If we want a local or regional food system,” says Brian Donahue, the evening’s main speaker, “it’s important to ask: Why? What values are we truly serving?”

…click on the link above to read the rest of the article…

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