Emergency Kits

Today I am going to review the Quakehold! Grab-n-Go kits.  I am definitely not saying that this is the very best kit you can get.  In fact, it is a long shot from the very best kit.  But here is the deal.  If you don't have anything yet, this is a great way to get started.  It is relatively inexpensive.  It comes with everything you need for very basic survival for three days.  This is minimum.  You won't be eating very good.  You will be thirsty.  But it should help you and one other person get through most conditions alive for three days. If you want a better kit, the best way to go is to begin with something like this.  Get the basics and then start adding things that make sense for you and your needs.  The first thing I would add to a kit like this is a really good knife.  I am not talking about the big pieces of steel that people call survival knives.  Those look fun and all but they really aren't going to do the job.  What you need is a solid knife like the knives that ESEE makes.  They have a small knife called the IZULA that would do a good job as a starter knife.  Or you could step up and buy the model 3 or 4 and those would do an even better job.  I personally would prefer to have the ESEE 4.  ESEE knives used to be known as Rat Cutlery so sometimes you will find these knives with the old RAT names.  The ESEE 4 is by far one of the sturdiest, most useful knives I have found for survival situations.

The very next thing I would add to my basic survival kit is some more food.  I wouldn't go overboard.  But it would be nice to have some MRE's in there so I could have some hot food.  You can't imagine how comforting it is to have something hot to eat when things are tough.  I would also throw in some hard candy.  It is nice to have a little something to snack on. 

More on building a bug out bag, or an emergency kit later.  But I can't stress this enough, if you don't have a basic kit, get something like the Quakehold! kit to get a start.  It is better than nothing at all.

Inflation Wake Up Call

This video documentary is almost an hour. It is well worth watching.

Building a Small Aquaponics System in my Greenhouse

This is the first of several entries that will share the same name.  I am going to document my efforts to build and run a successful aquaponics system in my greenhouse.  To get started, let me explain the greenhouse.  It is small.  Just 8' by 6 '.  I am able to use about 3/4 of it because I need to save the rest of the area for my wife to sprout small garden starts in the springtime.  Right now, the rest of the small greenhouse is a disaster area.  We use it to store a few of the garden tools and it also has a bunch of my beehive equipment.  I have two beehives and so I store my smoker and a few other things in the greenhouse.  Not that any of this is a particularly big deal, it is just something to be aware of.
Next, the weather.  The weather here gets to be about 95 degrees and spikes into the mid 100's during July.  Nights drop down to the low 80's.  This should be okay for the fish.  That is what I am worried about for the summer months.  Will it be too hot for the fish.  I am going to start with some small goldfish.  Once I can get the system running decent, I will add a Koi or two.  With the plan of raising them until they are big and then selling them as ornamental fish.  If it gets too hot, I will install a small swamp cooler in the greenhouse.  This should get it cool enough.  Our average humidity here is around 6%--so swamp coolers work pretty good.  In fact, about half the houses in this area use swamp coolers instead of central air.
Then, as winter approaches, I am going to research how to keep the greenhouse warm enough.  I think there are some small propane heaters that can be regulated with temperature controls.  If I have done my math right, it shouldn't cost more than about $20.00 a month to run in the winter.  Not bad--if I can produce what I think I can produce with the system.
For this project, I am going to put occasional entries here on the blog.  The whole point of this exercise is to find a way to become self sufficient.  If the small system is successful, I will look at doing some larger systems.  From my reading and research, it seems that for every square foot of garden area (area where you actually can grow vegetables) you can produce about 6-10 lbs of vegetables per year and about 2-3 lbs of fish per year.  So in my greenhouse, I am going to start with 16 square feet of area and see if I can produce close to these numbers.  Don't worry, I won't be eating the goldfish.  I just want to start with them because they are fairly hardy--that way I am not killing off whole bunches of tilapia getting the system dialed in.  I should be able to produce about 130 lbs of vegetables through the first year.  If I can do that, make it through the winter and all, I am going to get going on a bigger system next spring.

Crazy Thought Process concerning Debt

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Government-debt-explosion-apf-3157069187.html?x=0

So I read this article.  It actually seems as if it is saying it is a good thing that our annual debt increase is going to be only $1.56 TRILLION.  Here is the problem with the article.  First of all, that is the increase for the year.  It is like saying I start the year with $100,000 dollars that I owe.  And then I add another $100,000 of debt onto that.  My annual deficit is $100,000.  But now I owe a total of $200,000.  The government of the United States currently owes $14.3 trillion dollars.  And that is not including unfunded mandates like Social Security, Medicare, and the new Health Care debacle.  This $14.3 Trillion number is only what is actually on the books.  But here is the crazy thing.  It seems this article is praising the Obama administration for adding only another 10% onto the deficit in one year.  That makes no sense at all.  If I increase my debt by 10% in one year--I AM GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.  The mainstream media needs to quit hiding the real number in the middle of a fairly boring article (that being the $14.3 Trillion dollars) and put the total deficit first.  Quit spending Washington.  Where is the money going to come from?  What gives you the right to spend it in the first place?  The Constitution provides for the General Welfare of the population not the specific welfare initiatives that are all the craze nowdays.  There was, and still is, no provision in the Constitution for our government to tax in an effort to redistribute wealth.  And there is no moral right for anyone in Washington to spend any more money until they get us going in the other direction.  Pay off the Debt.

Gold on the Rise?

Intersting article on gold came out today from Yahoo Finance.  Now the mainstream is beginning to pick out the obvious point that demand for gold is there and is forcing the price of gold to rise when everything else is going the other direction.  Interesting food for thought. 

Aquaponics Issues

So the very biggest challenge for my area of the country is going to be the extreme heat and cold.  During the month of July, we average about 95 degrees with several days at 105 or so.  During the winter, we average 22 degrees during December and January with many days down around 15 or so and even an occasional spike down to 5 degrees.  Not that 5 degrees is such a cold number, the issue is keeping everything alive when it gets cold.
I am considering building the aquaponics system in my little greenhouse.  At just 48 square feet, the greenhouse is small enough to heat and cool fairly easily, the question is how? 
For heat, I have been looking at purchasing a small propane heater with a simple thermostat system that will kick it on and off at specific temperatures.  This seems to be the most simple solution.  My very best estimate tells me that it should only cost around $20.00 a month to run that little heater even during the coldest months.  Not too bad--especially in exchange for about 50 lbs of tilapia and several hundred small greens (such as heads of lettuce, cabbage, celery, tomatoes, etc.)  Yes, you read that right, several hundred.  If I am doing my calculations right, the system should produce around 1500 small plants (really any assortment I want) and around 200 lbs of tilapia a year. 
For cooling, this should be much more simple.  I can either go with a small, window seated swamp cooler and just set it on a stand outside the greenhouse (with a cutout for it to stick into the greenhouse).  Or I can actually get a floor model and stick it in the greenhouse.  Not sure if the expense is all worth it, but I really want to figure this out.  Can you imagine finding a fairly simple way to produce all of your food needs?  Everything I have read says that a well built system can provide all of one person's food needs for one year in 100 square feet.  That is just a 10 x 10 area.  That means in an average 2 car garage you could produce all the food needs for a family of four.  Pretty amazing. 

Building a Basic Aquaponics System

Aquaponics is the combination of Aquaculutre and Hydroponics.  With an aquaculture system, plants are grown with now soil--just water.  In a hydroponics system, fish are grown for food.  With an aquaponics system, you combine the two systems to create a self sustaining system that produces both vegetables and fish for use.
The waste from the plants provides food for the fish and the waste from the fish provides nutrients for the plants.  To set up a basic aquaponics system, very little is needed.  Some of the best links I have found for building a basic aquaponics system are the following:

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/Travis/Simplified-Manual.pdf

http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/adap/FoodSecurity/Documents/HUGHEY2005_Barrel-ponics.pdf

The first is the original set up and the second is one that took the original setup and has added a bunch more information.  My estimates are that this system could be set up for around $200.00 and it could produce enough food for one adult for a year in a total space of about 10-15 square feet.  In other words, if you set up a series of these, you could provide for the needs of an average size family in about 60 square feet.  I am going to set one up over the next few months and will include some videos of how the project is going.  My biggest hurdle is the weather.  I live in a state where it gets fairly cold for about 5 months out of the year.  And then in the summer it gets over 100 degrees.  I have a greenhouse but am first going to set up a solar panel for the greenhouse that will provide electrical current to run a swamp cooler (to actually cool the greenhouse in the summer) and a heater (to heat it in the winter).  My costs for this part of the set up may run close to $500.00 and then the $200.00 for the actual hydroponics system.  With my space constraints (I have a greenhouse that is just 8' by 6') I think I can set up a system that will produce around 250 lbs of fish a year (the best fish for the system is tilapia) and about 4000 head of lettuce (or any mix of a wide variety of vegetables that take about the same amount of space) yearly.  We will see.