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Tag: Homesteading

Chicken Keeping for Beginners: Coop Basics

Chicken Keeping for Beginners: Coop Basics

Chickens are usually the gateway drug for people wanting to be a little less dependent on the system. Chickens are generally low maintenance and easy for people new to small livestock. Considering the fluctuating prices of eggs, keeping chickens makes sense for a constant egg supply. When I started keeping chickens for eggs ten-plus years ago, I knew very little except that I had a good shelter for them to be safe and that they needed food and water. In…

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Start Your Spring Garden Now by Planting Garlic, Onions, and Shallots

Start Your Spring Garden Now by Planting Garlic, Onions, and Shallots

Being mostly self-sufficient, I like to think ahead about where my food will come from. For many people (me included), that means food storage and preservation. I also think about my gardening and what I could do now to have food later. Planting garlic is generally accepted by most gardeners to plant in the fall. You can plant garlic in the spring and still have a good harvest. I have better harvests when I plant in the fall. I tend…

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Prepper Update: Where I Am Now and What I Am Thinking (April 2022)

Prepper Update: Where I Am Now and What I Am Thinking (April 2022)

April seemed a busy month even though I felt like we were home more and not running to appointments, school events, etc. I’m not sure if I did a whole lot of prepping because I was focused on some other things like making money and keeping living things alive. We got baby chicks on April 5th. I got my batch of 16 from Murray McMurray’s in Webster City. I have all layers again, and they have been fun so far….

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Why You Need to Grow Food One Year and Preserve Food for Two Years

Why You Need to Grow Food One Year and Preserve Food for Two Years

Gardening can be fickle sometimes. One year you can grow enough for seven families and the following year, you barely have enough for your own family. Many factors can play into this like weather, watering, and neglect. Some years you will have the perfect growing conditions and plenty of time to weed, water, and tend to your plants. The following year could be a drought year or you have more things planted than time you have to work on the…

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Laziness Will Kill You (Literally and Figuratively)

Laziness Will Kill You (Literally and Figuratively)

(Writer’s note: I’m talking to me as well as all of you. I realized about four months ago I had a serious problem with laziness. I wouldn’t call myself lazy, but it was easier to be lazy than to admit that I had a problem with my phone. I have been making small changes since then to get better. However, this advice is not coming from a perfect hustler either.) In this day and age, laziness has become the norm. We love…

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Nine Ways to Beat The Food Rationing System When It Happens Again

Nine Ways to Beat The Food Rationing System When It Happens Again

Right now, food seems to be plentiful in America. There is plenty of it in the stores and you hear stories of how much food is wasted in restaurants and grocery stores. However, there are some factors that could lead us to a rationing system in a hurry if something happened. Those things do not even have to be catastrophic for us to be rationed. In most natural disasters such as hurricanes and flooding, Red Cross and FEMA dive right…

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