Living Life in Rural Iowa

One of the most important skills to learn is gardening. The ability to grow your own food and maintain your own sustainability is a key point in homesteading and prepping. While you may not be able to produce all your own food, you have the capability to produce a lot of it. You can also garden just for pleasure. You can also garden for your long term food storage needs by canning, freezing, and drying your produce. There are many ways to garden. No matter what method of gardening you choose, the results are the same. With a little hard work, weed control, and commitment, you will have produced your own food and gained a skill that, sadly, most people do not have. 10 Reasons You Should Be Gardening: 1. You produce your own food! This is the best thing about gardening. You can walk out to your garden and pick what you want to eat with your supper or as your supper. Eating what you produce is a great feeling. Your hard work produced food to provide for you, your family, and poss

One of the topics that come up for discussion at our house is living off-grid or what we will be doing if the grid fails. Our whole house is electric which causes stress and anxiety because we are so dependent on the grid. To alleviate that stress and anxiety, we have been looking at ways to become less dependent on the grid. When this book came in the mail, I was ready for it. We have needed the information that Prepper's Total Grid Failure Handbook provided. First of all, I love their focus on renewable energy and using renewable resources. One of the many flaws I see in prepper's off grid plans is that there is a heavy dependence on fuels (gas, diesel, and propane). Those supplies will eventually run out even though you hope to not be without power for that long in those situations. I would rather spend the money on renewable resources that will not increase our dependence on the grid and on the supply. Second of all, I really, really appreciate the technical infor

July is the time of the year that flies by so quickly. There is never enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished. The weather is hot and very humid (at least in Iowa it is!). The garden is growing like crazy. The grass and the weeds are either having a competition to see who can grow the fastest or the grass is burnt up and the weeds still need to be mowed. For July's prepping accomplishments, I tried to keep the list easy to do since this is a busy time of the year! Some people might find some of these things a challenge and that is good. Five Prepping Things To Accomplish in July: 1. Make a meal list using only food storage foods. I am including everything in the food storage. However, I am going to make two lists. One list will involve the refrigerator and freezer foods because, in some instances, you will still have access to those foods. If you lose power, those foods need to be eaten first. My second list will only include foods that are shelf stable. Th