Loose livestock

Up to this point, the livestock have been confined to the wooded side of our property. This is where they stay for the winter (it's accessible from the barn for easy feeding), but as spring has emerged along with green grass -- which means we're feeding less --the critters have been eating down the grass in the woods pretty rapidly.

Before putting them in the pasture for the summer, we decided to let the livestock loose in the driveway area in order to crop down the grass (less work for us -- we don't have to mow or weedwack). They could also eat down the triangle pasture where we had grown wheat last summer. It's fallow this year, so keeping it trimmed would be nice.

Before letting everyone loose, however, we needed to cordon off the garden, the barn, and the end of the triangle pasture (where the fence is down). Out came the wonderful trusty cattle panels, moved from one spot to another (in this case, reinforcing the fence near the bull pen).

Here's the tip of the triangle pasture, now fenced off.

Driveway gate, closed.

Garden, cordoned off.

Barn, off limits.

Then we opened up the gates from the wooded side, and let the animals roam.

Brit, of course, was the first one through, cropping the fresh green grass as she went.

But she was under the mistaken impression that she was being allowed into the pasture. Nope.

Same with the other critters. Nope.

But that's okay -- lots of yummy fresh grass on this side.

What is it about dirt piles that makes animals want to rub in it?

Cow kisses between Raven and her daughter Shadow.

Early the next morning, the animals discovered the triangle pasture.

This drove the dogs nuts since the pasture is right next to the yard.

This morning Ruby met Leto through the gate. Very cute.

We'll keep the critters in the driveway area for about another week or so, before releasing them into the pasture. For that amount of time we'll have to watch our step for all the "landmines" in our way!

Five levels of preparedness

A friend sent me a link to a web post entitled "Five Dimensions of Preparation" which comes from a website called Survival5x5 which has other cool beans stuff related to preparedness.

It's a sobering but realistic analysis if how prepared people really are to meet unexpected challenges. Test yourself and see where you rate.
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Five Dimensions of Preparation

There are five levels of preparations for SHTF, WROL, and TEOTWAWKI

Level 0 (zero): Every emergency is a disaster

• Less than two weeks of food in the house
• No water purification system
• No bug-out bag
• No defensive weapons
• No way to produce their own food
• No physical gold or silver
• No tangible assets to barter

Level 1: Can Survive Two Weeks of an Minor Emergency (such as ice storm)

• Have sufficient food and water for two weeks of emergency
• Able to heat their home for two weeks without relying on the power grid by use of kerosene heater or fireplace
• Able to cook their meals for two weeks without relying on the power grid
• Has a first aid kit
• Likely has no defensive weapons
• Must leave their home after two weeks due to lack of preparation

Level 2: Can Survive One Month of an Emergency (such as major hurricane)

• Likely has a portable power generator and sufficient fuel for one month of operation
• Has handguns or shotgun to defend their home
• Has a month’s work of canned goods to eat from
• Has sufficient prescription medicines for 30 days
• Has enough batteries for power a portable radio for 30 days

Level 3: Can Survive Three Months of an Emergency (such as martial law or impacting earthquake)

• Has a deep-short term pantry
• Likely has a water purification system
• Likely has defensive weapon for each family member
• Likely has some type of neighborhood safety watch or 24 hour security watch rotation at the home
• Has stocked wood to burn in fireplace and/or iron stove
• Has communication gear to keep track of local and world events
• Has means to recharge batteries without relying on power grid
• Has three months of prescription medicines

Level 4: Can Survive One Year of an Emergency (such as currency devaluation, economic depression)

• Has a deep short- and long-term food pantry
• Likely has their own garden to produce food
• Likely has small-sized farm animals to produce protein (chickens, goats, rabbits)
• Has a deep supply of ammo (2000+ rounds per weapon)
• Is a spare weapon in event of damage
• Has mean to produce herbal medicines to replace prescriptions
• Has a long-term store of antibiotics
• Likely has dog for security watch
• Has full 24 hour rotation of security watch on the home (requires 6 adults)
• Show have secondary off-site storage of food, weapons, and ammo
• Is ready to bug-out with full hiking and camping gear, if security situation degrades
• Is able to educate their children at home

Level 5: Can Survive Indefinitely from their Home during an multi-year SHTF or TEOTWAWKI situation

• Has a fully functioning large garden or small farm for food production
• Is able to can and store the results of food harvest for the coming year
• Is able to harvest seeds for next year’s planting
• Is able to raise multiple generations of farm animals (cattle, sheep, horses)
• Has horses for local and distance travel
• Has enough ammo to last a generation (10,000+ rounds per weapon)
• Has spares of each weapon and lots of extra magazines
• Able to generate their own fuel (bio-diesel, alcohol)
• Likely has fully functional solar power bank with deep storage batteries
• Has natural on-site water sources for farm and home
• Has home-based business to generate income
• Is able to build new building and make any necessary repairs to existing buildings
• Is able to provide excess food for charity
• Has a secondary residency (such as mountain cabin) for full bug-out
• Is prepared for minor surgery and child birth at home
• Has stores of gold and silver for barter
• Is able to produce their own clothing (from raw wool or raw cotton with spinning wheel and small loom)

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So -- where do you rate?

Prayers for Oklahoma

News is coming out of Oklahoma that dozens of school children may be dead after an elementary school took a direct hit from a series of massive and destructive tornadoes. Brave teachers covered children with their own bodies, but unknown numbers have died.

My heart absolutely breaks with this news. I can't fathom the pain these people are experiencing.

And it isn't just the school. Entire subdivisions have been leveled with untold amounts of death and destruction. People have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and in many cases their lives.

This tragedy is still unfolding, so as of this posting no one knows the extent of the destruction or lives lost. Many communications lines are down and cell phone coverage is jammed or congested. But as one news article put it: "Jamie Shelton, the public information officer for Moore [Oklahoma], had pleaded with residents to seek shelter before the storm dissipated. 'It's happening as we speak,' he said. 'People need to take this seriously... Take precaution, be aware. If you're outside the area, please pray for us.'"

Prayers coming.

Oodles and oodles of strawberries

Last year, unsurprisingly, I gave up on my beautiful strawberry beds after the deer absolutely decimated them. And I mean decimated. Plants were ripped up by the roots, still-rooted plants were eaten down to nubbins... No matter how much bird netting I draped over them, and no matter how cleverly or securely the netting was draped, the deer found their way in. They were aggressive in their hunt for my precious strawberries. By the end of the season, my strawberry beds were so destroyed that I figured nothing was salvageable. I didn't even bother to mulch the beds with straw before winter.

Fast forward to early spring. The beds still looked stripped and bare, but much to my surprise, some of the plants had survived both the winter and the deer.

So in early April I did some weeding and tried to assess what was still alive. My goodness some of the weeds had long roots.

A lot of the strawberry plants were dried and crunchy and thoroughly dead.

Or were they? I had to look them over very carefully to make sure.

Nonetheless, despite more strawberries surviving than I thought, my beds were sadly depleted. So in a moment of giddy exuberance (this was before Don got sick and we had to watch our spending), I ordered three hundred bareroot strawberry plants from Miller Nurseries.

These were shipped in early May.

I guess I didn't realize just how many three hundred really is. While I knew I wanted some extra strawberry beds, now that the plants were here I had to figure out where to put them. I decided to use larger tractor tires (split in half) for strawberry beds.

So I heaved our truck over the hills into Washington to a place that changes tractor tires for farmers. They loaded two tires into the truck for me. These tire centers are always glad to get rid of tractor tires, because it costs a lot of money for them to recycle them.

Two tires were all they could fit into the truck, and frankly I was pretty nervous driving home because of the weight (the tires are about 500 lbs each). I kept expecting the truck to tip over, so I crawled home at low speeds. Good thing the route isn't busy.

But it gave me an idea. If these guys have to PAY to have the old tractor tires recycled, would they consider loading up a bunch and delivering them to our place for FREE? I'm strongly of the philosophy that It Never Hurts to Ask, so I did.

The response was almost comical. You want tires? Really? How many? When? Can you take them this afternoon?

Next thing we knew, a fellow named Jason had loaded up twelve tires onto a flatbed truck and was on his way to our place. It was satisfactory for both parties: he got to "recycle" his tires for just the cost of delivery, and we got twelve enormous tires for free, delivered straight to our door.

Now that we have a free source for these monstrous things, there are a lot of possibilities for their uses. Besides raised beds in the garden, some larger uncut tires would work for fruit tree planters. Tires with just the sidewalls cut out would work for cattle feeders and potato beds. Jason said he would hold for us some enormously wide (3 feet deep or so) tractor tires from a rig he's changing next week.

We also have neighbors who are thinking about raised beds in tractor tires. Bottom line, Jason could get rid of a lot of tires through us!

Over the next couple of days, whenever we had a few minutes to spare, Don and I would slice a tire or two in half length-wise. When we had a bunch cut up, we borrowed the tractor, chained them up, and moved them into the garden.

It took us a solid day's work to move all the tire halves and fill them with compost and dirt, but finally the beds were ready to plant with strawberries. With ten new beds, we're, um, gonna have a lotta berries.

But first the strawberries have to be planted. I took them out of their packaging and soaked the roots for a few hours.

Time to plant.

I laid out the strawberries first. I found I could fit about 30 strawberries per tire, so my estimate of ten tire halves was spot-on.

Before planting, I trimmed the roots of each plant to about four inches in length. After many hours, I got all 300 plants in the ground.

Oh and by the way, we're putting in nuclear fencing this summer. No deer allowed.

A quarter-ton of beef

On Friday, I went down to pick up the meat from the two animals we had butchered a couple weeks ago. We have about 650 lbs. of beef coming to us, only 150 lbs. of which we'll be keeping.

The drive down to Potlatch is always so pretty this time of year. The Palouse is almost impossibly green with early winter wheat beginning to grow. And the isolated farms look story-book picturesque.

The butchers keep their facility squeaky-clean.

Here's the freezer unit. Each customer's meat is kept in labeled trays.

Here's the cooler unit, where they hang carcasses for a week or ten days, which tenderizes the meat.

Here's some of the regular as well as specialty services these butchers offer.

Anyway, I loaded my car to groaning with packaged beef, and drove home.

Next step: clean out the freezer!

In order to fit everything in, we had to be brutal in selecting what stays and what goes. Don made some wooden partitions to help keep things sorted and organized.

We inventoried as we packed the freezer so we would know what we have.

A lot of people from our church are interested in the meat, so the freezer won't be this way for long.

It took a lot of creative maneuvering and clever packing, but we finally got almost everything in; though forty-seven pounds of overflow ground beef are being stored in a neighbor's freezer.

With butchering costs, the price of this beef (organic and grass-fed!) is about $1/lb. Of course that doesn't take into effect feed costs, which I'm estimating adds another ten cents per pound.

We haven't bought beef in so many years that I haven't paid attention to beef prices. So last week when I was in Costco (whose beef is, presumably, among the cheapest available), I wrote down some costs. And oh. My. Goodness. I was horrified. When did beef prices skyrocket like this? Who on earth can afford to pay $12 a pound for ribeye steak? No wonder folks are interested in our meat! Raising our own beef is definitely worth it.

And what are having for tonight's neighborhood potluck dinner? Why, pot roast of course!