Real Life Zombies?

The other day my children and I had a very interesting conversation. We were talking about preparedness and what they and their friends thought about it. Interestingly enough all of my children knew someone who referred to themselves as a prepper. This is where the conversation turned interesting. My daughter, who will be turning 16 this year, said that some were preppers and some were doomsday preppers. I asked her the difference. "A prepper", she said "is someone who tries to be ready for bad times. Like storms and sickness." A doomsday prepper, at least to my daughter is someone who is preparing for and even hoping for the end of the world.

At this point I asked them what they thought about the end of the world as we know it. Again my daughter surprised me. She said that she had already lived through some apocalypses. She mentioned the Myan calendar ending and June 6, 2006. I knew about the Myan calendar but had not heard about the June 6, 2006. I had to look it up.

What major events did they think are most likely?

I am actually very proud of my children and their responses. What do they believe most likely? An economic shift or collapse. Both mentioned the national debt and the way our government is acting. One mentioned personal spending and credit card debt. Why do they think this most likely? Due to honest conversations on the state of our nation. What did they think was the second most likely cause of a global collapse? A pandemic. This one was their own conclusion or due to input by their mom. Third was nuclear war.

Of course when doomsday comes up someone is going to mention zombies.

What are Zombies?

Zombies have been sort of a fad and fashion lately. For some reason the idea of roving hordes of undead are cool to think about. So our conversation turned to what could actually cause the Hollywood style zombies?

Parasites

There are no known parasites that cause what most would consider a zombie, but there is at least one that does infect humans and changes the behavior of it's host. No it does not cause the hosts to become violent, but it does cause a decrease sense of fear, lethargy, and a few others. This parasite is primarily found in cats but can be transferred to humans through contact with litter boxes and a few other ways. The parasite infects mice and rats and causes the same symptoms as in humans, just with different results. If a mouse or rat does not experience fear and moves slower it is much more likely to be killed and eaten by a cat. 

Who knows? If there is already a parasite that infects humans and changes their behavior there could be more. For more information on this parasite visit the National Geographic article.

Disease

No one can deny that sickness alters our behavior. Something as simple as the cold or flu can drain our energy, make us slow to react, and even put us in a bad mood. There are diseases however that actually take over our body and our mind. 

Governments the world over have been messing around with diseases. Many strains of diseases have been "weaponized". You may remember several years back that someone was mailing anthrax to people, pretty messed up. Again according to National Geographic this is possible, unlikely but possible.

What would have to happen for a disease to create a zombie like apocalypse? Let us start with rabies. Rabies is a horrible disease. If you have ever seen it in action you would know it. Rabies attacks the nervous system and can cause hallucinations and aggressive behavior in every animal that has it, including humans. Rabies can be in the human body for any where from ten days up to a year before the first symptoms show. After the symptoms arrive death occurs within a week if not treated. Rabies is a Really bad death.

There is only one problem with rabies being the cause of a zombie apocalypse. It is actually difficult to contract. A person would have to be bitten, scratched, get bodily fluids of an infected animal or person on broken skin, or eat an under cooked, infected animal (yup, that has actually happened).

Now, imagine if you will a world where rabies has been crossed with the flu. (Sorry, I can hear the voice of the guy from Twilight Zone saying that). The flu virus can be contracted easily because it is airborne. The flu virus can live on surfaces or be spread by coughing and sneezing. Both diseases are a virus and with genetic modification technology this could be done. Is anyone doing it? I have no idea. Remember this started as a conversation with my teenage children.

So what are Real Life Zombies?

I would like to float two possible ideas. One is the person who is so wrapped up in their digital device that they are oblivious to everything that is going on in the world that is not on that screen. States have passed laws against texting and driving because people apply all of their attention to their phone. I have been guilty of this myself and I am sure many of you have been as well. I would call this zombie lite. Normally most of these people are still productive members of society and are trying to keep us with work and friends.

The second type of zombie is the one I worry about most. If you were to have to describe a zombie with out having to use the term undead, how would you do it? A zombie is a being that feeds off the productivity of others. They can do very little on their own. They wonder around and are opportunistic, taking advantage of any resource that can be found. In the movies zombies never eat each other, why is this the case? I think it is simply because other zombies are a limited resource. If things got bad enough they would eventually eat each other. A non producer doesn't have anything to devour. Why are they always so hungry? They really aren't. They see an opportunity and feast as much as possible as quickly as possible because they don't know when the next victim will arrive.

I honestly believe that we live with zombies everyday. There are people out there that spend all of their time trying to figure out how to get what you have. Zombies can come in the shape of a serial lawsuit person, someone who expects everyone else to take care of them, or dare I say it a politician that thinks the world owes them a living.

I would love to know what you think about real life zombies let me know either on the forum or in the comments.

Even in the face of zombies we are

Bringing Rural Back

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The Law of Diminishing Returns (Chickens)

First a definition; The Law of Diminishing Returns is defined as -

1. any rate of profit, production, benefits, etc., that beyond a certain point fails to increase proportionately with added investment, effort, or skill

2. the fact, often stated as a law or principle, that when any factor of production, as labor, is increased while other factors, as capital and land, are held constant in amount, the output per unit of the variable factor will eventually diminish

(definition taken from ask.com)

Okay so I can hear some of you right now asking "What the crap does that mean?" To be honest that is a very fair question .These definitions are too scholarly. Here is a great example; If adding 100 pounds of fertilize to an acre of corn doubles crop yield, does that mean that adding 200 pounds will triple it? Maybe. And maybe not. As you increase fertilize in an acre of ground on the same crop there will come a point where the improvement of yield will start to decrease. If we see the decrease in improvement and we decide that even more fertilize is needed, at some point we will put so much fertilize on the ground that production will actually be worse than if we had used no fertilize at all.

Okay, so now to the chickens. If you have one hen, the most you could expect during the best time of year, with adequate nutrition, and reasonable care is one egg per day. With only one chicken you can easily provide all of the food it needs by allowing the chicken access to green grass or by feeding it your families vegetable scraps. By adding a second hen, you will receive two eggs per day, but you will have to provide a greater food source. If you were to add a rooster, he does not provide eggs, but he does provide the ability to produce replacements for the current flock. Allowing for replacements to be produced also reduces usable outputs (eggs). Every time we add a unit of production (a hen or rooster) they will use the available resources faster.

Right now we have 3 hens and 2 roosters. One of the roosters has a date with the cooking pot very soon. We will continue to keep 3 hens and 1 rooster. This means our maximum production will be 3 eggs per day. We do not eat 3 eggs per day. In fact most of the time we only cook eggs on Saturday. When I cook eggs on Saturday morning, I cook at least a dozen eggs at one time. Okay, so 7 days of production is 21 eggs, once a week I cook 12 leaving an average of 9 unused eggs per week. That is no problem, we let them build up and boil them to either eat as is or use in potato, or chicken salad. This means that our chickens output does not produce a surplus. There are actually times that we still have to buy eggs. I need another hen. I am not trying to produce a surplus. I am not interested in selling eggs. I just want to harvest eggs, allow the hens to raise a clutch of chicks or two each year and put some meat in the freezer.

I use my chickens for several different purposes. 1). of course is eggs, 2) meat, 3) fertilize, and 4) I use them to prep my garden. In the nest box and roost area I use wheat straw as bedding. Every time I clean out the chicken pin I compost the litter. Chicken manure is one of the best types of fertilizer there is, but if you do not compost it first the nitrogen content is so high that you can damage your garden plants. By composting the manure, the nitrogen is reduced and it becomes a true soil conditioner.

Our chicken pin cost less than $200.00 to build. It is portable. Another thing that I use the chickens for is for garden site preparation. We move the chicken pin from time to time. This provides the chickens with forage. In the right conditions chickens can forage as much as 30% of their needed feed. This reduces our cost of keeping the chickens. If you leave the chicken pin in one spot long enough there will not be a single sprig of grass left. By allowing them to stay long enough to take out all of the grass and seeds in a section of the garden, this means that I will have to do less weeding. They also fertilize the ground and it takes a lot less effort to till the ground. When used this way the chickens have a better diet, they get to scratch around and do natural chicken things and they benefit my family in more ways than just providing eggs and meat. For me this is the best way to utilize chickens. They have several jobs and they do them well.

Now the other side. My aunt has 54 chickens. She collects an average of 48 eggs per day. She sells eggs for $2.00 per dozen. If she were able to sell every single egg they collect, she would gross $8.00 per day. One problem, she cannot sell all the eggs she collects. There is another problem; her pin is stationary, all of the grass is gone. This means that every calorie that those chickens eat must be provided, purchased, or grown by my aunt. Those chickens have no ability to provide for themselves. The chickens also are not able to provide all of the benefits that they could in a different environment.

Many times smaller and simpler is better. It is extremely difficult to produce enough eggs to make a profit. I believe in the homestead environment it is best to produce enough for your family and maybe enough to give some away. The KISS principle almost always pays off, Keep It Simple Stupid.

Sometimes the best profit from an endeavor is self reliance.

Remember to always Keep It Rural.

Unit Pricing

With the increased taxes on everyone, (yes I said everyone), I believe it is important to focus on ways to make our dollars go further. Many companies realize that people are trying to be more frugal and are marketing to that desire. Just because they are talking about making your dollar go further doesn't mean they are really trying to save you money. Many businesses believe profit is king no matter what. We should live by the mantra " Let the buyer beware".

I have several examples of what I am talking about, but I will cover the most recent first. Last night my wife wanted to cook fajitas. Normally when we cook these we buy boneless, skinless chicken breast. My wife and I normally go to the grocery together. While in the store she asked me to pick out some chicken. I walked over to the meat case and boneless, skinless chicken breast was $4.29 a pound. Right next to the skinless breast was split chicken breast for $1.19 a pound. A no brainer right? Apparently not. Most of the boneless, skinless breasts were gone. I proudly picked up two packs of the split breasts and told my wife for $3.10 per pound I would cut the chicken off myself.  We saved right at $16.00 by doing a little of the work ourselves and my dogs were able to enjoy the skins and the raw bones (raw chicken bones are fine for dogs to eat, cooked bones are a big no no. The bones become brittle when cooked and can become lodged in a dogs throat.) So we saved money on our supper and our dogs supper as well.

Example two:Laundry detergent. I wanted to include a picture, but was asked not to by the management of the store in which I saw this. Before I even start this example, all four are national name brands. In fact the first three are the same name brand. On the same shelf sitting side by side there was laundry packets (no measuring needed) 50 loads 44 oz. for $8.00. Next a liquid laundry detergent of a different fragrance- 70 loads 125 oz. $8.00. Next and the same fragrance as the first but in liquid form 100 loads 150 oz. $8.00. Finally, a different name brand, still nationally recognized, 166 loads 250 oz,. also $8.00. After inquiring, the numbers are in and quite disturbing. The most sold are the most expensive (the packets). The second most sold that made me feel a little better was the 100 load liquid. While I understand the convenience of the packet, I really don't see how much more difficult it would be to measure a cup full, especially considering the cup is included.

Example three: Toaster pastries. We have been programmed over the past several years to automatically think that the store brands will be cheaper than the national brands.Only one problem; I have not found this to always be the case.  This past week I was looking for toaster pastries. I tend to default to the store brands, but I noticed a reduced price sticker on the national brand. Both products had the same weight and the same number of pastries, this time the national brand was $0.43 cheaper for the box.

Example four: Dried beans. When calculating unit cost I always use ounces, but I have heard of people using servings. A couple of weeks ago I was looking at the dried beans, and I am almost always trying to find the best deal. One bag said,"Contains x amount of servings". The bag looked a little smaller than the one next to it, but the cost was less than a dime different. I picked up the larger of the two bags and on the back it had the same number of servings as the slightly smaller bag. This made me curious. I picked up the smaller of the two bags. On the larger bag, the serving size was one cup.On the smaller, it was three quarters of a cup. The lesson we have learned;always use ounces.Serving sizes can be changed by the company.

Example five: Value sized containers.We'll use Oatmeal for example. Not only have we been programmed to think the store brands are always cheaper, we have also been taught that the larger a container the item comes ,in the cheaper it is. I looked at some oatmeal not too long ago and I compared the value size container to the normal size. Just by comparing the two prices I realized they were really close to the same value. So I pulled out my phone and accessed the calculator that is on nearly every cell phone out there. Guess what? The smaller size was 3 cents per ounce cheaper. The company spends less on packaging, because it takes fewer packages to hold the same amount of a product. They charge more for that product based on the fact that we now see larger sizes as a greater value. My dad told me that the last time he went to one of the members only stores, a five gallon bucket of pickles by unit price was more expensive than buying the smaller, more usable sizes.

Example six: Coupons. Coupons can be a wonderful way to stretch your money. Some of the large retailers even have store coupons that print out when you go through the register,( i.e. save $5.00 on your next purchase of $25.00 or more). Some of these can be a good deal, but when it comes to grocery coupons there are some danger zones. 1.) Don't buy things that you normally wouldn't if you didn't have the coupon. I LOVE sweets, but I don't need them as much as I want them. Many of the coupons are for desert type items. 2.) A good rule to follow is if the item was not on your shopping list before you got the coupon, do not add it unless you can substitute it for something else that was already on your list. 3.) Coupons only good for multiple items. I have seen coupons that were only good if you bought 10 or more items. When you see these you must remember that in order to calculate the true cost you must divide the face value of the coupon by the total number of items that you are required to purchase.4.) Always check unit price. Many many times I have seen that even after the coupon has been applied, there are more affordable choices of the same item available right beside the one you are considering. Remember: there is a calculator on your phone.

And finally example seven: Sodas. The average name brand 2 liter soda around here costs $1.25, the average 20 oz costs $1.59 and the average 12 oz costs 69 cents.

Formula for figuring unit price

Price divided by ounces = unit price

2 Liter $1.25/72 ounces (that is how many ounces are in a two liter, the bottle that I had did not show this number, but on the back said a serving size was 12 ounces and serving per container was about 6. So 12 times 6 is 72) this gives us a unit price of  1.736 cents per ounce

20 ounce $1.59/20 gives us a unit price of 7.95 cents per ounce

12 ounce $0.69/12 gives us a unit price of 5.75 cents per ounce

This tells us the most popular size is the most expensive. Do you think this was by accident? Higher profits maybe? Okay, so let us finish the math all the way to the end. If you buy a 2 liter drink for $1.25 in that drink you will be able to get the equivalent of 3 20 ounce drinks at $1.59 each and one 12 ounce drink at $0.69. When we add these up we will come up with a grand total of $5.46. Then we subtract the cost of the 2 liter drink and we will have saved $4.21. If you drink 3 20 ounce sodas a day, and I know many people that do, even is you leave off the 12 ounce, and you do this 5 days a week, you will save $17.60 per week for taking a glass with you. That adds up to $915.20 per year, plus you are putting less plastic in the garbage.

I hope you have found this informative and maybe it will give you something to consider next time you are going to buy something. We all need to make our money go further.

Remember to Keep It Rural.

Looking Forward

This is the magical time of year when we get an opportunity to reflect on the year that  is ending and plan for the year ahead. I love this time of year. I reflect on what we did right and what we didn't do so well. With all of the trouble in the world today ,both economically and socially, the time to be as self reliant as possible has arrived.

It astounds me how many people out there think everything is fine. Even our President has said that the economy is doing well. Really? All of the people that think everything is great are not paying attention. Vice President Biden said that when a friend or neighbor cannot find a job it is a recession, and when you cannot find a job it's a depression. Using this definition we are all in a recession and some are in a depression.

The way we calculate the unemployment numbers has not always been done the same way. Right now the official unemployment rate is over 7%. This number does not include all of the people who have stopped looking for work. Let me say that again -this number does not include those who have given up. If you include these people, the real unemployment rate is at least 15% and some sources say it could be as much as 22%.  The highest unemployment during the Great Depression was 25%. So depending on the correct current rate ,we are nearly at the same level as the Great Depression. I for one believe that the worst is yet to come.

Ok, so now that all of the bad stuff is out of the way, let's get to the good stuff. I am beginning to get my gardening catalogs in the mail. It is great to look and make lists of all the things I want to plant next spring. I only plant heirloom varieties. This enables me to save seed from new things every year. Each year there are fewer things I have to buy so I am saving money each year. I also keep a garden log so I know what works and what doesn't.

I have made several goals for the coming year. 1) I am going to be expanding my garden and setting aside sections of the garden for my children. They can raise anything they want and after the family gets what it needs from their crops they can sell all of their excess. This will help teach them a work ethic and a lot of financial lessons as well.

2) Expand our compost pile. It doesn't matter if you want to be like me and do the whole organic thing or you just want to reduce the amount of fertilizer you have to buy. Composting is a good practice. All soil types benefit from compost. The best part about compost is you can do it to any scale. Just use the leftovers that you throw away. Do not use meat products in the compost mix.

3) Skill learning. I have quite a list of things I want to learn this year. I am making a carving set( knife making). A friend is going to teach my stepson and I how to make a bow. My wife and I are going to learn how to knit. A man I met at work is supposed to teach me how to make a wooden boat. I also want to learn more about canning, planting a fruit orchard, wine making, and even sling shot shooting. Some are just for fun,but most are for money savings. Remember, a penny saved is a penny earned and who knows? Some of these skills could turn into a business.

I would like to challenge all of you to set a goal of learning a new skill or two this next year. If knowledge is power,then skills would be assets. Join me in the learning.

Remember to Keep It Rural.