solar

Plantain: The Ugly Little Edible ‘Weed’ That Heals And Soothes

September 19, 2018 by chris

Plantain leaves

If you do not chemically treat your yard, chances are very good that you have some plantain growing there. Plantain – not to be confused with the banana-like fruit of the same name – is a common weed found throughout North America.

Native Americans have called plantain “Whiteman’s Foot” because it seems to spring up everywhere. Although many consider plantain to be a noxious weed, it has been used for centuries by many cultures throughout the world, with the Saxons calling it one of their nine sacred herbs.

You can recognize plantain as a low, short plant with wide and round leaves that have parallel veins. There are many photos and videos online to help you identify plantain. What you may not know is that it is a very useful plant. In fact, it contains anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antimicrobial properties. So, instead of yanking out these common weeds in frustration, you can learn to cultivate them for all kinds of purposes.

New “Survival Herb Bank” Gives You Access to God’s Amazing Medicine Chest

Here are some common uses for plantain:

Plantain Leaves In a salad

Plantain leaves are completely edible, and they taste a little like spinach. Plantain is high in vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin K, iron, beta-carotene and calcium and is milder tasting when the leaves are small. Harvest young leaves for best taste. You can eat them raw in salads or sautéed with some olive oil and garlic.

As a tea

Dry, crush and then steep plantain leaves in steaming water to make a nourishing tea. Plantain tea is known to help to alleviate heartburn and indigestion in addition to it being an excellent source of iron and vitamins.

Plantain tea also soothes sore throats and coughs due to colds and flu. It helps clear phlegm from the lungs and nasal passages. You also can gargle with plantain tea to help heal and prevent mouth sores.

Image source: motherearthliving.com

As a poultice

Plantain is a handy and effective way to ease the pain of insect bites and stings as well as boils, rashes, cuts and scrapes. The weed works as a “drawing herb,” meaning it can pull out toxins and foreign substances from the body. To make a poultice, crush up some leaves or chew them. Then apply them to the affected area. You can cover the poultice with a Band-Aid to hold the poultice in place. Many people experience instant pain relief.

The Hidden Secrets Of Making Herbal Medicines…Right At Your Fingertips!

In bathwater

Adding dried plantain to your bathwater can be soothing and relaxing. Its anti-inflammatory properties can be especially helpful to a mother recuperating from childbirth or to someone who has overexerted himself or herself with work or exercise.

If you would like to use plantain year-round, your best bet is to make a salve. Here is a recipe: Place one pound of fresh cut-up plantain leaves in a large non-metallic pan. Add one cup of olive oil or raw coconut oil. Put the lid on the pot and cook on low until all the leaves are soft and mushy and the oil looks green.

Then strain the mixture while the oil is still warm and store it in an airtight container. Add a drop or two of essential oil after the mixture has cooled, if you wish. You can use the salve on bug bites, skin conditions, burns and wounds. You also can use it as a moisturizer cream.

And here is a recipe for plantain tea: Bring two cups of water to a boil and then add two tablespoons of cut-up, fresh plantain leaves. Cover and steep for five minutes. You can add honey as a sweetener if desired. Sip the tea throughout the day to help fight congestion and other symptoms of cold and flu.

When you cultivate any weeds, it is important that you make sure they have not been treated with any chemicals. Plantain is generally considered a safe herb, but it is a good idea to consult your doctor before using it if you are pregnant or if you have any kind of medical condition.

How do you use plantain? Share your tips in the section below:

Harness The Power Of Nature’s Most Remarkable Healer: Vinegar

The post Plantain: The Ugly Little Edible ‘Weed’ That Heals And Soothes appeared first on Off The Grid News.

This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here

How To Cook, Eat And Even Make Coffee With Acorns

September 19, 2018 by chris

Acorn

I have had the pleasure of having some mighty oak trees in my life. The beautiful trees have provided shade to sit under, branches for my children to swing from, plenty of leaves to rake in the fall and quiet beauty and strength. They also have provided untold amounts of acorns!

As another fall arrives, I soon will hear the sound of acorns hitting my deck and of squirrels scampering around gathering the bounty under my trees. However, as I search to make better use of my resources, I began wondering if I am neglecting a treasure right there in my yard. Is there anything I can do with all those acorns?

After doing a little research, I discovered that Native American tribes used acorns as one of their primary staple foods. In much the same way they used corn, they used ground acorn nutmeat to make a meal, or flour, for baked goods. They even used them to make acorn coffee.

Acorns

Acorns are rich in Vitamins B12, B6, folate riboflavin, thiamin and niacin. They also contain iron, calcium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus, copper manganese and zinc, and are good sources of protein and fiber. Naturalist John Muir called the acorn cakes he made the most “strength giving” food he had ever eaten. But before you start munching on your own baskets of acorns, there is some information you need to know.

First, green acorns are unsuitable for eating. You may harvest mature green acorns to ripen in a clean, dry place, however. Also, all raw acorns contain high amounts of tannic acid, which gives them a bitter taste and which can be toxic to humans and many animals if consumed in large quantities. White oak acorns generally contain fewer tannins than red oak acorns.

Tannic acid is water soluble, however, and can be removed by boiling or flushing. Native Americans accomplished this by placing a bag of acorns in a clean, flowing stream for a few days until no brown colored water was visible around the acorns.

Chia Seeds: Used By Top Survivalists For Mission-Critical Strength And Endurance!

Here’s how you can remove the tannins. To begin, use only ripe, brown acorns that look appealing to the eye. Leave any acorns that appear to be blackened or mildewed for the squirrels.

Next, remove the caps and boil the acorns for 10 minutes. Replace the water three more times, repeating the 10-minute boiling process each time. After the four boiling sessions, the water should no longer look brown and the acorns can be easily shelled.

Another way of removing the tannins is the flushing method. Remove the caps and place the acorns inside a cheese cloth bag. Secure the opening, and place the bag under running water for several hours. Drain the water out of the bag frequently and continue rinsing until the water is clear.

Story continues below video

Spread the damp acorns in a thin layer on a baking sheet and in a preheated 200 degree Fahrenheit oven, with the door slightly ajar to let moisture escape. Or if it’s a sunny day, you can place them on a baking sheet in direct sunlight for several hours or until they are dry.

Another method for leaching the acorns is to let them soak in baking soda and water (one tablespoon per quart of water) for 12 to 15 hours before rinsing well.

To make acorn “coffee,” first peel the ripe, blanched acorns. Divide the kernels and place them in a covered ovenproof dish. Roast in your oven on low heat, stirring them frequently. When they have roasted, grind them and use the grounds combined with your regular coffee or on their own. To make acorn flour, follow the same process but sift well to remove any fibers.

The Essential Survival Secrets of The Most Vigilant…Most Skilled…Most Savvy Survivalists in the World!

Acorns add a nutty, slightly sweet taste to foods. Some Korean noodles and jellies are made of acorn starch, and many Asian grocery markets sell acorn starch in packages.

Other ways to use blanched acorns in your cooking include:

substituting them in recipes that call for chickpeas, peanuts or macadamia nuts.
sprinkling chopped, roasted acorns on a garden salad.
making acorn butter instead of peanut or almond butter.
adding acorns to stews as you would add beans or potatoes to add more taste and depth.

Here is a recipe for acorn bread or muffins. You’ll need:

2 cups acorn flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup maple syrup or sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons olive oil

Bake in pan for 30 minutes or until done at 400 degrees

Raw acorns can be stored in a clean, cool and dry place for months without spoiling. They also can be used as feed for certain livestock. You will need to follow the same process of avoiding green, unripe acorns and of removing the tannins from the acorns for the health and safety of your animals, however.

What other ways have you used acorns? Share your tips in the comments section below:

The post How To Cook, Eat And Even Make Coffee With Acorns appeared first on Off The Grid News.

This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here

Pagan Religion And The Never-Ending Quest To Be God

September 17, 2018 by chris

Pagan religion requires ritual to hand-crank the universe.

Pagan Religion’s “To Be As God” Worldview

The serpent’s words in the garden…”Thou shalt not surely die”… implied an entire worldview that was radically at odds with God’s revelation of Himself and the foundational structure of the world He created. Think about it this way… if God couldn’t deliver on His threat to punish Adam and Eve for violating His law regarding “the tree”… then the world could not be His creation.

If it was all just a bluff as the serpent suggested, the world must be self-existent and self-defining. No God needed. People just are and the world simply is. The universe might be in some sense unfolding, developing or evolving… but with no creator, it’s left as John Lennon said, “no hell below us, above us only sky.”

That also means that the appearance of gods or men on the historical scene must be strictly naturalistic and there can be no final distinction between the essence of the gods and that of mere humans. All being is one being. All rises out of the One and all returns to the One. Philosophers call this the continuity of being.

Pagan Religion And Polytheism

In traditional terms, it might be said that the serpent was the first to practice atheism. This is because he denied the existence of a transcendent Creator, a personal God to whom men owe total obedience. Interestingly, the serpent also insisted on a form of pantheism: all reality was of one piece, and all parts of reality, including man, were actually or potentially divine.

But there’s more. The serpent also insisted on polytheism. He maintained that there were many immanent forces that made up reality. None were absolute and none were sovereign. Each exercised some power within its particular realm or sphere, but the territorial sovereignty of each was limited and checked by the powers of all the others. However, it didn’t end there…

Man could be such a god too, the serpent said. And so begins the case for humanism, a religious philosophy that makes man the center of all things.

Pagan Religion And The Continuity Of Being

Now, since all reality is one in this worldview, the power or energy manifested anywhere in the world must be echoed or reflected everywhere in the world. The “divine energies” of the cosmos manifest themselves in the tiniest corners of reality… in tea leaves, birds’ livers, or scattered sticks thrown to unveil the future. “As above, so below.” The macrocosm is the microcosm.

Nevertheless, the converse is also true. The smallest ritual act at the edge of a fading reality can move all of it. A hand-cranked gear in this worldview can move the entire universe. “As below, so above.” This is the foundation of divination and magic.

The Basic Elements Of All Pagan Religion

In the serpent’s worldview, these would serve as man’s ultimate defense against other competing “powers” as well as his weapons and tools for asserting his own godhood.

Continuity of being. Cosmic evolution. Atheism. Pantheism. Polytheism. Humanism. Magic. These are the basic elements of the serpent’s worldview and they lie at the heart of all pagan religion.

The Development Of Pagan Religion

There were two times in human history when the whole human family knew God and understood His claims on man. The first was when Adam and Eve left the Garden and began their climb down the plateau of Eden toward the inhospitable wilderness below. The second was when Noah and his family looked out over their new world from the rugged crests of Mt. Ararat.

In the wake of creation and curse, of Deluge and re-creation, man knew exactly who God was and the terrible dangers that came with defying Him. And incredibly, even after God’s massive demonstrations of His power and might, man once again rushes headlong into the foolish pretension of being his own god. Once more his search for power begets a new religion.

Romans 1 from Holy Scripture gives us some broad outlines concerning the development of pagan religion. First, ancient man, just like modern man, became unthankful. He despised God’s provision and resented His sovereignty and providence. Pagan man rejected God’s mandates and laws. Eventually, he began to hate his own creature-hood.

Pagan Religion And The Attempt To Reinvent God

And so ancient man, imagining himself wise, begins the process of reinventing God in his own image. Out of a sin-darkened heart, he changed and exchanged the glory of God into “an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:23).

There seems to be a downward progression in this passage: man, bird, beast, and snake. Notwithstanding, Scripture doesn’t really give us a timeline for this downward integration into the void. In fact, there is a great deal we don’t know about the ups and downs of historical development.

The worldwide flood and more than four thousand years stand between the antediluvian apostasy and our day. As finite beings, it’s pretty tough for us to draw definitive charts and graphs marking God’s curses and blessings in history. Yet, we do get a few clues as to what kills a culture at Babel.

Pagan Religion And The Need For “The Right Magic”

The Tower, the first postdiluvian ziggurat, was designed to be technology anchored in magic. Its top was to be “unto heaven” (Gen. 11:4). Here we see an attempt to implement, impose and make real the continuity of being. Heaven and earth are essentially one and the same.

The foundational thinking here is that the right magic can act as a bridge, establish man in his deity and make him equal with God. The goal has always been the same: unify man in his rebellion against God and restore Paradise humanistically. The pyramids carried the same message.

After Babel, we first hear of kings and queens who were exalted to godhood—Belus, Ninus, and Semiramis, for example. It should be remembered that at an early date, the pharaohs of Egypt were declared sons of the divine Sun.

Ancient Pagan Kings And Ancient Pagan Beasts

In general, the kings of the ancient world were recognized as human-divine mediators, sons of the gods, who maintained life and fertility within their kingdoms by their command of ritual magic.

There are bits and pieces of this activity mentioned in Scripture, and it comes to full expression explicitly in the Book of Revelation: “And all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast?”

When John wrote these words, the monster on the throne of the Roman Empire called himself the son of God. Humanism indeed.

Sacrificing To Demons

There is another dimension to pagan religion that is extremely important for us to consider. It was demonic in the most literal sense. Behind the magic, rituals, false gods and the idols were demons. Moses testifies to this when he writes of Israel (Deut. 32:17):

They sacrificed to demons, not to God,
To gods they did not know,
To new gods, new arrivals
That your fathers did not fear.

And the psalmist says of later generations…

And they served idols: which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood (Ps. 106:36-38).

Christ Puts An End To The Overt Power Of Pagan Religion

Scripture doesn’t tell us to what extent God allowed these demons to interact with their worshippers or what limits He put on their oracles and magic. Certainly, they were on a tight leash anytime one of God’s prophets was on the scene (cf. Ex. 7:10-12; 8:18-19; 1 Kings 18:20-29).

We do know that when Christ came, He dispatched them into the abyss with a word. St. Athanasius, in his On the Incarnation of the Word, assures us that the coming of Christ and the preaching of the gospel effectively banished magic from the pagan world and shut down all its oracles.

However, the takeaway here is that there was a time in our historical past that demons terrorized the ancient world through its man-centered, polytheistic religions. Also, the ancients, in some sense, actually made the magic work in cooperation with these territorial demonic powers.

Conclusion: The Classical World

This then was the religion of the pagan and classical world. It was humanistic and demonic to the core. This is because it rested foundationally on the premise that man can be as God, deciding good and evil for himself. It differed in form from place to place and from era to era, but it was always an expression of the serpent’s basic worldview.

Greek rationalism didn’t overturn it but merely moved in terms of it. Only Christ Himself dispelled its darkness. Only He could send the demons away. There is no neutrality nor is there a grey zone between demonic darkness and His wondrous light.

Ideas have consequences and how we see the world really does affect individual lives and culture. After all, it wasn’t pagan religion that built this country. It was a belief in the creator/creature distinction and all of its implications that produced the freedoms we still, to some extent, enjoy.

The post Pagan Religion And The Never-Ending Quest To Be God appeared first on Off The Grid News.

This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here

FEMA And The Disastrous Problem Of “Good Intentions”

September 15, 2018 by chris

Is It always FEMA’s fault when help doesn’t come “perfectly”.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order creating FEMA … the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This showcase agency was intended to become the federal government’s answer to disasters, acting as the central clearinghouse for providing aid to the victims of everything from earthquakes to hurricanes.

Unfortunately, like many other things done by big government, FEMA has not been the raving success that everyone hoped it would be. The whole nation witnessed this dismal failure during and after Hurricane Katrina. Then we saw it again after Hurricane Sandy. More recently, we saw it in Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria; and people are already saying we’re going to see it again after Hurricane Florence.

FEMA has many problems, like any government agency. But its biggest problem is the inherent lack of flexibility that comes with any bureaucracy. We see this clearly in their disastrous handling of Puerto Rico. The agency had developed plans and prepared to deal with a focused disaster, like a tsunami, which would have only hit a small area of the island’s coastline. They weren’t ready for something so extensive that it devastated everything from Mayagüez on the west coast to Fajardo on the east.

FEMA’s Empty Warehouses

Even worse than that, FEMA’s onsite warehouse was all but empty, with its contents having been rushed to the nearby US Virgin islands, off the east coast of Puerto Rico two weeks earlier, in response to needs created by another storm. This left FEMA entirely unprepared to deal with the results of Hurricane Maria.

Yet there are still people who continue to believe in big government in general and this agency in particular. They believe that this agency and bigger and bigger government can hold their hand and see them through any of life’s storms. Sadly, as with anything else where the perpetual nanny state has stepped in to take care of the people, FEMA’s most significant impact on society has been to demotivate folks to take care of themselves. “Why bother to prepare, when FMEA is going to be there to feed you?”

The same people who are sure the government will take care of them, are always the fastest to blame the same government when it’s agencies fail to deliver. At least, they are when there’s a Republican in office. The same media was quick to lay the blame at President Bush’s feet when FEMA did such a horrible job of responding to Hurricane Katrina, is doing the same to President Trump, for FEMA’s failings in Puerto Rico. But interestingly enough, all was silent when FEMA dropped the ball after Hurricane Sandy, during President Obama’s tenure in office. What a coincidence.

Is It Always The Government’s Responsibility?

Of those three disasters, one stands out above the others, for the way in which it was handled; not by FEMA, but by politicians on the ground. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria smashing Puerto Rico, local Democrat politicians were withholding aid the federal government sent, in order to be able to slam President Trump for not helping them. As Rahm Emanuel said, “Never let a good disaster go to waste.”

But where in the Bible does it say that it’s the government’s responsibility to hold our hand and take care of us? Where does it say that in the Constitution or any of the founding documents? I’ll tell you where… it doesn’t.
That’s not to say there is no place for public disaster planning and preparedness. There are things which only the government can do for us. It is not the individual’s responsibility to be prepared to clear three feet of snow off the road or rebuild a bridge that has been damaged by an earthquake. Those are clearly government functions. But it’s not the government’s job to take care of people. What used to be private charity is now perceived as a right that can be demanded from government and government employees.

FEMA Replaces the Family

Taking care of our families is our responsibility. Let me be more specific than that; it’s our responsibility as men. It’s time for men to be men and take up their God-given mantle as the protector of the home; not just protecting the home from criminals and wild animals, but from natural disasters as well. If there is anyone who should be working to prepare for their family’s safety and survival, it’s the men of our society; the heads of households. Once a mans family is safe… he should begin to help his neighbors.

Throughout most of human history, it has been the men who have ensured their family’s survival. Men raised the crops and filled the barns. They dug the wells and outhouses. Men shot the game, butchered it and smoked it. Men also took up arms in defense of home and family when danger lurked close. It hasn’t been until recent times, that men have been encouraged by society to quit being men and abdicate their responsibility.

Yes, there was a place for women in all that… standing beside their men, as the helpmeets God created them to be. In many cases, it was the women who made sure the men planted crops. It was women that canned the food to get through winter and the women who made sure their families would have warm clothes to wear. On and on. But the heavy lifting of survival wasn’t on their shoulders, but on their husbands’.

FEMA Replaces Church And Community

There is a place for community in this as well, especially for the church. Social welfare isn’t the state’s responsibility. God entrusted the ministry of grace to the church. Yes, there are staggering exceptions, but the church, like men in general, has abdicated much it’s God-appointed responsibility, turning it over to the government. Yet in times of crisis, it is the church and faith-based parachurch organizations, who provide the greatest help to those in need; not the government and not FEMA. As a community, believers in the church need to be prepared. That means preparing individually, and then preparing to survive as a community. Are we our neighbor’s keeper? In short… yes, we are. It’s been that way here since the Colonial days.

I know of one church in Texas, which has designated the church campus as their community survival retreat. They have plans in place to come together there, in the case of a major disaster or social unrest. The church congregation has literally become their survival team.

But there’s another step for the church to take as well; that of being prepared to reach out beyond the walls, beyond the congregation, and help the community at large. This doesn’t mean ignoring taking care of the church family, to help those outside; but rather, taking care of those outside, once the church family is taken care of.

What sorts of needs are there after a disaster? Food, water, warm blankets, showers, hot meals, medical assistance, and even rescue operations. All of these are things the church can do, especially in cases where the disaster strikes in other communities, where it doesn’t affect the church’s congregation.

Hurricane Harvey’s FEMA Fiasco

When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017, there was a massive outpouring of help from the community, completely overshadowing help provided by FEMA:

• The “Cajun Navy” mounted up in Louisiana, bringing their swamp boats and fishing boats to rescue people. A major truck stop in Texas offered to fuel their trucks and boats for free. What did FEMA do? Threaten them, if anyone got hurt.
• Church groups throughout the state gathered food, water and other necessities and trucked them to Houston, Corpus Christi and other affected areas. What did FEMA do? Tried to take over the distribution of their bounty.
• Kitchens were set up providing hot meals to those who were displaced from their homes. What did FEMA do?

Threaten to fine them, if their kitchens weren’t up to health department regulations.

Conclusion

The truth is… there are many dedicated, well-meaning and hardworking FEMA workers. But, at the end of the day … you and I, first working to take care of our families, then joining together to take care of our neighbors and communities can, with God’s help, accomplish much more than any government agency. That’s the American way, and we’ve been doing it for almost 400 years.

The post FEMA And The Disastrous Problem Of “Good Intentions” appeared first on Off The Grid News.

This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here

Cooking, Surviving And Thriving During A Long-Term Power Outage

September 14, 2018 by chris

As soon as you know that a power outage is going to last more than a few days, you should shift over to long-term mode.

Getting through a long-term power outage is much more challenging than getting through a short-term one. Also, it’s a good time to consider the challenges with the hurricane season just heating up. After all, September is typically the month with the most tropical cyclone activity worldwide. With a few preparations to make things easier, you can survive a short-term outage almost as if you were on a camping trip. However, when the power outage lasts for multiple days or longer, you’ve got to take additional action to take care of yourself and your family.

The first and hardest thing to do is to find out how long the outage is going to last. In my article on getting through a short-term outage, I mentioned the need for communications. Specifically, I recommended having a radio so that you could get emergency news reports and have an idea of how long the outage was going to last. That’s important so that you know when to shift from short-term mode to long-term mode.

As soon as you know that a power outage is going to last more than a few days, you should shift over to long-term mode. Basically, that means that you don’t just try and hang on until the utility companies restore power, but you change your way of doing things to methods that don’t require electricity. Particularly, we’re talking about:

Food Preservation
Cooking
Heating Your Home

Power Outage Survival Tip #1: Get Some Alternate Power

We should begin by saying you should put in some means of alternative electrical power so that you are ready for a power outage. A few solar panels or a wind generator will make a world of difference, allowing your family to use at least some electrical devices. Make sure that you have a battery backup system as well so that you can store the power your system creates for when you need it.

Unless you have a lot of money to use, it’s going to be very hard to generate enough electricity to fully power your home. The average American family uses a lot of electrical power every day. However, you easily can generate enough electrical power to allow you to use some appliances, run a computer, turn on a radio, and maybe even operate a room air conditioner or small refrigerator on really hot days. A lot depends upon how much you can afford to invest in your power generation.

Harness The Power Of The Sun When The Power Goes Out…

The ability to generate some electrical power will also make it easier for you to do some things that would otherwise be impossible, such as charging your cell phone and doing some work on your computer. Even a minimal amount of electrical power generation can make a lot of difference when the time comes.

Power Outage Survival Tip #2: Food Preservation

The food you have in your refrigerator and freezer is only going to stay cold for a maximum of two days. This is where most people give up and just throw that food away. However, you can make good use of that time to preserve your food. You can preserve just about everything you have in your refrigerator or freezer in one way or another.

Remember, there are a number of things in your refrigerator which don’t really need preserving. As Americans, we tend to put a lot of things in our refrigerators that are already preserved. Ketchup, jam, mayonnaise, and other condiments will most likely keep just fine even if they are left out on the counter. Other things like eggs don’t spoil very rapidly, so you don’t need to worry about them. The things you most need to concern yourself with are meats, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables.

Story continues below video

The easiest way to preserve fruits and vegetables is by canning them. If you are already canning produce from your garden (which you should do), then you’ve already got everything you need for canning. You can preserve meats by turning them into jerky. If you don’t have a solar dehydrator to use, don’t worry about it. Simply hang the strips of meat on a clothesline to dry.

Power Outage Survival Tip #3: Make A Zeer Pot

Another thing to consider for alternative refrigeration is making yourself a Zeer pot. This is a natural refrigerator which works by evaporation and cools quite well. While it is an ancient form of refrigeration, people still utilize this method in Third World countries today.

A Zeer pot is very simple to make. All you need is two ceramic pots which will nest inside each other. The outside pot needs to be unglazed and the inside pot can either be glazed or unglazed. When you put the pots together, fill the space between them with sand as well as the space below the inner pot. Then, fill the sand with water. Next, put the food inside the inner pot and cover the top of the unit with a wet cloth.

Story continues below video

The water will seep through the outer pot and begin to evaporate, thereby cooling the entire unit. You can keep produce and dairy products in the Zeer pot to ensure that they are fresh for a longer period of time. Typically, produce stored in a Zeer pot will last three to four times longer than produce that is left out. While not as good as a modern refrigerator, the Zeer pot works quite well, especially in arid climates.

Power Outage Survival Tip #4: Cooking

While you can cook on your barbecue grill during a power outage, you may want to have an alternate means of cooking available. Eventually, you’ll run out of charcoal or gas for your grille and you’ll still want to eat. Of course, if you’re heating your home with a fire, you can always cook over it as well.

The easiest and most efficient alternative for cooking is to build a rocket stove. Rocket stoves provide a lot of heat for a very small amount of fuel, making them highly efficient. The secret is that the rocket stove moves a large amount of air through the stove by natural convection. This fresh air helps ensure that the fuel is burned completely. It also keeps the fuel burning rapidly so that the temperature is maintained. Please be sure to read our article on rocket stoves for more information on this.

Story continues below video

Another alternative cooking method I want to mention is the camp stove. Most camp stoves today run off of small bottles of propane. I don’t like those for a survival situation, simply because you have to depend on having the propane bottles. However, Coleman still makes their older dual fuel camp stove. This is the type where you have to pump up the tank just like the Coleman lanterns.

The dual fuel stove will work either off of Coleman fuel or gasoline. While gasoline might be hard to come by in a grid-down situation, it will probably be easier to come by than other types of fuel. If nothing else, you can siphon it out of your car, giving you fuel to cook by for quite some time.

Power Outage Survival Tip #5: Heating Your Home

The other big challenge is going to be heating your home. All of our modern home furnaces require electricity to operate. With the grid down, you won’t have any heat at all.

This is one item that takes some prior planning and preparation. You’ll need to have some sort of heater available, as well as a good supply of fuel on hand. For the majority of people, the most obvious heater is either a fireplace or a wood burning stove. Another alternative to consider is a kerosene heater.

A wood burning stove can be installed temporarily for emergency use. The hardest part is making sure that you have an adequate fireproof floor under the stove. You don’t want to set it on carpeting, as it will most likely ruin the carpeting. Besides, both carpeting and wood floors can burn. If you don’t have a fireproof floor, you can easily put a temporary one in by overlapping layers of tile on your existing floor.

The chimney for the wood burning stove can be run out through a window. Simply remove one pane of glass and run the chimney through the hole. Make sure that the chimney is installed in such a way that the path the smoke must travel through is uphill all the way. Otherwise, the fumes might back up into the room. In addition, close off the extra space in the window with plywood.

This may require that your whole family lives in one or two rooms for the duration of the power outage, or at least until it warms up again. This is especially important at night when everyone is sleeping. While sleeping together in one room may be difficult, it won’t be as bad as freezing due to lack of heat.

You may also enjoy reading an additional Off The Grid News article: Build Your Own Solar-Powered Backup System

Do you have any other tips or suggestions for surviving during a long-term power outage? Let us know in the comments below.

Sign Up For Off The Grid News’ Weekly Email And Stay Informed About The Issues Important To You

The post Cooking, Surviving And Thriving During A Long-Term Power Outage appeared first on Off The Grid News.

This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here

15 Benefits of Aeroponic Growing

September 13, 2018 by chris

Aeroponic growing, while it may look wildly different from the conventional hydroponics setup, is still part of the family of hydroponics systems that uses no soil and a nutrient reservoir to deliver moisture and nutrients to plants.

What is it aeroponics, anyway?

When you’re running an aeroponic system, your plants are literally suspended in mid-air. And the reason for this is quite simple: being suspended in mid-air allows for the unfettered growth of the root mat, which is de facto the most important structure of a plant.

What makes aeroponics so interesting as a hydroponics system is it does away with the submersion of the crops’ root mass, allowing for its almost wild growth. The result is nothing short of stunning – fast growth, more weight during harvest and a system that runs literally on a misting mechanism.

Interested? Here are our top 15 benefits of aeroponic growing:

Benefit #1: It’s less complicated – Aeroponics systems use misters instead of the more conventional setup like NFT or ‘ebb and flow’ systems.

The misters are simply aimed at the direction of the root mats and a precise timer dictates when the water will wash over the roots. As a result, the roots get more oxygen while getting the water and nutrients it needs.

Benefit # 2: It uses fewer resources than conventional farming – If we were to compare aeroponics with conventional farming, you would see immediately what the world is missing out on. With a bit of help from technology, crops grow faster and they’re healthier, too!

You get to harvest your crops more quickly compared to plants in soil setups and at the same time, you save on resources while you’re at it.

Benefit # 3: Room air is the medium. – Obviously, the most striking difference between aeroponics and conventional hydroponics is that it doesn’t need grow pots and grow media to work.

The grow medium is what replaces the soil in a soil-free setup. In a conventional hydroponics setup, it serves as the absorber and distributor of the nutrient solution.

The air spaces in the grow medium also allow for the aeration of the roots of the crops.

Benefit # 4: The roots get more oxygen. – This is probably the best benefit of aeroponics, right next to the fact that you’re using a misting machine to actually grow plants.

The root mats of plants need oxygen to flourish, but we didn’t know just how much they LOVED oxygen until aeroponics came into the picture.

Minus soil and being submerged, the roots can grow massively with just water and open air.

Benefit # 5: It helps you save water. – Misting may sound like it will waste a lot of water, but it doesn’t, and here’s why: when you mist the root mat of plants, the excess just drips back to the nutrient reservoir.

Benefits of aeroponic growing — Aeroponic potatoes grown by ICP

Nothing is really wasted because evaporation of water contributes to the humidity of the place, which is also needed by the plants.

Benefit # 6: You will get better results. – This is one benefit that you can take to the bank.

If you want an approach that drastically minimizes root rot and just guarantees healthy plants until harvest, pick aeroponics. It may sound daunting in the beginning, but trust us, it’s a superior approach.

Benefit # 7: The system is easier to maintain. – Of course, this is a subjective appraisal from someone who has had experience with running a hydroponics system, but it still remains that aeroponics has such fewer moving parts that it is just a boon to people who get confused with juggling too many variables.

Benefit # 8: The equipment is simpler. – Maintaining a misting machine is easier than trying to maintain several water pumps, air pumps and what not, in conventional hydroponics setups.

And since you will be acquainted with one major type of machine, you will be able to master how it functions and possibly how to even fix it in a short span of time.

Benefit # 9: It’s easy to identify problems. – There are only two things that can really go wrong in an aquaponics system.

The first is when one or more misting heads are no longer delivering sufficient moisture and nutrients to the plants.

This can be due to a clogged head, a faulty timing mechanism, etc. The second one is obvious – if the power goes out, the misting will stop.

Both major problems are easy to solve with a backup power supply and some spare parts.

Benefit # 10: Maintenance is a breeze. – For the most part, you will be just checking the nutrient solution and the pH of the water, as well as making sure that the misting heads are functioning properly.

Benefit # 11: You work with fewer components. – As you perfect your system, you will be able to master how to create ideal conditions in your aquaponics setup.

You will be able to upgrade as necessary when your misting machine is no longer ideal, and all this will come in due time as you observe how your crops respond to the system itself.

Benefit # 12: You can experiment with different kinds of plants. – Since your plants will be suspended, you can grow large plants if you want to – it depends on your preferences.

You will not be weighed down by the constraints of grow pots.

Benefit # 13: You can combine this system with other systems. – It sounds crazy, but you can. You can replace your conventional setup with a misting setup even if you have an aquaponics system at home.

The water will still be routed from the fish tank and you will get the same results since it’s just nutrients and moisture being sprayed onto your plants.

Benefit # 14: It’s easier to master. – Again, with fewer variables, you will be able to master your aquaponics system in no time.

Benefit # 15: It is easily scalable. – People often think that aeroponics is hard to scale, but it’s not.

All you have to do is do a bit of plumbing, add more misting heads, and voila – you can add more plants.

***

Heather Fitzpatrick is someone who enjoys gardening & also teaching others about it. She runs OriginHydroponics.com, a site focused on teaching others how to garden without using soil.

Like this article? Subscribe to our newsletter to get more great content and updates sent to your inbox!

This article first appeared on offgridworld.com Check it out here