I have a list for next months preparation purchases....on the list is more sturdy, long lasting paramilitary clothing..shirts and a jacket... a new belt knife.. and two or three additional #10 cans of dehydrated food. All purchases are designed to stay within my individual monthly acquisition budget. I will discuss December's preparations in the next blog.

The purchase of sturdy clothing to replace previously demanded work attire will be an ongoing process. The initial concept has actually worked out very well. ( from my viewpoint anyway ) It is much more pleasing to purchase useful, long term, useful clothing rather than being forced to purchase clothing required for only a limited work-social basis....I have been done with buying plumage for work for some time now and there has been no workplace-societal push back on me so far. I now have one black tie i keep in the glove box of my Prius---I put it on for meetings and take it off immediately afterward. I now purchase clothing only for utility rather than social standing requirements.

We spent nothing on Black Friday. This is easier for us than for most people since my wife and i have no family and do not celebrate Christmas. We watch Christmas and every other manufactured holiday from the sidelines...and the system makes and takes nothing from us. Our society is a prisoner of this Christmas system. Prisoners on both sides buying or selling, unwilling or unable to escape. I am not about to try and convince anyone to abandon this retarded situation...But you do know how used you are----don't you?

Is there anything inside these stores worth standing in line for? Fighting for?

Some might respond that the desire to save money is the reasoning. This i can understand, but why is it that you allow yourself to be herded in a specific direction on a specific date? I have read that the bill for this holiday shopping comes out to $400.00 for every human in the United States. Someone else has to pay our $400.00---every year----- our Christmas present to each other is that we do not have to. We refuse to be consumer prisoners.

Apollo 18, the Moon mission that supposedly never happened.

According to a movie under production, Apollo 18 did happen and we met something that required a complete cover up. There's not much available on this film at this moment, I think tho that i will follow it and see if it makes DVD status.

I may have failed to write a review on a few books I've read lately so the below listed are quick reviews of reads i have done lately:

The Moneyless Man by Mark Boyle:

I bought this looking for trading/bartering/living information based on his experience in living without money for a year it wasn't there--the book was not worth it.

Griftopia by Matt Taibbi:

an excellent read, and an excellent explanation on how our economy was stolen by wall street greed and interbreeding with government agencies-----definitely worth it---great book.

American Taliban by Karkos Molitsas:

An excellent, well written book with an excellent premise--that the Muslim Taliban and the American conservative religious nuts are one and the same philosophy. Worth it.

In Spite of the Gods by Edward Lucy:

A study of Modern India and it's future---an excellent book. It is very hard to write properly on India and Lucy does an excellent job. Worth it.

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'
Don Marquis

When done posting this edition I am going out back to the shed to start shelling a couple of hundred pecans i recovered from our tree this year. I have no grand process of doing this, just a hammer, a pocket knife and jars with screw on lids that we have saved. Once i get tired of shelling pecans and knowing that i have more than enough to go around for the next shelling session....

.........I'll stop for the day, come inside and get to work on some handmade cards for my wife's upcoming birthday.

The point of advising this is that what one can do towards self sufficiency often has nothing whatsoever to do with weapons, boarding windows, or zombie proofing the property.

Self sufficiency is often best represented by creation.....and not by fear.

I am saving branches, cut into small lengths which naturally fall from our pecan tree...we have a self standing outdoor fireplace and a hibachi for possible emergency cooking, I'm creating a stockpile of pre-cut dried branches for use.

I am reading the Orvis fly fishing guide book.

I am watching over our winter garden to see what happens.

I am recharging batteries.

There is nothing road warrior like about what i am doing this weekend----there shouldn't be.

Millions of words have already been written on the net over the People's Revolt against TSA. My little bity input is although this mini uprising will without a doubt accomplish nothing......it is heartening to see people rise up against the anti-terrorism confidence game that is being pulled on them. TSA has already pulled the requirement that Pilots suffer back scatter x-rays and physical searches----but then again they have a union while you, the public, have only the people you elected....

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Plato

A result of giving up on politics and hoped for political solutions to our collapsing future state due to this last election, i have been involved in self reflection and examination. Have i become a geezer, casting doom and gloom theories on everything surrounding me? Am i unable to face the new reality and therefore prepare so that my tiny world can stay the same rather than face the future? Do i fail to have enough hope and confidence in our society that we will somehow muddle through as we always have done in the past? I have gazed into my belief structure on the upcoming failure, the future collapse of our society attempting to determine the difference between truth and self-created fiction. The best course is always honesty, and honesty compels me to state that i do believe we would be better off if our society crashes.....that we rebuild from a wasteland rather than cling to false beliefs, inept processes, and devious power structures that do not work and will merely prolong the hurt for the average citizen till the inevitable end. Desired or not i truly do believe that we are done for by our own hand...... If i am cynical our society and our leaders have taught me to be a cynic---wars without justification, theft of societal property, lack of thought in decision making, anything for profit...all the past 40 years of failure to recognize what is vs. what they want...has taught me to come to a state where i ignore my society, and ignore my leaders. Survivalism or prepping are merely the tools which will allow me to maintain this status of ignoring society regardless of exterior events or circumstances. In all honesty I believe what i say.

In Reading "The Worst Hard Times" by Timothy Egan, it was pointed out that during the depression 1930's there was simply no money in circulation. Rural individuals spent an entire year with $5.00 or less in their pockets as real money. Although trading and bartering during that time was discussed i had difficulty imagining this circumstance...I wanted to investigate this concept further and have ordered "The Moneyless Man" Mark Boyle. I am trying not to make presumptions on how he accomplished living for a year without money until i read the book and am looking forward to getting into it...this may or may not be useful information for the hard times ahead...but i will advise on this book after reading...

Preparing for the future often becomes twisted into purchasing vast quantities of survival stuff...with a subsequent failure of preparations in fundamentals. Last blog i spoke of salt. This time i will speak of olive oil....we keep 3 gallons of olive oil in food storage with plans to increase this quantity over time.

For Cooking, frying, as replacement for butter, skin remedy, vegetable dressing and for a host of other uses olive oil cannot be overlooked as a necessary item to be stockpiled. Originally i had wanted to plant olive trees on the urban homestead and make my own oil. Unfortunately i am simply to far into the winter zone to allow this. I am hoping that when my greenhouse is up and running i may be able to attempt to keep two, potted oil trees alive and producing within it.

Olive oil (and a little salt) is one of those overlooked preps which having at least a small supply in the future' may make that backyard squirrel and vegetable casserole tasty.

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
Emma Goldman

wolverines

American society's biggest problem may be that citizens will have to face problems the likes of which are unknown today...For example, Anarchist's in Great Britain attacked the Conservative Party headquarters over proposed cutbacks in public services the other day.....The American public takes more shit quietly than any other society in the world other than the Russians....we did in the past anyway. Once the American public becomes hungry, cannot drive, faces standing in line for food, and the vast new underclass understands there is and will be nothing for them.....avoiding demonstrations and violent public activity in your community may become a new way of life for you on a daily basis. This does not at all concern the upper class, with limo's, gated communities, corporate aircraft and private security services. The boot of the Upper classes remains on your neck without them actually touching us.

When working overseas it was not at all unusual to have to avoid travel through specific areas due to food riots or religious riots or job riots...one just readjusted the route and moved on. The greatest danger was in turning a corner to become accidentally involved in a riot or demonstration....but it is surprising how life has to go on---you have to get to work, or you have to shop for food, or you have to take your child to school or the doctor.....there are have to's that make one face these types or problems in the 3rd world which we were immune to, but we will have to face in the new American future.

If this demonstrative, reactive collective behavior starts in the US, information on food riots, job riots, etc will probably be controlled.....we will not know what types of disturbances are occurring across the country or in your own area until these incidents become impossible to spin or the sheer numbers grow until the facts are uncontrollable by local, state and federal governments.

In our future one may have to be attuned to the feeling of the crowd...one must know when a food line is becoming agitated....and know when to leave. We may have to learn how to turn around and find another way due to a gut feeling about an area..... But we as a society may face these situations like the Russians did....immense lines of quietly broken humans, shuffling about in old clothes, hoping for the best while expecting the worst....there is a great possibility that Americans are so broken by false promises seasoned with equally false hopes that our society will accept what it is given by it's broken leadership and corporate spin doctor's with the only response being depression and quiet despair while we slowly starve to death in the dark............. But then again....... we have guns.

Salt...wars have been fought over it....and i had forgotten about it until this past week. Spices i can and do grow especially chillies and garlic-6--- the crops New Mexico is known for...but salt? In desert conditions salt takes on a special need..being possibly without refrigeration creates an additional need for salt for food preservation. Here we are without access to the sea, the easiest source for the home made salt process. Every source I investigated on making salt began with the phrase---"take salt water and then--blahblahblah" ------no help for me there. Now on trips to the grocery, we always buy a container of salt---for stockpiling. Every time. This salt storage may last us until we find some local source of production or trade. I'd recommend thinking of salt---it is easy to overlook in our current lives---if all else fails grab a few little packets each time you are at a fast food place. They are trying to kill you with their food anyway-------at least they owe you a couple of packets of salt?

I have been stockpiling individual meal food such as MRE's. I have now begun to stockpile #10 cans of dehydrated foodstuffs. Individual meal packets are necessary for short term emergencies, camping, travel etc. However for the long term #10 cans are a much better value.

The market has a large array of brands and types, I prefer Mountain House, due to experience with their food while backpacking. #10 cans by Mountain house contain 10 standard servings (the serving size is actually pretty large for the average person) and have a shelf life of 25 years....much longer than MRE's or any standard can food.

Although some varieties such as the freeze dried pre-cooked ground beef are expensive in this size container I tend to purchase the cheaper, but viable plainer meals such as, chicken with rice, spaghetti with meat sauce etc. These plainer meals can be touched up by onions, peppers, chives etc from our garden.

I specifically stockpile the Mountain House #10 cans of Crackers which are a large lifeboat type cracker of which each can contains 70. The reasoning behind this is that I reside in basically the desert, settlers here had to do without wheat and bread until literally the 1900's. Rather than stockpiling wheat as some do, I've decided to substitute these crackers for bread, taking less space and less caloric output than grinding wheat and baking bread. You have to remember that the caloric investment in producing food must be at least equalled by the food you end up with. It does you no good to burn 10,000 calories to produce 500.

The #10 can system is easy to store and i tape a military P-38 can opener to every 4th can...just in case....One cannot store enough food to live off of forever. These cans are for winter shortages, a break in eating from the garden and to cover a bad growing season if necessary. Ten servings is 10 days for one person if necessary.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.
Andre Gide