Self Reliance is Freedom! How Prepared Are You?

We've been busy the past several weeks.  As you know, we are firm believers in being as self reliant and prepared as possible.  As such, we planned these two projects a couple of years ago, got estimates and price quotations then started saving our pennies see them to fruition.  The first project was the garden, the seconds was a back up stand-by generator.

The Garden Project:

As I've accurately predicted and as I'm certain you've seen at the grocery stores, the price of food is skyrocketing.

Food Prices Worldwide Hit Record Levels

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/world/04food.html?_r=1

Food Prices Skyrocket:  Highest Since 1974

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/food-prices-skyrocket-highest-since-1974/
 

Food prices to skyrocket, riots could follow, suggests USDA

http://www.naturalnews.com/031545_USDA_food_prices.html

Food and Energy Inflation is Not Transitory

http://inflation.us/transitory.html

I designed and crudely blueprinted a garden layout I thought would do well for us and our household.  Every household is different, therefore every household's garden must also be different.  To add to our troubles, we have a larger herd of deer (about 30 deer) who roam our yard twice a day, this necessitated a fence, as I'm not going to let deer eat all our efforts.  So I had to incorporate a fence into my design as well as some other basic features such as fence attached to the interior of the fence to prevent smaller animals from infiltrating the garden; I also incorporated fine galvanized steel mesh at the bottom of the raised beds in effort to thwart burrowing animals from digging under the beds.

Here are a few pictures to give you insight to my idea(s):

Here is how our efforts turned out:

The Power Project:

As any true "prepper" knows, you must have several layers of capabilities, in this particular venue, redundancy is a good thing.  I have means to cook, keep my family warm, bath, and perform the most basic necessities; however, I just don't want to survive when times are tough, I want to thrive!

My first task was to consider the options for a back up generator system, to see which I wanted to use.  To do this, you must first contemplate exactly what you want powered during an outage and why you need it.  The circuits I wanted to run required 17,000 watts (or 17kW) of power.  I also wanted the unit to be a stand by system.  Meaning it's 100% automatic; should the main-line power ever go out, this system activates and switches from main-pole power to back up generator power instantly, once main-pole power is restored, the system switches off and reconnects to it.

I decided on the Generac 17kW Gaurdian Series generator.  This generator requires propane for fuel, so I also had to purchase and bury a 500 gallon propane tank.  I chose propane as I have a lot of propane capabilities already (outdoor grill, camp stove, camp oven, heaters, etc.) and figured it would be best to build on that strength.  This is no small or easy task, it will take a lot of homework on your part to figure what is best for your family and what you can afford.  We saved for 3 years to accomplish this project, so plan accordingly.

Guardian Series 17kW

The photos:

We continue to rake out the dirt covering the tank to level it and with any luck we'll have grass growing in the area by the end of this year.  As an aside, since my grill is propane, I ran a T-line from the main to use a propane junction box, it has two propane outlets built into it.  Now I can run my grill and any other propane device (a future smoker in my case) I wish to use on my deck, no muss, no fuss.

Now of course you don't have to go to the lengths and costs as we have, but having power when the grid is off-line is worth whatever you pay for a generator.  The ability to be able to pump water, cook a meal, take a hot shower, wash clothes, charge batteries, keep food cold/frozen, etc. cannot be over valued.  My advice is to make a list of what you absolutely need to survive without grid power, see what you can afford and go from there.  That is how we started and it became obvious to us that we also wanted some creature comforts and began planning the system.