I’ve been noticing somewhat of a “tiny house” movement going on and I think it’s pretty cool.  Lots of people are starting to reject the accepted notion (brainwashing) of becoming a slave to a mortgage, as they question the societal impetus to desire larger and larger homes.  I mean, do we really need all those square feet to live comfortably?

Over the past year or so, I’ve been checking out these “tiny homes” that are both efficient in terms of energy use as well as in how the space is utilized.  A lot of of the designs are pretty ingenious… and pretty small.  Some are even small enough to be put on a trailer that you can tow out wherever you want to plant it.  Since I’ve lived a primarily itinerant lifestyle for most of my adult life, a house like that has a lot of appeal to me.

I’ve also got this weird attraction to efficient, utilitarian living. Ever since I first saw the spartan cabin that Thoreau lived in at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, that kind of life has always symbolized freedom to me.  So yeah, I kind of get jazzed about stuff like this.

How to have a home with no house payments and no monthly utility bills!

This is an introduction to simple solar homesteading that provides information on how to find cheap land, build an inexpensive home, and use solar power to eliminate monthly utility bills.

What would you do if you had no house payment and no monthly utility bills ?

Well watch the video and I will show you how it is done easily and with very little money.

That quote above and the videos below are by a fellow who built a 400 sq. ft. cabin with a loft on 3/4 of an acre of land where he raises chickens,  grows his own food and lives like a free man on the land…  Just the way it was supposed to be!  The bottom video is a walk-through of the interior.  On his YouTube channel he has a bunch of other videos showing how it was built, how the solar system is set up, etc.  I recommend checking it out.

According to a recent survey this month conducted by the  Persuadable Research Corporation over half of survey respondents believe that they are unprepared for a disaster.

The problem is that the prime factor that motivates people to prepare for disasters is largely personal experience.  If you’ve never been the victim of a disaster, you tend to be more complacent about preparedness, whereas the vast majority of those who are prepared (82%), said that they had a previous brush with a disaster of some sort.  Also, among those who were prepared, 27% were ready because they wanted to be ready to take care of other family members such as children, grandchildren, elderly or even a spouse.

Why aren’t people prepared? It seems that 38% have never even thought about it. Nearly half (48%), claimed that financial limitations are holding them back and 15% claim that they simply don’t have time to prep.

Amazingly, one out of five respondents said they intend to “just wing it” if a disaster strikes. In other words; one fifth of the population is relying on nothing more than dumb luck to survive. (and the Darwin Award goes to…)

Those of us experienced in survivalism and preparedness know that the Federal Government isn’t going to save us.  Due to FEMA’s abysmal track record, there seems to be a lot of doubt among the general public as well. When asked how confident they were about the government’s ability to effectively respond to a disaster , 28% were unsure if the government would be able to handle a major natural disaster in their area, while another 30% of panelists are absolutely certain that they can’t. One respondent commented: “After seeing the Katrina mess and resulting federal help, if you can call it that, I have little to no faith in the federal government”.

The numbers are even worse when asked about man-made disasters. In this case, 41% were unsure and 35% said the government would be unable to handle it. Additionally, 68% believe that the government is not doing enough to educate the public. Of course, we all know that the government prefers a population that is not self-reliant, but rather dependent on government agencies like FEMA, so why would they go out of their way to educate the public on disaster preparedness?

If you’re among those who don’t believe you have enough time or money to prepare, try purchasing one or two items per week (or month) for your medical kit, bug out bag or food storage. Having some of the things that you need to survive is better than having nothing at all. At least this way, you’ll be making a start. Once you start seeing some progress, it will inspire you to take it to the next level and keep going. Sometimes making the first step is the hardest part, whether it’s getting in shape, quitting smoking, or establishing a good foundation for your safety and survival.

Who among us hasn’t experienced the joys of eating roadkill?  

What’s that?  You haven’t?  Well, to be completely honest, I’ve never deliberately eaten roadkill (I ate some roadkill bear once, but wasn’t informed of the cause of its demise until after the fact).

But when you think about it, what’s the big deal?  As long as it’s fresh kill and hasn’t been completely squashed, and it’s thoroughly cooked, what difference does the cause of death make?  If the same animal were dispatched with a shotgun, rifle, or was caught in a trap, we wouldn’t have any qualms about eating it.  But in our modern, western culture, we get queemish about a lot of things when it comes to food.  However, there are pockets of our society that not only view roadkill as a viable source of meat, but prefer it to the store-bought variety that’s full of hormones and anti-biotics.

The idea of eating meat sourced from the roadside – whether deer, pheasant, fox or even otter might sound revolting to you but for some, it’s a gastronomic opportunity and a way of avoiding factory farmed meat.For survival, roadkill can be a life-saver. And it doesn’t require the energy of catching food on your own.

‘I barely have to drive 20 miles to fill my freezer. Ignoring all this great meat just seems wasteful to me,’ McGowan continues. Bushcraft and foraging expert Fergus Drennan agrees. ‘The question I ask myself when I find roadkill is, “here is some meat: do I need it, and is it good and safe to eat?”’ 

Here’s an article I came across from the UK (of all places) that covers the advantages of road kill as a sustainable food source.

CLICK HERE  to read the entire article

One of the dumbest pieces of bad advice I’ve ever heard anyone give in the context of wilderness foraging is: “Watch what the animals eat… If they can eat it, so can you”. That is no way, I repeat NO WAY to determine whether a wild plant is edible or not.

Animals have different physiologies than humans and what may be harmless to a deer, bird or other woodland creatures may be a deadly poison to humans. 

“Deer eat strawberry bush twigs, and birds eat the fruits, but both parts are deadly to humans, causing vomiting, diarrhea, irregular hearbeats, convulsions, coma, and death.   Scientists don’t know what type of poison it is.  Strawberry bush is also poisonous to livestock.  It was advantageous for deer to evolve the ability to digest a plant that was likely poisonous to competing herbivores of the Pleistocene, such as bison and horses. 

Buffalo nut is toxic to humans, rabbits, and pigs, but not deer, cattle, horses, sheep, and mice.  Its poison is an amino acid similar to that found in cobra poison.  The protein stimulates growth hormone in deer and may facilitate antler growth.” 

While there are far more plants in the wild that are safe to eat than poisonous ones, the only failsafe way to be sure which wild plants are edible is to educate yourself on the native plant life in your area. There are many books available that will teach you how to identify wild plants that are safe to eat. You should also learn how to test plants if you’re not sure. This takes a bit of time, though, and involves first tearing off a piece of the plant and testing it on your skin for a reaction. If there’s no skin reaction after 8 hours, rub some of the plant on your lip. If there’s no tingling, numbness or reaction after 8 hours, put a small piece in your mouth. If still nothing happens after 8 hours, try swallowing a small bit of it. If that doesn’t make you sick or give you the runs, try eating a little more, etc. 

However, this is no substitute for KNOWING. For example; if you can’t visually identify poison ivy, oak or sumac, you don’t want to go rubbing it on your skin to find out if you should eat it or not.

Also, in a survival situation, dehydration is a major risk and you should avoid ingesting anything that will make you vomit or give you diarrhea. But if you’re not sure, or you find yourself in an area where you’re unfamiliar with the local vegetation, it’s good to know how to test a plant before eating it. 

While I’m on the subject of the foolishness of taking cues from the animals to determine what’s safe to ingest; the same goes for water… Just because you see an animal drinking from a natural water source, that doesn’t mean it’s safe to drink untreated. That’s like saying it’s safe to drink water from the toilet because your dog can. 

No matter how clean or clear the water LOOKS, there are microscopic buggers in there that you can’t see, which don’t bother the critters none, but will put you in a world of hurt. In the wild, water should ALWAYS be filtered AND sanitized before drinking.

For further reading, here’s an interesting article I came across from a blog called: Georgia Before People.

Along with a good knife (or three) and a machete; an axe is an important bushcraft tool. Sure, you could do without one, but a good axe or hatchet will make short work of chopping tasks. Here, Ray shows three axes, all made by Gränsfors Bruks of Sweden. Smallest to largest, he shows the Wildlife Hatchet, the Small Forest Axe, and the Scandinavian Forest Axe. He then shows some techniques on how to use an Axe.

I’m kind of a latecomer to Ray Mears’ video work (don’t have a whole lot of time for watching bushcraft videos with my schedule!) but I like what I’ve seen so far. Nothing particularly “high adrenalin” (ala Bear Grylls) but it’s good, solid bushcraft info. 

A preparedness topic that doesn’t get as much consideration as it should is the special requirements for those of us who are hard of hearing or deaf. People with hearing disabilities are at a much greater disadvantage when it comes to the traditional methods of acquiring emergency information.

A large chunk of information conveyed through TV – and ALL the information delivered via radio, sirens and police loudspeakers – are dependent on one’s ability to hear. Sure, there’s closed captioning and the internet, but what if the power is down? In that situation a solar or hand-cranked radio will be of little or no use to a hearing impaired or deaf person. 

Today I came across some great tips on BackdoorSurvival.com for the hearing impaired, to improve communications in a disaster or survival situation. Even if you don’t know anyone who is deaf, you may find yourself needing to help a stranger who is dear or hearing impaired.  Also, many of us have a neighbor, relative, spouse or friend who has a hearing problem and refuses to admit it. Knowing how to help them prepare and communicate in a disaster when fast action is required could help avert a tragedy.

If you happen to know someone that is hard of hearing, practice these communication tips now, before they are placed in a life threatening position. 

1. Get the other person’s attention before attempting to talk or communicate. Making eye contact is a good way to do this. If needed, you can use a light touch on the hand or shoulder to get the person’s attention.

2. Stay in the field of vision and face the person directly. Try to keep your eyes at the same level and don’t turn your head away. Don’t stare, but maintain eye contact and make sure the other person can see your face and your hand gestures. Body language is important, too. 

3. Speak in a normal voice and tone. For heaven’s sake, don’t shout. Many people that have difficulty hearing can actually read lips even though they may be unaware that they are doing so. Shouting distorts your lip movements, making it difficult for a deaf person to follow your words. Also, increasing the volume or shouting has the negative effect of drawing attention from other people around you, making the person you are addressing feel self-conscious. Remember, if the person does not seem to hear or understand you, you can always communicate with a notepad and a pen.

4. Go to a quiet place where there is not a lot of background noise. Many hard of hearing people who can understand you perfectly in a quiet room will be unable to do so in, say, a noisy, crowded area or wherever the background noise is high. 

5. Use gestures and visual cues. Point to or hold up any items that you’re talking about, and wait until they’re looking at you again before you resume speaking. And continue to maintain eye contact. 

6. Be patient and polite and don’t give up by saying “never mind”. It is easy to get frustrated, especially when you have to repeat yourself again and again. Just try again and if you have to, go back to the notepad and paper. One other thing: don’t pick on the person and make fun of them. Yes, it would be nice if they had good hearing aids but hearing aids are expensive and not something that everyone can afford. So take your time, be nice, and soldier on until the person understands what you are trying to communicate.

Click here to Read More specific preparedness tips for the hearing impaired
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Nothing is more prominent in the pursuit of self-reliant living and survival than being able to produce your own food. Just about everybody knows this, but not many people have the first clue about gardening or raising their own crops. Many people think it’s as simple as broadcasting your seeds in the ground and letting nature take it from there (including myself, at one time). Well, I can tell you from personal experience (and failures) it’s not all that simple. Now I’m no expert myself, but I’ve learned a few things along the way from friends who are, and I believe all preppers and survivalists should have a seed bank for long-term self reliance.

The first thing that you need to know when starting a seed bank is; what kind of seeds not to get. Among the seed types are: Heirloom, Hybrid and GMO seeds.

GMO seeds should be avoided at all costs. They are the result of genetic manipulation between two or more organisms (for example; there are GMO tomato seeds that are the result of combining tomato DNA with that of a FISH!) and the plants they produce haven’t even been tested as safe for human consumption by the FDA (it is now believed that consumption of GMO plants and meat products from animals that have been fed GMO plants are the cause of increasing in food allergies and other disorders). 

Furthermore, when these plants are introduced into nature, they contaminate and alter natural, organic plants, causing all kinds of chaos to the ecosystem. GMO seeds are designed with a “terminator gene”, which means that the plants produced from these seeds will not produce viable seeds of their own. So if you want more GMO crops, you have to go out and buy more GMO seeds. Which is a highly lucrative plan for Monsanto, but not a very self-sufficient plan for survival.  

For more info about the dangers of GMO foods, watch the video below:

Everything You HAVE TO KNOW about Dangerous Genetically Modified Foods from Jeffrey Smith on Vimeo.

Hybrid seeds are also another non-starter. While not technically genetically modified, hybrid seeds come from plants that have been “inbred” by cross-pollination by another plant variety in order to combine the superior qualities of both plants. This is to optimize size, yield and appearance, as well as produce plants that are resistant to diseases. Hybrid plants are also bred to be less susceptible to damage from mechanical processing and shipping. 

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Well, that’s about where hybrid plants run out of road. While the commercial hybridization of plants has been going on for almost 100 years, and it’s not quite as creepy or dangerous as genetically modified food, hybrid plants do not “breed true” in the second generation. Meaning the seeds produced by the inbred plant will not produce a plant of the same quality – or may not even produce seeds that germinate at all. So you’re right back where you were with GM seeds. In order to grow more hybrid plants, you’ll have to buy more hybrid seeds. And the time and effort that goes into producing hybrid seeds makes them much more expensive.

So we’re left with what are called Non-Hybrid, or Heirloom seeds. These seeds are the result of “open pollination” going back to the days before humans started messing around with hybrids and GMOs. The
lineage of some heirloom seeds may go back hundreds or thousands of years. They’re unmodified and unadulterated, just the way nature made them! They’re called “heirloom” because back in the days before commercial farming, people would literally pass down seeds from one generation to the next. 

Heirloom seeds breed true, and each subsequent generation of seeds will product the same plant that came before it. When buying heirloom seeds, make sure they are proven heirloom varieties, and look for germination rates on the packaging. This will indicate that the seeds are fresh. 

Some fruits and vegetables that come from hybrid seeds may look a little strange to folks who have bought their produce from the supermarket all their lives (such as the tomatoes and the carrots shown). This is because they haven’t had their natural characteristics bred out of them as hybridized produce has. But regardless of what they look like, produce grown from heirloom seeds are tastier and more nutritious than hybrids. 

“A lot of the breeding programs for modern hybrids have sacrificed taste and nutrition,” says George DeVault, executive director of Seed Savers Exchange, the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom and other rare seeds.

“The standard Florida tomato is a good example. Instead of old-time juicy tangy tomatoes, it tastes like cardboard. It was bred to be picked green and gas-ripened because that’s what was needed for commercial growing and shipping.”

Knowing how to grow your own food is vital for your survival and there’s no time to keep putting off learning how.  Even if you don’t have a lot of land for gardening, you can still grow fruits and vegetables in the space you have through container gardening.

To read more about the benefits of heirloom seeds and produce, check out: Heirloom Vegetables: 6 Advantages Compared to Hybrids and Industrial Farming is Giving us Less Nutritious Food from Mother Earth News.