James speaks of all of the distractions that prevent us being prepared for whatever type of emergency or disaster that is becoming ever more plausible for us to face, regardless of our “it couldn’t happen to me” mindset.  He speaks of our societal practice of by and large living from hand to mouth.  Much of this is derived from our interdependence and affluence/prosperity.  Our self reliance is in large measure voluntarily left by the wayside because we are able to store value.  Money is a store of value, and it allows us the freedom to specialize in something and in many ways to expect that others will specialize in the something else’s that we want.  Instead of exchanging directly our goods or services for that which we want or need, we can remove ourselves from trade and bartering, which may become an inconvenience if a would-be trading partner doesn’t need or want what we have to offer.

Were we to have to trade/barter for that which we wanted and needed, we would likely be much more self reliant because of the hassle of either not finding someone who wanted or needed what we had to offer in exchange for the item they offered that we found so much utility in, or alternatively we may not often get a “fair” trade, falling short of our asking price.  We would probably then do our best to become a Jack of More Trades, instead of merely a Jack Squat.

I’m all for money, don’t get me wrong.  I love the conveniences and abundance that life offers because of a medium of exchange, and for the simple fact that I can concentrate and focus my efforts in becoming very good at what I do, not requiring me to spend time to be able to excel in every single area.  But has money and the freedom are carelessness that it affords caused me to disregard my personal responsibility as it relates to my survival, especially in a disaster?  To some extent, most people are guilty of this.

During the current economic downturn, there have been those that were once princes who are now paupers.  Reveling in the excesses that were afforded them during boom times, they risked much and have paid dearly.  Some have risked so much that they will never catch up or return to their former station in life, economically speaking.  Imagine those who were looking forward to retirement who will now have to work far beyond what they formerly expected to.  To help calm their ill and unsettled feelings over the whole mess many rationalize along with the media that nobody could have seen it coming.  Common sense proves otherwise.  There were warning signs stacked up miles high as far as the contrarians were concerned.  But as once “Princely” CEO put it—“When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated.  But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.  We’re still dancing.” (Chuck Prince, former CEO of Citigroup)  Sure, throw caution to the wind, and mortgage your future.  Sounds a lot like the scriptural passage: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”  Contrarians pick out these subtle signals and are prepared far in advance, recognizing clear patterns from history, and not being a victim of thinking that history will not repeat itself this time because, as a professor once told me in regards to there not being another Great Depression, “The Fed is so much more sophisticated.”

Closer to home, were you prepared for the economic fallout, a disaster type that COULD HAVE been averted (collectively and individually)?  Were you over-leveraged in your investments (home included), living a lavish lifestyle, or did you live within your means?  Was a credit card your vice?

Some of those who now live in tent cities strewn across the country’s landscape once had it good, and now regret their prodigal life and not having set aside what they could have for a rainy day.  What many of us did have in times of prosperity could have easily been shaved off the top and sacrificed by saving for more meager circumstances, in many cases EVEN WITHOUT having to give up special occasional indulgences to satisfy our need for the niceties of life.

Realizing that most disasters are likely brought upon ourselves by ourselves (directly or indirectly), is it too late to change?  Absolutely not!  James points out that an awakening can and is happening.  I believe that money can be transformed from being our master by enslaving us (excessive debt) to being our servant by being used as a tool.  We can invest it in the only true form of wealth—the precious metals, which are not so much a hedge against inflation as they are a hedge against mismanaged government.  And in the meantime, we can become more fulfilled by learning life sustaining self reliant skills, having food storage, and practicing emergency preparedness principles so that no matter which kind of disaster we may face, natural disaster, human-caused or personal disaster, we can confidently come out the victor, living through it to see another day!  Don’t let money be your distraction, disguising the fact that all of what is now available will not always be.

Related Posts:

Disaster Survival- Food for Thought and Belly
The Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Survival Readiness Pyramid
Food Storage: Enough and More (Plus Earthquake Proofing)
Self Reliance: Beekeeping for Food Storage Honey

You see, a woman wants a man that can DIY.  Actually it would be DIH (do-it-himself).  She doesn’t want a man who throws self reliance to the wind, and just wears cool stuff and acts snobbish, calling in the professionals for even small and simple tasks.  What she really wants is a man to hold onto his round-tuit and get around to it more often!

If you want to know if you measure up in the DIY department, you won’t usually have to wonder for very long.  Women have a way of letting you know if you aren’t responding to their requests in time, and if your chores are performed sufficiently.  I can tell my wife’s measurement of my performance by the geometric angles on her face that come and go from time to time.  She doesn’t have to speak.

If you don’t know how to do something when your wife asks, feign like you know exactly how to do it, that you’ll get right to it as soon as you complete something else extremely important, and then hurry and use all the resources you can get your hands on to learn the skill or technique that she is requiring of you.  Then get on it ASAP!  You can keep the peace a lot better this way.

Self reliance is a wonderful topic.  It comes in handy right when you need it.  But if you procrastinate, it can be too late when faced with an emergency.  I procrastinated a long time on these vole holes in my yard because it wasn’t an emergency.  Besides, if you let it go on for a while, and pansy around for a bit, then when you completely knock it out, you can tell your wife you decided it was time for the big guns, and that you weren’t going to mess around anymore.  Then she’ll know that when it comes down to do-or-die situations, you got her back.  Kind of like Shaq.  Like he always says, he makes the free throws when it counts! You can never be so cavalier about safety and getting ready for disasters, mind you.

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Self Reliance: Increase Hose Pressure
Food Storage: Wild Game Meat
Outdoor Survival: Fire Starting With a Flashlight!
Food Storage: Bottling Juice and Fruit
Self Reliance: Do-It-Yourself Projects

When I go fishing I almost always prefer to go in a group. Sometimes the group is relatively large and sometimes it is smaller. You see in the video how everyone has a differing skill level. One of the fishermen is quite inexperienced (I edited out the parts where he tried to cast with the bail closed on his reel). He can learn from the others who have a bit of experience under their belts and rings on their trunks and are willing to share their hints and tips. Others I can learn a thing or two from. One of the fishermen prefers bass fishing to trout fishing, so I may be able to get him to show me the bassing waters, and some types of lures and techniques to use to catch bass on another day and trip. The group of us makes it nice to make food assignments, and we can all pitch in for the meals. While we fish, you’ll notice the virgin fisherman ask questions, being very inquisitive, and hopefully learning that we have done best on this body of water using either the chartreuse sparkling Power Bait or a worm strung on the worm hook so as to hang naturally, with an itty bitty marshmallow on the tip to keep it just off the bottom.

The older of the bunch of us doesn’t get as excited as the younger in the bunch, and he likes to do his part by doing much of the driving and cooking (and telling stories). We work in harmony to have a good time together and share with each other fishing tackle and bait, depending upon what is working at the point in time. We don’t always have to do everything by ourselves. A group effort is a perfect display of self reliant living. Self reliance is sometimes about learning to create your own fun, too. And after you’ve had your fill of fun, you can feed the family, using delicious recipes like the one that DDFD (from the Self Reliance Exchange) shares in one of his posts. In the interest of full disclosure, I was not able to employ the recipe yet, because of the “slot limit” we spoke of in the video, but I am still looking forward to trying it! It will eventually be used, hopefully on our next outing in November.

Related Posts:

Food Storage: Wild Game Meat
Friendship: How and Why to Create Alliances With Your Neighbors
Food Storage Bartering: My This For Your That
Outdoor Survival: Knowing Where You Are; Telling Time by the Sun!

We join Papa Bear on his journey out of the cave today.  He and his cub and grandcub follow him out to his territory where he has a grand spread of land that he uses for self reliance gardening purposes.  You have probably heard how much bears like berries.  Watch to see how Papa Bear trains his berries.  In the past Papa has also kept bees on his territory like any smart bear would.  Much of his produce goes into jars for food storage back in the cave.  It’s one big Circle of Life.  Out in the territory to nurture what the land offers and back to the cave to store for future use.  The process repeats itself indefinitely.  In the video you also see how Papa Bear takes care of his young, giving a generous offering of corn to the cubs.  Papa is very much self reliant, and explains how he beautifies his surroundings to attract more serenity and tranquility into his life.  Papa has always done a wonderful job in securing beautiful living arrangements.  The Qi (pronounced Chi) flows through his creations bringing forth good feelings.  His daughter-in-cub calls it good Feng Shui.

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Food Storage: Wild Game Meat
It’s a Fact: Everybody Eats!
What Are Your Survival Priorities?
A Simple Sample of an Emergency Food Storage Solution

Yesterday I had an opportunity to interview a real-live “King of Fun.” Although this king is a modest one, he has the Midas touch; almost everything he touches turns to gold. Just ask his grandchildren! And take a view of the video below. He rather prefers to be called “Papa Bear.” By whatever name, he’s still the same– the fun he provides will rock your world! His grandchildren and children can tell you story after story of the fun and memories they’ve created with him. Like the Berenstein Bears Papa Bear story, “The Bike Ride,” he sometimes (but hardly ever) teaches you how not to do things, but by design. Almost always his lessons about life and living are carefully built and constructed for better peace and true joy. He is an icon in the do-it-yourself and self reliance world. Look for more do-it-yourself and self reliance videos to come from Papa Fun, I mean King Bear, oh,… I get so confused. Right… it’s Papa Bear.

Thank you, Papa Bear, we all love you! Your hands are special to us.

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Self Reliance- Frog Heaven
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One of the bittersweet memories that I have about honeybees is when I was a child of about 6 years old.  My daughter requests this story be told over and over again to her at bedtime as she is also almost 6. 

My father was going to a man’s home that he knew to remove some hives from his field and asked us to come along to help.  My two brothers and I were quite excited to go with him.  When we got there the hives were taped up on the outside to prevent the bees from escaping in transport.  My dad took a dolly along and loaded a couple of hives on the dolly and we began moving through the field towards the truck that we would load them on.  Unfortunately, we hit a large bump in the terrain, and the hives went flying off the dolly.  The hives came apart, and the bees were extremely angry.  We were told to skedaddle towards the truck, which we were eager to do.  We got inside the cab and were swatting and slapping the bees that followed us inside while my father was still attempting damage control and to try to rescue the bees.  I remember that when all was said and done he ended up with about 25 beestings, and he lay sick in bed for several days.

But the wonderful part about beekeeping is the golden liquid that we often refer to our spouses as.  Honey is delicious and makes for a great substitute to sugar in almost any recipe.  As Grant points out in the video, it helps you to make a great connection with your neighbors when you give it away.  And honey stores for a long time.  Don’t worry that it hardens.  It can be “reconstituted” easily by heating it up.  Put a bunch in your food storage for rotation and emergency situations.  Honey contains lots of essential vitamins and minerals.

Did you know that there are different flavors of honey?  Yes, depending upon where the bee gathers the pollen the honey will have a hint of flavoring from the landscape.  I have tasted lavender-flavored honey, honey produced from orange groves, raspberry honey, and many other tasty types.  Try some for yourself.  Clover honey is great, but you need to tempt your taste buds with a variety.  You’ll love the several selections!

Related Posts:

Food Storage: Wild Game Meat
Food Storage: Bottling Juice and Fruit
Self Reliance and Food Storage: Gardening

Most people want to get rid of their junk. I don’t; not anymore.

I had just begun investing in silver. The year was 2004, and the asking price on the day I made my first purchase was $7.26 per troy oz. on the spot market. The spread was a mere three cents, and the price fluctuations were relatively mild from one day to the next. I was excited to share my newfound enthusiasm for what I believed to be the upcoming raging commodity (and particularly silver) bull market with a like-minded individual.

When I told a friend about my initial order of physical silver, said friend replied, “Oh, got yourself some junk silver?” Dismayed at the response, and feeling somewhat betrayed, I came to the defense of the precious and industrial metal—the best reflector of light, the best conductor of electricity, and the best conductor of heat. “It’s not junk!” I emphatically replied. Surely one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, but I failed to comprehend how anyone could perceive silver to be garbage to be disposed of, especially since silver had once been considered money; that in fact in 50-some-odd countries around the world the word for money is the same as the word for silver. My friend calmed my nerves by explaining that she was not insulting my investment vehicle, and that junk silver merely meant silver that was coined before1965. No longer on the defensive, I decided to learn more about “junk silver.”

Junk silver is composed of 90% silver and 10% copper. Each “dollar” (whatever combination of coins it is that adds up to $1.00) of silver equates to .715 troy oz. of silver. At that point, I became less concerned with numismatic silver, and more attracted to the idea of getting more silver for each Federal Reserve Note (FRN) I spent—knowing that the true definition of a dollar was 371.25 grains of silver.

A great benefit of junk silver is that it does not yet command a hefty premium over spot. It is generally the least expensive form of silver on the market to buy. Gresham’s Law has been enforced with this medium of exchange. Silver coinage has been chased out of circulation due to its intrinsic value, and replaced by a weak substitute. Within the past few years we have also seen such an eclipse with the penny. At one point the melt value of a zinc penny was worth more than the one cent it represented itself as. The cost to the Federal Reserve for producing both the penny and nickel now exceeds their stated value.

A silver dime’s metal content is today valued at about 10 times what it is denominated as on its face. What else besides gold holds its value over time so effectively? Milton Friedman once stated: “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” No civilization in the world’s recorded history has ever escaped the total debasement and eventual destruction of its fiat currency. Silver could indeed again be used as money. Something has got be used as a medium for exchange when the dollar and other currencies lose their full faith and credit and are no longer honored as anything of value. Got junk?

Related Posts:

What About Investing in Silver and Platinum?
Financial Preparedness: Why Gold?
Should I Be Acquiring Gold and Silver?
The Capstone of the Readiness Pyramid

Stir crazy. Yes we are! Heidi shows us how to take that bull by the horns and get it done by going into the mountains for a frog hunt. Heidi and crew (all ten of them) demonstrate self reliance and creating our own fun by catching small hopping creatures that we can help our children learn to feed, nourish, and protect.

Related Posts:

Fishing Trip- Combining Our Efforts
Self Reliance: Do-It-Yourself Projects

Related Posts:

Self Reliance: Do-It-Yourself-Projects
Self Reliance and Food Storage: Gardening
Self Reliance: Beekeeping for Food Storage Honey
DIY and Self Reliance: Killing the Voles!