The Unprepared in Action

One of our neighbors is currently using our shower because her family fails to prepare each and every time winter comes around.

They know that their water lines are going to freeze and rupture because that happens to them every year: as soon as we get a decent freeze, something bursts over there. They don’t get off their butts and wrap their pipes, which is insanely cheap and easy to do: just use newspaper and duct tape if that’s what you have on hand.

What’s worse is that, even though they know the consequences of their decision to avoid preventive maintenance, they don’t keep extra parts or supplies on hand. Instead, they wait for the pipes to freeze and then make a special trip all the way into town to buy what they need.

This time, they sent the guy’s daughter, who has no idea of what to buy. She came back with fittings that were too large and the wrong type of PVC glue, so they still don’t have running water. Even worse: the father, who does know what to buy, went into town after the pipe burst – but did not bother stopping to pick up the necessary supplies. He sent his daughter out on another trip even though he knew that a) he was already right there in town and b) she had no idea of what she was doing.

Oh, yeah, and they do have television, which does broadcast weather-related information. They know when a freeze is coming and have plenty of prepping time, but still choose to sit around and wait for the inevitable.

I’m just ticked because one of the neighbors is using our stinkin’ shower. Why should we help them out? They aren’t even trying, so we’re only teaching them that our family is right here to bail them out despite their lack of effort.

They have no idea that we’re prepared for bigger problems than ruptured pipes. They don’t know that, should the food supply go haywire for whatever reason, we aren’t nearly as worried as they’re going to be. They shouldn’t come knocking on our door, but something tells me that they will anyway because they’re being taught that we can, and do, solve their other problems. Will it really be beyond their rudimentary imaginations to think, “Hey, maybe they have food?” because we already provide the shower, among other things?

Society is full of people who rely on others to take care of the essentials. I have too much pride and work ethic to let other people take care of me, so I can’t imagine being like the neighbors. How can they be comfortable letting us provide them with running water? Why don’t they feel like crap for not being capable of taking care of themselves? What is it about them that prevents them from saying, “This is embarrassing. I’m going to make sure that this doesn’t happen again”?

I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. I don’t understand the unprepared person’s mindset; all I know is that, when things are really bad, there are going to be a lot of people in this country with no idea of what to do – and they’re going to try to find the natural leaders who were prepared in advance.

Cat Food and Your Stockpile

When you stockpile food for your cats, remember that they require a certain diet – one that doesn’t include dog food to a great extent.

It’s perfectly okay to occasionally let the cat have the dog chow, but don’t make a habit of it. Cats have to have more proteins, for example, along with some other things that either aren’t present in dog food or are not present in enough quantities to satisfy the kitty’s physical needs. Cats who’ve been fed a steady diet of dog food have gone blind before because their bodies weren’t getting what was necessary.

I’m bringing up all that because some people on tight budgets tend to buy one bag of pet food – dog food if they have dogs and cats – without knowing the consequences. It’s also easy to justify storing only one type of dry food because that costs less money and requires less storage space.

You can grab water- and airtight pet-food containers at Tractor Supply or the pet store. They aren’t too terribly expensive but do a good job of keeping the cats’ food safe. Alternatively, you can break out your Food Saver and make your own, custom-sized bags of vacuum-sealed pet food.

Of course, feeding the cat from your stash is not necessarily a terrible idea. Some people make their own pet food which, if done properly (i.e. including the right ingredients for the pet in question), can save you some money and storage space. There are plenty of good cat-food recipes online, including a few for kitty treats if that’s your thing.

I’m not even going to suggest getting rid of the cats before the world goes berserk because a) I love cats and really don’t want The Homestead to be feline free, and b) where I live, it’s very difficult to find good homes, even for the most-adorable kittens, because the economy around here really sucks. People are having to choose between medication and food for their current pets, so they aren’t likely to take in another kitty who needs a good place to stay.

Chicks, School Supplies, and Spreadsheets

Well, what’s happened since last week’s entry? Not a whole lot, to be honest, but stuff is moving forward, which is what really matters.

The chickens are getting big. (Roughly the same size as an American football.) The roosters aren’t big enough to turn into fried chicken, chicken pot pie, or king ranch casserole, but they’re getting there.

Our little garden is starting to come up. The head gardener – Middle Bro – is doing most of the work because he enjoys playing in the dirt. The rest of us contribute, sure, but he does the majority of the work. The rest of us help, sure, but we all have our own strengths and preferences. Middle Bro can play in the dirt all he wants, with help when he wants or needs it, and the rest of us will focus on stuff that he doesn’t care to do, like cook or research projects and ideas.

Middle Bro recently came home with a fig tree. The sapling’s spent the last few weeks taking root in the ground and growing slowly, but surely. Fig trees, by the way, need lots and lots of sunlight, in case you’re dreaming of having your very-own figs right in your yard. You can find more information at http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/fig.html.

Future plans include peach and apple trees, because both can do very well in our part of Texas. And, of course, we all love these fruits. Right now, the nursery where Middle Bro does most of his shopping is waiting for a shipment. I don’t know what’s going on with that, because that’s Middle Bro’s thing, but I’m looking forward to more trees.

In an effort to be more organized re: food stashes, I created an Excel spreadsheet that will help us figure out what we have (and lack). Oh, sure, we know what we have, and we know that we need more, but we didn’t have anything written down until recently. My family and I aren’t overly organized as far as the paperwork side of things goes, but we’re trying to change that.

The computer version gets updated as often as possible, but we’re relying mostly on the hard copies that I’ve printed out so far. You never know when your computer or electricity will go down, after all, making all those files worthless. (Backing up data on a regular basis isn’t a bad idea, either.)

If you don’t have Microsoft Office, you can get Open Office for free (legally, even). That’s a pretty-good office suite, actually. It’s compatible with Microsoft’s version, and has the benefit of open-source support (meaning, basically, that anyone who wants to change something can do so – you aren’t stuck with one guy’s or team’s idea of what the software “should” be like). I don’t use it because MS Office was free with my PC, and already installed, so I didn’t see the point in bothering. In the past, though, with other computers, OO has been good stuff.

Speaking of stashes: School supplies go on sale soon. A package of notebook paper is typically about a buck fifty here: during sales, the same item can cost as little as ten cents. Two-pocket folders with brads, which are fantastic for storing information that you print from the Internet, cost us about a dime each during the sales (versus about a buck apiece the rest of the year). We also save money on the markers and other writing instruments we use around here.
Last year, Mom spent something like twenty bucks on notebook paper and spiral-bound notebooks. We still have some left over, and will be replenishing the stockpile like we do every year. We use lots of paper for school, Bible study, and making shopping lists, among other things, so we go through more than enough to save a decent wad of cash by stocking up during the sales.

You might not use all that much notebook paper, but what about pens and pencils? Are you looking for a good backpack to serve as a bug-out or get-home bag? Have you been printing out interesting and useful information that you find online, which is really eating up your printer-paper stash? All of these things, and more, go on sale shortly before the kids go back to school. Here in Texas, we even have a “tax-free weekend,” during which we don’t pay sales taxes on qualifying supplies. You might save only a few bucks here and there, but that cash will certainly add some more rice, flour, or sugar to the food stash.

Oh, and as far as storing notebook paper goes: heat isn’t good. The thin, plastic wrapper tends to shrink up, leaving you with curled paper. It’s still usable, of course, but it’s a pain in the butt. We learned this the hard way because, one year, we didn’t really think about where we put the storage container full of paper and notebooks. Our bad.

NEWS FLASH: I was about to finish up this entry, but there’s some breaking news that we all need to know about:

Michael Jackson is still dead.

When the media will stop kissing his butt is beyond me, but I’m fairly certain that there are more important things to discuss right now. Let’s talk about the cap-and-trade bill, perhaps, or the violence in Iran re: their recent election.

Water Sources

Because we have to have potable water to survive, my family and I have made sure that we have multiple sources. Regardless of circumstances, we’re able to find drinking water, and that makes us all a little bit more relaxed despite the problems that are coming.

The first source is, of course, the tap. Turn on the faucets and the well magically brings us water. This is easy and convenient when the electricity (our well pump isn't solar powered, I'm sorry to say) is working and the pipes aren’t frozen or broken. However, things go wrong, so we have alternatives.

For starters, we have extra plumbing parts lying around, as well as pipe glue and tools. More often than not, when part of the plumbing breaks, we have the gear on hand to fix it. We can always use more fittings, and you really can’t have too much pipe glue, but we have a good start on the stash.

A bunch of one-gallon jugs of drinking water are on hand, which will keep us going while we work on one of the other backup plans. These jugs won’t last long, but it won’t take much to access the other sources.

We can drain the plumbing, then grab water out of the toilet tank, if we need it. This won’t provide much water, but it will give us something to drink while we work on one of our other backup plans.

The next water source: the creek and ponds. There’s always water in the ponds, and the creek runs when it’s raining. None of this water is potable, though. I wouldn’t bathe in any of it, even with tons of antibacterial soap.

Fortunately, my family and I have fire. We have plenty of firewood here at The Homestead as well as buttloads of lighters and matches. There are, of course, other fire starters as well. The wood smoker, and the two wood-burning stoves, offer perfect surfaces for pots and pans. We can easily boil as much water as we can scoop out of the creek or ponds when needed.

Rain water is not a given – we do have long dry spells here – so we don’t count on it. If it is raining when we need water, we would of course take advantage of that. We have plenty of ways to collect rain water, so it wouldn’t take much effort to make this happen.

Collecting rain water is a simple matter of placing containers in the open so that tree bark, gross stuff from our roof, et cetera, don’t contaminate the supply. Food-grade containers of various sizes will catch enough rain to keep us going while we boil water, or whatever else we’re able to do.

And if we get enough rain, the puddles and craters scattered all over The Homestead will fill up. Our property contains lots of clay, which acts as a natural filter. Let the clay settle and the remaining water is fairly clear. I would still boil it, however, because there have been meth labs in the area in the recent past. Meth-lab owners tend to bury or dump all sorts of toxic chemicals and other items, which would make the water very, very bad for us.

There’s also the possibility of locating a hand pump for our well. This is on my family’s to-do list. It’s not considered high priority because, hey, we have other sources of water. Eventually, though, we’ll probably add this anyway, because we’re talking about water here. We all agree that having yet another water source, or way to get to the current source, is a fine idea, because we’re dead without the stuff.

You just have to think outside of society’s boundaries, that’s all. We’re used to turning on taps, so pretend that your water lines are broken. If you live in a decent area, you’re surrounded by other water sources. If you find ways to make that water potable, you stand a very-good chance of surviving whatever disaster or problem has hit your region.

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Edit (June 23, 2009): Okay, so I was wrong about boiling water to remove toxins and other crap from water that's possibly contaminated by garbage that meth cooks dumped all over the place out here. Thanks, anonymous commenter, for pointing this out - seriously, good catch.

Anyway: I know that the well water is good to go, but I'm not sure about the other sources - as far as meth-related chemicals and crap goes, that is. Fortunately, it turns out that you can create a solar distiller, as the folks over at EcoFriend.org have done. The link's a how-to guide, and it looks relatively easy to do. The happy people over at Mother Earth News also have some interesting ideas about this.

However, I have zero experience with any of this (obviously). Does anyone have any experience with this, and have some advice to offer? I mean, I could just go buy a distiller from Amazon.com, but they're kind of expensive.

Natural Pest Repellents; Critter Identification

Side note: I like Blogger’s post schedule / auto publish feature more and more every week. If you read this entry shortly after it’s published, I’ll be at my chiropractor’s office while you see what’s on my mind this week. How cool is that? Okay. So maybe I’m overly fascinated with little things. Still, you have to admit that this is a neat feature.

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Last night at Bible study, I caught movement in my peripheral vision – on the wall behind me (the movement was to my right, not directly behind me, of course). I glanced over and saw a small, black spider with a giant, red hourglass pattern. So, of course, I got up and smashed her flat with my notebook, then cleaned up everything. Did you know that, when you smash a black widow against an off-white wall, you can see orange, slimy goop? Me neither. Sorry, but black widows don’t get to live if I come across them; they might not be able to kill me, but they can make me miserable, so off they go.

Now, had my little visitor been a jumping spider, which are very common here, I would have let it be. Jumping spiders aren’t normally dangerous to humans (unless, of course, you have bad reactions to spider bites in general), and they love to catch flies and other nuisances. I also like pretty much every other non-poisonous spider that lurks around here, because many of them are useful to me without being a real threat. The giant garden spiders that make webs all over the place around The Homestead might look scary, what with being really large and all, but they’re harmless as long as I don’t do something to provoke them. (And even if I do tick one off, it’s not capable of killing me, or even putting me in the hospital.)

Fortunately, we live in a part of Texas that has hedge apples, which are also known as horse apples, crab apples, et cetera. They’re excellent, natural repellents, and they don’t smell bad when they’re fairly fresh. I fully intend to grab several and pitch them under the storage building that the black widows are occupying up at the church – I just have to remember to do it, that’s all. (Really, I ought to do a better job of making to-do lists.)

You should, by the way, be aware that hedge apples and livestock don’t necessarily mix well. If one of these suckers gets lodged in an esophagus, you’re going to have some problems.

The hedge apples can also repel German cockroaches, which is great news if you’re looking to avoid those nasty chemicals. Catnip can also do this to the roaches, and the added bonus is that some cats really dig the stuff. If you’re concerned, even a little bit, about roaches wrecking your food stash, I’d look into these two natural repellents. They won’t cost you much, if anything, and you don’t have to do much to get them in place and working, so why not give it a try, right?

I’m just not a big fan of pesticides, folks. Even though some of them do work – and very well, I might add – they don’t discriminate. You’re essentially carpet bombing the area, killing off even beneficial critters. I’m not going to curl up and cry if a ladybug gets creamed or anything like that, but I don’t want to go out of my way to nuke creatures that could be useful to me. As long as I’m not risking my own health or safety in any serious way, I’m going to be kind of selfish by encouraging the non-poisonous creatures to hang out around my house. Nature does a lot of the dirty work for me, from killing mosquitoes to eating rats and other vermin.

Besides: chemicals cost money. Even if you buy over-the-counter stuff, versus hiring an exterminator, you’re still going to have to open your wallet. A lot of the organic pest-control ideas that we use here at The Homestead are either cheap or free. The hedge apples are free, for example. Catnip seeds don’t cost much, and our cats love the stuff, so it’s worth the small investment for more than one reason. Marigold seeds (these flowers are great to plant around your garden – they keep some bugs at bay) are a lot cheaper than even one gallon of pesticide, too.

There are tons of other pest-control ideas out there, too. Try using Google to search for natural ideas for specific problems. When I, for example, search for “black widow repellent,” I get information about hedge apples, among other things. You might have to go through some “Buy our super-awesome pesticide!” types of Web sites to find what you really want, but you can get more-precise results by adding “natural” or “organic” to the beginning of your search query.

Just remember that it’s important to know how various creatures can harm you, if they can do anything to you at all. Find out, for example, what kinds of spiders you have in your area, and which ones are poisonous to you. Do the same thing for snakes, and even plants, because a little reading and Internet searching could reveal a lot of useful knowledge.

Good sources of information include wildlife guides; universities in your area; and county extension services. I like getting online to do most of my research, because it’s quick and free. However, I’d print out information that you find on the Internet, just in case you need access to it if the power’s out or the computer’s gone nutty.

Useful Links:

Iowa State University's page about catnip and other such things - http://www.ent.iastate.edu/dept/research/tox/catnip.html

Iowa State University's page about hedge apples - http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1997/10-10-1997/hedgeapple.html

A site that sells hedge apples, but also includes interesting information - http://hedgeapple.com/

We Have Chicks!

A few years ago, we had a few roosters and hens here at The Homestead. They were adopted from people who didn’t want them anymore, because said birds were older and not doing anything “useful.” I liked having them around, even though the hens didn’t lay any eggs, because they kept the outside pests at bay. We didn’t see many scorpions around the house when the birds were around, which pleased Mom to no end (she despises scorpions). We didn’t really want to butcher them, either, because they were really nice to have around – they were old, so we figured that we’d just let them live out the rest of their (short) lives in relative peace.

So, after the last one finally died of old age, we sort of forgot about having chickens for a while. We had other things on our minds, and other projects going, at least until earlier this week. Now, we have a couple of roosters – again, great for pest control – and eight chicks. This is going to be beyond awesome, because Mom and I have been talking about getting some chickens for the last few months. We finally got started with that, so let’s see how this turns out.

First of all: we’ve never cared for chicks before. The good news is that one of our neighbors has been doing this for a long time, and is giving us lots of advice. We have the four-day-old chicks in a small cage – but big enough for them to move around and get to food and water, of course – with a heat lamp to keep them from getting too cold. There’s newspaper lining the bottom of the cage, topped with a layer of hay. The chicks seem to like the setup so far, so no complaints.

So, we have a to-do list with chicken-related things on it for a change. While I’m watching the chicks hop around in their current enclosure, peeping like crazy, I’m thinking about things like the coop we have to finish building…how great these fresh eggs are going to taste…that sort of stuff.

We need to finish the coop, of course. I’m trying to find the plastic, five-gallon buckets that one or two of my brothers moved into an as-yet-unknown storage location – because I’d like to build the maggot bucket that I’ve read about on other blogs, just to see how well the chickens take to it. Because the family and I have been planning to get chickens for the last few months or so, we’ve been saving the egg cartons from the store. Oh, I know – the chicks aren’t going to start laying eggs tomorrow or anything like that. But you really can’t have too many egg cartons, because they will eventually wear out. We’ll keep most of them in storage so that, when the ones that are out finally need to go in the trash, we’ll still have some.

And next week, being finals week, is when every prof wants the final, huge projects (writing assignments, of course). I’ve been working on papers and stories and all sorts of related stuff all week in an effort to go ahead and get finished. If I put this stuff off, it’ll never get done, and won’t that be a fine waste of nearly four months of my life?

So, I’m very sorry that this entry is so short. I’m trying to get the chicken stuff together; deal with the last bit of school; and make the migraines go away. They didn’t bother me at all this year until…this week. Apparently, ongoing sinus problems, like I’ve been having for a while now, can lead to migraines – which would explain everything. I’m working on that, so we’ll see how next week turns out.

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In the meantime, here are some Useful Links that I’ve found over the last week. They’re a bit random, but they should be interesting.

Pepsi and Mountain Dew are now in “throwback” mode! They’re using the real, natural sugar instead of that high fructose corn syrup garbage. Go. Consume. Enjoy.

A blog about…chickens! (Mostly.)

A very strange-looking sawhorse – that you can build yourself if you’re so inclined.

Home Security in the Middle of Nowhere

I don’t really have much to say about city or suburban home security because I haven’t spent much time in those environments. For two years, I lived on campus, so security was up to the school. We weren’t allowed to change locks, upgrade security measures, or possess most defensive tools, so I pretty much relied on other people to care for me. This sucked out loud, and I was quite happy to stop doing it after two years.

Most of my life, though, has been spent in the country. Home security is entirely up to my family and me, because nobody else cares. We can’t even install an alarm system because the Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t respond to it. We live too far out in the country for that, and the average response time is more than one hour anyway. We don’t blame the Sheriff’s Department for any of that, but we do acknowledge that we have to either take responsibility or leave ourselves open to criminals.

There are layers to home security. You don’t want to rely on just one method, because Murphy will monkey stomp your face for you if you do that. Overlap three or more layers and you can reasonably believe that your security setup is tough enough to deter most would-be troublemakers.

The key, in my opinion, is making your homestead the toughest-possible target. The average thug is not the sort of fellow who enjoys working up a sweat doing honest labor, so you can reasonably expect him to find a softer target if your homestead’s security presents a challenge. There are exceptions, of course, but a strong effort on your part will discourage most of the people who would otherwise consider targeting everything that you’ve worked to earn.

I don’t want to go into too many details about The Homestead, but I will tell you that we rely on four layers of security to keep things as secure as possible. This might seem like overkill to some of you, but none of the layers were difficult to put in place, or very expensive. They’re all easy to maintain, too.

We have a good layout; fences; dogs; and firearms. These four things all work together to discourage the bad guys.

The Layout
It should be relatively easy for you to see what’s happening outside your house. We can glance out the windows and see exactly what’s going on without letting anybody out there know that we’re looking. At the same time: they can’t just roll up and peer through our windows. Being able to see outside is important because, if you hear something or your dogs alert you to a stranger’s presence, you don’t want to open your door to see what’s going on. You want to keep that barrier between yourself and the stranger. After you take a peek outside and realize that the “stranger” is your aunt or the mailman, well, you can always open the door. The person outside won’t know that you checked him or her out before you opened up, and you can be confident in the knowledge that you’re doing what you can to keep yourself and your family safe.

The Fence
The Homestead’s perimeter is fenced, mostly to keep our dogs on our property. We used field fence, stretched between alternating t-posts and cedar posts. Topped off with two tightly-stretched strands of barbed wire, the fence is just a tad menacing. People, we’ve noticed, don’t like to get too close to it – just looking at all that barbed wire seems to give them the heebie jeebies. That’s fine by us, because even good friends, fellow church members, et cetera, need to be invited in. We hate when people try to just open our gate and walk in without so much as a howdy, and that nasty fence combined with the dogs discourages most visitors from trying it.

The Dogs
We have a few formerly-stray dogs: mixed breeds that just showed up here and decided to become part of the family. None were trained beyond the usual, small things that every (healthy, capable) dog should do: sit, come when called, et cetera. They aren’t guard dogs, and they will not attack on command. However, they happily defend their territory, because they’ve been treated like family members since they came to The Homestead. When you play with your dog…pet him…brush his fur…feed him yummy food…and tell him what a good dog he is…he’ll feel right at home. You’re still in charge, as you should be, but that dog will, more likely than not, defend his turf without prompting.

Our dogs will, when people show up, bark to let us know that we need to investigate. They have a light, friendly “woof” for family members and close friends, and they have a louder, more-aggressive bark for strangers. They didn’t receive any special training: they simply do this because they want to let the pack leaders (the humans) know that someone’s here.

The Firearms
Do I really need to go into details here? I don’t think that I do. Everyone in my family is an adult, and we all know how to safely and effectively handle every firearm in the house. We know the plan, and what each of us are supposed to do if something goes down. The firearms are backups to the other layers, so we aren’t likely to need them. Even so, we’re ready, because we don’t know this for a fact.

The key is to work out a plan beforehand, and rehearse it with everyone in the home. Many parents have their children lock themselves in closets when they (parents) send up the alarm to do so, for example. Adults often work out who will go where, with what, so that there’s no cross fire or confusion in an emergency. Know what you’re doing before you have to do it so that you won’t hurt someone you care about, or leave an important area unsecured or whatever.

Ideally, you’ll find a few layers to include in your home-security plan, and they’ll overlap so that they work together to keep you and your homestead safe. One plan is not ideal for every person or piece of property, so be sure to look at your needs, and your layout, and decide what will work best.

It’s Been Quieter Since the Economy Started Sucking

When my family and I moved out here, to the middle of bloody nowhere, eighteen years ago, things were relatively quiet. We occasionally heard one or two people riding around in the area on ATVs, and we sometimes heard some noise from the trailer park behind our property. There’s a drag-racing track a few miles away and, on weekends, we heard the jet cars that the owners invited out to entertain the crowds.

However: for the most part, weekdays were quiet. People were at work and kids were at school. During summer months, there was weekend noise, but you expect that because families tend to be outside more. But most of the time, there weren’t many noises other than what nature created, and it was wonderful. I could sit outside and listen to birds, squirrels, and – at night at least – coyotes.

And because the occasional ATV rider…and the drag strip…were here long before we moved in, we were cool with all that. So our weekends weren’t as peaceful as our weekdays. That’s part of life. It would be insane to be pissed off about something that existed before you showed up, right? Right. I don’t feel sorry for people who buy homes near airports, then whine about the noise. If you didn’t want to hear jumbo jets all day and night long, you should have bought a different house. Duh.

However, a few years ago, some guy bought a buttload of acreage a couple of miles from The Homestead. Nobody in the community knew about this sale until the guy started working – and even then, we didn’t know what was happening, exactly, because he never made any announcements, introduced himself, et cetera.

We heard heavy equipment working, nonstop, from sunrise to sunset. People were clear-cutting acre after acre and moving dirt around to build…a motocross track. This earthen monstrosity turned out to be a practice track: a place where every dirtbike-riding person in the entire county could show up, pay a small fee, and ride all day long if they so desired.

I freaking hate dirtbikes. They make ungodly amounts of noise, and they’re a complete waste of time and money. One of my brothers owns one, and I despise the thing. Whenever he cranks it up, I have to listen to that infernal engine, which sounds like a cross between an anemic sewing machine and some high-school kid’s souped-up rice rocket. The high-pitched noises, which I can hear even when my door and windows are closed and my music is playing at high volume, make me homicidal. If I were given the chance to destroy just one noisemaker, it would be the dirtbike.

My brother does, however, have every right to his toy (which, incidentally, is for sale because he needs the cash for something that’s actually useful). And the guy who decided to open the motocross track near us has every right to his business. I’ve never considered trying to take away their rights, because that would be a nasty thing for me to do.

I do not, however, have to like or appreciate the noise and other annoyances that the dirtbikes have created.

The track is open seven days a week, from sunup to sundown. The owner’s children are homeschooled, so they can hop on their dirtbikes and haul butt up and down their track pretty much whenever they want – including early morning, when I like to stand outside and enjoy the birds and other wildlife before dragging my butt to school. The business owner and his family live on site, too, so they just walk outside, fire up their dirtbikes, and go.

And, of course, the rest of the dirtbike owners in the community show up to spend the day riding. Sometimes, as many as twenty, thirty dirtbikes are going at once, and the noise…well…even though there a couple of miles between the track and The Homestead, we still hear that crap.

You see…this gentleman did not have enough common courtesy to install any sort of noise suppression. He could have easily constructed mounds of dirt around the perimeter of the track, which would deflect a good bit of the ungodly noise. He could have also used cement walls, much like we see beside highways that cut through communities. Hell, he could have left some trees on his property to muffle the sounds, even. He could have done all sorts of things to keep as much of his noise as possible to himself, but he couldn’t, and still cannot, be bothered. Screw us, right?

That’s the part that bothers me the most: the guy’s utter lack of concern for the people who lived here before he bought his property. I’m thrilled that he has the right to open a business and all that, but I have to live here. I was already living here long before he showed up, and a little bit of decency would have gone a long way toward making me more tolerant of his track.

However, there is an upside to the economy sucking. The track has been nearly silent almost every day over the last several months. Back when gas was nearly four bucks a gallon here, I didn’t hear even his own kids on their dirtbikes. Beautiful. Just…beautiful. Life was almost back to normal out here. I could actually hear birds again, at least on weekdays.

Now, business is starting to pick up again, little by little, because gas isn’t quite two bucks a gallon. I do hear dirtbikes again, but it’s mostly on weekends, when I’m already drowning in noise from the racetrack. I think that I can suppress my homicidal urges as long as the problem’s mostly limited to weekends.

But if the economy continues to suck, and the track goes under? I won’t be sad at all. His business will be just one more non-essential service to close down, which is what one can reasonably expect with the current economic conditions. If he doesn’t have a backup plan by now, he’s obviously not paying attention.

A Tale of Two Cities

I live near the very edge of one Texas county. Property right behind ours is in our county, but barely. This being the case, my family and I have become very familiar with the differences from one county to another. Over the last eighteen years, we’ve had good reasons to be grateful that we ended up in our county, instead of the neighboring one.

To maintain some semblance of anonymity, let’s call the counties Ajax and Bristol. Why? I don’t know. They’re the first two words that popped into my head. Whatever.

We live in Ajax County, which is on the far side of the nearest big city. Bristol County separates us from that big, booming center of population growth, as do a few smaller communities between Bristol and the city. There’s a nice buffer between The Homestead and the big city, and we’re just fine with that.

Because Bristol is considered a suburb, of sorts, of the city, its residents are required to put their vehicles through emissions testing. If your car flunks the emissions test, which is part of the state inspection, you do not get your sticker. Your vehicle is no longer road legal, and you must either make repairs to bring it up to the county’s standards or buy another car or truck. This inspection, by the way, is significantly more expensive than the one in Ajax County. We pay fewer than fifteen dollars a year; Bristol residents pay more than forty per year.

Oh, and there’s no easy way to get around the emissions testing. If your vehicle is registered in an emissions-testing county, then you have to have the emissions test. This seems like a small financial burden to bear, but that money adds up if you have more than one vehicle, and if your current ride flunks the inspection. When the emissions testing first started in Texas years ago, almost-new cars were failing. The state had to lower the standards so that peoples’ vehicles would actually pass. But even so, older cars will fail, because they just don’t have the newer equipment that lowers emissions.

Bristol residents have other problems, too, like the fact that they must pay a dine-in or carry-out tax every time they go anywhere near a restaurant. This is in addition to the sales tax, which applies to fast food where I live. When I buy a one-dollar cheeseburger from a Bristol drive-thru’s dollar menu, the total is closer to $1.25 than to the $1.07 I pay in my own county for the exact-same burger from the same restaurant chain.

Not long ago, during local elections, Bristol-county candidates were promising to solve the problem of their excessive taxes. That county currently charges the maximum that they may legally charge for everything they possibly can. Short of breaking laws, they cannot possibly stick their residents or visitors for even one more penny in taxes. Property taxes. Food taxes. Fuel taxes. Everything is maxed out, and the people Bristol County elected did not, in fact, solve the problem. Residents are still coughing up cash left and right to pay taxes for just about everything. They’re sick of this, and they’ve been complaining for quite some time, but their situation hasn’t improved yet.

The sorry sacks of fecal matter didn’t stop in Bristol County, either. They decided that, because residents along the county line send kids to their county’s school district, homeowners and property owners should pay both Ajax and Bristol County taxes! That’s right, folks: for years, we coughed up taxes to Bristol County, because the greedy soul suckers weren’t content with bleeding their own residents dry. This finally changed, recently, after lots of fighting and time in court, but we Ajax County folks were none too thrilled for quite some time there.

Ajax County, on the other hand, doesn’t have those kinds of problems. Yes, we’re taxed, but not nearly as heavily as our neighbors are. We’re living a lot cheaper than they are because our county’s government isn’t milking us to death several cents at a time. And we’ve escaped the Bristol taxes, which has made all our lives a little more comfortable.

My part of Texas isn’t perfect. We do have problems, like an infestation of meth labs all over the county. But when you’re looking for your spot of land in the middle of nowhere to build your bunker so that you can ride out the coming problems, keep in mind that a tract of land just a hundred yards or so from the one that you’re checking out could, over time, end up being the better deal – even if that one costs a bit more money to purchase.

I’d look at tax increases over time to see how tax hikes have gone, historically, in whatever county you’re investigating. If the county has a habit of raising taxes infrequently, but by large amounts, you might be happier in a county that tends to raise taxes frequently by small percentages. Or maybe you prefer things the other way around. Whatever the case, knowing before you buy will save you some headaches.

An Unsheltered Life

This blog is called “An Unsheltered Life” because I’m only physically sheltered. Emotionally, spiritually and mentally, on the other hand…well, it’s not difficult to learn when the lessons hit you left and right.


My name’s Sarah, and I’m twenty-seven. Single, no dependents, living on thirteen acres in the middle of nowhere with my parents and most of my four sibs. We moved out to this tract of land eighteen years ago, after we had more than enough of city life and began looking for some room to peacefully, quietly grow up and live our own lives.

When we moved out here, we weren’t thinking about the world going berserk. This was in the early 1990s, when things weren’t really all that bad. Lately, though, most of my sibs and I don’t really want to move out. Four of the five “kids” (the youngest is nineteen now – I’m the oldest) are still here. It’s weird, because we’re all adults and could get our own places, but this is home.

When we can afford our own acreage in the middle of nowhere, we’ll move out, maybe. But we aren’t about to move into the city or the suburbs, or even into the trailer park near our place, which is crammed full of tiny lots barely large enough for a mobile home and one vehicle. We aren’t falling for the sucker bet that is the current housing market. We’d rather stay here, in the trailer that’s paid in full, than lose everything.

Besides: most of us are college students, so we’re still trying to figure out what we want to be when we finally grow up, and find ways to get there if we can.

Tough times are here, folks, and I don’t see them getting easier. My family and I have an advantage because our lives have always been a bit challenging. We have things pretty good now, by our own standards, but we know that this won’t last forever.

This blog is about what we’ve done, or are doing. I don’t feel qualified to write about what’s still pending for us, because I tend to prefer shutting up when I have no idea of what I’m talking about. I don’t know where I fall on the “survivalist scale,” as far as prepping goes. I’m not the most prepared out there, but I’m not the least ready, either. Let’s see how this turns out.