Free herbal ebook

link to herb book
A friend heard Dr Jones speak at a recent prep fair & said that his information was amazing!  He was willing to share this PDF book!  It takes a while to load so be patient.
http://homegrownherbalist.net/?page_id=31  He also has some great tincture info on this webpage.
I'm going to print at read this, but at least print it & keep in your survival library!

Great free ebook on raising rabbits in colonies

I got this great free ebook from www.raisingrabbitsformeat.com.  I bought their ebook & it's been great!
Tiffany recently released a free ebook about raising rabbits in colonies or tractors.  I didn't know anything about this & find it quite interesting.  I'm now considering switching to a colony method instead.  My main interest in it is how letting them go underground as they do in nature reduces the clean up, & helps them deal with winter & summer temperatures better.  I had some hassle trying to keep them cool last summer, & in a survival situation I wouldn't be able to use extra water to cool them, or frozen water if there was no power.  You can download the free ebook at rabbits in colonies ebook.

Spider webs for wounds?

Ok I truly hope I'm never this desperate.  Makes me cringe!  But can't hurt to know about it right?
spider webs on wounds link

Great deal on Immodium generic

Found these in the clearance section at my Walmart today.  It has 3 doses of a generic for Immodium.  This was one of the highly recommended medicines to store in the Survival Medicine Handbook & I've been keeping an eye out for a deal.  I had a bad virus this winter & was amazed how quickly you get sick if you have bad diarrhea.  I got 12 caplets for $.80.  A 12 caplet box of Immodium at Walgreens is $6.49.  I spent $4 total, & got 10 boxes!  You may want to check your Walmart!

Sugar for healing wounds?

I had read of honey healing wounds in several places, but reading this about sugar was new to me!
sugar to heal wounds link
This is one article, & below I'm pasting info from another one.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- We all know that sugar makes
good foods taste better, helps breads rise, creates cookies' crunchiness or
chewiness, and protects the safety of jams and jellies.  But, did you know the
same preserving power sugar brings to jams and jellies can also help heal
wounds?

Sugar is one of Mother Nature's most miraculous creations.  Many of the same
properties that make sugar an excellent food preservative also bestow it with
its healing powers.  Sugar has been used to treat wounds according to records
dating back to 1700 B.C.  Today, scientists here and abroad are rediscovering
sugar's wonderful healing powers and reporting surprising success in the use
of sugar to treat serious wounds and especially burns that fail to respond to
conventional therapy.

When sugar is applied to an open wound, it absorbs the wound's moisture
necessary for the growth of infectious bacteria.  Physicians also believe
sugar supplies the very nourishment damaged tissues require for healing and
re-growth.

From the Microbiology Infectious Diseases Journal, Vol. 7, 1998, p. 524-25: 
"Sugar is thought to exert an antibacterial effect by lowering water activity;
the desloughing and debridement that is achieved with the paste is in part
related to an osmotic effect on necrotic tissue and in part to mechanical
cleaning." 

From the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Vol. 78, 1996, p.
82-85:  "Granulated sugar has been used with success in treatment of open
mediastanitis after cardiac surgery with the bacterial contamination of the
wounds being eliminated in a few days.  This study also suggested that sugar
treatment leads to faster healing of infected wounds than conventional packing
methods."

From the Southern Medical Journal, November 1981:  "Over a 56-month period we
treated 605 patients for wounds, burns, and ulcers with granulated sugar and
povidone-iodine. Rapid healing ensued... The requirements for skin grafting
and antibiotics were greatly reduced, as were hospital costs for wound, burn
and ulcer care."

So, maybe Mary Poppins wasn't wrong when she said a spoonful of sugar helps
the medicine go down.  Science is showing that it helps wounds heal, as well
as preserve the safety of our foods.



SOURCE  Sugar Association

Free at Walgreens this week!

Here's what I got at Walgreens this week.  The toothpaste & shampoo were free after coupons & register rewards.  I paid $9 for the U by Kotex (after coupons) & got back $10 in movie cash.  (you may want to check that there's a theater near you on the movie cash before buying http://emoviecash.com/locator/)
Check a blog such as moneysavingmom.com to get details on where to get the coupons.

Love my new chicken watering bucket!

This is what I used to have to water my chickens with.  I didn't like it.  It was heavy & hard to hang up.  Inconvenient to refill.  Mildew would grow quickly in it.  It would often come undone just as I was hanging it, spilling the water all over the coop.  And worst off all the chickens would get their droppings in where they drink out of.  You can't leave it that way or they may get sick.  So we were having to clean it almost every day!  I especially hated that in the winter when the hose water is turned off, & I had to do it in the house!

Now I have something more like this that I bought locally.  (I've noticed since then that IFA has started carrying these as well).  The chickens peck at the red nipples & get a drink that way.  Hooray!  No more droppings getting into their water supply!  We can refill the top with a pitcher of water, so I don't have to try to rehang a heavy bucket.  This has way cut down the work on taking care of our chickens!

I also bought one of these bird bath de-icers.  It fits nicely in the bucket & keeps the water from freezing in the winter.  It runs only when the temp falls below 35, so it doesn't watse a bunch of power.  It can be submerged in the water.  With these 2 things, our chickens we so easy this winter!  Love it!

Foods without refrigeration

no fridge foods link

This is a very interesting article about keeping some foods fresh without refrigeration.  I'm going to have to consider some of these!  And I'll definitely be printing this off for if the day comes I don't have a fridge!

Cold storage option

I've often wished I had a root cellar.  I'd love a way to store my harvest all winter without refrigeration.  But digging a whole root cellar is quite a daunting task!  So I was quite interested in this idea of making a kind of small root cellar out of an old chest freezer.  You could probably find a broken one free, since you won't need the motor.  I'm wondering if a smaller cooler could work too....
http://www.windward.org/notes/notes70/lindsay7021.htm

Another test of my winter foam clothing!

I recently went goose hunting.  It was early March in Northern Wyoming.  We had to sit in a blind all day.  That's me on the right, you can see my blue foam hat making me look like a smurf.
We were in the blind for about 7 hours total.  The temps ranged from around 20 to 45.  The winds got up to 45 mph, but we were largely sheltered from the wind.  But with the wind chill it was about 9 when we got it.
Now I am a person who is always cold.  If I get up in the night to use the bathroom, I'm shivering by the time I get there.  If I sit at home & it's 69 in the house, I need a blanket.  So I'm a good test subject!  During the coldest part, I got slightly less than perfectly warm.  (generating no warmth just sitting there!).  But I never got "cold".  Which to me was amazing!  And during the warmer parts of the day I was quite toasty.  On the walk out to the blind I was too hot!  I know if I'd been wearing my normal winter gear, I would have sat there shivering for 7 hours (or given up & gone back to the car!).  So this was really wonderful for me!  The only part of me that got cold was my toes, & I only had my good winter boots on, without my foam in them.  If you're moving around, you don't want to wear a windproof shell over the foam suit, as that ruins it's breathability.  But since we had high winds & were just sitting, I did put on windbreaker pants & coat.
I was so excited about the results of this!  And it sold the rest of my family on getting them a suit!  They never see me warm!  I still don't want to survive an entire winter in nothing but this suit...but if there's no heat for any length of time I'm going to be SO glad to have it!  Not to mention I'm taking it next time I goose hunt, or ice climb or anything like that!!
Here's the original post about the suit for info on making one:
http://singlemompreparedness.blogspot.com/2012/02/warm-in-winter-foam-survival-clothing.html