[Redcap]

From my memory, garden rows are supposed to be laid out north to south in the northern hemisphere.

[Redcap]

I’ll put my two cents in here just so folks know:

1) Antibiotics for animals are the same as for humans EXCEPT for everything that isn’t the actual antibiotic. The fillers, binders, and any additives may not be suitable or healthy for humans. Animal antibiotics are not regulated in the same way as human antibiotics.

2) Antibiotics, especially synthetic antibiotics are highly ineffective against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. All pharmaceutical antibiotics are based on the idea that the singular antibiotic component is what kills bacteria. Unfortunately, bacteria have about half a dozen ways in which they learn how to isolate and become resistant to the antibiotic and then actually pass this information on to other bacteria. Even viruses carry this information to bacteria.

3) Plants that have antibiotic properties contain the same antibiotic chemicals synthetic antibiotics are designed to emulate, but they also contain up to 200 other properties and constituents that disable the resistance of the bacteria. Bacteria can resist one chemical component but not dozens, enabling the original antibiotic in the plant to kill the bacteria. In essence, the bacteria was not resistant to the antibiotic – it was simply more able to resist the antibiotic when it was isolated and not protected by and delivered by the other components it needed to work properly.

That said, while I am not opposed to using animal antibiotics in an emergency or having an emergency store of them as they may, at some time, be the only way to get an antibiotic when needed, I highly recommend a knowledge and store of antibiotic plant medicines. The book Herbal Antibiotics by Stephen Buhner is absolutely amazing but IMHO real overkill when it comes to the dosages. For example, each bacterial illness requires, from his perspective, a rather complicated series of medicines in very specific dosages, I use that information as a starting point for further research to simplify (as a good herbalist will do – SIMPLIFY). One example is MRSA which can be more easily treated with grated burdock root and dandelion leaf. I would definitely do more than that, but burdock root and dandelion leaves flush out the lymphatic system quickly giving the bacteria almost no ground in which to survive and replicate and spread. Just taking an antibiotic, synthetic, natural, or plant based may not be enough. First flushing the lymphatic system and then supporting health with a plant based antibiotic would be a more effective strategy.

So I recommend a sound knowledge of how bacteria work, how they learn, what plants may grow near you that are effective whole antibiotics, and how to get ahold of a good herbalist besides stocking up on unregulated antibiotics. Start with folk medicine. It’s more likely to work than even modern herbalist methods which are based more on pharmacology of dried plants than a knowledge of the whole plants themselves and our healing history as humans.

[Redcap]

Great video. People used to always live prepared. I just read that in 1800, 2/3 of all jobs in the US were agricultural. Now it’s 2/3 of 1%. People were closer to the seasons and what food was available and when. It was just common sense to put by the harvest or sale items or if someone dumped a bushel of apples on you. No one turned down food or supplies.

But cities and TV turned people into consumers rather than producers. The American Dream was no longer about making a life but purchasing the life you wanted. We had to have “earning potential” so we could have “purchasing power”.

Naturally then you don’t want to lose that! And that’s the fear. Even without political or corporate upheaval, people are afraid to lose their little piece of that pie. Too few people know how to bake their own pie anymore.

Everything Heidi said is all that common sense just coming back.

I do have house insurance I don’t want because my husband has chronic fatigue and already feels like he can’t provide the way he wants to and with our age and his condition, we couldn’t fix our own home if something major happened. Yes, it might be something they don’t pay on, but it makes him feel more secure to have even a potential back-up and so I do it for him. But I do it by choice. I have never had house insurance in my life before this. (We’ve only been married a decade and in this house 6 years.)

But see, that’s where being a housewife and money manager also comes in because I save money elsewhere so it’s not too much of a burden to do this for him on our low income. I hate spending on it but I do it for him.

And that’s something people also have little knowledge of anymore: how to live at home, be home people, take care of a home, budget, cook, etc. If they knew these things, they’d be less afraid of what can happen because it would already be part of their life to some extent to prepare for the rainy day.

[Redcap]

How do you want to use them? I would think you might be able to make jelly or elderberry syrup. If you cook them down, you’ll find out how they do.

[Redcap]

Oh, I dream of finding one. That’s just gorgeous! My husband is maybe going to build me something like a James washer, but then I’d have to find a wringer to go with it. I have my stepmom’s old washer that didn’t fit into her new place when she moved after my dad passed. But when it breaks, we’d better have something (preferably) off-grid to replace it so we’re looking around now. I have always hung my laundry on a clothesline.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  Redcap.

[Redcap]

It kind of depends on what illnesses you might want to be prepared to treat. There are great remedies and treatment options for mild to serious respiratory illnesses, arthritis, skin rashes and reactions, osteoporosis, heart disease, nervous disorders, immune support, cancers, digestive problems, parasites and poisons, male and female issues. But while I have or can forage for most of those (and please feel free to give me a specific list of illnesses or conditions you want to grow for, my main concern has been to create a supply for medicines that can treat or cure major pathogens that might be “dumped” on us, such as Marburg and other hemorrhagic fevers, malaria, HIV, MRSA, smallpox, etc. I would say, if you want to have some heavy hitters on hand, buy 1-2 ounces of Osha tincture. You won’t grow it, likely, and it’s already being harvested into the endangered zone, but just a couple of drops can treat severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock – helpful for when you don’t have an Epi-pen handy, which few people do. I would also carefully make pokeweed root tincture (wear gloves when working with the root and never eat poke raw and never eat or taste the root). It’s the tincture one takes when things look bad and you’re considering antibiotics which probably won’t work anymore anyway, including SARS exposure, HIV, anthrax, and more. Yarrow (white flowering tops) tincture and salve are both antibiotic. I would also make sure to have artemisia annua for SARS, malaria, hemorrhagic fevers (yellow fever, Marburg, ebola). Pitcher plant treats smallpox. Pleurisy root (butterfly milkweed) treats scarlet fever and all pneumonias and respiratory infections. Usnea treats MRSA but so does grated burdock root and dandelion leaves (eaten). C19 is a vascular disease, not a respiratory disease, so you want blood thinning plant medicines such as willow bark. Also C19 and the jab destroys all bifidobacteria in the gut biome so you want to eat fermented foods and only 3 out of 27 products from Whole Foods (including kefir) that list bifidobacteria in ingredients actually had it. 24 did not have any and you need to repopulate your gut biome as bifidobacteria is essential for a functioning immune system.

[Redcap]

It should be fine. Freezer burn is just where air has come into contact with the food and dried it out completely. You can try it and see if it tastes alright to you. I mean, it won’t hurt you at all, but it might not be quite the quality you want because you have lost some of the juices.

[Redcap]

I don’t have a large family. It’s me and my husband. My two grown kids live in another state and no grandkids and probably won’t be any. I gave the extra TP to a local family. I have used cut up t-shirts (jersey) for cloth TP, but prefer flannel. That’s also what Heidi shows she uses in her video about it. Toweling has those little loops that I don’t want to have to clean out. What I would have loved to use would be old-fashioned birds-eye. I could see sewing little layered wipes that would last a lifetime because it’s what diapers were made out of and those cloth diapers were great. But now they make them from some really terrible thin birds-eye and even the birds-eye you can buy at the fabric store is garbage. So flannel it is!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  Redcap.

[Redcap]

What a wonderful old lady your wringer is! She has a good home where I’m sure she is much appreciated. 🙂

[Redcap]

I’m not worried about toilet paper. I am more worried about tripping over all the prep supplies I have and breaking one of my highly arthritic hips what with no insurance and a small town that has no hospital. 🤣

You can give me an angry face all you want, darlin’, but I can’t fix the government and voting won’t either. What I CAN do is learn how to live as simply as possible in a way that meets our needs and help others, mostly young mothers in this town, learn how to do that also and learn to keep chickens, use herbal medicines to take care of their kids rather than rely on doctor lies, learn how to lower bills they can’t pay by hanging laundry and turning off the TV.

I can’t fix the globe, but I can help make one town a little more capable of taking care of itself. I can’t be angry at these powerful lying liars running the world anymore. They are hell bent on killing us all and either they will or they won’t. But getting angry isn’t going to help. Actually I wish for them to be supremely happy. Because happy people don’t crap on other people. I hope they find faith and peace and love.

But I appreciate what you meant. I just think you might have misunderstood my intent.

[Redcap]

You are correct! Thank you.

[Redcap]

Oh, I hear you on the jars. I was JUST telling my husband before I read this that my nightmare is going to be the jars. We have canning jars, half gallon jars I use for dehydrated foods, recycled jars I use for tinctures and dried herbs and fridge storage, and plastic containers we use now and then. I have these HUGE plastic jars teachers will buy with animal crackers in them for the classrooms and then give them away and I use those for chicken feed extras – like greens I’ll dry and mix in with winter feed. All of these are in three different places and they need to come home to roost in one place – TODAY! 😄 This has been on my summer vacation to-do list and I’ve gotten so much done, I can’t avoid it anymore.

[Redcap]

😂 I just gave most of the TP to a local family. I kept a little for emergencies. And I’ve gone back to using cloth.

Could I have used it for barter in the future? Probably. But the day I have to barter toilet paper for my life is the day I leave this world. I’m old enough not to want to live in that nightmare.

[Redcap]

It is too bad. It would be nice to share a cup of tea on the porch and chat as well. 🙂

[Redcap]

I love your set-up. Very traditional. I was thinking hubby could make something like you have under our carport. I can bring one of the garden hoses to it for washing. I was given one of those old dashers by a friend. It’s not rusted but old and dirty and looks hard to clean, but I’m going to try. I used one of those new metal ones from Lehman’s years ago but this looks much bigger and sturdier.

I had thought a DIY James washer or tumbler would be nice but then you lose your wash water you could use for a second load since you have to refill it with the rinse water. Plus they are tubs! No moving parts to break. The fewer moving parts, the happier I am.