2013 Gardening and 2014 plans

The growing season has come and gone. My container gardening has once again proved to be aggravating to say the least. I arranged everything so that I could maximize the sunlight, but still it wasn't enough to get a good crop. We did pull some things off of it, they were quite tasty. What we didn't eat was seeded and the seeds are stored away for next year's testing phase. As long as they reproduce, I'll keep pulling seeds so that we have a reliable seed cache.
The most exciting thing is our plans and projects. The first of 2 major projects is a simple 10x10 raised bed garden. Its low key, but has the ability to produce a large quantity of fruit. I would very much like to push tomatoes on our first season. I want to make all kind of things to store. After designing and deciding on a solid design I priced it and we're at a $98 dollar build. A hundred bucks is a big chunk and I understand but I think that if we produce enough fruit then we can make that back simply on saving on grocery bills later. Also, this gives us time to learn to can properly. It'll be a great learning experience and a great team work experience.
I feel like since I got married I lost a lot friends. There are a handful of friends that didn't go anywhere and I feel like the bonds between us are getting stronger and stronger. I really can't explain how good it feels to know that I have these people in my life. 
Anyway, the first project is a 10x10 garden. The second project (likely slated for spring of 2015) is a 10x20 shed/greenhouse which would attach to the 10x10 garden and a 3x10 garden for raspberries. The design I have drawn up looks really neat. The price of that project however, its not $98. That might cover the plywood and 2x4s we'll need. but there is way more than that to the whole thing. It looks so badass though. I wish there was a grant out there for folks trying to grow their own groceries. I just want 1 square acre that I could farm on.
Like I said, I would like to push for heavy tomato crops in the first season so that we can make and can our own tomato sauce, tomato paste, ketchup, sun dried tomatoes and basil, and all kind of other things. I get giddy just thinking about it. I can't wait to get through winter so we can get dirty and learn. When the opportunity comes up, I'll post a picture of the full design of the greenhouse/shed/garden. I'll be coming up with recipes and reviewing the uses of all possible vegetables in the garden. I'm too excited.

I can't wait to get dirty, build things, and then harvest what we've worked hard to produce. 

I think that moment when stand there looking at a good harvest or maybe after we've filled our shelves with freshly canned goodness is the moment when the four of us will realize that we really are capable to doing amazing things and that the time and energy we put into this was completely worth it. I can't wait. 

26 November 2013

Its been several months since my last post. Not much has changed actually. The growing season has come and gone, winter is upon us, and we're doing pretty good.
I really want to talk about the gardening situation, but I have so much to talk about that I'm afraid it will dominate this post. I'll post another shortly.
I've done some gear upgrades. I was originally using a Taigear tactical vest as my molle platform, but (for my wedding anniversary) I got a Condor Defender Vest. I think I'm going to end up writing up a quick review of it this week. I trimmed some of my other gear too. At this point, I'm far more focused on food storage.
That leads me into my next topic. The prep room is coming along. We decided that the bed in the bedroom was kind of useless and taking up valuable room. So we actually stripped the room completely, cleaned the carpets, and took some time to decide what was important. I'm actually typing this at my desk in there. It has a nice, warm war room feel. We're working on decorations. It feels kind of sterile right now, almost like a dorm room of a lunatic. It will come around and be a great room in the house that the wife and I can both enjoy. I'd like to make it a reading room with a classic Border's feel. Where was I was going was our food storage is coming along because of the added room and area to focus on what we can keep and stock without losing track of it. I'm actually really confident in our abilities.
The wife as really come along. I still think she was pretty hesitant when I started to get into this. However, after a vacation trip to Virginia she came home with books and determination to use knowledge she got from Williamsburg tours and books she picked up. She picked up some herbs at Lowes on clearance and got things growing. She even has a crab apple planted. I can't be more proud of her.
We've added some new books to our collection. The next is going to be The Prepper's Cookbook. Once we have that I believe I'm going to be doing a review of it. All the new stuff is basically based around herbs and their uses. Its outside of my grasp of understanding, but I'll work on it.
The winter season has started. I have the house winterized, which is what prompted me to start looking at a redesign of the prep room/war room. We're going to be testing some of our stuff like our stove here soon to make sure it works properly, and so we can get a little practice on it incase something should actually happen.
A quick side note, both my wife and I are medicated now which I think has spawned a thirst of knowledge and more drive and determination. I know that that is especially true for me.
In sad news however, after finding a dealer right near by sells great equipment, I made a list of all the things I wanted and then this happened.
http://shipnc.com/articles/2013/11/12/news/doc5282372d46076656827649.txt
Yup. NCIS shut them down because they were thieves. It like having your favorite family member that has been there for you your whole life turn out to be a pedophile. Its uncomfortable and now I don't know how much I can trust dealers like that. It makes me angry, but most of all it disappoints me that people would so happily buy stolen Marine's property. Thats our guys that you're taking from. Its disappointing from where I stand. I have a grocery list of things they had. I want to go and steal from them so they can never see a cent of profit. I don't care what the reasoning was, I don't want a sob story from them.
The rest of wants going on is based around gardening and upcoming projects. So for now I'll end it here. I want to get all my gardening stuff out.

Last quick side note, I think I'm going to start learning about writing. I do enjoy it, but I feel like everything I write is disjointed and hard to follow. It seems to be a stream of consciousness, and thats not always fun to read.

16 July 2013

Its been a bit since I made an entry here. Its been for several reasons. I've been busy, I've been short on ideas, I've been in a preppers slump for a while, but mainly I've been busy. Made some serious changes in my every day life.

So since I last posted, I've taken a serious interest in my personal health. I've lost 25lbs so far. Kicking soda and watching what I'm eating is making a huge difference. I feel better. I'm actually proud of how I appear. I've made an effort to watch what I eat, or make decisions about what I eat. I started thinking of calories as shame. How much shame can I afford in one meal? It makes a big difference. I now have several shirts that I bought and never wore because I didn't feel comfortable in them that I can wear and feel awesome in. I know preppers harp on using technology blah blah blah, but its available I'm going to use it. I have an App on my phone called MyFitnessPal that is helping a ton. It helps in situations like, I'm a little hungry and I think I want to go to McDonalds. My typical 2 McDoubles is 780 calories, thats a third of what my allotment is for the day. I find its way easier to say no to those kind of decisions. If you're trying to lose some weight or just track what you eat and have an smartphone, get this. It helps 100% and its free.

We've been doings weekly Flea Market runs, its its been a pretty depressing season so far. The flea market has expanded, however, the people that are there just bring the same stuff every week and want standard retail prices for their junk. They refuse to haggle and frankly alot of them are rude when you try to haggle down the price. Nothing great has turned up in 2 months. I'll keep going, its good exercise.

The retraining of Panzer is hard to get back into. He's such a puppy at heart, its very tough to break him of puppy habits. He doesn't destroy anything which is amazing, but he gets REALLY rambunctious when people come in. We will continue to work on this. I still have every intention of getting him the good citizen award.

My prepping gear continues to grow, however, I've slowed down. I've made an effort to come up with smaller, lighter, just as functional equipment. My current project is a fishing kit that can be stored in a pill bottle.

My ComicCon costume is well on its way, I need the uniform and boots yet and it will be ready. However, through a series of shit circumstances, my wife may not be able to go with me. This is pretty irritating. We're still a month and a half out, so it can always change.

Finally, my garden is looking pretty fantastic. We changed locations on the porch to maximize sunlight. We had some casualties. But everything else took off and we couldn't be happier. I was looking at a neighbor's garden right down the street and in suburbia they have a 12ft x 12ft garden. Holy crap, they may have 100 tomatoes growing on 6 plants. Their plants are so full its almost unbelievable. They have several other plants and everything seems to be producing amazing amounts of fruit. I can't want to have a plot of land. A year is too long.

In closing, I'm doing well. Life is hectic. I hope everyone is doing well out there!

Week in review 4/21/13

I spent last week reviewing the past couple months, but I'm making an attempt to get back into the motion of updating every Sunday. I'm also trying something new to make things more cohesive. Thats right, I'm finally writing things down so I can keep track of what I want to say. Without further ado: Last week.

Well start with the continuation of Phase 2, we planted the seeds on Sunday. its been one week, and they've exploded. The green bean plants are now about 14 inches tall. Both types of cucumbers are now all about 4 to 6 inches tall. Thats great right? Wrong. Its still dropping down to sometimes freezing at night. I think we might have to make an emergency transplant of the green beans into plants that we can keep inside until its safe to put them outside. I have determined that gardening is not a science, it does not have standards, and it will do whatever the hell it wants regardless of what you think and feel. I'm happy to seem them sprouting up so nicely, I may have some extra to send out this year again. I helped a friend move yesterday, now she has a nice back porch and she wants to plants. I think she'll be receiving a few. I really hope these plants produce something. I would be very pleased with myself.

While talking about Phase 2, I wanted to mention that people throw away perfectly good things in my neighborhood. I don't mean a broken chair that needs a new back and it will be useable. I don't want to sound like a hoarder. Yesterday on a walk my wife noticed some stuff stacked up beside a dumpster. Yes, this story is about (sort of) dumpster diving. Someone threw some stuff and in the stuff were 3 almost brand new flower pots. They look like they were used one season and then tossed to the garbage. Today, I emptied one and brought it in. The last two will be brought in later tonight. I don't like doing that durring the day, I'd rather do it under the cover of darkness. It makes me feel like a secret agent. Point of the story? Living in an apartment complex isn't so bad. It has its perks.

I've been thinking a reoccurring post each week that deals with my Sunday routine. I go to the William's Grove Flea Market almost every Sunday. The only times I don't are on holidays and days it rains. I think I'm going to start posting a small post about the stuff I find. I don't always buy, but I always see interesting things and meet interesting people. And if I don't do either of those, I find out some thing interesting about a friend I didn't know. For instance, my friend Mike who I only knew him as being a movie buff and a nerd was walking around with me last sunday and he started looking at fishing sinkers. I said to him, "I didn't think you were a fisher." His reply, which took my by surprise, "I'm not, but you can melt these down and use it to make bullets." Needless to say, I was completely shocked. I think at this point "Preppers" are pretty common, they just don't know what they are yet.

As for this week at the flea market, I'm happy to report that ammo has started popping up on tables. Its not always what you're looking for but people are emptying out their workshops and closets and selling off what they don't want/need. I found a gentleman who had a couple boxes of 308 for sale at a decent price that I'm sure didn't last the day. I found plenty of 30/30 and 30-06 for sale. I also noticed an uptick in rifles and shotguns for sale. These are standard hunting rifles, no black guns. These is now a nice self -defense guys there. They sell kubatons, batons, tasers, stun guns, pepper spray, and other stuff. Today they threw some .22LR, 9mm, 5.56, and some .380 on the table. When people saw it, it didn't last. When I got to the table, they had 1 50-round box of CCI standard .22, 3 boxes of TulAmmo .380 at $25/box, and some 5.56 left. They're cool guys and when I learn what the the name of their business is I'll plug it. As for the day, we didn't get there until later than normal. We had boots on the ground at 9:30am and it was still too cold for most people so there were quite a few open spaces. It wasn't a bad day but it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. It was a zero dollar day.
Yeah, after writing that I have decided I will be making that a weekly post. 

Finally, today ended up making a trip to Dunham's and a fabric place. I needed some stuff for my drop bag I got the other day. Dunham's had a weird twist though. I went in fully knowing I wasn't going to find any ammo. I spent some time talking to the guy behind the counter with the guns. We'll call him "Dan". He was very knowledgable, we talked about the GSG-9, the MP5 clone by ATI. I've been looking to buy one because...well because I think they look cool and I think they'd be fun to shoot. He showed me the AR .22 that they also made. Its not as fun as the MP5. Suddenly, my wife called me over where she was standing with an employee. He had 4 boxes of .22LR in his hand. He hands them to me and tells me he was holding them for himself but he heard me talking. So because of an incredibly nice staff member I got 200 Federal .22LR for $16. I know its not a great price, but this two weekends of shooting for me. That guy rocks, I appreciate what he did and I can't thank him enough. If you're whining because he was holding product for himself, shut up you never worked retail in an store that you had interest in.

That brings this week to a close. I'm hoping to have a more structured week next week!
At the beginning of starting writing this I had 860 views, so we're close to 1000 views! I'm excited.

Personal Update

I have spent the last 24 hours thinking about how awful that last post was written. There was so much to talk about but I didn't really hit anything I wanted to. So I decided we're going to go back and be a little more decisive with the update.

I mentioned that there is a military surplus place near my apartment that stock changes regularly. I went back because I was kind of interested in a Pro Mask bag they had that didn't have a price tag on it last time. Well, today I went back. It was marked for $8. I didn't think that was bad, so I bought one. I also saw they had new boots for $49. I didn't buy any, they didn't have my size. I think it will be a purchase when they finally do have my size. I was also told through the grapevine that the state surplus warehouse used to/still might sell surplus state police gear. I was told there were bins of boots and holsters for a few bucks a piece. I'm hoping to confirm that by early next week. I also talked about my gear upgrades. There is my personal gear so far. I'm pretty proud of it. I might add I look like a beast when I'm in full gear.

I fit all my gear, but it could always fit better. I maintain a distaste for my body. I'm too big. I'm not obese or disgustingly fat, but I am not proud of it. My goal at this point is to be in a size 38 waist  and a comfortable fit of an XL shirt by mid August. The goal is mid august is so that I have time to order a set of black BDU's for Comic Con in Baltimore in September. I'm dressing up this year as an Umbrella Corp soldier. The costume looks suspiciously like my bug out gear. I maintain my status as a nerd.

Also, Phase 2 2013 was just started. We've backed down the amount of plants this year from 72 to 36. we ended up with alot of extra plants that we couldn't send anywhere. Its only been a couple days since they were planted and already we're seeing growth! What you're looking at is 6 cucumber, 6 bell pepper, 6 hot pepper, 6 lettuce, 6 pickling cucumbers, and 6 green beans. This year we want to produce a decent amount of vegetables  If all 36 make it to plant stage, we're still going to have to give some away. There is some extra thought put into this. If we can produce pickling cucumbers, we are going to make pickles. I'm very excited. We made our share of mistakes last year that were all noted. I hope to avoid as many hiccups as we can this year and produce to good food!

Finally, mentally I've been feeling great. I've been maintaining my regiment of supplements  I've been sick minimal amount of times this year. Allergies were the culprit in almost all the cases  of missing work. However, I've done something to my leg. I get a limp sometimes and my knee and the back of my thigh above the back of my knee hurt like hell. I'm not quite ready to see a doctor, its relatively new. I will be starting my gym regiment again in a day or two. It recently flipped to a 24 hour gym so I can go at night on the weekend. I'm 26 and when I think about the weekend I'm trying to figure out when I can start going to the gym. You have to have your priorities. Also, I recently had to buy some clothes. Its never a fun time, especially as a larger built fellow. I have found that every store has dropped their big and tall section.

It's mid way through April now. I have my goals set for mid August. I would like to see size 36/38 and maintaining by the end of the year. I have also had to make the decision that if I am forced by lack of supply to practice shooting I will spend that extra time running. However, I think I will be rationing my supply to make sure that I can do SOME shooting so I can at very least maintain my ability to hit a target at 100 yards with a long rifle and maintain a decent group with my pistol at 10 feet. I think it would be horribly counter productive to let myself get rusty because I don't want to dwindle my supplies.

Anyway, that is all for now. This isn't the article I expected to write, but it was worth it.

Four months into 2013.

So I've been busy and lazy. Maybe not lazy, winter has taken my motivation from me. With the weather warming up and getting to spend more time in the sun has revitalized me. So, here we go!

Also, I won't be talking about current events in this post. I'm going to make another post to discuss that stuff.

First, lets talk about the horrible winter that we endured. By horrible I meant non existant. That is Pennsylvania for you. So with a non existant winter we didn't have to use any of our supplies, but we did anyway. We've had some stuff sitting for a while so we circulated some of our food. That is my final report on Winter 2012/13 or lack there of.

Recently, we decided that we wanted to buy our dog a yard and a dog house. We decided we were going to try to find a yard what had a house for the wife and I too. Unfortunately, due to financial slips on my part we are unable to get a mortgage for a year. We did learn a couple good lessons from it all. While I was incredible let down, we decided to take some extra money and get rid of debt and we made a good budget that is going to give us some extra money to use to resupply. So its not all bad. We have 12 months and we'll try again.

I took my first (of many) civil service tests so I can get a promotion. I'm still shitting bricks about the scores. I probably won't know for another week. Side note, an agreement with my father may lead to a shotgun if the score is 93% or better. I've been trying like hell to score a shotgun but money is never in my favor. Where that all leads is to where I'm at with my gear. I recently picked up a fantastic molle vest and some pouches. I need some other pouches. I found a cool surplus shop near my place that I am checking out weekly because there stuff is always moving. They have promask leg pouches for a couple bucks that I think I'm going to pick up. I'm not sure what I'll use it for but its a good durable drop pouch. It might be useful for raiding or scavenging. I found my missing mag for my pistol. So I'm up to 3 now. So those things are checked off the list. So I'm making headway!

Here is the everything important:
1. Winter was boring and uneventful.
2. I will be maintaining my living conditions for another 12 months.
3. Trying to get a promotion. In turn, also may get a shotgun.
4. Added vest, pouches, new flashlight, and magazines to gear list. In turn, taken them off the list.
5. I sucked at writing tonight, and that saddens me.
6. I have way more things I wanted to talk about. Tomorrow, I'll being writing a better piece.

Seriously, amen for spring. If winter would have drug on any longer, I don't know if I would have survived. Also, I'm sorry this is a jumble of stuff. Its been a while since I wrote anything and I think I rambled. So...sorry. I'm going to get back to writing more! I have some stuff I want to review too. I'm also looking for local folks to meet and greet. I would love to have some like minded people around. Anyway, thats all for now.