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Friday, July 30, 2010

Mountain House Freeze Dried Food Giveaway

Gotta love those contests, ModernSurvivalOnline is giving away 1 case of Mountain House Freeze Dried Food that has been donated by Ready Made Resources. The flavor of the case is Chicken & Rice.

To enter this contest, all you need to do is write a blurb about it on your blog, website or start a thread in a forum, you need to include the name of the contest and the links ModernSurvivalOnline.com as well as to Ready Made Resources http://www.readymaderesources.com. Then send an email to emergencycd@gmail.com with the URL of your message about this contest. Don't forget to add the name of the contest, "Mountain House Freeze Dried Food Giveaway" and you're good to go.

Thanks Rourke, I feel lucky on this one, the date of the drawing is my birthday, this would make a great gift!
Go here to learn more about this.


All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Off Grid Book-C2C Interview

I am so ticked, well not really, but I'm a bit disappointed, I found out today that the author of the book Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America, (PB and I are chapter 9), Nick Rosen was on my favorite radio show, Coast to Coast am last night. Oh, I'm ecstatic about Nick being on the show, what I'm ticked about is I didn't get to listen live, or call in. I didn't know about it until today. The reason I didn't know about it is because I've been having internet troubles, it's been going on for a couple of weeks now, my internet company is scheduled to come out next Monday to exchange the outside equipment, it went bad during a storm, anyhoo, they are backlogged and it will be next Monday before they can get to me.

I was able to snag a copy of the last 2 hours of the show where Nick is being interviewed by George Noory, listen and enjoy.

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Part 1

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Part 2

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Hey, don't forget about the free off grid book giveaway, there's still time!

All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Andy McKee - Simply Amazing

Thia is simply amazing, if you have never heard this style of guitar playing before, you are in for a treat. I love the sound of acoustic guitar playing, this artist, Andy McKee takes the art of acoustic guitar playing to a new level. Give this a listen and let me know what you think.



This song is called "Drifting", it's one of my favorites, show him some love!


http://www.andymckee.com/


Andy McKee's YouTube Channel 

Hey, don't forget about the free off grid book giveaway, there's still time!
http://wretha.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-wonderful-guest-book-giveaway.html

All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Mud Bug Fun

We live in the high desert, mountainous area of far west Texas. We don't get much rain most of the year, though we get more than other parts of the desert. We do have a rainy season, referred to as a monsoon, that's still a strange word to me, it conjures up images of rain forests, south America, India and other, far away and exotic places... but we do have our rainy season, and it is called a monsoon.

We also have miles and miles of unpaved, dirt roads, our terrain is very hilly, sometimes steep hills, with lots of  S-curves thrown in for good measure. Mix the unpaved roads with lots of rain and you get stuck vehicles. We have a particularly bad spot just up the road from my place, we have to transverse it if we want to get in or out, oh there are 2 other ways to go, one is very steep and rough, only to be used in extreme conditions, the other has an even worse place to get stuck in the mud, so it's not used at all when the conditions are wet. The main route, with the rather sticky S-curve is a bad place to be when it is wet, the road though that part contains a lot (a LOT) of clay, very little gravel, and since it's an S-curve, you can't make a running start at it. Therefore, most people who try to go though there while it's still wet, will almost always get stuck.

A couple of weeks ago, I got stuck in it with a friend, we ended up sideways in a Suburban, it took some doing, but we finally got ourselves unstuck. Last Saturday, I was working at the Country Store, PB called me to tell me that someone was stuck in the mud on that S-curve, a full size pickup truck, he didn't know the people in it. PB asked me if there was someone I could call to go help them, there wasn't anyone, the two peopke I know that could have helped were not home.

So PB went back up there with the Bug, hooked a tow strap to the Bug and the pickup, then he pulled the pickup out of the mud. I wish I could have seen it, it is quite a site to see a little Bug pulling a full sized pickup!

Fortunately, one of the people in the truck snapped a few pix of the action, here they are, enjoy:





Thanks for sending the pix! :)

Don't forget about the book giveaway contest. click here for details http://wretha.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-wonderful-guest-book-giveaway.html.

All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Our Video Interview

Here is a video, shot by Nick Rosen during his visit, the camera lens could have used a dusting... you can see Pekoe running around in the background. Nick refers to us as anarchist in the hills of Texas, I don't know that I would consider myself an anarchist, at least not in the strictest sense of the word, we do live a more primitive/simple lifestyle, we are against a great deal of the regulations forced upon us by U know who... all in all, we aren't trying to change the world, we just want to be left alone to live in peace without interference, it's a leave me alone and I'll leave you alone sort of thing...







Don't forget, if you are a blogger or own a website (and you are in the USA), be sure to enter the contest for a chance to win a free copy of the book we are in, Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America

Click here for details on the contest.






All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

My Wonderful Guest - Book Giveaway Contest

Some time back, Feb 28, 09 to be exact, we had a special visitor, Nick Rosen, he is a published author, journalist and film maker. Nick was traveling around the USA interviewing off gridders for his newest book Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America, well yours truly is in this book. Chapter 9. :)



 If you are a blogger living in the USA, be sure to enter the contest to win a copy of this book, see details at the end of this message.

I have known about the book since then, but I had to keep it quiet until the book came out, it's been a difficult task to be sure, but now with the book coming out July 27, 2010, it's time to talk about it. I must say that until I received the book (today), I was wondering what Nick had to say about us, what his take on our life would be, it's a bit disconcerting to know someone is about to publicly write about your life and not knowing what is going to be said until after the fact. I quickly scanned the book to find our part, I must say that I am happy with what was written.

Nick's off grid books are less about the technology and more about the people themselves, the who's and the why's about the people who choose to live off grid. It's fascinating to read about other people who are walking a similar path, some for similar reasons, some for very different reasons.

I wrote the following shortly after Nick visited:

Well, this was quite the fun weekend, I had a special visitor. Some time back, Nick Rosen found me through my blog and asked me to start writing on his web site. After asking a few questions, I agreed, I have been very happy doing this, I get a larger audience and a few other perks as well. :) Nick Rosen is a published author and a journalist. He has written several books, the one I'm most interested in is about living off grid. Nick traveled around the UK with his family and interviewed many people who live off grid. His book was less about the technology and more about the people living the life.

So now, Nick is doing the same thing for the off gridders in the USA. I knew for some time that he had planned on visiting me and including me in his book, I am quite pleased to have it be a reality now. I hadn't mentioned this before as I wanted to make sure this was going to actually happen, people will say that they are going to do something then never follow through, I am glad Nick is not one of those types.

Nick arrived early Saturday morning (Feb 28, 09). I had given him directions on how to find the entrance to the community where I live, that's the easy part, it's finding my property from there that is the hard part. Where I live has miles and miles of mountainous, rocky, rough, dirt roads that are poorly marked (if at all) roads, even with a map it's all too easy to take a wrong turn and end up on a road that your car cannot negotiate and what's worse, you might not be able to turn around. There are also some private driveways that look better than the road, leaving you to wonder which one to take... So I met him at the entrance and led him in.

As I expected, Nick is a very nice guy and a wonderful guest. He travels light, all I saw was a couple of cameras, a couple of cell phones (one for the UK and one for the USA) and a laptop computer. Oh and a bottle of wine, I'm not much on wine but it was not bad at all. :)

Nick, Bob and I sat outside in the sun while Nick interviewed both of us. He video taped the interview, it's a bit disconcerting to know you are on camera, but I tried my best to ignore the camera and just spoke what was in my heart. It was quite the pleasant interview, though I will say that Nick is a good journalist and he probed us, mainly about why we are living the off grid lifestyle. I was surprised at one admission he got from Bob, I'll not say what it is, you'll have to read the book to find out what that is (giggle). Nick didn't always take what we had to say at face value, he dug and probed (in a nice way of course) to get more information from us. I wonder though if Nick was satisfied with the answer as to why we are doing this, I felt like he maybe though there was more to the story than we were telling, I assure him and you that there is not more to the story, we are doing this because we WANT to do it, not because we have to or have some other, deep dark secrets that ran us out here. I know that juicy, deep dark secrets probably sell more books, sorry Nick. :)

Nick got to see some of the native wildlife, and even got to feed our resident deer named Notch, that was great fun. I took Nick on a tour of our neighborhood, I took him to the Country Store, I took him to the 2 churches and the cemetery. He also saw, in the distance, the observatory that is nearby. Nick got some pix of Bob and I, and in turn, I took some pix of Nick. I had gone in to town with a friend a few days earlier, I had purchased some fun foods, things that we haven't had since we moved out here. I asked Nick if he would rather have a typical meal like we usually eat, or would he like tilapia? He said he wanted to eat a typical meal (I'm glad of that, I figured he would probably be more interested in eating something that we normally eat rather than something non-typical). I fixed chicken and dumplings. The recipe is at the bottom of the message. Now, when I was making this, I tried to explain the meal to Nick, he is from England, we are 2 peoples separated by a common language. I tried to explain "dumplings" to him, he didn't know what they were. So I explained that dumplings were like biscuits, well in England, biscuits are cookies. Not too appetizing on top of a chicken soup. So I said they were like dinner rolls without yeast, at any rate, he ate the meal and seemed to like it, he asked for seconds, that's always a good sign. :)

Unfortunately Nick was only able to stay overnight, he had to leave out early the following morning. It's possible that he may come back through, I certainly hope he does, I think he has more questions to ask both of us. One thing is for certain, he got a taste of our style of living off grid, I hope he was comfortable and had a good time.

Wretha's Chicken and Dumplings
2 cans chicken stock
1 large can of chicken meat (or 2 small cans)
1 can green beans
1 can carrots
2 cups Bisquik
water
salt, pepper

Pour all of the canned goods in a large pan, do not drain the veggies, you want all of the juice, season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil then turn down the heat to a simmer. I didn't measure the Bisquik, I just dumped about 2 cups in a bowl, I added enough water to make a slightly stiff dough, like you are making biscuits, using a spoon dip out golf ball sized pieces of dough and drop them into the simmering broth, once you have used all of the dough, cover the pan and wait about 20 minutes. The dish is done when the dumplings are firm to the touch. If you make large dumplings, you will need to cook them for a longer period of time, smaller dumplings take less time. Don't crowd the pan too much, your dumplings will expand. The broth will thicken while cooking. You can use other veggies, I just used what I had on hand, peas would go good in this too.

Now that the book is out (July 27, 10), you can read about Nick's take on our off grid life, as well as all of the other people in this book who live off grid. If you are reading this before July 28, you can pre-order this book and get a great discount. This book qualifies for free shipping if you order other qualifying items at the same time and your order comes to $25.00 or more.

Contest:
 If you are a blogger (or own a website) and you have a mailing address in the USA, post a copy of the text below on your blog, you can add more to it if you want, then send me an email with a link to your blog/website post and that's all you have to do to be entered. This contest runs until July 31, I will pick one winner from all the entrants after that. Good luck!

Wretha and her husband have lived off grid full time since December 2007, there have been ups and downs, but all in all it's been a great adventure. Now Wretha and her husband have been immortalized in an off grid book, click here to learn more about it.
http://wretha.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-wonderful-guest-book-giveaway.html


Just copy the above to your site, and shoot me an email, wretha@gmail.com, here are the rules:
  • You must have a website or blog
  • I will only mail to a USA address
  • copy the text above or you can write your own blurb with the link provided
  • send me an email with a link to your site with link to post
  • your site must be an active site with real content, ie you cannot create a new blog/site just to enter the contest
  • your blog/website does NOT have to be off grid or survival related
  • one entry per person please 
  • I will pick one winner from the entrants
  • the final day of the contest is July 31, 2010

All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.
Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Relationship (Part 1)

In a post TEOTWAWKI or SHTF world, having a loving partner will make live much more enjoyable as well as safer. You know the old saying, many hands make light work, it's very true, and having someone that you can completely trust with your life just may be what saves your life. Having someone at the homestead most of the time makes the homestead a more secure place, while one of you is out hunting or doing what needs to be done, the other can be at home, taking care of things there and being security. You can also take care of the other if one of you gets sick or hurt.

Life will probably change quite a bit for most of us in the post TEOTWAWKI and/or SHTF world, it's probably not going to be the time to be looking for a partner, so if you already have someone in your life, or you are looking, now is the time to improve your and your (future) partner's life, no matter how great your relationship is, it can always be better, and conversely, if you are struggling with your relationship, it's quite possible that with a little effort you can not only salvage your relationship, you can make it even better than it was before, this is especially important if you have kids together.

Living in such a small place, and with both of us home much of the time, even in the best of times, it's all too easy to get on each others nerves. PB and I actively work to maintain a healthy relationship. Here are some of the things we do (and don't do) to keep our love alive and fresh.

The number one thing we both have is the ultimate trust in each other. We have both been in (previous) relationships that turned sour, fortunately we both learned from our experiences and brought our best to the table for this one.

I have complete trust in him, and he has complete trust in me. Home is our sanctuary, it is the place where we both want to be, it's the place where we both want to go after being away, or even after being home for a long time, it's exactly the place where we both want to be, and with each other.

That means making "home" the superior place to be, better than anyone elses' house, better than any bar or club, better than any other place period. How do I do that? It has nothing to do with any amenities that may or may not be part of our home, it has everything to do with how we treat each other. First I never nag, yes ladies, I said it, sometimes we girls can become nags, (guys, stop nodding your heads, you are capable of nagging too), when my man has been out working somewhere else, and he comes home, I make sure that he comes home to a loving, nurturing woman (me), I don't start complaining about things, no matter what it is. Think about this, if you are out, and it's time to go home, and you knew that you were probably going to come home to an angry, fussy person, would YOU be in any hurry to go home? Now, turn that around, if you knew you were coming home to a loving, nurturing, relaxing partner, wouldn't you want to hurry up and get home?

We both want to spend the rest of our lives together and nothing, absolutely nothing will come between us. All too often couples have antagonistic relationships, they have competitive natures and tend to want to be right at the others expense. That only works for so long, because for one to be "right" at the expense of the other being "wrong", the one that has to always be "right" just might end up being "right" and alone. Think of it like playing tug-o-war, if a couple are on each end of the rope, ok, now what? One will win, the other will lose, or you might end up in a stalemate. Now, instead of each being on opposite ends, pulling against the other, this couple needs to be a team, with both on one end, pulling together against whatever may be working against them.

Each day, PB actively looks for something to compliment me about, no matter how messy the sky castle may be, if I even do one thing in the house, he notices and tells me, he doesn't complain about what I don't do or didn't do, he exclaims what a good job I did with what I did do. He praises my cooking, at every meal, I remember shortly after we became a couple, I brought my mother over to our house for dinner (for the first time). All during the meal, PB was animatedly exclaiming about how good the meal was, he was really going on about it. At some point toward the end of the meal, PB excused himself for a few minutes. My mother leaned over to me and said "THAT won't last for long...", she was sure he was putting on a show for her benefit and surely he didn't act that way all of the time. Well, he DOES act that way all of the time, that was almost 10 years ago, and I can assure you that PB still compliments my cooking, at every meal.

Does that mean I am a super cook and every meal is spectacular? No, of course not, tonight we had homemade pizza, I don't follow a recipe, so each time the pizza comes out a little different. PB said that he thought this was the best pizza I have ever made, and yes, this one was pretty good. He also said that in the past it wasn't always easy to compliment all of the pizzas I have made. PB is always honest with me though, if he really doesn't care for something I made, he is understanding that I can't be at 100% on every meal, but he also says that I make enough great meals to make up for the few less than meals. He never makes me feel bad about anything that I do, he goes out of his way to make me feel good.

Guess what that does for me? It makes me want to try even harder to please him, so in turn, I try to remember to compliment him as often as I can, I must admit that I'm not as proficient as PB is about this, but I try none the less. I leave him little notes telling him how much I love him and how special he is to me. It really works.

One place where I have received a lot of good advice is from Dr Laura. If you don't know who she is, she does a radio talk show, it's mostly about relationships. I don't agree with 100% of what she teaches, but I do agree with most of what she teaches. Here are a couple of great books by Dr Laura, if you are in a relationship or want to be in one, I highly recommend these.










If you are lucky enough to get to listen to her show, I think you might learn something even if you don't agree with all of it.

I will have more to say about having and maintaining a good relationship with your partner in future messages, stay tuned!


All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day fellow Americans!




All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Remnants - Movie

A new movie is coming to a theater (or is that theatre?) near you this spring, the movie depicts a neighborhood post TSHTF, it looks like it could be pretty good.



You can see more about this movie here:
http://www.hilburger.com/remnants/index.html



I received an email today from Big John Lipscomb, he is going to be an adviser and prop specialist on the film, here is the email I received:
Big John Lipscomb Becomes Adviser and Prop Specialist to a New Movie About the Aftermath of the Collapse

July 2nd, 2010
Greetings!

Homesteading and Survivalist Adviser and Prop Specialist to a New Movie About the Aftermath of the Collapse

Filming on a new movie that I'm working with begins on July 10th. It's called Remnants http://www.remnants-movie.com and has a couple of well known actors in the leading roles. It is being filmed in North Carolina and filming should proceed through Fall. The producer sent me the script and I found it very accurate as it depicts the hard choices good people will be faced with as food and supplies are depleted. They approached me a couple of months ago and we just agreed to terms early today. Of course, the real collapse could happen before this movie about it hits the screens next Spring as the new world order continues to implode the economy so they can implement a Communist World Government which I'm sure will make most Amerikans very happy. Check out my free University level education radio network at http://www.exiledbroadcasting.com now the largest independent satellite network in North America. Gee, that should really get the envious Communists within the patriot community angry.

Big John Lipscomb   http://www.donttreadonme.tv   http://www.survivalistseeds.com    http://www.patriotfood.com 



All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Free Non-hybrid seeds

While supplies last, go on over to Creekmore's survival blog and get your free non-hybrid seeds

http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/2010/07/free-non-hybrid-seed.html

I've got mine coming! :)

All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!