One of the potential disasters I keep an eye out for is economic disasters. The USA is a sitting duck for that one.
I am far from an economic expert, so I look at what the economic experts have to say about what the fiscal forecast is for the USA, and the rest of the world.
Many of the financial gurus who have a good track record of warning about past economic downturns are saying that we are due for a really bad one very soon. Some of them talk about 90% inflation that will hit suddenly.
I am not just taking these guy's word for this stuff. They do provide facts and figures that back up their bad news predictions.
One of these bits of information that made me start paying more attention is about our national debt. The interest on what we owe has passed the amount of money that the whole country makes every year. The interest is now at 106-107% of the US GNP.
The coming financial bloodbath in the USA will make the Big Depression that my parents experience, look puny, according to the financial pundits.
Not being independently wealthy makes me think about food and being able to eat during very bad times. I am firmly attached to being able to have enough to eat at all times. I would like to be able to keep eating regardless of what the weather, the politics, or the economy is doing.
That means that part of my preparedness has to do with how to manage to keep eating if the economy heads for the basement.
I have already mentioned that I think that being able to grow food is one of the best sources of security for most anyone. This is not something that can happen overnight. Even if you already have the knowhow and the supplies to grow enough food for yourself and your loved ones, it takes a while to get from seed to eating the produce from that seed.
Many of the people in the world, particularly those who have the wherewithal and knowhow to be reading this blog post, do not know squat about growing their own food. If you wish to keep on eating, you may want to get busy filling your knowledge gap in the growing food department.
I have previously posted on growing sprouts, microgreens, and small potted plants, even for apartment dwellers. I think it would be good for anyone, who is fond of eating, to get busy with these methods of learning through practice for growing your own food.
I have also previously posted on hydroponics for food production. I am planning to see if I can grow enough food to feed myself by using a vertical, or tower style, hydroponics system.
I sincerely hope that you, dear reader, will also investigate ways to feed yourself in emergencies, natural or otherwise.
I am not just staking
I am not just
Showing posts with label emergency preparedness.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emergency preparedness.. Show all posts
Monday, September 30, 2013
Friday, July 19, 2013
Evidence That You Will Probably Face Record Tornadoes And Hurricanes Because of Climate Change
It can be extremely difficult to get people to understand that climate change will affect their own lives. I notice people talking about how they need to stop climate change for the sake of their grandchildren. I also notice that most of the people who say things like this still drive around alone in their cars. Grandchildren dying when people are dead does not seem to be enough motivation to actually take effective steps to stop climate change.
I believe we will not get enough people acting to stop climate change before it is too late to do any good, unless people understand that their own comfort and maybe even their lives are at stake because of climate change.
I want to use this blog post to show people some things that are happening that might help them to understand that they may die and certainly will have a miserable time surviving unless they make major changes in how they live, in order to slow and stop climate change from getting so out of control that it will not be possible to prevent the Earth from becoming difficult or impossible to keep humans alive here any more.
Even if you can't get motivated enough to change your behaviors that are making climate change get rapidly worse and kill off the human race after you die, these links I intend to give you in this post should help you to understand that you may not be able to survive your normal life span, or will have a very hard time living as long as you are meant to, unless you make big changes in what you do now.
The first link is to a story about an enormous glacier, the biggest on Earth, that is breaking up much faster, than even the most pessimistic scientists expected it to. The reason that this matters to you is that this glacier is in the Antarctic. The polar regions affect weather all over the world. Such a large chunk of polar ice will affect your weather in a very bad way. It will make the storms that you get now, much worse and if you thought you did not need to worry about tornadoes and hurricanes in your area, you will soon get them.
Another bad thing about this glacier melting is what the amount of water in it will do to the oceans of the world. It will speed up the rise in sea levels. That will force more people than ever in history to move to keep from being drowned.
When large numbers of people find themselves forced out of their homes, this usually causes wars. We already have plenty of wars, but this will mean a great many more of them. It is hard for any country to stay out of wars if they are nearby. Climate change means that so many people will be forced to run for their lives that it is unlikely that many countries will be able to avoid being drawn into wars.
Here is a link to information about the giant iceberg that broke off in Antarctica.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/26/us-antarctica-iceberg-idUSTRE61P15H20100226
Here is a link to an artist who uses altered photos to show what west coast cities will look like as the oceans rise. http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/nickolay-lamm-west-coast-sea-level-rise-pictures-20130711
He already did illustrations of what the east coast will look like as sea levels rise. They say in the accompanying text, that these photos are what it will look like IF sea levels continue to rise. They only go up to 25 feet. Some scientists think sea levels can rise up to 50 feet.
We can be quite certain that sea levels will go up over 5 feet no matter what we do, because it is already too late to prevent that much of a rise. All that we can manage, if we make serious changes overnight is to stop sea level rise from getting to the highest levels, like 25 feet or more.
Chances for an overnight change of behavior world-wide, don't look too good for now. The longer we wait to change what we are doing now, the worse the sea level rise will be.
I have already posted about how sea level rise is affecting the world right now. An example of this is what is happening where I live in Alaska. We have over 180 villages in Alaska that will be flooded by the currently expected rise in sea level. Two of them, Shismaref and Kivalina were already scheduled to be evacuated over two years ago. Some of their buildings have been falling into the ocean every time there is a big storm.
The villages in Shismaref and Kivalina have not evacuated because they want to save their villages by moving them to the mainland. The state of Alaska does not have enough money to move all of the threatened villages. The state wants to move the villagers to bigger towns on the mainland and let the villages die. If you want to know more about it, you can look at my posts about it. This is happening in other places in the world, but not as fast. Climate change is faster in Arctic regions like Alaska.
The next link is only a sample of what can be expected because of climate change. The link is to a tornado in Oregon. This has not been a normal occurrence in Oregon. It will, be though. There are lots of other places that are getting their first tornado and can expect to get more of them because of climate change. Places that are more used to tornadoes, can expect to get a lot more of them and worse ones as well.
http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/oregon-tornado-mcminnville-jun2013-20130614
This post is already a bit longer than my old ones used to be and it would become a book if I put in a lot of examples of places that need to get used to tornadoes. I will probably do a post that is only on this subject. You need to look them up yourself, for now though.
Scientists do not know exactly what weather will do because of climate change. They only know ideas of major trends that will happen. This is because having polar ice melt so much and so fast is already causing unpredictable weather. It will only get more unpredictable.
An example of what could happen is that areas that are dry could become wet and vice versa. Oregon rainforests could become deserts and Florida swamps could become dry. The Mojave Desert could become wetter and so could the high plains desert in Nevada. If you live in areas of the world besides the USA, just think of the places that you know of that have extreme climates and imagine them going to the opposite extreme, or back and forth and in between.
Having schizophrenic weather will make it so much harder to raise enough food that millions more people will starve and even people who have comfortable incomes will feel the pain in their wallets. This will put more elderly people at risk of hunger, and as Baby Boomers retire, if that is you, you could be hungry too.
In the USA, elders are having to choose between paying for medicine or food. It will only get worse as climate change makes food production harder and more expensive. The increasing scarcity of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal will cause power costs to increase which will make for an even larger jump in food prices along with everything else getting more expensive because of transport costs going up.
There are other problems that climate change will make worse in the near future, but they can be harder for an average person to understand. I will see if I can start explaining it here for anyone who want to know. I am a bit discouraged about doing this because so few people do want to know. The majority of the human race seems to prefer ignorance to understanding and working on our problems. We do not have long before this approach will prove fatal to the human race. We won't all die right away, but it will be as certain anyway.
I posted a while back about a comparison of the human race treasuring it's ignorance, making us too much like a sheep that drowned in a creek that went through an alfalfa field that my family owned. The sheep died unnecessarily in spite of great efforts by me to save it. I am afraid the human race is preparing to die in the same way, through stubborn stupidity.
This blog is part of my efforts to try to keep the human race alive. My health problems are getting worse, so I don't know how much longer I can continue this part of my efforts, but I will do so as long as possible and I gather it will live on as long as Google does. :-p I hope it helps.
If you are reading this, you can be part of the solution to this problem of climate change. Learn to walk lightly on the Earth and take better care of it.
I believe we will not get enough people acting to stop climate change before it is too late to do any good, unless people understand that their own comfort and maybe even their lives are at stake because of climate change.
I want to use this blog post to show people some things that are happening that might help them to understand that they may die and certainly will have a miserable time surviving unless they make major changes in how they live, in order to slow and stop climate change from getting so out of control that it will not be possible to prevent the Earth from becoming difficult or impossible to keep humans alive here any more.
Even if you can't get motivated enough to change your behaviors that are making climate change get rapidly worse and kill off the human race after you die, these links I intend to give you in this post should help you to understand that you may not be able to survive your normal life span, or will have a very hard time living as long as you are meant to, unless you make big changes in what you do now.
The first link is to a story about an enormous glacier, the biggest on Earth, that is breaking up much faster, than even the most pessimistic scientists expected it to. The reason that this matters to you is that this glacier is in the Antarctic. The polar regions affect weather all over the world. Such a large chunk of polar ice will affect your weather in a very bad way. It will make the storms that you get now, much worse and if you thought you did not need to worry about tornadoes and hurricanes in your area, you will soon get them.
Another bad thing about this glacier melting is what the amount of water in it will do to the oceans of the world. It will speed up the rise in sea levels. That will force more people than ever in history to move to keep from being drowned.
When large numbers of people find themselves forced out of their homes, this usually causes wars. We already have plenty of wars, but this will mean a great many more of them. It is hard for any country to stay out of wars if they are nearby. Climate change means that so many people will be forced to run for their lives that it is unlikely that many countries will be able to avoid being drawn into wars.
Here is a link to information about the giant iceberg that broke off in Antarctica.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/26/us-antarctica-iceberg-idUSTRE61P15H20100226
Here is a link to an artist who uses altered photos to show what west coast cities will look like as the oceans rise. http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/nickolay-lamm-west-coast-sea-level-rise-pictures-20130711
He already did illustrations of what the east coast will look like as sea levels rise. They say in the accompanying text, that these photos are what it will look like IF sea levels continue to rise. They only go up to 25 feet. Some scientists think sea levels can rise up to 50 feet.
We can be quite certain that sea levels will go up over 5 feet no matter what we do, because it is already too late to prevent that much of a rise. All that we can manage, if we make serious changes overnight is to stop sea level rise from getting to the highest levels, like 25 feet or more.
Chances for an overnight change of behavior world-wide, don't look too good for now. The longer we wait to change what we are doing now, the worse the sea level rise will be.
I have already posted about how sea level rise is affecting the world right now. An example of this is what is happening where I live in Alaska. We have over 180 villages in Alaska that will be flooded by the currently expected rise in sea level. Two of them, Shismaref and Kivalina were already scheduled to be evacuated over two years ago. Some of their buildings have been falling into the ocean every time there is a big storm.
The villages in Shismaref and Kivalina have not evacuated because they want to save their villages by moving them to the mainland. The state of Alaska does not have enough money to move all of the threatened villages. The state wants to move the villagers to bigger towns on the mainland and let the villages die. If you want to know more about it, you can look at my posts about it. This is happening in other places in the world, but not as fast. Climate change is faster in Arctic regions like Alaska.
The next link is only a sample of what can be expected because of climate change. The link is to a tornado in Oregon. This has not been a normal occurrence in Oregon. It will, be though. There are lots of other places that are getting their first tornado and can expect to get more of them because of climate change. Places that are more used to tornadoes, can expect to get a lot more of them and worse ones as well.
http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/oregon-tornado-mcminnville-jun2013-20130614
This post is already a bit longer than my old ones used to be and it would become a book if I put in a lot of examples of places that need to get used to tornadoes. I will probably do a post that is only on this subject. You need to look them up yourself, for now though.
Scientists do not know exactly what weather will do because of climate change. They only know ideas of major trends that will happen. This is because having polar ice melt so much and so fast is already causing unpredictable weather. It will only get more unpredictable.
An example of what could happen is that areas that are dry could become wet and vice versa. Oregon rainforests could become deserts and Florida swamps could become dry. The Mojave Desert could become wetter and so could the high plains desert in Nevada. If you live in areas of the world besides the USA, just think of the places that you know of that have extreme climates and imagine them going to the opposite extreme, or back and forth and in between.
Having schizophrenic weather will make it so much harder to raise enough food that millions more people will starve and even people who have comfortable incomes will feel the pain in their wallets. This will put more elderly people at risk of hunger, and as Baby Boomers retire, if that is you, you could be hungry too.
In the USA, elders are having to choose between paying for medicine or food. It will only get worse as climate change makes food production harder and more expensive. The increasing scarcity of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal will cause power costs to increase which will make for an even larger jump in food prices along with everything else getting more expensive because of transport costs going up.
There are other problems that climate change will make worse in the near future, but they can be harder for an average person to understand. I will see if I can start explaining it here for anyone who want to know. I am a bit discouraged about doing this because so few people do want to know. The majority of the human race seems to prefer ignorance to understanding and working on our problems. We do not have long before this approach will prove fatal to the human race. We won't all die right away, but it will be as certain anyway.
I posted a while back about a comparison of the human race treasuring it's ignorance, making us too much like a sheep that drowned in a creek that went through an alfalfa field that my family owned. The sheep died unnecessarily in spite of great efforts by me to save it. I am afraid the human race is preparing to die in the same way, through stubborn stupidity.
This blog is part of my efforts to try to keep the human race alive. My health problems are getting worse, so I don't know how much longer I can continue this part of my efforts, but I will do so as long as possible and I gather it will live on as long as Google does. :-p I hope it helps.
If you are reading this, you can be part of the solution to this problem of climate change. Learn to walk lightly on the Earth and take better care of it.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
How To Adjust Spices In Recipes
If you have read my posts about preparedness food you already know that I consider spices to be an important part of your preparedness food. A good selection and use of spices will allow you to keep eating the same things repeatedly without getting tired of it during an emergency.
I gather from my reading that many people do not know how to adjust their spices for cooking. This can be serious if you are depending on spices to give you a variety of tastes for your storage food both in your everyday diet as you use and replace your food storage and in emergency use.
This post is to help you learn how to adjust your spices to your personal tastes. The first part of this process is to examine what you like. Do you find yourself adding a lot of pepper and salt to your food when you use the recommended amount of spice in a recipe? If that is the case or if you think it is tasteless or bland, then you can probably increase the amount of spices called for in ordinary recipes.
Some exceptions to watch out for are Szechuan, or Sichuan Chinese food. That is the extra spicy Chinese food. They use the hottest peppers in the world. I believe eating the Szechuan food could substitute for a tonsillectomy. When I go to a Chinese restaurant that serves Szechuan food, I ask them to go easy on the spices. I don't even use Szechuan recipes, but if you do, like most people, you will probably need to reduce the spices called for in the recipes.
Some recipes have the taste of the spices in it as an important part of the entire recipe and in those you WANT to taste the spices. In other recipes the spices are meant to be subtle and you don't even want to be able to specifically notice a particular spice taste standing out from the background taste.
My pineapple/blueberry smoothie is one of those. If you taste the spices, I think you have too much spice in it. In that recipe, the spices should just give it a little bit of a wild berry taste so that you don't especially even notice that it has spices in it.
One of the problems with getting spices correct for a recipe is that there is a tremendous variation in how strong spices can be. If you get your spice from a grocery store, it can have been on the shelf for over a year. That will mean that spice will be weaker in taste than a fresher spice. You will need to use more of the grocery store spice to get the same amount of spice taste. That could mean doubling the amount of spice that you use to get the same taste.
I have been increasingly using bulk spices from health food stores instead of supermarket spices. The health food store spices are usually much fresher. I believe that this is healthier as well as more tasty. The variety in a health food store's bulk section may be less than is available in the grocery. This means that you will have to get some spices from the grocery.
If you think food is usually bland and tasteless, then you might want to start out a new recipe by increasing the spice called for in it. My personal preference is to use a recipe the first time, exactly as written. Once I know how the author meant it to come out, then I feel free to adjust it to my preferences. That is the point where I add or reduce the spices. I think that 1/8 teaspoon or less is a safer increment to adjust the amount of spices in a recipe. 1/8 teaspoon measuring spoons can be hard to find, but they are available. If this is too difficult you can take a 1/4 measuring spoon and estimate what half of that would be.
A pinch is an old measurement for spices. It is the amount of spice that can fit held between your index (pointer) finger and your thumb. The size of your hand can really make a difference in this measurement. If you have a very large hand you will probably do well to assume that it is best to go scant on your pinch for a standard recipe. A pinch can help you be consistent in adding spices to your recipes. I kind of use an eyeball method, which has its drawbacks. If you spice directly into the recipe, it can vary quite a bit and make your cooking unpredictable.
You can reduce this unpredictable element by shaking your spice into the lid of the spice container or the palm of your hand so you can control the amount before it hits your recipe.
Emergencies are kind of miserable to live through anyway. It could make you and everyone who eats your cooking during an emergency feel nibbled to death by ants if your cooking is wildly variable. It might be safer to learn to shake your spices into the container lid or palm of your hand before you actually put them into your recipe.
Basil is my favorite herb. I will use it as an example to explain what you are dealing with on herbs. You can take seeds from the same packet and grow them up into a plant to use for cooking. Each plant from that same packet can produce leaves that will taste noticeably different. The difference can include stronger or weaker basil taste. Each plant will taste different depending on whether you use the leaves dried or fresh.
How you dry the leaves and how you store them and how long you store them can all affect the taste and strength of the basil taste when you put it in your food.
When you have all of those variable and more affecting how your food tastes when you put basil on it, you can see that using spices can require more than automatically putting a half teaspoon of a spice or herb into your food.
You have to know how that spice you want to use tastes. I have learned to have a pretty good idea of how an herb will taste by smelling it. I don't believe that this ability is very common, but if you can develop it, it saves a lot of trouble. If not, then you will need to taste your herbs before you use them. If a dish turns out to be too strong tasting for a particular herb or spice, then you know to reduce that herb or spice a little the next time you cook.
I dislike taking the chance that I will ruin an entire dish by really over-doing the spices in it. That means I make small adjustments each time I cook it until I get the spices where I want them. 1/4 to 1/8 teaspoon is about as fast as I like to go to adjust my herbs or spices in a recipe. I usually keep the herb or spice adjustment even smaller than that, though. Spices can really change a dish for better or for worse very fast.
A post-it note or a pencilled-in notation on the recipe can help you to work out the change you need to make for that herb or spice the next time you use the recipe. Once I get the spice adjustment down to where I like it, I like to change it in my computer and on my hard copy recipe book.
Every person has different taste preferences. This is even more true for cooks. It is often possible to tell who cooked a dish by the herb or spice "signature". Every chef has a special palette of herbs and spices that they like best. Once you get used to adjusting herbs and spices to your own tastes, you too will develop your own herb and spice signature.
I gather from my reading that many people do not know how to adjust their spices for cooking. This can be serious if you are depending on spices to give you a variety of tastes for your storage food both in your everyday diet as you use and replace your food storage and in emergency use.
This post is to help you learn how to adjust your spices to your personal tastes. The first part of this process is to examine what you like. Do you find yourself adding a lot of pepper and salt to your food when you use the recommended amount of spice in a recipe? If that is the case or if you think it is tasteless or bland, then you can probably increase the amount of spices called for in ordinary recipes.
Some exceptions to watch out for are Szechuan, or Sichuan Chinese food. That is the extra spicy Chinese food. They use the hottest peppers in the world. I believe eating the Szechuan food could substitute for a tonsillectomy. When I go to a Chinese restaurant that serves Szechuan food, I ask them to go easy on the spices. I don't even use Szechuan recipes, but if you do, like most people, you will probably need to reduce the spices called for in the recipes.
Some recipes have the taste of the spices in it as an important part of the entire recipe and in those you WANT to taste the spices. In other recipes the spices are meant to be subtle and you don't even want to be able to specifically notice a particular spice taste standing out from the background taste.
My pineapple/blueberry smoothie is one of those. If you taste the spices, I think you have too much spice in it. In that recipe, the spices should just give it a little bit of a wild berry taste so that you don't especially even notice that it has spices in it.
One of the problems with getting spices correct for a recipe is that there is a tremendous variation in how strong spices can be. If you get your spice from a grocery store, it can have been on the shelf for over a year. That will mean that spice will be weaker in taste than a fresher spice. You will need to use more of the grocery store spice to get the same amount of spice taste. That could mean doubling the amount of spice that you use to get the same taste.
I have been increasingly using bulk spices from health food stores instead of supermarket spices. The health food store spices are usually much fresher. I believe that this is healthier as well as more tasty. The variety in a health food store's bulk section may be less than is available in the grocery. This means that you will have to get some spices from the grocery.
If you think food is usually bland and tasteless, then you might want to start out a new recipe by increasing the spice called for in it. My personal preference is to use a recipe the first time, exactly as written. Once I know how the author meant it to come out, then I feel free to adjust it to my preferences. That is the point where I add or reduce the spices. I think that 1/8 teaspoon or less is a safer increment to adjust the amount of spices in a recipe. 1/8 teaspoon measuring spoons can be hard to find, but they are available. If this is too difficult you can take a 1/4 measuring spoon and estimate what half of that would be.
A pinch is an old measurement for spices. It is the amount of spice that can fit held between your index (pointer) finger and your thumb. The size of your hand can really make a difference in this measurement. If you have a very large hand you will probably do well to assume that it is best to go scant on your pinch for a standard recipe. A pinch can help you be consistent in adding spices to your recipes. I kind of use an eyeball method, which has its drawbacks. If you spice directly into the recipe, it can vary quite a bit and make your cooking unpredictable.
You can reduce this unpredictable element by shaking your spice into the lid of the spice container or the palm of your hand so you can control the amount before it hits your recipe.
Emergencies are kind of miserable to live through anyway. It could make you and everyone who eats your cooking during an emergency feel nibbled to death by ants if your cooking is wildly variable. It might be safer to learn to shake your spices into the container lid or palm of your hand before you actually put them into your recipe.
Basil is my favorite herb. I will use it as an example to explain what you are dealing with on herbs. You can take seeds from the same packet and grow them up into a plant to use for cooking. Each plant from that same packet can produce leaves that will taste noticeably different. The difference can include stronger or weaker basil taste. Each plant will taste different depending on whether you use the leaves dried or fresh.
How you dry the leaves and how you store them and how long you store them can all affect the taste and strength of the basil taste when you put it in your food.
When you have all of those variable and more affecting how your food tastes when you put basil on it, you can see that using spices can require more than automatically putting a half teaspoon of a spice or herb into your food.
You have to know how that spice you want to use tastes. I have learned to have a pretty good idea of how an herb will taste by smelling it. I don't believe that this ability is very common, but if you can develop it, it saves a lot of trouble. If not, then you will need to taste your herbs before you use them. If a dish turns out to be too strong tasting for a particular herb or spice, then you know to reduce that herb or spice a little the next time you cook.
I dislike taking the chance that I will ruin an entire dish by really over-doing the spices in it. That means I make small adjustments each time I cook it until I get the spices where I want them. 1/4 to 1/8 teaspoon is about as fast as I like to go to adjust my herbs or spices in a recipe. I usually keep the herb or spice adjustment even smaller than that, though. Spices can really change a dish for better or for worse very fast.
A post-it note or a pencilled-in notation on the recipe can help you to work out the change you need to make for that herb or spice the next time you use the recipe. Once I get the spice adjustment down to where I like it, I like to change it in my computer and on my hard copy recipe book.
Every person has different taste preferences. This is even more true for cooks. It is often possible to tell who cooked a dish by the herb or spice "signature". Every chef has a special palette of herbs and spices that they like best. Once you get used to adjusting herbs and spices to your own tastes, you too will develop your own herb and spice signature.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Save Money And The Earth By Keeping Cool Without Air Conditioning
There are lots of things you can do to keep cool during hot weather without using air conditioning. If you live in a very hot climate and are used to air conditioning, you may have to reduce your use of air conditioning gradually. I quit suddenly, with at least once a month using air conditioning.
This is because I rented a place that had an air conditioner along with it. If you don't run an air conditioner at least once a month, without special preparations, the seals can go bad and even ruin the air conditioner.
The thing that makes the most difference in coolness is a combination of plants grown in front of the window, a mister on the plants at night, and a double fan with one set to exhaust warm air on top and the bottom fan to intake cool air. I kept the window shut during the day time. I closed the window right before it became hot outside.
This combination was enough to lower the temperature inside my home enough to make it chilly and necessary to use warm blankets and warm clothes at night. Getting it this cool at night made the coolness inside my home last most of the day, with no other things done except running a few fans, and shutting windows to keep the coolness inside.
Here is a link to a post about how to stay cool without air conditioning: http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/noacok.htm
There are a couple of things you can easily make that will help you to stay cool as well. They are known to me as, "Okie Air Conditioners". Both of them involve fans.
I have not made the more complicated version, but I have made the easier one. That one involves an insulated ice chest. Styrofoam is cheapest, but unless you can find one made of biodegradable styrofoam, it is not that environmental.
You also need a small fan, and something like a piece of pvc pipe with an elbow to direct the flow of cool air where you want it, like your face. I just taped a couple of used cardboard toilet paper rolls together at an angle, after trimming them to fit first.
You will also need ice for the inside of the chest to cool the air going out the elbow to your face. I get my ice by putting a plastic bucket with water into my freezer to make a large chunk of ice that doesn't melt too fast. If you live in a very hot place, you will probably want to have at least two plastic buckets so you can have an extra piece of ice ready when the first one melts. I refill my bucket as soon as I take out the chunk of ice and put it back in the freezer. It takes a while to freeze a big chunk of ice.
Ice cubes work also and seem to make cooler air come out the elbow, but they also melt faster.
I also wet a towel in cool water and wring it out pretty thoroughly. Then I put it on a hanger with built in clamps like a skirt or pants hanger or use a pin or clothespin. Then I hang the whole thing in front of a window that is open with a slight breeze coming through it. This does not work as well if a lot of sunlight is hitting the window. The air coming through the wet towel is cooler.
If the window has a lot of sunlight on it, you will need to re-wet the towel much more often.
If no breeze is available, I put a fan near the window so the air is directed into the room to be cooled.
My cats can seem pretty miserable in hot weather, so I usually direct my air flow out of the okie cooler where the cats can lay in the cool air right where it comes out. They sit and wait for me to put fresh ice in it and turn the fan back on.
I cracked the bottom of one chest by letting the chunk of ice hit it too hard. Since then, I take the lid off of the ice container and set a large dinner plate on top of the container with the ice in it. Then I flip it all over so the ice slides out onto the plate. Sometimes it is necessary to run a little hot tap water on the outside of the ice container to loosen up the ice inside in order to get it out of the freezer container. I use a large plastic bulk ice cream bucket for my freezer container. There are a lot of other things that can also be used, but this is what I had handy.
Next I turn the ice chest on its side and position the plate with the ice on it next to the open top of the chest. I scoot the chunk of ice into the ice chest very gently to avoid breaking the styrofoam. Last, I gently turn the chest upright with the ice chunk in it and take it back to where I use it and put the lid on and turn the fan back on.
I also bathe my cats' ears, faces, and necks with cool water to help them stay comfortable. They objected at first, but now they come to me to get it done.
There are lots of other things you can do to stay comfortable in hot weather without using an air conditioner. Even if you feel you absolutely have to use an air conditioner, you can do these things to reduce how much you use it. This will save both your budget and the Earth.
It is kind of ironic that we can be making the Earth get even warmer, by using an air conditioner to stay cool. lol. It seems a bit counter productive to me.
This is because I rented a place that had an air conditioner along with it. If you don't run an air conditioner at least once a month, without special preparations, the seals can go bad and even ruin the air conditioner.
The thing that makes the most difference in coolness is a combination of plants grown in front of the window, a mister on the plants at night, and a double fan with one set to exhaust warm air on top and the bottom fan to intake cool air. I kept the window shut during the day time. I closed the window right before it became hot outside.
This combination was enough to lower the temperature inside my home enough to make it chilly and necessary to use warm blankets and warm clothes at night. Getting it this cool at night made the coolness inside my home last most of the day, with no other things done except running a few fans, and shutting windows to keep the coolness inside.
Here is a link to a post about how to stay cool without air conditioning: http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/noacok.htm
There are a couple of things you can easily make that will help you to stay cool as well. They are known to me as, "Okie Air Conditioners". Both of them involve fans.
I have not made the more complicated version, but I have made the easier one. That one involves an insulated ice chest. Styrofoam is cheapest, but unless you can find one made of biodegradable styrofoam, it is not that environmental.
You also need a small fan, and something like a piece of pvc pipe with an elbow to direct the flow of cool air where you want it, like your face. I just taped a couple of used cardboard toilet paper rolls together at an angle, after trimming them to fit first.
You will also need ice for the inside of the chest to cool the air going out the elbow to your face. I get my ice by putting a plastic bucket with water into my freezer to make a large chunk of ice that doesn't melt too fast. If you live in a very hot place, you will probably want to have at least two plastic buckets so you can have an extra piece of ice ready when the first one melts. I refill my bucket as soon as I take out the chunk of ice and put it back in the freezer. It takes a while to freeze a big chunk of ice.
Ice cubes work also and seem to make cooler air come out the elbow, but they also melt faster.
I also wet a towel in cool water and wring it out pretty thoroughly. Then I put it on a hanger with built in clamps like a skirt or pants hanger or use a pin or clothespin. Then I hang the whole thing in front of a window that is open with a slight breeze coming through it. This does not work as well if a lot of sunlight is hitting the window. The air coming through the wet towel is cooler.
If the window has a lot of sunlight on it, you will need to re-wet the towel much more often.
If no breeze is available, I put a fan near the window so the air is directed into the room to be cooled.
My cats can seem pretty miserable in hot weather, so I usually direct my air flow out of the okie cooler where the cats can lay in the cool air right where it comes out. They sit and wait for me to put fresh ice in it and turn the fan back on.
I cracked the bottom of one chest by letting the chunk of ice hit it too hard. Since then, I take the lid off of the ice container and set a large dinner plate on top of the container with the ice in it. Then I flip it all over so the ice slides out onto the plate. Sometimes it is necessary to run a little hot tap water on the outside of the ice container to loosen up the ice inside in order to get it out of the freezer container. I use a large plastic bulk ice cream bucket for my freezer container. There are a lot of other things that can also be used, but this is what I had handy.
Next I turn the ice chest on its side and position the plate with the ice on it next to the open top of the chest. I scoot the chunk of ice into the ice chest very gently to avoid breaking the styrofoam. Last, I gently turn the chest upright with the ice chunk in it and take it back to where I use it and put the lid on and turn the fan back on.
I also bathe my cats' ears, faces, and necks with cool water to help them stay comfortable. They objected at first, but now they come to me to get it done.
There are lots of other things you can do to stay comfortable in hot weather without using an air conditioner. Even if you feel you absolutely have to use an air conditioner, you can do these things to reduce how much you use it. This will save both your budget and the Earth.
It is kind of ironic that we can be making the Earth get even warmer, by using an air conditioner to stay cool. lol. It seems a bit counter productive to me.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Explaining The Spiritual Gift Of Music To Christians
It seems a shame to me that many Christians are completely or largely ignorant of the existence of spiritual gifts. I believe our spiritual gifts and learning to use them are a large part of the reason why humans exist. That is why it is so bad that Christians should be unaware of this major connection to Gd.
Music is a very special spiritual gift, yet I have spoken to Christians who deny that it is even a spiritual gift. One reason for this is the narrow definition of spiritual gift accepted by many Christian religions.
Here are a few Bible passages that are most commonly accepted by more Christian religions about spiritual gifts:
Romans 12:6-8
1 Corinthians 12:4-11
1 Corinthians 12:28-31
Ephesians 4:7-13
1 Peter 4:10
There are many more Bible verses that are accepted as describing other spiritual by smaller numbers of Christians.
Music is not one of these. I believe that we are told rather clearly in the Bible, nevertheless, that Music is a spiritual gift, and a very important one to Gd, at that.
Here is a quote about what the Bible has to say about singing: The Bible contains over 400 references to singing and 50 direct commands to sing. We're commanded twice in the New Testament to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). This quote comes from here: http://www.christianity.com/newsletters/features/what-happens-when-we-sing-in-worship-11627945.html
Musicians were scheduled to play in the Jewish temple around the clock. The job of these musicians was to keep music going at all times. This happened when having enough laborers to grow food was important. During this time, a large number of people were taken away from raising food to make music instead. This demonstrates how important the music was. Gd told the Jewish people to have the musicians play in the Temple all of the time. That means it was important to Gd.
One way to tell how important something was to Gd was to see how often it is mentioned in the Bible. We already saw that singing is mentioned in the Bible over 400 times. That is only one word about music. If you add in the mention of music and musical references, you can see how important music is to Gd from the Bible.
Another way to see how important music is to Gd is through scientific discoveries. One reason for my love of science is that it tells me about Gd.
When you love someone, you want to know about them. One of the best ways to know about someone is to look at what they make. This is especially true of artists, including musicians. You only have to watch one sunrise or sunset to know that Gd is an artist.
The Bible also tells us that Gd is a musician. It talks quite a bit about inanimate objects singing. Psalms 19, for example, has things about hills being joyful and skipping. Some versions of the Bible equate this with singing.
I have a lot more to say on this subject, since it is especially dear to my heart and I have studied it quite a bit. I need to get something posted on my blog to avoid letting down my readers by a very late post, so this will have to do for now.
Music is a very special spiritual gift, yet I have spoken to Christians who deny that it is even a spiritual gift. One reason for this is the narrow definition of spiritual gift accepted by many Christian religions.
Here are a few Bible passages that are most commonly accepted by more Christian religions about spiritual gifts:
Romans 12:6-8
1 Corinthians 12:4-11
1 Corinthians 12:28-31
Ephesians 4:7-13
1 Peter 4:10
There are many more Bible verses that are accepted as describing other spiritual by smaller numbers of Christians.
Music is not one of these. I believe that we are told rather clearly in the Bible, nevertheless, that Music is a spiritual gift, and a very important one to Gd, at that.
Here is a quote about what the Bible has to say about singing: The Bible contains over 400 references to singing and 50 direct commands to sing. We're commanded twice in the New Testament to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). This quote comes from here: http://www.christianity.com/newsletters/features/what-happens-when-we-sing-in-worship-11627945.html
Musicians were scheduled to play in the Jewish temple around the clock. The job of these musicians was to keep music going at all times. This happened when having enough laborers to grow food was important. During this time, a large number of people were taken away from raising food to make music instead. This demonstrates how important the music was. Gd told the Jewish people to have the musicians play in the Temple all of the time. That means it was important to Gd.
One way to tell how important something was to Gd was to see how often it is mentioned in the Bible. We already saw that singing is mentioned in the Bible over 400 times. That is only one word about music. If you add in the mention of music and musical references, you can see how important music is to Gd from the Bible.
Another way to see how important music is to Gd is through scientific discoveries. One reason for my love of science is that it tells me about Gd.
When you love someone, you want to know about them. One of the best ways to know about someone is to look at what they make. This is especially true of artists, including musicians. You only have to watch one sunrise or sunset to know that Gd is an artist.
The Bible also tells us that Gd is a musician. It talks quite a bit about inanimate objects singing. Psalms 19, for example, has things about hills being joyful and skipping. Some versions of the Bible equate this with singing.
I have a lot more to say on this subject, since it is especially dear to my heart and I have studied it quite a bit. I need to get something posted on my blog to avoid letting down my readers by a very late post, so this will have to do for now.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Medical Alert Cats
I have mentioned in earlier posts that I have been plagued with a lot of mini-strokes, or TIAs. I am still having that problem, but I am getting some help with it from my cats.
I can not always tell when I am having a stroke for a while. My older cat seems to be able to tell when I am having a stroke long before I know. He has started letting me know. He may have been doing it longer than I knew about. I only realized what was going on very recently.
I have read about cats and dogs alerting people to someone having seizures, but this is the first I have known about any animals alerting to strokes.
Since my older cat is very old for a cat, 23 years old, I was thinking that it would be good if the younger cat would learn this also.
Today, the younger cat demonstrated that he can already alert to strokes and he even had to do even better at it than the older cat.
I have had at least four TIAs today. It can be hard to keep count with so many because it is difficult to separate when one ends and the next one starts. I think I got overlap today.
The older cat was alerting a lot of the day today. Since cats have to sleep most of the time, he had to take breaks.
During one of the older cat's breaks today, the younger one took over. I guess they decided to do shifts, or something.
The younger kept standing a little ways off from me and yelling at me. I got up to see what his problem was and he led me to a bag of aspirin that I had not put away after getting some out to put in my daily medicine boxes.
One of the things my doctor told me to do for my health is take aspirin when I think I am having problems. I had already taken my evening dose of low-dose aspirin, so I wasn't planning to take any more. My cat thought otherwise. lol.
That really weirded me out. I did not realize that the younger cat knew what goes on around here that well. I also had no idea that he knew about strokes, or could communicate so clearly. I am still having a hard time believing that he even knows what aspirins are and when it might be a good idea for me to take some.
I am fairly used to the idea that animals know a lot more and can learn much more than most people expect. This incident has even managed to shock me. I am still trying to adjust to this new knowledge of what my two cats are able to do.
I can not always tell when I am having a stroke for a while. My older cat seems to be able to tell when I am having a stroke long before I know. He has started letting me know. He may have been doing it longer than I knew about. I only realized what was going on very recently.
I have read about cats and dogs alerting people to someone having seizures, but this is the first I have known about any animals alerting to strokes.
Since my older cat is very old for a cat, 23 years old, I was thinking that it would be good if the younger cat would learn this also.
Today, the younger cat demonstrated that he can already alert to strokes and he even had to do even better at it than the older cat.
I have had at least four TIAs today. It can be hard to keep count with so many because it is difficult to separate when one ends and the next one starts. I think I got overlap today.
The older cat was alerting a lot of the day today. Since cats have to sleep most of the time, he had to take breaks.
During one of the older cat's breaks today, the younger one took over. I guess they decided to do shifts, or something.
The younger kept standing a little ways off from me and yelling at me. I got up to see what his problem was and he led me to a bag of aspirin that I had not put away after getting some out to put in my daily medicine boxes.
One of the things my doctor told me to do for my health is take aspirin when I think I am having problems. I had already taken my evening dose of low-dose aspirin, so I wasn't planning to take any more. My cat thought otherwise. lol.
That really weirded me out. I did not realize that the younger cat knew what goes on around here that well. I also had no idea that he knew about strokes, or could communicate so clearly. I am still having a hard time believing that he even knows what aspirins are and when it might be a good idea for me to take some.
I am fairly used to the idea that animals know a lot more and can learn much more than most people expect. This incident has even managed to shock me. I am still trying to adjust to this new knowledge of what my two cats are able to do.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Change In Blog Posts
I have mentioned my plans to change this blog. I plan to split this blog into several different ones. I may leave this one intact and may or may not continue posting on it.
I believe I will stop posting here so frequently while I am working on the changes. I intend to drop down to once a week and see how that does. Wednesday seems like a good day for me at this time. I don't intend to post again on this particular blog until next Wednesday. If something arises that I believe requires a new post before then or between regular Wednesday posts, I will put one up as an extra post.
I will be working on some of the new blogs and if I am ready with any of them before next Wednesday, I will notify readers on here with links for those who are interested.
The most likely one to be posted first will be the one about my cats. Since one of them is 23 years old, I want to get the blog up while he is still around. I want to try to get videos of him up. He does lots of tricks and talks and is always doing cute things. The younger one does the same things, but not as much. He is just learning and doesn't like doing tricks as much. He learns fast when he wants to though.
I may try out different blog subjects for the split off blogs and see what happens.
I wish more of you would read my disaster preparedness posts. People who do not make any efforts at emergency preparedness have a much lower chance of being able to survive the more frequent, larger, and more widespread disasters that will be our new normal.
I cherish some hope that some of you are getting your preparedness information elsewhere. It isn't a big hope, but I will take what I can get there.
I believe I will stop posting here so frequently while I am working on the changes. I intend to drop down to once a week and see how that does. Wednesday seems like a good day for me at this time. I don't intend to post again on this particular blog until next Wednesday. If something arises that I believe requires a new post before then or between regular Wednesday posts, I will put one up as an extra post.
I will be working on some of the new blogs and if I am ready with any of them before next Wednesday, I will notify readers on here with links for those who are interested.
The most likely one to be posted first will be the one about my cats. Since one of them is 23 years old, I want to get the blog up while he is still around. I want to try to get videos of him up. He does lots of tricks and talks and is always doing cute things. The younger one does the same things, but not as much. He is just learning and doesn't like doing tricks as much. He learns fast when he wants to though.
I may try out different blog subjects for the split off blogs and see what happens.
I wish more of you would read my disaster preparedness posts. People who do not make any efforts at emergency preparedness have a much lower chance of being able to survive the more frequent, larger, and more widespread disasters that will be our new normal.
I cherish some hope that some of you are getting your preparedness information elsewhere. It isn't a big hope, but I will take what I can get there.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Staying Alive Through Strokes
One of the problems that I have been dealing with lately is strokes. TIAs, to be more specific. "A transient ischemic attack (TIA) is when blood flow to a part of the brain stops for a brief period of time. A person will have stroke-like symptoms for up to 24 hours, but in most cases for 1 - 2 hours.
A TIA is felt to be a warning sign that a true stroke may happen in the future if something is not done to prevent it."
This quote came from the following link at the USA's Public Library of Medicine:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001743/
I have already had one regular stroke that I am sure of, so that probably increases my chances of having a regular stroke as well as the TIAs.
I have not just had a few TIAs, I have had swarms of them. There have been more than one a day at times. During such times I have had one or more strokes as day for as long as a week straight, as well.
I am not going to the hospital when I have a TIA because I can't afford to. I know a lot of other people are in the same situation. I am going to share what I do that I believe has kept me functioning in spite of the mini-strokes and is warding off another major stroke.
If you have any choice and can go to the hospital, I think you should do so.
I am posting about what I do that I believe is helping me survive strokes and prevent a major stroke because you can use it during a medical emergency when you can not get medical care.
The first thing to do it to learn the signs that mean you are having a stroke.
The time that I had the regular stroke, I first became aware of it when I drank water. The water did not stay in my mouth. It ran out of one side. As soon as I realized that meant I was having a stroke, I went to the bathroom to do the smile test. The ways of telling that you may be having a stroke follow:
n the event of a possible stroke, use FAST to help remember warning signs.
Face. Does the face droop on one side trying to smile?
Arms. Is one arm lower when trying to raise both arms?
Speech. Can a simple sentence be repeated? Is speech slurred or strange?
Time. During a stroke every minute counts. If you observe any of these signs, call 911 or your local emergency number immediately
The above came from the Mayo Clinic site. It beats me why they left out something that seems important to me. It is on the last one, Time. Emergency personnel also need to know the time that symptoms started. You need to write down the time as soon as any symptoms are noticed and give that time to the emergency hospital staff. There is a medicine that can be given to stop strokes from doing permanent damage. The medicine can only be given within a time limit, so the emergency staff need to know how long ago the stroke started.
http://watchlearnlive.heart.org/CVML_Player.php?moduleSelect=tisatk
I think that anyone who is at risk for stroke or heart attack should drink extra water daily to help keep your blood moving along through your body. The rule of thumb I like for calculating how much water to drink, is to figure your weight in pounds and then take half of that number, and drink that many ounces of water daily. I already posted on this and the post has links to convert metrics to ounces, in case you need it.
I already mentioned the online brain training classes available and that I use one of them. I do the brain exercises almost daily. I believe that has kept my brain working in spite of this onslaught of swarms of strokes. If you had a stroke or have one, you might want to consider using one of the brain training sites also.
An additional advantage of using the brain training sites is that they can give you a normal baseline to make it easier to tell how a stroke has affected you. That makes it easier to know what areas of your brain need a workout.
I hope that this information will give you something to help yourself if you have a stroke during an emergency when you can not get medical care and even better, prevent a stroke from happening.
A TIA is felt to be a warning sign that a true stroke may happen in the future if something is not done to prevent it."
This quote came from the following link at the USA's Public Library of Medicine:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001743/
I have already had one regular stroke that I am sure of, so that probably increases my chances of having a regular stroke as well as the TIAs.
I have not just had a few TIAs, I have had swarms of them. There have been more than one a day at times. During such times I have had one or more strokes as day for as long as a week straight, as well.
I am not going to the hospital when I have a TIA because I can't afford to. I know a lot of other people are in the same situation. I am going to share what I do that I believe has kept me functioning in spite of the mini-strokes and is warding off another major stroke.
If you have any choice and can go to the hospital, I think you should do so.
I am posting about what I do that I believe is helping me survive strokes and prevent a major stroke because you can use it during a medical emergency when you can not get medical care.
The first thing to do it to learn the signs that mean you are having a stroke.
"The symptoms of TIA are the same as the symptoms of a stroke, and include sudden:
Abnormal feeling of movement (vertigo) or dizziness
Change in alertness (sleepiness, less responsive, unconscious, or in a coma)
Changes in feeling, including touch, pain, temperature, pressure, hearing, and taste
Confusion or loss of memory
Difficulty swallowing
Difficulty writing or reading
Drooping of the face
Inability to recognize objects or people
Lack of control over the bladder or bowels
Lack of coordination and balance, clumsiness, or trouble walking
Loss of vision in one or both eyes
Numbness or tingling on one side of the body
Personality, mood, or emotional changes
Trouble saying or understanding words
Weakness on one side of the body"
This quote came from the same site. The time that I had the regular stroke, I first became aware of it when I drank water. The water did not stay in my mouth. It ran out of one side. As soon as I realized that meant I was having a stroke, I went to the bathroom to do the smile test. The ways of telling that you may be having a stroke follow:
n the event of a possible stroke, use FAST to help remember warning signs.
Face. Does the face droop on one side trying to smile?
Arms. Is one arm lower when trying to raise both arms?
Speech. Can a simple sentence be repeated? Is speech slurred or strange?
Time. During a stroke every minute counts. If you observe any of these signs, call 911 or your local emergency number immediately
The above came from the Mayo Clinic site. It beats me why they left out something that seems important to me. It is on the last one, Time. Emergency personnel also need to know the time that symptoms started. You need to write down the time as soon as any symptoms are noticed and give that time to the emergency hospital staff. There is a medicine that can be given to stop strokes from doing permanent damage. The medicine can only be given within a time limit, so the emergency staff need to know how long ago the stroke started.
You need to learn the whole list of stroke symptoms, because some people don't have the more common ones. Numbness in my lips is the first thing that tells me I might be having a stroke. As soon as I feel anything like numbness in my lips, I immediately go into the bathroom and look in the mirror and smile. If I am having a stroke, the left side of my face does not work as well for smiling.
I also do the arm test. You raise both arms slowly in front of you and see if they rise evenly. Raising your arms from the sides also is a good idea.It is easier to do this if you use a mirror, since you can see both arms at the same time this way.
If I flunk the smile test or arm test, I get out a can of pineappe and a mug. I get pop-top cans of pineapple, so don't need a can opener.
I chew and swallow two baby aspirins with a lot of water before I open the pineapple. Once the pineapple is open, I pour off the juice into the mug and drink it. I use sliced pineapple because it is easier for me to eat fast, especially without a spoon handy.
The reasons for the above are that my doctor has me taking 4 chewable baby aspirins a day, two in the morning and two in the evening. They are chewable because chewable ones get into your system much faster than swallowing a regular aspirin whole.
The extra water is because the blood thinner, aspirin, needs something to thin my blood with.
The pineapple is because pineapple stops brain inflammation. My particular problem with TIAs most likely comes from having small hemorrhages in my brain, so I think the pineapple can stop the hemorrhage and the inflammation that goes with it.
I hope that you will get medical attention if you are able to do so. If you cannot, then my stroke alert regimen may help you also. I am the only one I know of who does this so far, so we don't know if it will work for you also.
I have already taken care of any risk factors for cholesterol and stroke that are possible to change. If you have risk factors for stroke, you would do well to change those you can.
The link below is to a video on strokes.
http://watchlearnlive.heart.org/CVML_Player.php?moduleSelect=tisatk
I think that anyone who is at risk for stroke or heart attack should drink extra water daily to help keep your blood moving along through your body. The rule of thumb I like for calculating how much water to drink, is to figure your weight in pounds and then take half of that number, and drink that many ounces of water daily. I already posted on this and the post has links to convert metrics to ounces, in case you need it.
I already mentioned the online brain training classes available and that I use one of them. I do the brain exercises almost daily. I believe that has kept my brain working in spite of this onslaught of swarms of strokes. If you had a stroke or have one, you might want to consider using one of the brain training sites also.
An additional advantage of using the brain training sites is that they can give you a normal baseline to make it easier to tell how a stroke has affected you. That makes it easier to know what areas of your brain need a workout.
I hope that this information will give you something to help yourself if you have a stroke during an emergency when you can not get medical care and even better, prevent a stroke from happening.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Window Covers For Disaster Protection
For those who are very new to disaster preparedness, it is all a matter of getting and storing things for a disaster and when a disaster hits, you use them.
Unfortunately it is not as nice and simple as that. Most of your neighbors are not going to be prepared at all for a disaster. They will get to the grocery to find all the shelves empty and crowds of people fighting over a few packages of food at the cash registers. They probably won't even have any lights except for birthday candles that will be gone shortly.
If your hungry neighbors get home and smell cooking food odors coming out of your home and see lights in your windows, they will want light and food too. If your whole neighborhood is in the same boat except your home, guess what? You could be in deep doo doo.
You may have enough food to last you for a month. How far would that last for your whole neighborhood? Some people do invite everyone in and share what they have until it runs out and then they all starve together.
Maybe you want to do that. If you don't, you might want to plan for being able to hold onto what you have stored. If you want 30 days of light for your home instead of 1 day for the whole neighborhood, you will probably need to hide your light under a bushel.
You will need to cover your windows and you will need to do it very well. One little beam of light could do you in. Pick whatever way you want to black out your windows for a disaster, but make sure it is thorough and won't leak light.
Blackout curtains are an option, but can be pricey. If you want to make your own window blackout covers, you would probably do well to do it ahead of time, and have them ready for when they are needed.
Make something that looks somewhat normal. This could be fabric coverings, reflective ones, paint or plain or colored paper. You can use cardboard or plywood and paint or cover it.
If your windows are small enough you can store them against the wall in the back of your closet. If your windows are too big to do that with your window covers, you may have to make them so they will fold up for storage or you can assemble them quickly when needed. If you are an Alaskan, this is all easy. Just about everybody needs light blockers when the stops setting for most of the day and night. You can just leave your light blockers up all the time.
It is safer to check for light leaks ahead of time. The best is when they are in place on your windows. That way you can be certain they will work.
Even better is having neighbors who are prepared for disasters so it does not matter whether they see your lights or not. There is only so much you can do that way though.
I have already posted about deciding to share your preparedness items or not, and if so, with whom, and how much. You do need to think about this.
Unfortunately it is not as nice and simple as that. Most of your neighbors are not going to be prepared at all for a disaster. They will get to the grocery to find all the shelves empty and crowds of people fighting over a few packages of food at the cash registers. They probably won't even have any lights except for birthday candles that will be gone shortly.
If your hungry neighbors get home and smell cooking food odors coming out of your home and see lights in your windows, they will want light and food too. If your whole neighborhood is in the same boat except your home, guess what? You could be in deep doo doo.
You may have enough food to last you for a month. How far would that last for your whole neighborhood? Some people do invite everyone in and share what they have until it runs out and then they all starve together.
Maybe you want to do that. If you don't, you might want to plan for being able to hold onto what you have stored. If you want 30 days of light for your home instead of 1 day for the whole neighborhood, you will probably need to hide your light under a bushel.
You will need to cover your windows and you will need to do it very well. One little beam of light could do you in. Pick whatever way you want to black out your windows for a disaster, but make sure it is thorough and won't leak light.
Blackout curtains are an option, but can be pricey. If you want to make your own window blackout covers, you would probably do well to do it ahead of time, and have them ready for when they are needed.
Make something that looks somewhat normal. This could be fabric coverings, reflective ones, paint or plain or colored paper. You can use cardboard or plywood and paint or cover it.
If your windows are small enough you can store them against the wall in the back of your closet. If your windows are too big to do that with your window covers, you may have to make them so they will fold up for storage or you can assemble them quickly when needed. If you are an Alaskan, this is all easy. Just about everybody needs light blockers when the stops setting for most of the day and night. You can just leave your light blockers up all the time.
It is safer to check for light leaks ahead of time. The best is when they are in place on your windows. That way you can be certain they will work.
Even better is having neighbors who are prepared for disasters so it does not matter whether they see your lights or not. There is only so much you can do that way though.
I have already posted about deciding to share your preparedness items or not, and if so, with whom, and how much. You do need to think about this.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Apology
I am very sorry for being so erratic in my postings lately. I have been experiencing some severe difficulties and am afraid I may have more trouble being consistent in posting for a while.
I hope that the large number of my previous posts will be helpful to you during this difficult period for me.
As I mentioned previously, I am planning to split this blog into several more niche types of blogs. I will probably not post on each one of those as often as I do here, but will probably post more often between all of them than I do here. I will provide plenty of easy links between the blogs so you can find them all if you are interested.
Most likely I will keep on doing a preparedness one or perhaps even split that into more than one segment of preparedness. If I do that, I will probably have a separate one on preparedness food and water.
I expect to do one on health in general instead of only health that is more related to preparedness.
I will have to do one about my cats. Naturally I consider them to be especially beautiful and intelligent and like to share their wonderful qualities with others. :-) I also like to take lots of pictures of them and share those. I have exercised amazing restraint by not putting them all over this blog.
It is possible that I will do a blog about words. I happen to love words and collect them like some people do postage stamps or trading cards. Other people have the same fondness for them that I do and liked it when I had a blog on the subject a long time ago. I will have to see how that goes over. When I did the old one, there were very few word blogs.
There are a lot more of them now, so that might thin out readers too much. Trial and error.
It is likely that this preparedness blog will go down to one post a week. I will probably make longer posts if I do that. This will allow me to cover subjects that can not be covered in the short posts that I usually do on this blog. I sometimes reject subjects because of that problem, so I already have a list of subjects like that.
My apologies again for my erratic posting lately on this blog. I will do the best I can to be as consistent as I can manage. It is fairly likely that I will drop back to one post a week a bit earlier than I had planned so that I can be more predictable with my posts.
Thank you for your patience.
I hope that the large number of my previous posts will be helpful to you during this difficult period for me.
As I mentioned previously, I am planning to split this blog into several more niche types of blogs. I will probably not post on each one of those as often as I do here, but will probably post more often between all of them than I do here. I will provide plenty of easy links between the blogs so you can find them all if you are interested.
Most likely I will keep on doing a preparedness one or perhaps even split that into more than one segment of preparedness. If I do that, I will probably have a separate one on preparedness food and water.
I expect to do one on health in general instead of only health that is more related to preparedness.
I will have to do one about my cats. Naturally I consider them to be especially beautiful and intelligent and like to share their wonderful qualities with others. :-) I also like to take lots of pictures of them and share those. I have exercised amazing restraint by not putting them all over this blog.
It is possible that I will do a blog about words. I happen to love words and collect them like some people do postage stamps or trading cards. Other people have the same fondness for them that I do and liked it when I had a blog on the subject a long time ago. I will have to see how that goes over. When I did the old one, there were very few word blogs.
There are a lot more of them now, so that might thin out readers too much. Trial and error.
It is likely that this preparedness blog will go down to one post a week. I will probably make longer posts if I do that. This will allow me to cover subjects that can not be covered in the short posts that I usually do on this blog. I sometimes reject subjects because of that problem, so I already have a list of subjects like that.
My apologies again for my erratic posting lately on this blog. I will do the best I can to be as consistent as I can manage. It is fairly likely that I will drop back to one post a week a bit earlier than I had planned so that I can be more predictable with my posts.
Thank you for your patience.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Mental Self Defense
When you are under physical attack you usually do not have time to stop and think. The way that self defense training works overcomes this problem is through relentless and endless drills. You do so many drills that when you are attacked from a certain angle, you automatically counter the attack with a defensive move, without needing to think about it.
The same sort of thing can give you automatic defenses for fending off mental attacks.
Most of us have people in our lives who do things that make us feel bad. Some of these people may be people you don't have to option of staying away from all of the time.
This can be a problem when the person who makes us feel bad does it a lot. Some people try to make themselves feel better by making other people feed bad. It can be harmful to you if you have one of these in your life and are constantly having to deal with feeling bad because of their mental attacks on you.
It is possible to work out mental forms of self defense, that are much like the physical self defense techniques used in self defense and martial arts.
I post about staying healthy as an important part of emergency preparedness. I concentrate on physical health most of the time, but mental health is as important, if not more important.
The most useful of these techniques is what I call, "the broken record". Current usage should probably be more like, "the broken CD, or other media storage". When one of these things has a scratch in it, it can get stuck and keep repeating the same thing over and over. This is the effect we want for this mental self defense technique.
When you sense a mental blow coming at you, your broken record can automatically ward off the damage without you having to stop and think about it.
Here is a fictitious attack and defense to give you the idea of how it works:
Attacker: "You sure are ugly. You are about the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Your Mama must have scared by a train wreck when she was carrying you."
You: "That's okay. At least MY Mama loves me." Or: "I'm sorry that bothers you, would you like a blindfold?" Or: "I could go to a plastic surgeon and fix that, but what are you going to do about being ugly inside?"
Every person and every situation is different, so you will need to figure out your own broken record to use. You have to figure out exactly what to say ahead of time and practice it and get it in your head so that it will come out automatically when the next attack comes.
I expect this is obvious to most people, but I don't want to get anyone beaten to a pulp. You need to make your broken record something that will let you survive. If you attacker is very large or can fire you, your broken record needs to be more tactful.
The biggest advantage about a broken record is that it allows you to avoid much thought about being attacked and the attack itself. Since it comes out automatically, it stops you from having to be upset over the attack.
Your broken record pops out at the right time and you don't even have to think about the mental attack. You can just go on with your life in spite of the attack and not waste your mental and emotional energy on it. This is much healthier than spending time and energy brooding over what is happening.
This will keep you healthy before a disaster hits your area and leave you better able to cope with it. This is a way of doing mental self defense to protect yourself. Mental self defense can be a part of your every day life that you can use to make yourself better prepared for emergencies.
The same sort of thing can give you automatic defenses for fending off mental attacks.
Most of us have people in our lives who do things that make us feel bad. Some of these people may be people you don't have to option of staying away from all of the time.
This can be a problem when the person who makes us feel bad does it a lot. Some people try to make themselves feel better by making other people feed bad. It can be harmful to you if you have one of these in your life and are constantly having to deal with feeling bad because of their mental attacks on you.
It is possible to work out mental forms of self defense, that are much like the physical self defense techniques used in self defense and martial arts.
I post about staying healthy as an important part of emergency preparedness. I concentrate on physical health most of the time, but mental health is as important, if not more important.
The most useful of these techniques is what I call, "the broken record". Current usage should probably be more like, "the broken CD, or other media storage". When one of these things has a scratch in it, it can get stuck and keep repeating the same thing over and over. This is the effect we want for this mental self defense technique.
When you sense a mental blow coming at you, your broken record can automatically ward off the damage without you having to stop and think about it.
Here is a fictitious attack and defense to give you the idea of how it works:
Attacker: "You sure are ugly. You are about the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Your Mama must have scared by a train wreck when she was carrying you."
You: "That's okay. At least MY Mama loves me." Or: "I'm sorry that bothers you, would you like a blindfold?" Or: "I could go to a plastic surgeon and fix that, but what are you going to do about being ugly inside?"
Every person and every situation is different, so you will need to figure out your own broken record to use. You have to figure out exactly what to say ahead of time and practice it and get it in your head so that it will come out automatically when the next attack comes.
I expect this is obvious to most people, but I don't want to get anyone beaten to a pulp. You need to make your broken record something that will let you survive. If you attacker is very large or can fire you, your broken record needs to be more tactful.
The biggest advantage about a broken record is that it allows you to avoid much thought about being attacked and the attack itself. Since it comes out automatically, it stops you from having to be upset over the attack.
Your broken record pops out at the right time and you don't even have to think about the mental attack. You can just go on with your life in spite of the attack and not waste your mental and emotional energy on it. This is much healthier than spending time and energy brooding over what is happening.
This will keep you healthy before a disaster hits your area and leave you better able to cope with it. This is a way of doing mental self defense to protect yourself. Mental self defense can be a part of your every day life that you can use to make yourself better prepared for emergencies.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
How The Water You Drink Now Can Affect Your Preparedness
If you have been reading my blog posts for a while you already know that I don't consider emergency preparedness to be something that is outside daily life.
I believe that in order for preparedness to really be useful, it must be integrated into your daily living. I mentioned a little about this on yesterday's post. I use one of my favorite preparedness phrases, "Store what you eat and eat what you store". If you do that your food storage will always be fresh during an emergency and you will save money on your food budget. That makes daily life better by making your preparedness a part of your daily life.
Water is even more important as a part of daily life than your food is. This applies to storage water as well, of course.
A great many health problems can be made worse by not drinking enough water every day. A surprising range of health problems are likely to be caused by dehydration as well.
Here is a definition of the word, "dehydration", for readers who need it:
I have done a post entirely on the subject of health problems caused by dehydration and the need to drink more water. You can read it if you want to know more on the subject. This blog post is not intended to repeat that.
If you do not take care of your health by drinking adequate amounts of water on a regular basis, you will not enjoy good health during an emergency. You probably already know from previous posts that health care is difficult or impossible to get during an emergency, because medical people will be very busy, their facilities will be damaged, and even getting to undamaged medical facilities will be difficult or impossible.
Your chances of making it through an emergency go up a lot if you are healthy when the emergency starts.
Once an emergency happens in your area, you will most likely be very busy. Even if you and your loved ones are not immediately affected by an emergency, you will probably need to help neighbors.
You won't be much help to yourself and your loved ones during an emergency if you are in such bad physical condition that ordinary daily activities are a chore for you. It will be even worse if you have to do things like evacuate rapidly.
One of my favorite books says something about, "they shall run and not get tired". That would be very handy if you were trying to outrun a fire or tsunami, for example. You need to keep up with your water drinking as a part of your all-around health maintenance routine, so you can run and not get tired when it is necessary.
Part of the benefits of staying hydrated is that it will maintain your health by cleaning out your system. If you don't flush your drains in your home once in a while you will get them clogged and need a plumber. The same is true of getting clogs in the systems of your body. Part of what helps to keep your "drains" clear in your body is drinking adequate water.
I hate counting stuff, keeping numbers in my head or writing them on paper. The way that I keep track of my daily water intake is by putting it into containers and separating those containers so that when the containers are empty, I know I have had a reasonable amount of water for the day.
I read about an easy method of calculation how much water to drink daily. You weigh yourself, halve the amount on the scales and drink that amount of ounces each day to achieve a target water drinking goal. This is based on the assumption that you are weighing yourself in American pounds of weight, and then can convert those into American ounces.
I don't know whether the same process will work for other weight and liquid measurement systems or not. You could check it by converting it online here: http://www.onlineconversion.com/
I hope this information helps you to become more prepared for emergencies and to stay that way as much as possible.
I believe that in order for preparedness to really be useful, it must be integrated into your daily living. I mentioned a little about this on yesterday's post. I use one of my favorite preparedness phrases, "Store what you eat and eat what you store". If you do that your food storage will always be fresh during an emergency and you will save money on your food budget. That makes daily life better by making your preparedness a part of your daily life.
Water is even more important as a part of daily life than your food is. This applies to storage water as well, of course.
A great many health problems can be made worse by not drinking enough water every day. A surprising range of health problems are likely to be caused by dehydration as well.
Here is a definition of the word, "dehydration", for readers who need it:
"Definition of DEHYDRATION
: the process of dehydrating; especially : an abnormal depletion of body fluids".
It comes from here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dehydrationI have done a post entirely on the subject of health problems caused by dehydration and the need to drink more water. You can read it if you want to know more on the subject. This blog post is not intended to repeat that.
If you do not take care of your health by drinking adequate amounts of water on a regular basis, you will not enjoy good health during an emergency. You probably already know from previous posts that health care is difficult or impossible to get during an emergency, because medical people will be very busy, their facilities will be damaged, and even getting to undamaged medical facilities will be difficult or impossible.
Your chances of making it through an emergency go up a lot if you are healthy when the emergency starts.
Once an emergency happens in your area, you will most likely be very busy. Even if you and your loved ones are not immediately affected by an emergency, you will probably need to help neighbors.
You won't be much help to yourself and your loved ones during an emergency if you are in such bad physical condition that ordinary daily activities are a chore for you. It will be even worse if you have to do things like evacuate rapidly.
One of my favorite books says something about, "they shall run and not get tired". That would be very handy if you were trying to outrun a fire or tsunami, for example. You need to keep up with your water drinking as a part of your all-around health maintenance routine, so you can run and not get tired when it is necessary.
Part of the benefits of staying hydrated is that it will maintain your health by cleaning out your system. If you don't flush your drains in your home once in a while you will get them clogged and need a plumber. The same is true of getting clogs in the systems of your body. Part of what helps to keep your "drains" clear in your body is drinking adequate water.
I hate counting stuff, keeping numbers in my head or writing them on paper. The way that I keep track of my daily water intake is by putting it into containers and separating those containers so that when the containers are empty, I know I have had a reasonable amount of water for the day.
I read about an easy method of calculation how much water to drink daily. You weigh yourself, halve the amount on the scales and drink that amount of ounces each day to achieve a target water drinking goal. This is based on the assumption that you are weighing yourself in American pounds of weight, and then can convert those into American ounces.
I don't know whether the same process will work for other weight and liquid measurement systems or not. You could check it by converting it online here: http://www.onlineconversion.com/
I hope this information helps you to become more prepared for emergencies and to stay that way as much as possible.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
One Way To Start Saving The Earth - Composting
I have been looking at videos about tumbling composters, especially ones that show you how to make your own. I would like one of those. I live in a very cold climate, Alaska. That means that composting can be less than rewarding here. It can easily take over a year to get composting done that only takes a season, or less in a more temperate climate.
I already compost some, but since I live in an apartment and share my yard with people who barely accept that climate change is happening, doing a lot can be difficult or impossible. I think it will be worth a try to make a compost tumbler, so I can compost more. I would like to be able to not throw out anything that it would be possible to compost.
Since I am trying this way to work on saving the Earth from further damage contributing to climate change, I thought some readers would also like to begin composting, or do more of it than they already do.
Here is a link to a youtube video about making a composter from used materials, which is even better than buying one or making one from new materials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTj-kdYrQxU
A lot of tumblers are built so that they tumble end over end. This is good from the standpoint that it will mix up the compost inside better than a tumbler that tumbles sideways. It is not so good if you have a bad back or other problems that will make it a lot harder for you to operate.
If it hurts you to spin your compost tumbler, it will probably stop you from using it. I think it is better to take a little longer to finish compost inside an easier to operate compost tumbler than to end up not composting at all.
You can compensate a little for not spinning your composter lengthwise by putting pieces of material inside the tumbler. I looked at a video where they bolted them inside the tumbler to make it mix the compost materials inside better.
You could get something like it by flattening out a large tin can into a rectangle and then bending it diagonally at right angles. You could then drill through one side and bolt it onto the inside of the tumbler, leaving the other side sticking up into the tunbler.
It would then make the compost materials inside the tumbler break into smaller pieces faster and mix the compost materials better.
Here is a link to a set of plans with pictures for making a similar compost tumbler. I think it can be easier to make things if you have something you can look at while you work. I don't imagine that many people have the capacity to watch videos while they work in their workshop.
Plans link: http://www4.uwm.edu/shwec/composter/resources/Barrel%20Composter.pdf
The same site also offers plans for compost bins that sit on the ground and require you to turn the contents of the bin regularly. That means trouble if you have any problems with your back. I think that if you do the compost turning in a bin, you could end up with back trouble, even if your back is okay now.
If yo have read my posts about preparedness health, you already know that I think taking care of your health all the time is part of good disaster preparedness. I hope that you will consider this when doing things like making and using compost tumblers.
The simplest composter is a hole in the ground with a pile of dirt beside it. You just put in a layer of compost on the bottom and sprinkle some of the dirt on it. A problem with this method is that scavengers like neighborhood pets and pests like rats and mice can be attracted and get into one of these.
When you have a compost tumbler off the ground, it lessens the opportunities for pests and pets to get into it.
There are much more elaborate tumbling composters. I used to have plans for one that was raised high enough off of the ground to require a ramp up to the top to load more compost materials into it. You could place a wheelbarrow under the tumbler. It was very convenient to use. It also composted in as little as two weeks, according to the author.
The aforementioned tumbler worked so fast because it allowed a lot of air to get into the compost inside it. There were no solid sides or ends on that one, it was all made with wire mesh stretched between pieces of lumber. That tells you that if you want your compost tumbler to work faster, you need to find ways to get extra air into the compost.
I hope that lots of you start composting. Maybe making your own compost tumbler will make it easier for you to do.
I already compost some, but since I live in an apartment and share my yard with people who barely accept that climate change is happening, doing a lot can be difficult or impossible. I think it will be worth a try to make a compost tumbler, so I can compost more. I would like to be able to not throw out anything that it would be possible to compost.
Since I am trying this way to work on saving the Earth from further damage contributing to climate change, I thought some readers would also like to begin composting, or do more of it than they already do.
Here is a link to a youtube video about making a composter from used materials, which is even better than buying one or making one from new materials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTj-kdYrQxU
A lot of tumblers are built so that they tumble end over end. This is good from the standpoint that it will mix up the compost inside better than a tumbler that tumbles sideways. It is not so good if you have a bad back or other problems that will make it a lot harder for you to operate.
If it hurts you to spin your compost tumbler, it will probably stop you from using it. I think it is better to take a little longer to finish compost inside an easier to operate compost tumbler than to end up not composting at all.
You can compensate a little for not spinning your composter lengthwise by putting pieces of material inside the tumbler. I looked at a video where they bolted them inside the tumbler to make it mix the compost materials inside better.
You could get something like it by flattening out a large tin can into a rectangle and then bending it diagonally at right angles. You could then drill through one side and bolt it onto the inside of the tumbler, leaving the other side sticking up into the tunbler.
It would then make the compost materials inside the tumbler break into smaller pieces faster and mix the compost materials better.
Here is a link to a set of plans with pictures for making a similar compost tumbler. I think it can be easier to make things if you have something you can look at while you work. I don't imagine that many people have the capacity to watch videos while they work in their workshop.
Plans link: http://www4.uwm.edu/shwec/composter/resources/Barrel%20Composter.pdf
The same site also offers plans for compost bins that sit on the ground and require you to turn the contents of the bin regularly. That means trouble if you have any problems with your back. I think that if you do the compost turning in a bin, you could end up with back trouble, even if your back is okay now.
If yo have read my posts about preparedness health, you already know that I think taking care of your health all the time is part of good disaster preparedness. I hope that you will consider this when doing things like making and using compost tumblers.
The simplest composter is a hole in the ground with a pile of dirt beside it. You just put in a layer of compost on the bottom and sprinkle some of the dirt on it. A problem with this method is that scavengers like neighborhood pets and pests like rats and mice can be attracted and get into one of these.
When you have a compost tumbler off the ground, it lessens the opportunities for pests and pets to get into it.
There are much more elaborate tumbling composters. I used to have plans for one that was raised high enough off of the ground to require a ramp up to the top to load more compost materials into it. You could place a wheelbarrow under the tumbler. It was very convenient to use. It also composted in as little as two weeks, according to the author.
The aforementioned tumbler worked so fast because it allowed a lot of air to get into the compost inside it. There were no solid sides or ends on that one, it was all made with wire mesh stretched between pieces of lumber. That tells you that if you want your compost tumbler to work faster, you need to find ways to get extra air into the compost.
I hope that lots of you start composting. Maybe making your own compost tumbler will make it easier for you to do.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Preparedness Philosophy
I believe that most people who do any sort of emergency preparedness do not think about it a lot. I don't fit into to that
frame of mind at all. I did a lot of soul searching before I began any preparedness and much more before I began writing this blog.
It seems to me that you can do some form of emergency preparedness with very little thought involved. I think the preppers that do their preparedness without thinking about it are much like ants. This has its value for both ants and humans.
I don't want to discourage anyone who takes the ant approach to preparedness, I would, however, like for some of you ant preparedness types to put a little more thought into your preparedness. I believe that if you do this, not only will you be prepared more thoroughly for a greater range of kinds of emergencies, but your daily life will be better as well.
Sometimes I mention little sayings in my blog posts that apply to preparedness philosophy. One of these is, "eat what you store and store what you eat".
The reason that saying makes a difference in being better prepared for more emergencies is that if you pay attention to making sure that everything that is in your storage is something that you already eat regularly, then you will eat it and know how to prepare it during an emergency.
The reason that saying makes life better every day, is that small personal emergencies can be made easier because if you run short on money at the end of the month, you will never go hungry or have to sneak into a restaurant and steal packets of ketchup to make soup which is not very tasty or nourishing and hurts your spirit by stealing.
An added, but big bonus from paying attention to the saying, "eat what you store and store what you eat", is that when you eat what you have stored and replace it with new, fresher food, your stored foods will always be fresh. You will not be faced with wormy, stale, rotten, or otherwise bad food when you open it during an emergency.
This saying also helps make daily life better because it saves you money. It is obvious that if you keep your stored food fresh by using and replacing it regularly, it will save you money by not making you throw away spoiled food. It is less obvious that a cushion of stored food will allow you to save money because of inflation and price fluctuations.
If there is a bad year for wheat in the bigger wheat producing region that serves where you live, you know that the price of wheat will rise for a a year or so. If you have a few months or a year of wheat in your food storage, using that wheat in your daily food will even out that cost increase for your budget.
If you choose your stored foods carefully, it will include items that may not be absolutely necessary, but give you comfort. At times when we feel bad, like during a job loss or other economic doldrums, we may not have the extra money available to buy that comfort food. If that comfort is in your storage in adequate amounts, you can take it out of your storage and use it then.
Sometimes we can feed the need for a comfort food so much that it makes us do stupid or irrational behavior to get it. Some people I know have hocked something valuable in order to get junk food, and then not been able to replace the hocked item. The value of the hocked item was not always strictly money. Sometimes it meant something special and that could never be replaced.
That kind of use for stored foods is especially valuable. The stored comfort food can not only provide comfort when needed, but prevent irrational behavior and the bad feelings that come to you afterwards.
This is only a small part of why thinking about your preparedness can help you in your daily life. I will probably write more about that once in a while later on.
I am thinking about splitting this blog up into smaller ones on different subjects. It may take me a little while to figure out the best way to do it. I will probably have several different subjects or at least sub-headings. It is likely that I will not post as frequently on each one of the new blogs. I will give as much warning as I can manage about the changes. I will provide links between the blogs to make it easy for readers to find all of them.
frame of mind at all. I did a lot of soul searching before I began any preparedness and much more before I began writing this blog.
It seems to me that you can do some form of emergency preparedness with very little thought involved. I think the preppers that do their preparedness without thinking about it are much like ants. This has its value for both ants and humans.
I don't want to discourage anyone who takes the ant approach to preparedness, I would, however, like for some of you ant preparedness types to put a little more thought into your preparedness. I believe that if you do this, not only will you be prepared more thoroughly for a greater range of kinds of emergencies, but your daily life will be better as well.
Sometimes I mention little sayings in my blog posts that apply to preparedness philosophy. One of these is, "eat what you store and store what you eat".
The reason that saying makes a difference in being better prepared for more emergencies is that if you pay attention to making sure that everything that is in your storage is something that you already eat regularly, then you will eat it and know how to prepare it during an emergency.
The reason that saying makes life better every day, is that small personal emergencies can be made easier because if you run short on money at the end of the month, you will never go hungry or have to sneak into a restaurant and steal packets of ketchup to make soup which is not very tasty or nourishing and hurts your spirit by stealing.
An added, but big bonus from paying attention to the saying, "eat what you store and store what you eat", is that when you eat what you have stored and replace it with new, fresher food, your stored foods will always be fresh. You will not be faced with wormy, stale, rotten, or otherwise bad food when you open it during an emergency.
This saying also helps make daily life better because it saves you money. It is obvious that if you keep your stored food fresh by using and replacing it regularly, it will save you money by not making you throw away spoiled food. It is less obvious that a cushion of stored food will allow you to save money because of inflation and price fluctuations.
If there is a bad year for wheat in the bigger wheat producing region that serves where you live, you know that the price of wheat will rise for a a year or so. If you have a few months or a year of wheat in your food storage, using that wheat in your daily food will even out that cost increase for your budget.
If you choose your stored foods carefully, it will include items that may not be absolutely necessary, but give you comfort. At times when we feel bad, like during a job loss or other economic doldrums, we may not have the extra money available to buy that comfort food. If that comfort is in your storage in adequate amounts, you can take it out of your storage and use it then.
Sometimes we can feed the need for a comfort food so much that it makes us do stupid or irrational behavior to get it. Some people I know have hocked something valuable in order to get junk food, and then not been able to replace the hocked item. The value of the hocked item was not always strictly money. Sometimes it meant something special and that could never be replaced.
That kind of use for stored foods is especially valuable. The stored comfort food can not only provide comfort when needed, but prevent irrational behavior and the bad feelings that come to you afterwards.
This is only a small part of why thinking about your preparedness can help you in your daily life. I will probably write more about that once in a while later on.
I am thinking about splitting this blog up into smaller ones on different subjects. It may take me a little while to figure out the best way to do it. I will probably have several different subjects or at least sub-headings. It is likely that I will not post as frequently on each one of the new blogs. I will give as much warning as I can manage about the changes. I will provide links between the blogs to make it easy for readers to find all of them.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Happiness Is Preparedness
When little kids are going someplace exciting, they often spend a lot of the trip asking their elders if they are there yet, or almost there yet. They have a hard time waiting for the good thing they are expecting to happen.
They can be so busy wanting the end of the trip, they forget to look out the windows and see what is around them along the way.
Adults can be the same way. We are so busy looking forward to something, that we forget to look around us right now.
We can tell ourselves that we will be happy "if", something happens or we get something. We can be very unhappy about not getting that something right now.
Being unhappy can make you sick. Alternative medicine has been working on this theory for a long time, but regular allopathic doctors agree. What is in your mind can make you sick or well.
Part of happiness is enjoying what you are and what you have right now. Happiness can be a matter of choice. You can decide to be happy right now, no matter what is happening to you or around you.
Once you decide to be happy, your life will be better. Even if your health is bad, it will be better once you choose to be happy.
Happiness is contagious. Your happiness can spread to other people. People around you can be happier when your happiness spreads to them.
This reminds me of a Batman movie I saw. It had Jack Nicholson in it as The Joker. He always had a weird big smile in the movie. One time his smile became contagious, literally. I particularly liked the part where fish caught the Joker's smile and were swimming around with big smiles on their faces. lol.
You can do that too.
Your happiness may not take with everyone around you, but it will happen some. Some of that happiness that you spread around will be reflected back to you and make you even happier.
Don't forget happiness as part of your disaster preparedness. You will be better off before, during, and after a disaster if you choose to be happy.
They can be so busy wanting the end of the trip, they forget to look out the windows and see what is around them along the way.
Adults can be the same way. We are so busy looking forward to something, that we forget to look around us right now.
We can tell ourselves that we will be happy "if", something happens or we get something. We can be very unhappy about not getting that something right now.
Being unhappy can make you sick. Alternative medicine has been working on this theory for a long time, but regular allopathic doctors agree. What is in your mind can make you sick or well.
Part of happiness is enjoying what you are and what you have right now. Happiness can be a matter of choice. You can decide to be happy right now, no matter what is happening to you or around you.
Once you decide to be happy, your life will be better. Even if your health is bad, it will be better once you choose to be happy.
Happiness is contagious. Your happiness can spread to other people. People around you can be happier when your happiness spreads to them.
This reminds me of a Batman movie I saw. It had Jack Nicholson in it as The Joker. He always had a weird big smile in the movie. One time his smile became contagious, literally. I particularly liked the part where fish caught the Joker's smile and were swimming around with big smiles on their faces. lol.
You can do that too.
Your happiness may not take with everyone around you, but it will happen some. Some of that happiness that you spread around will be reflected back to you and make you even happier.
Don't forget happiness as part of your disaster preparedness. You will be better off before, during, and after a disaster if you choose to be happy.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Why Does The XL Pipeline Matter To You?
The XL Pipeline matters to everyone in the world because it comes from very dirty Canadian tar sands. This is not a slur against Canadians. It is just about those tar sands they have.
The Canadian tar sands do have oil in them and they have a huge amount of it. The problem is that the oil in those tar sands would destroy your engine and just about any other engine, unless it is cleaned up a lot in order to use it.
The very large amount of dirty tar sands oil only makes this all worse.
We have already passed the safety limit on how much carbon pollution we have in the air of our whole planet. Scientists who do their own thinking, agree that this upper limit of carbon atoms in our air was reached, and passed at 350 parts per million. We are already up to close to 400 ppm now.
It is believed that it is possible even at 400ppm, for us to undo the damage to our air and reverse climate change back to the safe level of 350 ppm.
The vast amount of very dirty Canadian tar sands oil must be cleaned by processes which are themselves very polluting. Then if we add burning the still somewhat dirty Canadian tar sands oil to the pollution created when it is burned for fuel we will be in deep doo doo.
All of that pollution both from cleaning up the Canadian tar sands oil as well as burning the oil itself will push us so far past a point of safe return, that there will be no turning back on climate change. It will officially be tipped into a vicious cycle. Climate change will then cause changes in the earth that will further heat up the earth, which will cause more changes to heat up the earth, and so on.
We are making our own warm place that we would deserve to spend eternity. We have taken a beautiful planet, the Earth, and rapidly destroyed it, mostly during the last two generations, starting with Baby Boomers parents, the War Babies, generation, and on through the Baby Boomers.
The next couple of generations, the Gen X'ers and the Millennials, are not guilt free, but have not really had the opportunity to do as much as the last two generations.
"Why, Yes"! I do have something in mind that you can do right now to help with this problem. I am going to offer you a chance to throw your weight behind something that might help stop the XL Pipeline. I believe this is true even if you are not in the USA or a citizen of the USA.
It is a link to allow you to pick from several pre-written emails to send automatically to people who need to know how you feel. This is to help those people understand that there are a lot of other people who care about our survival, by slowing and reversing climate change instead of making it worse.
You can make your "voice" count by doing a few clicks with your mouse. Be sure to sign here: http://act.350.org/go/2889?t=2&akid=2908.854924.16Zi5X
Here is my two cents that I added to the form letter emails they have available on their site:
"Getting the oil into The Keystone XL Pipeline is bad enough, but we might as well bend over and kiss our posteriors goodbye if we use all of that dirty oil.
If you are responsible for setting an irreversible climate change that will spiral out of control, you may be able to live with your numb stub of useless conscience. You may not be able to live with other people who survive the onslaughts of the disasters that are becoming a way of life already. In between running for their lives from climate disasters, they will be thinking of you. It won't be good thoughts. "
The Canadian tar sands do have oil in them and they have a huge amount of it. The problem is that the oil in those tar sands would destroy your engine and just about any other engine, unless it is cleaned up a lot in order to use it.
The very large amount of dirty tar sands oil only makes this all worse.
We have already passed the safety limit on how much carbon pollution we have in the air of our whole planet. Scientists who do their own thinking, agree that this upper limit of carbon atoms in our air was reached, and passed at 350 parts per million. We are already up to close to 400 ppm now.
It is believed that it is possible even at 400ppm, for us to undo the damage to our air and reverse climate change back to the safe level of 350 ppm.
The vast amount of very dirty Canadian tar sands oil must be cleaned by processes which are themselves very polluting. Then if we add burning the still somewhat dirty Canadian tar sands oil to the pollution created when it is burned for fuel we will be in deep doo doo.
All of that pollution both from cleaning up the Canadian tar sands oil as well as burning the oil itself will push us so far past a point of safe return, that there will be no turning back on climate change. It will officially be tipped into a vicious cycle. Climate change will then cause changes in the earth that will further heat up the earth, which will cause more changes to heat up the earth, and so on.
We are making our own warm place that we would deserve to spend eternity. We have taken a beautiful planet, the Earth, and rapidly destroyed it, mostly during the last two generations, starting with Baby Boomers parents, the War Babies, generation, and on through the Baby Boomers.
The next couple of generations, the Gen X'ers and the Millennials, are not guilt free, but have not really had the opportunity to do as much as the last two generations.
"Why, Yes"! I do have something in mind that you can do right now to help with this problem. I am going to offer you a chance to throw your weight behind something that might help stop the XL Pipeline. I believe this is true even if you are not in the USA or a citizen of the USA.
It is a link to allow you to pick from several pre-written emails to send automatically to people who need to know how you feel. This is to help those people understand that there are a lot of other people who care about our survival, by slowing and reversing climate change instead of making it worse.
You can make your "voice" count by doing a few clicks with your mouse. Be sure to sign here: http://act.350.org/go/2889?t=2&akid=2908.854924.16Zi5X
Here is my two cents that I added to the form letter emails they have available on their site:
"Getting the oil into The Keystone XL Pipeline is bad enough, but we might as well bend over and kiss our posteriors goodbye if we use all of that dirty oil.
If you are responsible for setting an irreversible climate change that will spiral out of control, you may be able to live with your numb stub of useless conscience. You may not be able to live with other people who survive the onslaughts of the disasters that are becoming a way of life already. In between running for their lives from climate disasters, they will be thinking of you. It won't be good thoughts. "
Monday, March 25, 2013
Naturopaths For Preparedness Health
Staying as healthy as possible is an important part of emergency preparedness. During a disaster medical care can be very difficult to find. If you do find uninjured medical personnel with operational facilities, they will be very, very busy. You will be in a very long line waiting for help.
The last thing you need in such a situation, is ordinary health problems that are not connected with the disaster.
If you are in good health when disaster strikes, you will be much better off than someone who ordinarily has an assortment of common ailments.
A naturopathic doctor can be part of your plan to stay healthy all the time.
One big advantage of naturopaths is that they have a very strong emphasis on preventing health problems. Allopathic, or regular medical doctors are doing much better than they used to at emphasizing prevention in their health care, but this is still a little sickly compared to naturopaths.
Naturopaths have a thorough understanding of what your body needs to run efficiently and stay healthy. Allopathic doctors have to learn this stuff on their own. They only get a couple of hours of nutrition training in their whole time in medical school.
I am not advocating that you forget about your allopathic doctor, but your health will be much better if you can also see a naturopathic doctor. When enough people insist on it, our allopathic doctors will coordinate their care with that given by naturopathic doctors.
Just insisting that your allopathic doctor work in conjunction with naturopaths is not enough, to get the change we desire. It is also necessary to get changes made by our government and our insurance companies.
The biggest obstacle that we face in getting naturopathic medical care is the big drug companies. The legal pharmaceutical industry is the largest money maker in the world. That gives them enough clout to run our lives much more than is healthy for us.
The pharmaceutical industry has too much of a stranglehold on allopathic medicine for the well-being of either our doctors or us. I know that many readers are probably unaware of this situation, so I will give you one example about this problem that is easier to understand.
That is the choices our allopathic doctors make for our medications. I will give you some links about a little of this.
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/morreim/prescribing.html
Thorough.
http://getbetterhealth.com/the-ban-on-drug-company-gifts-to-physicians-captured-in-a-photograph/2009.10.12This one is funny.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/04/accepting-drug-perks-or-hiding-fact.html
This is short and pithy.
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51351
This one gets into it well.
The last thing you need in such a situation, is ordinary health problems that are not connected with the disaster.
If you are in good health when disaster strikes, you will be much better off than someone who ordinarily has an assortment of common ailments.
A naturopathic doctor can be part of your plan to stay healthy all the time.
One big advantage of naturopaths is that they have a very strong emphasis on preventing health problems. Allopathic, or regular medical doctors are doing much better than they used to at emphasizing prevention in their health care, but this is still a little sickly compared to naturopaths.
Naturopaths have a thorough understanding of what your body needs to run efficiently and stay healthy. Allopathic doctors have to learn this stuff on their own. They only get a couple of hours of nutrition training in their whole time in medical school.
I am not advocating that you forget about your allopathic doctor, but your health will be much better if you can also see a naturopathic doctor. When enough people insist on it, our allopathic doctors will coordinate their care with that given by naturopathic doctors.
Just insisting that your allopathic doctor work in conjunction with naturopaths is not enough, to get the change we desire. It is also necessary to get changes made by our government and our insurance companies.
The biggest obstacle that we face in getting naturopathic medical care is the big drug companies. The legal pharmaceutical industry is the largest money maker in the world. That gives them enough clout to run our lives much more than is healthy for us.
The pharmaceutical industry has too much of a stranglehold on allopathic medicine for the well-being of either our doctors or us. I know that many readers are probably unaware of this situation, so I will give you one example about this problem that is easier to understand.
That is the choices our allopathic doctors make for our medications. I will give you some links about a little of this.
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/morreim/prescribing.html
Thorough.
http://getbetterhealth.com/the-ban-on-drug-company-gifts-to-physicians-captured-in-a-photograph/2009.10.12This one is funny.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/04/accepting-drug-perks-or-hiding-fact.html
This is short and pithy.
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51351
This one gets into it well.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Diatomaceous Earth For Survival
Diatomaceous earth is wonderful stuff. It is pretty cheap compared to medicine or even herbs. After all, it is dirt, fancy dirt, but nevertheless, dirt. It stands to reason that it should be dirt cheap. :-p
I drink some diatomaceous earth almost every day. I read that it has caused some people's hair to turn back to their original color instead of gray. I don't know how much of this to attribute to diatomaceous earth, but I have very little gray in my hair, when my contemporaries are either using hair dye or being quite gray.
I was not that interested in using diatomaceous earth for the purpose of preserving my youthful hair color, but I can't say I object to that additional benefit.
One of the things diatomaceous earth can't do a thing about is keeping you alive when the ability of the earth to maintain your life is being destroyed. You need to add some other things to your health regimen besides what you eat, drink and how you exercise. Taking care of the earth is taking care of yourself.
I love old cartoons and often apply things I see in them to my life now. One of these lessons that is good to share with you to explain what I am talking about is one where Wiley Coyote had the Roadrunner cornered out on a rock overhang high above a valley.
Wiley Coyote pulled out a saw and began sawing away at the rock to make the Roadrunner fall. The problem that Wiley Coyote didn't notice is that he was sitting on the same side of the rock that he was sawing away on. When he sawed through it, he had nothing left to support him either.
We human beings are just like Wiley Coyote, sawing away on our support, (the Earth,) when we still need it.
We saw away at the Earth every time we do things that increase climate change and cause other kinds of environmental damage.
The world we live in is a complex and rapidly changing place. It can easily make one feel too overwhelmed to face it all. It is a great temptation to just hide your eyes and focus only on what you need to survive right now.
We need to pry our hands away from our eyes enough to see what we need to survive. We can not be Wiley Coyotes, sawing away on our support, the Earth, when we still need the Earth.
There are lots of things you can do to help save our support, the Earth, that will make your life better right now as well. I have found and included many of those in my blog posts. Many other people are also working on this problem.
Look around a little and pick one small change and make it part of your life. Once it fits into your life you can go on to the next one. Any journey must start with a single step.
I drink some diatomaceous earth almost every day. I read that it has caused some people's hair to turn back to their original color instead of gray. I don't know how much of this to attribute to diatomaceous earth, but I have very little gray in my hair, when my contemporaries are either using hair dye or being quite gray.
I was not that interested in using diatomaceous earth for the purpose of preserving my youthful hair color, but I can't say I object to that additional benefit.
One of the things diatomaceous earth can't do a thing about is keeping you alive when the ability of the earth to maintain your life is being destroyed. You need to add some other things to your health regimen besides what you eat, drink and how you exercise. Taking care of the earth is taking care of yourself.
I love old cartoons and often apply things I see in them to my life now. One of these lessons that is good to share with you to explain what I am talking about is one where Wiley Coyote had the Roadrunner cornered out on a rock overhang high above a valley.
Wiley Coyote pulled out a saw and began sawing away at the rock to make the Roadrunner fall. The problem that Wiley Coyote didn't notice is that he was sitting on the same side of the rock that he was sawing away on. When he sawed through it, he had nothing left to support him either.
We human beings are just like Wiley Coyote, sawing away on our support, (the Earth,) when we still need it.
We saw away at the Earth every time we do things that increase climate change and cause other kinds of environmental damage.
The world we live in is a complex and rapidly changing place. It can easily make one feel too overwhelmed to face it all. It is a great temptation to just hide your eyes and focus only on what you need to survive right now.
We need to pry our hands away from our eyes enough to see what we need to survive. We can not be Wiley Coyotes, sawing away on our support, the Earth, when we still need the Earth.
There are lots of things you can do to help save our support, the Earth, that will make your life better right now as well. I have found and included many of those in my blog posts. Many other people are also working on this problem.
Look around a little and pick one small change and make it part of your life. Once it fits into your life you can go on to the next one. Any journey must start with a single step.
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