Overnight Snow

Welcome to the Be Prepared Channel. Well we received a small amount of snow overnight which was a welcome thing to see. We have not gotten very much snow this year. Temps have been very cold this year, but not much snow or precipitation to go with it. I should have gotten a shot of it first thing this morning, but was lazy.




Survival Blog Economic and Investing Headlines:
But I don't think that silver is yet in a speculative bubble. The true value of silver and gold haven't changed substantially. Rather, it is paper money that is losing value. I believe that the value of the U.S. Dollar and the world's other fiat currencies are simply diving into a chasm, following an orgy of government over-spending. The current bull markets in silver and gold are just reflections of the ongoing destruction of the Dollar and the world's other pager currencies. For this reason, even if there is a major correction in silver, I doubt that the bottom will be any lower than $20 per ounce. The silver market fundamentals support my outlook. Silver is scarce and become more scarce with every passing year. (Which, by the way, is one of the reasons why I recommended that my readers ratio trade out of physical gold, and into physical silver.)
Do you remember my warnings about "creative" ways that legislators might find to solve budget crises? Brace yourselves. CBO: Taxing mileage a 'practical option' for revenue enhancement. (A hat tip to J.H.B. for the link.)
My cousin in England sent this: Proof That Gold Is Not a Bubble
G.G. flagged this: Morning Note: Gold Replacing Dollar as World’s Reserve Currency?
Also from G.G.: Buffett Warns: The Dollar Will Decline
Stocks Falter Despite Improving Economic Reports
Oil Slides as Rebels Take Libyan Ports
More People Signed Contracts to Buy Homes in February
How to Detect Fake Silver
US Closes Small Bank Bringing 2011 Total to 26


Patriot Radio News Hour News Headlines:
Why The European Union Is Doomed
German Elections Put EU Solidarity at Stake
Obama Seeks to Bolster Public Support
Obama explains Libya incursion
Ron Paul believes Libya intervention an 'impeachable' offense
Al Qaeda leader foresaw chance to capitalize on Arab uprisings
Obama Arming Al Qaeda?
Libyan rebels promise oil exports,
Syria: dozens more dead, US and France divided
'Arab spring' drives wedge between US, Saudi Arabia
Iranian Video Says Mahdi is 'Near'
Meanwhile, in Israel…
Anti-cuts protests shut down central London
Will This Breakout In Gold Be Authentic?
US Treasury's Geithner to visit China March 31
Bernanke to Speak Out More to Explain, Bolster Policies
Life as we know it in America is about to change
Disposable income falls as prices jump, data show
FDIC's plan for 'skin-in-the-game' loans
Administration proposes banks spend $20 billion to fix botched foreclosures -- By Patrice Hill-The Washington Times
Stiglitz: Budget plan a 'near suicide pact'
Survey says U.S. financial house in state of disorder
Harry & David files for bankruptcy
Unemployment’s Rising Toll on Families
Who wants a union? Not Southern autoworkers, it seems
The collapse of Detroit
Caterpillar CEO: Illinois budget hurts business
Obamacare is crony-care
Loudest Obamacare cheerleader wants out
Shrinking Medicaid funds pummel states
In Prison for Taking a Liar Loan
Donald Trump: I've got my birth certificate,
Media Matters' war against Fox
Is Media Matters breaking the law in its 'war' on Fox News?
Virtual war a real threat
Who's looking in on you?
Duck And Cover
Radiation levels at Japan nuclear plant reach new highs
Plutonium detected in soil at Fukushima nuke plant
Radioactive rainwater recorded eastern US
At Reactor, Toxic Pools Threaten to Spill
Damaged reactor may be leaking radioactive water, Japan says
Japan government slams Tepco on radiation reading
How Dangerous Is Japan's Creeping Nuclear Disaster?

Stripped from the Headlines - My Favorite Sites

Welcome to another episode of the Be Prepared Channel. Today is just a real quick update on progress at the homestead over the weekend and today. The weather was kinda wet and cold here for once so I admit I stayed in the house and ate stuff I shouldn't have... Which just made me carb load and feel like I had the flu all weekend. It really was my own doing as I knew my binge on dried fruit and nuts was going to be more than my system could handle, but I did it anyway. Live an learn!

So yesterday afternoon I did wander outside to see that the snow/ice melting off the roof of the house was coming down the gutters and pooling and not going where I wanted it to go. I will get around to getting my gutter project with rainwater catchment system going this year, but in the mean time one of the gutters is perfectly lined up just above the swale we built so I began digging to make a channel for the water to follow away from the house and down into the swale. About 30 minutes later I had it working and I had a little trickle of water making its way down to the swale. I should have video taped it, but I will show it to you more later as I will definitely want to improve this so that I direct the water where I need it in the landscape.

Next project got underway today. I had the tree service guy back out to remove my second elm tree that will end up becoming the base for my hugelkultur bed, and will be the liner and mulch materials for a lot of other beds and swales here. So that tree has been cut down and now the real work begins for us around the house of moving it to where we want it and turning it into workable materials. I will get some shots of what this all looks like and get it posted up on the blog.

So that kinda wraps up the happenings around here at the moment. I am working on a project now to gather up some of the news and headlines from some of my favorite sites and make sure that they get the recognition they deserve. I am hoping to write a little script that will start scraping some of the headlines from these sites and post the links here so that you can quickly follow them from here. I don't know how successful I will be but let's give this a try and see how this works out. Let me know what you think.

Surivival Blog(Economics and Investing Headlines):
G.G. sent this: End of the Dollar?
Some severe gloomage, over at Zero Hedge: The Dollar Will Collapse Within 3-4 Months
Dr. R. highlighted this item: Connecting the Dots … Grain Shortages & Food Inflation Quietly Accelerating Due to Perfect Storm
Greg C. flagged this: Fears rise that Japan could sell off U.S. debt
Of particular interest to SurvivalBlog readers in the hinterboonies: Postal Service to Cut 7,500 Jobs, Close Offices
Asian Shares Higher After Wall Street Closes
US Experiencing Uneven Job Growth Across States
Oil Hits Highest LevelG.G. sent this: End of the Dollar?
Some severe gloomage, over at Zero Hedge: The Dollar Will Collapse Within 3-4 Months
Dr. R. highlighted this item: Connecting the Dots … Grain Shortages & Food Inflation Quietly Accelerating Due to Perfect Storm
Greg C. flagged this: Fears rise that Japan could sell off U.S. debt
Of particular interest to SurvivalBlog readers in the hinterboonies: Postal Service to Cut 7,500 Jobs, Close Offices
Asian Shares Higher After Wall Street Closes
US Experiencing Uneven Job Growth Across States
Oil Hits Highest Levels Since Recession
Private Corporation Official Admits Impending US Bankruptcy
US Consumer Confidence In US Falls More Than Forecast On Rising Fuel Prices
When Silver Investors Finally Wise Ups Since Recession
Private Corporation Official Admits Impending US Bankruptcy
US Consumer Confidence In US Falls More Than Forecast On Rising Fuel Prices
When Silver Investors Finally Wise Up


Patriot Radio News Hour(allamericangold.com - daily podcast is awesome!)
26th Bank Failure of 2011:
200 arrested as hardcore anarchists fight police long into night in Battle of Trafalgar Square after 500,000 march against the cut
Will Financial Problems In Portugal Cause The European Debt Crisis To Spiral Out Of Control?
NATO Takes Command of Libya Operation as Allies Step Up Attacks
Gadaffi's Curse Keeps Haunting Washington
Nicolas Sarkozy reignites row over Nato military role
Libya: a make-or-break moment for Nato
US hands command of Libya air strategy to senior female officer
What Will the World’s Tyrants Learn from the Libyan War? Get Nukes!
Yemen’s Saleh Describes Nation as 'Time Bomb' Nearing Civil War
Syria protests continue
Why The Euro Will Survive
US Dollar Under Acute Pressure
What's Really Driving the Gold Price?
Accumulate Gold and Japanese Shares
People’s Bank of China Positive On Gold Due To ‘Value Preservation’; Concerned About Euro, Dollar And Paper Currencies
Gold And Silver Are Thriving While The U.S. Dollar Is Dying
J.P. Morgan Chase, HSBC May Have Gained Billions
How Can America Create Wealth If Our Industrial Base Is Destroyed? 50,000 Manufacturing Jobs Have Been Lost Every Month Since 2001
Temporary Unlimited Coverage for Noninterest-bearing Transaction Accounts -- FDIC.gov
Consumer Sentiment Sours, At Lowest Level in Over a Year
Fed's Fisher Sees Signs of Excessive Liquidity
Massachusetts job fair canceled because of lack of jobs
FDIC Proposal: Pay Borrowers $20,000 To Walk Away
Mortgage Servicers Resist But Cut Debts
Housing Market Cycle: Much Worse This Time
Nevada's boom and bust leaves 167,000 empty houses
It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know
Radiation forecasting links: WeatherOnline to check updates
Fukushima crisis:
Radioactive seawater surrounds stricken plant
Why 95% of Japanese May Not Suffer from Radioactive Iodine Exposure
Radioactive Cesium With A Half-Life Of Approximately 30 Year

Permaculture swale - Construction

Welcome to another episode of the Be Prepared Channel. In this episode I show you how I dug my permaculture swale, cardboard sheet mulched, wood chip mulched, layered on thick layer of manure, sprinkled on a layer of peat moss, leaf litter and mulched wood and turned it into the bed/swale. Then topped it off with some finished compost. I hope you find these videos helpful. I appologize up front for the sound quality. The wind was howling here for the last couple of days and made recording as I went kinda tough.

The swale was dug across the hill of my yard so that we capture all the rainwater as it flows down hill. The objective is to dig out a depression that retains the water as it comes down the hill. We have layered on like a lasagna multiple layers of biomass to absorb all of that moisture possible. I live in a high plains desert and the soil is hard as a rock with no biomass or organic matter in the soil. A pick axe just bounces off of this stuff so hand digging it with a shovel and pick axe takes a lot of time and effort. Hopefully this first completed swale works as planned. I will probably put a layer of straw on top of it to suppress weeds and other growth until it is finally warm enough here to put seed and plants into these beds.

We will be working with several raised beds and a hugelkultur bed this year that I will show you as we construct them in the next few weeks. So we have lots of projects to share with you. I hope you find these videos informative and helpful.

Beginning the Urban Homestead - Some video of my place and starting our homestead transformation

Welcome to the Be Prepared Channel. I have been promising you guys for a long time to do some video. Frankly the battle to do a nice high quality video production like so many people are doing is just overwhelming as far as the time available and to do a polished job. So you know what? I decided to heck with it! I have a cell phone with a camera, so I am going to just shoot some fast unpolished, shakey, rough video and just share it. If you guys like it and it is useful we will expand the number of shoots and product reviews so that you can see the things we are doing around the house in our "Year of the homestead". We are taking a bare bones basic house in a high plains desert environment in Colorado and we are going use permaculture to attempt to green the desert. So I want you guys to see what I have been working on so far and what it looks like at these early stages so you can see the progress and the outcome of this experiment as we attempt to transform desert lawn into a thriving growing space with minimal watering(goal is no watering, but we will see how it goes).

So I hope you enjoy the videos. I took a few more but they apparently exceed the YouTube size limit so I will have to reshoot those and get the posted. Let me know what you think and what you want to see as we go along with our projects. If your in the Colorado area and have some projects of your own happening give me a shout and I would love to see what your doing and maybe shoot some video or do a podcast with you.

Permaculture Beginnings - My Front Yard


Permaculture Beginnings - My Backyard


Prepper Essentials - Composting and compost bins

You just cannot make this stuff up...

Well just a quick post on the state of insanity that seems to have broken out everywhere. You just cannot make this stuff up.

Last year I did a podcast and talked about a man named Lindsey Williams. He has been telling us for decades now about things that are coming and what is happening. He has a long history of working with very high powered globalist elite types who for some reason have taken him into their confidence and tell him what they are doing and what the game plan is. Well Lindsey received an update and it isn't good. Last Oct Lindsey said he was told there would be major turmoil in the middle east. I connected the dots that it would be Iran, but that is what I get for thinking. When the puppet masters decide to do something big they mean it! They appear to be behind this Muslim Brotherhood organization and there appear to be deliberate attempts to destablize the region. We have now seen Tunesia, Egypt, and now Libya all in waves of protests and it appears to be spreading throughout the middle east. Oil prices are climbing fast. Well Lindsey gives us the scoop what he was told about what is happening and what it means for you and me. The headlines are the demise of the dollar by end of 2012, 150-200 dollar a barrel oil, a new global currency is introduced, and that the US will be forced to start developing and drilling oil in the US from major reserves that we have known about for 50 years or more. Watch the videos and decide for yourself. Lindsey says he was told there will be no food shortages, yet people will go hungry. Not because there isn't food, but because we cannot afford it.

Then to tie this all up in a nice ribbon the state of our food is getting worse by the day now with Monsanto given the go ahead for GMO beets and alfalfa. Cloned meat and milk appears to be on the fast track for approval, and yes they are now making and selling plastic rice in China. Where does your food come from again? You better look!

Cloned Milk and meat coming to a store near you

Plastic rice being sold to a city in china

Monsanto wins case for GMO beets and alfalfa

Do yourself a favor and know where your food comes from. Lindsey mentions in the YouTube clips below to get 6 months to 1 year of food saved in your food storage. If your not working on your garden planning NOW is the time. Contrary to popular belief food doesn't just spring out of the ground and if you don't have experience with gardening, or growing your own food you will need time to learn. I know that is the process for all of us old and new gardeners alike. Check out the videos below with Lindsey laying out the history and what is happening based on what is essentially insider information. Lindsey has been about 95% right on these predictions and people thought he was nuts, and some still do, but I would encourage you to watch it and decide where it fits in your own prepper plans. Remember you cannot eat precious metals and money. We don't know what the future holds, but one thing is for sure you need a water and food plan in place. Not just things you can buy, but a way to replenish your supplies as you use them. So give it some thought.

Thinking like the Chinese - We get into the real Poo

Welcome back to the Be Prepared Channel. Today we talk about the world economic situation, the demise of the dollar, and the IMF SDR, the Chinese method for turning increasingly worthless dollars into tangible things of value that ensure they have the ability to feed themselves, to have access to energy, to have commodities so that they can still make things and protect their own well being... Seems nobody wants the dollar these days and we should be taking similar actions ourselves. Please check out this episode of the podcast, and some interesting videos on humanure composting from the author of the Humanure Handbook... I hope you enjoy the show.

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Loveable Loo:

Emptying Humanure Receptacles:

Humanure Compost System(The Hacienda):

Starting the Compost Pile:

Links to many more videos explaining this composting system

2011 New Years Resolutions

Tune into the 2011 New Years Resolutions Podcast in the player below as we dive into where the Be Prepared Channel was last year, and the things learned. We talk about this years new years resolutions and how we are going to start from scratch to setup a sustainable urban homestead. We hope you enjoy the episode and will tune in this year as we share with you our trials and tribulations of turning our modest urban home into a homestead. Food, not lawns will be part of the theme this year.

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