preparedness

How To Homestead In An Apartment

Are you intrigued by the idea of homesteading, but you don’t think you can until you have a big house with a lot of acreage?

At its essence, homesteading is about self-sufficiency, and there are many ways you can increase your independence no matter where you live. Here are some ways you can begin your homesteading journey even while still living in an apartment.

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Gardening

You don’t need a big plot of land – or even a backyard – to start growing your own food. If you have a balcony or terrace or even just a few sunny windows, you can have a container garden.

You also can grow lots of herbs on a sunny windowsill. Berries and tomatoes lend themselves well to hanging baskets and vertical gardens, and you can grow lettuces, potatoes, onions, and garlic in containers. Here are a couple helpful resources to get started.

You also can participate in community gardens or a community supported agriculture program (CSA). With a CSA, you pay a monthly or annual fee to receive fresh, local produce. Some CSA’s even have an option by which you can garden to help pay for your produce.

To find a CSA in your area, visit LocalHarvest.org/CSA.

Composting

If you’re growing some of your own food, you can be making your own compost as well. It can be as simple as saving your biodegradable kitchen scraps, including eggshells, fruit peels, coffee grounds, tea bags, and bread crusts. The scraps will decompose into a highly nutritious fertilizer for your garden plants. Here’s an article on composting.

Composting 101: Read This Before You Get Started

And here is a video showing how to get your compost started using a five-gallon container and materials you probably already have on hand.

You should also consider vermicomposting, which uses worms to turn organic waste into a rich fertilizer. You also can vermicompost in a small space.

How to Compost in Your Apartment or Dorm

Conserving Water

Water is a precious natural resource, and urban homesteaders can harvest rain for their gardens, too. Simply collect water that drains off your apartment building roof through a downspout or gutter.

Not only can you use this harvested H2O to water your plants, you can also add it to your toilet tank, wash your car, or use it for many other household tasks for which the water doesn’t have to be completely clean.

Air Drying Clothes

Another way to conserve resources and lower utility bills is by hang-drying your laundry. Adding a clothesline to your deck or balcony is an efficient and fresh-smelling way to reduce your electric bill (or your trips to the laundromat).

Even if you don’t have a balcony, you still can use a drying rack or a clothesline inside your apartment to cut down on how much you use the dryer.

Harnessing The Sun

Solar energy is not only for large buildings. You can use portable panels that will allow you to power some of your devices through solar energy. Here are the types of portable solar panels available on Amazon.

Cleaning With Natural Products

Homesteaders enjoy living as frugally and as naturally as possible. One way to do that while living in an apartment is by reducing your dependence on chemical-laden cleaning products.

Many household cleaning chores can be accomplished with a combination of only a few basic ingredients: baking soda, white vinegar, liquid castile soap, borax, hydrogen peroxide, and lemons.

This article offers recipes for them home-made cleaners. Here is a video demonstrates how you can clean your apartment with easy-to-make “green” cleaners.

Preserving Food

Make good use of the fruits and veggies you grow or purchase at local farms or Farmer’s Markets by learning how to preserve your food. While many homesteaders do food preservation on a large scale, you can have great results on a small scale too. Or what about joining up with a few like-minded friends for a food preservation party?

Here are a couple articles to check out:

Storing Food

Successful homesteaders live by the “waste not, want not” credo. You don’t need a basement or a spare room or large pantry to begin storing your canned, dehydrated, or dried food. You can find hidden storage spaces in some of the following locations in your apartment.

On a high closet shelf
On a rack behind your clothes on the closet
Under your bed
In the back spaces of your kitchen shelves
On shelves or racks under the sink
Above the refrigerator
In a loft space in your garage

Here are some more food storage locations for people with small homes.

Buying From Local Farmers

Until you have a larger home and property, you can still embrace the homesteading lifestyle by sourcing your eggs, dairy products, and meats from local farmers or Farmer’s Markets. Perhaps you can establish a relationship that allows you to work on the farm yourself or to barter for goods. To find local Farmer’s Markets, check out LocalHarvest.org/Farmers-Markets.

Farmer's Market

Learning New Skills

Successful homesteaders wear many hats and learn how to perform many new tasks. Even as an apartment dweller, you can learn how to bake bread and make your own jams, jellies, soaps, and healing salves.

Rosemary Gladstar’s book, Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide: 33 Healing Herbs to Know, Grow, and Use, is an excellent place to start if you are interested in the art and science of natural healing.

Become a do-it-yourself junkie. Through the use of YouTube videos, you can learn how to make or fix just about anything – and many projects do not require much space.

Bartering

Trading with other like-minded individuals is a great way to become more self-sufficient. You can swap your veggies for eggs or your lotion and soaps for honey.

Don’t forget that you also can barter services such as carpentry, auto mechanics and sewing skills. There are many bartering and swapping websites out there, but another idea is to get to know sellers at your local Farmer’s Markets as well as other homesteaders.

Raising Livestock

You may be thinking this topic doesn’t fit in a list for apartment dwellers. However, unless the landlord prohibits it, you can raise small animals in an urban setting. People living in small spaces have success raising everything from rabbits to chickens to bees. Here is a list of farm animals that are perfect for city living.

Repurposing

Frugal homesteaders can find ways to repurpose just about everything. Even with a small space, you can begin honing these skills, too. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Plastic tubs and toilet paper rolls for seed starters
Harvested seeds from vegetables
Five-gallon buckets as planters or rain barrels
PVC pipes for vertical gardens
Cardboard and newspaper as weed barriers
Food scraps for compost
Leftover bread and bread heels for croutons or bread crumbs

Here is a more exhaustive list of things you can resuse if you need more inspiration.

Teaching Your Kids

Another important way you can begin homesteading right where you are is by learning along with your children. As you teach them how to live more frugally and independently, not only will they be learning valuable lessons, but you will be too.

Here are some homesteading skills to teach your young boys and girls. Once these skills are mastered, you can go on to more complicated lessons.

Basic cooking and baking skills, including measuring and how to follow a recipe
Mending skills such as sewing on a button and hemming, as well as crocheting and knitting
Laundry skills including sorting, treating stains, handwashing, and drying
Making a bed and changing bed sheets
Seed planting, watering and harvesting garden plants
Starting a fire from scratch
Using a compass and a map
Operating basic hand tools such as a hammer and screwdriver
Changing batteries in flashlights and other devices
Checking the oil in the car and pumping gas
Feeding and caring for pets and small animals

Another homesteading skill that can often be overlooked is how to entertain yourself. While you are living in an urban environment, there may be a lot going on in terms of social activities. However, experienced homesteaders have learned how to make their own fun.

Learn to play instruments as a family so that you can play and sing together. (Perhaps you can barter for lessons.) Take out some old board games and teach your kids how to play them. Or try other old-fashioned interactive games such as Charades or Simon Says. Read chapter books aloud together as a family. Try painting or sculpting as a group art project.

Conclusion

We hope that by now you’ve learned that homesteading doesn’t depend on the size of your home or your property. It is more of a state of mind that can be adopted no matter where you live.

So don’t wait until you have that big farmhouse and all those acres before you start living the homesteading lifestyle right now. That way, when you do have the homestead of your dreams, you will be all the more ready to jump right in.

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about homesteading, be sure to check out our sister site, HomesteadSurvivalSite.com.

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This article first appeared on urbansurvivalsite.com See it here

preparedness

4 No Cook Meals For Surviving The Pandemic And Food Supply Shortages

When it comes to your food supply, you just can’t risk not having enough. These no cook meals will be a great addition to your food supply planning. Check out the recipes below!

No Cook Meals to Help You Through the Pandemic

As of the writing of this article, there are 20 meat processing plants that have been shut down due to COVID-19 infections. We have been worrying about these types of effects on our food supply for months now, and this is the first real sign of how infections can affect the food supply.

When you walk into a supermarket, you might not see all the choices you had in the past. An empty meat case is a humbling thing for your eyes to fall upon. It’s the shocking realization that the seemingly infinite supply of chickens, pigs, and cows that are butchered for us has begun to run dry!

To deal with this issue, we are going to present four no cook meals that will help you create dinners at home that will feed your family without worrying so much about what’s available, or unavailable, in the meat case.

1. Smashed White Bean, Avocado and Salted Pork Sandwiches

Smashed White Bean, Avocado and Salted Pork Sandwiches | No Cook Meals for Surviving the Pandemic and Food Supply Shortages

As preppers we get beans. There are a bunch of ways to use beans and this a great example of how you can pack a sandwich with great nutrition and protein.

Serving: Makes 4 sandwiches

Ingredients:

Can of White Beans
Olive Oil
1 Avocado
8 Slices of Whole Grain Bread
8 Slices of Salted Pork (Prosciutto, Ham, Virginia Ham)

Instructions:

Begin by draining your beans in a colander then smashing them up in a bowl add a few glugs of olive oil, salt, pepper. This little mix is delicious. If you add some minced rosemary, you can even turn this into a delicious dip.
Pit your avocado and cut it in half and then quarters lengthwise. Leave the skin on.
Lay the bread out on a clean work surface for assembling the sandwiches.
Spread your mashed bean mix onto one side of the bread.
Peel your avocados and slice 1 quarter for each sandwich. Spread slices over the bean spread.
Add a few slices of your pork to over the top of the avocado.
You can finish this sandwich with some lettuces, fresh sprouts, or just eat it as is.

2. Delicious Crab Salad

Canned crab is a protein option that will likely be around through much of this meat crisis. It does have to be kept in refrigeration, but it’s delicious and this chipotle mayo salad is great in the spring and summer.

Ingredients:

1 Can of Crab Meat
1 Bunch of Asparagus
Chipotle Mayo
1 Bunch of Green Onions
1 Bunch of Cilantro

Instructions:

Drain your crab in a colander and set it in the sink.
Slice your asparagus into 1-inch pieces. Throw them into a bowl.
Thinly slice your onions and your cilantro and throw that into the bowl, as well.
Gently toss in the crab meat.
Squirt on enough Chipotle mayo to coat everything and toss gently not to break up the crab meat.
Chill in the fridge and serve.

3. Simple Greek Salad

Simple Greek Salad | No Cook Meals for Surviving the Pandemic and Food Supply Shortages

The combination of simple summer ingredients makes for an incredible quick salad that you could add other proteins, too, if you wanted. These could be canned meats.

Ingredients:

2 Large Tomatoes
1 Cucumber
1 Red Onion
¼ Cup of Feta Cheese
A Few Sprigs of Fresh Mint
½ Cup of Kalamata Olives
Balsamic Dressing

Instructions:

I like to cut the tomatoes in large chunks and have them kind of be the main course in this salad. Peel and slice your cucumber in half. Remove the seeds and either dice or slice in half-moons.
Peel and slice your red onion in half. Julienne your, or thinly slice, your half onion.
Add all these ingredients to a bowl. Finely slice your mint.
Add your olives, crumbled feta, and mint to the bowl and add enough dressing to coat everything.
Stir it up and allow this to chill for at least an hour for the flavors to really blend.

4. Mediterranean Tuna Lettuce Wraps

Mediterranean Tuna Lettuce Wraps | No Cook Meals for Surviving the Pandemic and Food Supply Shortages

Using some similar ingredients and adding a protein like tuna, you can create some delicious lettuce wraps. The key to a good lettuce wrap is to have most of the items around the same size. So, consider that when you are preparing this dish.

Ingredients:

Iceberg or Butter Lettuce
Canned Artichokes
Canned roasted Red peppers
Fresh Cucumber
Feta Cheese
Minced Olives ¼ Cup
2 Cans of Tuna
Green Onions
Basil

Instructions:

Start by peeling all the full leaves from your lettuce. Set them on a plate either cover them with a wet paper towel or put them back into the fridge.
Dice the peppers, artichokes, and cucumbers into cubes. Go no larger than ½ an inch.
Thinly slice your green onions and basil and add them to a bowl with your diced vegetables. Add your loves to this bowl and mix them thoroughly.
Crumble your feta cheese over the mixture.
Drain your tuna thoroughly and then add that to the bowl, as well.
Gently toss this mixture. Try not to break up the tuna and the cheese too much but incorporate it thoroughly.
If you want, you can add some olive oil to the mix or a few glugs of balsamic vinegar. It’s also delicious just how it is.
Scoop a few tablespoons into a lettuce leaf, wrap it up and eat up!

These no cook meals should help lessen the stress you feel when thinking of what to feed your family. If you don’t have the specific ingredients, use your creativity, and use what you have. You might discover a new recipe while you’re at it!

What’s your favorite no cook meal recipe? Please share it with us in the comments section!

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This Article Was First Found at survivallife.com Read The Original Article Here

preparedness

Billionaire Whistle Blower: Wuhan Coronavirus Death Toll Is Over 50,000

Exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui recently revealed leaks from Wuhan crematoriums. He claims based on the number of bodies their furnaces are burning, the death toll could be as high as 50,000.

A Chinese billionaire and whistleblower who lives in U.S. exile says Wuhan crematoriums have burned 50,000 coronavirus victims. | Credit: Chinatopix via AP

The official coronavirus death toll in China is a little over 800. But an exiled Chinese businessman says crematoriums are leaking the real figure.
A billionaire whistleblower alleges Wuhan has crematoriums working 24/7. He claims they’ve cremated some 50,000 coronavirus victims.
Guo Wengui is a Chinese billionaire living in exile in the United States.

The official coronavirus death toll is some 800 people in China. The current official death toll worldwide, outside of China, is 774. But a Chinese billionaire with a history of blowing the whistle on his former government says the real figure is much higher.

Exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui recently revealed leaks from Wuhan crematoriums. He claims based on the number of bodies their furnaces are burning, the death toll could be as high as 50,000. Wengui made the bombshell allegations in an interview with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Whistleblower: 1.5 Million Coronavirus Cases In China, 50,000 Coronavirus Deaths In Wuhan

He also claims to have inside information that there are 1.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases in China. Wengui is emphatic that these are not merely quarantined or “under observation” but confirmed cases of coronavirus infection:

China has struggled to contain the coronavirus. But it has also struggled to contain public outcry against censorship and tight control of information. Dr. Li Wenliang, who sounded the alarm about the disease, succumbed to an infection and died this week. The Chinese government arrested him for blowing the whistle.

Then officials tried to suppress news of his death. Afterwards, millions of Chinese citizens saw the hashtag #IWantFreedomOfSpeech on Mandarin language social media. But the Chinese government censored that too.

Are Wengui’s Crematorium Claims Credible?

Watch VICE’s 2017 profile on Guo Wengui. At the time, he published bombshell documents alleging corruption in the Chinese government. He got the attention of the media and reportedly the U.S. State Department.

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