All new "Thoughts from Frank and Fern"

Remember the fabulous blog "Thoughts from Frank and Fern"? They have a new url.

You can always trust these folks to deliver hard-headed common sense. Go check out their new and improved blog.

That inner panic button....

The closing of Frank and Fern's blog, it seems, is causing a ripple effect. I've received several emails (not to mention numerous blog post comments) in which people are confessing -- well, concerns.

I received permission to anonymously post one reader's email to me:

I was really surprised to see Frank and Fern pull the plug. I have always enjoyed their blog and have several side conversations regarding goats with them also. I just finished re reading the Patriots by james w rawles and I must say the reality of that book becoming real came crashing down on my head. I guess it was overload from this week’s dismal economic state, the Patriots, and Frank and Fern pulling the plug to finish projects and such. I felt the 1st tendrils of fear, which I do not like, and spent quite some time discussing the situation with God. I guess I should mellow out by week’s end, hopefully. I hope we are all worrying for nothing but I trust my inner panic button, which is signaling trouble.

Along these lines, let me show you what I've been doing this past week. I made two enormous batches of chili...

...which I then canned.

I've also been canning pinto beans, which I use to make quick refried beans.

I've noticed something about myself: I can when I'm nervous. I've been very nervous this week. Stock markets all over the world are tanking, oil is plunging, and, well, it makes me nervous.

Frank and Fern's parting advice included the following: "We encourage you to apply the final touches to your preparations. The events unfolding in the world appear to be creating the perfect storm. How that storm will come crashing down around us, we do not know, but it is no longer way out there on the horizon, it is at the door. The wind is blowing in our faces, bringing with it the still small voice of warning which gets louder everyday. Time is short, get everything accomplished that is in your power."

They're right, folks. Time to get busy.

A post I hate to put up

It's hard to say goodbye to people, but this is one of those times.

Frank and Fern, writers of the excellent Thoughts From Frank & Fern blog, have put up their final post.

I have a special spot in my heart for this hard-working inspiring couple, though we've never met in person. They wrote to me a few years ago, wanting advice for starting a blog, and I sent them the standard information I send to anyone who asks. Frank and Fern took the advice and ran with it -- and created one of the best durn homesteading blogs on the internet, a blog which recently surpassed a million views.

But they see some ominous clouds on the horizon -- as do all of us who are vigilant -- and have decided to redirect their time, energy, and resources toward finalizing their preps. I can't argue with their decision; I'll just miss the heck out of them.

I can only wish them Godspeed and good luck. Thanks for the wonderful memories, guys.

Happy birthday Frank and Fern!

This is the second anniversary for Frank and Fern's excellent blog Thoughts from Frank and Fern.

Whoo-hoo! Whistles and cheers!

Nothing to see here, folks; move along

Here's an interesting post over at Thoughts from Frank and Fern entitled No Crisis Here.
.

"How many troublesome things have you run across lately? They appear to become more numerous each day. The message seems to be hunker down, be ready, it's coming. The harder we try to get things in order, the more obstacles arise in our way. But you know what? That's okay. It just makes us more determined and focused .....because we know it's storming all about us."

A thought-provoking article.

Book learning vs. real life

There was a wonderfully uplifting post over at Thoughts from Frank and Fern a couple days ago entitled Dream Big, Be Patient.

Fern outlined some of the things she and Frank have learned just in the last year: sourdough baking, making yogurt and cheese, gardening, canning, dehydrating, dehydrating, medicinal teas, using ham radios, and (not incidentally) blogging.

One line in particular caught my eye: "Five years ago, we barely knew how to garden. We had a lot of book learning, but no practical experience."

These two people have achieved something too many others only dream about, namely homesteading. They put their book learning to good, sound, practical use, and in doing so they learned where book learning ends and real learning begins.

Make no mistake, my admiration for books knows no bounds. That's why we have over 5000 volumes in our house -- we're crazy for books.

And there is a stage in everyone's life where book learning must take precedence. You can't exactly keep a cow while living in Manhattan, so the best you can do is read books on how to milk, how to make butter or cheese, how to muck out a barn, how to compost manure, etc. There are endless topics about which my only knowledge comes from books rather than personal experience.

But book learning will only take you so far. If you want to homestead, if you honestly want to get your hands dirty, you can't learn it all from books.

True example: I'm working on a novel, an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it type adventure told from a woman's perspective. It's pretty much rough-finished, so now I've started the first round of edits. I have a scene where the family is threshing wheat (most people are reduced to subsistence farming from sheer desperation). A wise elderly neighbor becomes a valued mentor during the heroine's (and her family's) steep learning curve, and he shows them how to hand-thresh wheat.

This particular scene was written before, you guessed it, I'd ever hand-threshed wheat. When I went back last week and re-read that scene, I was appalled by how unrealistic it was. Now that I've hand-threshed wheat (and hated every minute of it), I can re-write the scene with greater realism.

I guess the point of this post is to warn people who are planning to, say, bug out to a rural location if/when the bleep hits the fan. Here's a reality check for you: Nothing will go as planned. Your book learning won't amount to squat when you actually have to milk that cow, grow that garden, or thresh that wheat.

As I mentioned, many of us are in positions where book learning is the only thing we can do... for now. And that's fine. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that real life will be just like in the book.

Where book learning becomes dangerous is when people plan for their future survival with no room for error. They plan elaborate off-grid systems but don't keep candles or kerosene lamps on hand should those systems fail. They grow a windowsill herb garden and conclude they're experts on survival gardening. They claim it's easy to preserve an entire season's worth of fruits and vegetables before they've even broken their new pressure canner out of its box.

In other words, I urge people to get as much practical experience as possible to supplement their book learning.

On the up side, there is nothing more satisfying than learning a skill or procedure in real life. When we got our first cow in 1998, I was terrified to milk her and had no idea how to actually get milk out of those teats. I queried up and down the road we lived on, asking if someone could tutor me (no one did). So I learned. And you know what? It's fun. (Most of the time.) It's educational, it's satisfying, and it's productive.

So whenever possible, lay down the books and plunge into the reality, just like Frank and Fern have done. You'll never look back.

Why acidify tomatoes?

Over at Thoughts from Frank and Fern, there's a very educational post about whether or not it's necessary to acidify tomatoes when canning. Fern emailed and asked my opinion on the subject, which she included in the post. The opinions of some other bloggers are included as well.

Well worth the read, especially if canning tomatoes is looming in your near future.

Fast food, country style

There's a new and cool blog called Thoughts From Frank and Fern about a couple who is homesteading in Oklahoma.

This afternoon I saw a spiffy post called Fern's Fast Food, in which Fern made a quickie meal of scrambled eggs (mixed with meat and cheese) and toast for dinner. Ten minutes from beginning to end.

Or was it?

What goes into scrambled eggs? What goes into toast?

Fern points out that toast must start as wheat. Eggs must start as baby chicks. Meat starts out as baby goats. Cheese starts with milk, which must be extracted from an animal that has been bred...

...and so on and so forth.

We take our own "fast food" for granted. When I reach into the freezer for a steak, I forget that we had to breed the cow, raise the steer for two years, and have the steer butchered. Ditto with milk, cheese, butter, eggs, wheat, vegetables, fruit, and other staples we produce on our homestead.

Walk with Frank and Fern through their fast food and learn to appreciate how good food gets here!