Greetings from Ohio

[kamkelms]

Hi all....just joined the forum a few days ago and started to peruse. I'm really glad there is a place to say Hi. I'm a homeschooling mom of 7, nanna to 1. We've been interested in self sufficiency since Y2K and have moved to a farm. Still working on the whole thing, but really feeling the rumblings that things are going from bad to worse and I need to get a wriggle on and get ready for . I'm really glad to see a forum specifically for women (although I understand there are big brothers here...yay!). Am really looking forward to learning and sharing with all of you.

[dogmom4]

Welcome!!

[Sunflower]

Hi all....just joined the forum a few days ago and started to peruse. I'm really glad there is a place to say Hi. I'm a homeschooling mom of 7, nanna to 1. We've been interested in self sufficiency since Y2K and have moved to a farm. Still working on the whole thing, but really feeling the rumblings that things are going from bad to worse and I need to get a wriggle on and get ready for . I'm really glad to see a forum specifically for women (although I understand there are big brothers here...yay!). Am really looking forward to learning and sharing with all of you.

 

 

Welcome. I am new also. I have attempted to post a "hello" several times, and did not suceed. I use to live in Calif. So earthquake prepping was something I practiced to a degree. Knowing what I know now, I realize how underprepared I really was. I have been in several earthquakes and pulled through ok, except for a apt falling all around me. Stayed in a shelter to get some rest, but that did not work out, and came back home.

 

Like you, I feel something is very wrong and getting worse. Feels like longterm get worse to me. My husband is not on the same thought process, but is fairly accepting. The truth of the matter is I am a rouge prepper. I usually don't ask permission. I carry in supplies after hubby is in bed during times when he has about had it with my prepping interest. The spare bedroom is a pantry-storage area now. When we married, he did not even want 3 days food on hand. I insisted on 3 weeks. Then came a bad winter. Thankfully I had a month supply in the basement. Then came the bad weather and money tighting due to unexpected expenses and contract going bankrupt. My 3 month supply turned out to be a 6 week back up and then I started to run out of stuff. Yes I had veg juice and a few commodities left over, but basically the shelves were empty. One thing I learned is that I am a 3000 plus calarie eater when dealing and living in stress. All my 1 year 1600 calorie planning is now considered half!. I know that rationing is something I should take more seriously, but when I have no water, and electric is off most the time, 10 days is my limit for sanitity. Six weeks was hard, and then there was more days after that due to ice storms. You get the idea.

 

Welcome. And congrats for having the courage to home school. I admire that!

 

Wishing you the best from Kansas. I am 50 years old, post head trauma and stoke person. I don't have a lot of physical stamina. I can walk, dress self, drive and look pretty normal anymore. Still slurr my speech when tired and can drool. Decided to get a drooling dog for extra help. He is over 150 pounds - a Great Pyrenese.

 

Enjoy, Tess from Kansas.

[kamkelms]

Thanks so much! I didn't really put much info into my intro compared to others...oops! Guess I could add a bit more...I know how to water bath can, but haven't attempted pressure canning, although I did put in a gas stove in the basement that runs on propane just for that very reason. I would love to get an All American Canner rather than the Presto one I have now.

 

 

Hubby got me the entire Homestead Blessings series on DVD for Christmas so I'm going to make it a point of watching one at a time and trying to learn each area.

 

We had cows, now in our freezer (they were on the short list when one attacked me and broke my rib...I enjoy every stinking bite now LOL). We have laying hens and two manure-makers (aka horses). We have a fairly big veg garden, which has varying successes...mainly due to my failure to follow up. It's behind the barn, so out of sight, out of mind. My bad...

 

We planted an orchard this spring....guess we'll find out if they survive the winter, mild as it's been so far.

 

Trying to come up with backups to backups in case of lack of electricity.

 

We have a hand pump for the well, which will be a blessing.

 

I have an old treadle sewing machine as well as a loom, not that I really know how to use either

 

So...I think that's it...until I think of more!

 

 

[kamkelms]

Nice to meet you, Tess! I get where you're coming from - we were stuck in that big ice storm back in '96 in the Northeast...in an all-electric house. Boy, was that a wake-up call! We're retired military, so have lived in earthquake country, tornado country, hurricane country, etc, and have had a few minor experiences with them. Longterm is right - that's what I'm thinking. A paradigm shift in the way we live to be sure. If we're lucky, we'll adapt, and prepping will help quite a bit!

 

I had a friend who had a stroke at 34....you sound a lot like her in terms of your abilities. I hope and pray you will continue to heal!

 

We have 3 dogs...2 who were dumped on our road (one of our girls was praying for a puppy and got her wish!) and a black German Shepherd that's closing in on 100 lbs and thinks he's a puppy!

[dogmom4]

Welcome to you too Sunflower!

[Christy]

Welcome to you both. Feel at home and feel free to ask what the search button doesn't come up with.

[Annarchy]

kamkelms & Sunflower

 

 

 

 

[ma & pa steel]

So glad you have found our online home. to both of you.

[Momo]

Welcome to both of you. New members for the New Year!

[Dee]

Hi ladies and welcome to both of you!

[kamkelms]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

[snapshotmiki]

Welcome Kamkelms and Sunflower!!!!!! You will love it here!!!!

 

 

[WormGuy]

Welcome ladies, it's always good to have new friends. It sounds like both of you are on the right path that will make things better when things go south. Kalkelms, you might want to rethink that propane stove in the basement. The fumes will build up without proper ventalation and it will put moisture in the air also. Just be careful.

 

 

 

John

[sassenach]

Hi kamkelms and sunflower, welcome!

kamkelms I am a female navy aviation veteran and loved experimental aviation as a kid. So I have done alot of that shifting around. My son is grown and done his years, over 11 in the marines as an enl / officer and his wife still serves but Im concerned with the military numbers, marines included, soon that she may not be able to finish her twenty. At least he has his general teaching degree and will get his history and social studies and I know he is great with English, so in Texas, where they have bought a home, they should be ok, while she gets reestablished if the marines cut her. I know she's pretty valued though so maybe she won't get pushed out. Extraordinary woman.

He should be finishing his student teaching by the time shes out this year. They have not called and said they dropped her like a rock yet at least.

I grew up in Santa Barbara Ca and lived in much of the state over my earlier adult years, finishing ten yrs with the navy, in the desert.

Then moving north up the coast for a dozen years.

 

Then I moved east again. ( was in VA and NJ and some time in TN early in my navy years and 2yrs overseas in Iceland while my son was very small).

 

So. know the feeling of having to resettle wherever I end up. Hoping the next place will be by good choices long thought out if the stuff doesn't crumble too badly first.

 

Yes, sunflower, there are plenty of folks on here that have physical and other challenges too. I am definitely one of them too. These folks have been very supportive and helpful with suggestions to make things easier and they help one break down how to get started and experienced enough so someone will clarify any particulars in questions you have on any subject.

 

Alot of us are struggling one way or another and it does feel like the pressure is on. Especially now. Seems like every day there is some transgression that just doesn't sit well with most of us, and so many others I know elsewhere online. Lots of venues here.

 

My son who has been living high on the hog for a few years , actually listened the last time we talked about food costs and storage foods and how to rotate it and that you can actually do some great gourmet cooking with alot of it and I think he is grasping its more than just flour and sugar in buckets. I told him also alot of it was much healthier than packaged up food, cooking from scratch and that canning meat keeps it shelf stable and ready to heat and eat, stuff like that. And I knowww he loved my jerky as a kid and I can store so much more even if I dehydrate frozen vegies, than I can in my little freezer and I use it all anyway. Where I live food costs are getting pretty outrageous and Im on a SSD check for now, so anything I can do helps me month to month and I can also do some setting aside although I feel quite behind.

 

It involves so much more than just food though, and there is alot of know how here and people continuing to increase their knowledge. Some fine medical know how too in dealing with different health needs, and herbal knowledge too.

 

I have downloaded a bunch of the military manuals on surgery and dental and such things on my kindle for pc, and more elaborate medical care than you can get out of a first aid manual because it may just be needed in due time. For now though I will try and get my dental stuff and medical stuff done asap now. Then I might be able to last a while longer and get through anything rougher, lol.

 

Its a challenge and I have to think outside the box just to get anywhere around here as its very rural and I dont have my own car and no good friend I could hook up with to make appts, so have to look at other ways. Of which are also being very affected by major budget cuts.

 

It takes up all my energy to get a few things done and I am not very strong and have to arrange for hernia surgery...... that torn and badly healed muscle..... well, a nasty med I have been trying to get off of for over a year, is the culprit , it weakens the muscles. + Fibro. Trying to get things sorted out is challenging cause I have a bunch of rheumatalogical disorders and its finally also been resolved, no thanks to the crappy VA docs around here, that I am also Type 2 diabetic. So, knowledge and access being resourceful as I can with what I have to work with at this point is very important. AS it is, its the diabetic nurse who has been so terrific and helping me clarify this hernia situation. Civilian though, so Im stuck with serious copays so that makes eating and buying clothes a challenge, shoes ,etc of any quality. So, as I see the world and country cookies crumbling , and other things of a serious nature and having been through 3 natural disasters here last year...... I rent an apartment in a tiny town inside 6 million acres of wild lands..... the adirondacks and for the time being its nice there isnt tons of snow outside. I can catch up on my clutter clearing and am rearranging things further and making my bedroom more of an office library,crafting and storage room. and put the bed on a non heated wall in the living room.

 

Its beginning to appear more normal as I clear things up and rearrange them. Still getting bins for the loose stuff, but at least they stack.

 

I was gifted an almost new bed too, thanks to some good friends of the diabetic nurse and it sure feels good. Ive been sleeping on a lousy cot for over a year so this is great.

 

I cant push myself either and its many carries of the books to move a bookshelf for now, but I can do one big thing a day now, without too much getting sore and not hurting my abdomen worse than it is. Plus it has been so mild some days its not uncomfortable or too icey to get out and walk some like I need to do. Every bit helps.

 

And I can now look out at the snowflakes with the cat when I want to.

 

So, since I live in the Adirondacks, part of prepping was getting good outdoor gear and hand tools, some of which I still need, but Ive got alot more than I started out with 4 yrs ago. Plus dehydrated food in cans is a lot easier to move on foot when you are not as strong as you were when you were 23.

[themartianchick]

I know that I welcomed kankelms on another thread but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do it OFFICIALLY over here! Welcome to you, too, Sunflower. I look forward to reading your posts and following your journeys into self-sufficiency. There is no step that is too small to celebrate here with the folks at Mrs. S!

[Necie]

Hi and welcome to you both.

 

Yup, preps never seem to last as long as we think they will. And it doesn't take a huge disaster to need them, sometimes small personal disasters will use up preps faster than anything.

 

Feel free to post anyway you'd like. There's no right or wrong. You can give as little or as much info as you're comfortable with. We're all here to help and support each other in our endeavors.

 

If you have any problems posting (or with the site), PM Cat. She's a genius...with a party machine and cheesecake.

[Jeepers]

Hi ladies and ------->

 

Take time to read or jump right in with questions/suggestions. There is usually someone here with an answer or two. No question is too silly. Most of us have thought about it too or wish we had.

 

I agree that there is 'something in the air' but I don't know what it is; best to be prepared to the best of our ability. Glad to have you both join in!