Here is an update on what I have been attempting to accomplish toward my resilience.  It is important to note the timeline because it seems like so many people are able to just commit a small fortune and an entire week of time to getting their garden (or whatever) established, but let’s face it, there are a lot of people stuck in the rat race that only have snippets of time and limited funds to try and pursue their freedom/independence with.

04/21/13 Saturday Action

–          Bought two more bags of soil $14.99ea ($29.98)

–          Bought Rosemary bush – $14.99

–          Bought 2 lettuce plants, 1 broccoli, 3 cauliflower – $1.29ea ($7.74)

04/27/13 Saturday

Yesterday I overheard the staffing agent for our location mention that he enjoys hunting, so I asked him about it to open up a dialogue.  Always be looking to expand your social network with like-minded people, right?  He said the next time he and some friends get together to go hog hunting he’d let me know.  If he does I fully intend to take him up on it.  This will get me the opportunity to meet other people that know how to hunt, I can get pointers from people skilled at it, and I’ll be able (hopefully) to stock my freezer.  He said you can get a hog butchered for about $65, which is a good deal for 100 pounds of free range meat.

04/27/13 Saturday Action

–          Bought 4 strawberry plants and added them to the garden beds – $1.97ea

–          Planted rosemary bush in front of house.  I hope to replace useless decorative bushes with useful ones.  I don’t know if the rosemary will get enough sun or not which is why I only planted one.  If it does well then I’ll plant at least two more to start a hedge.

5/5/13 Sunday

OF course one of the ways of cutting my monthly expenses that I’ve been most successful at (which has enabled me to spend as much as I have on the garden) is in the grocery department.  As a general rule I try to only buy meat that is less than $2/pound.  This isn’t always easy, and it means we rarely get to eat beef.  I do spend more on fish because if I find fish for that price, I’m thinking I probably don’t want to eat it.  Also when it comes to chicken it must be less than $1/pound.  It helps that I don’t buy boneless, skinless breasts which happens to be my least favorite part of the bird.  Since adding more fat to my diet and all but eliminating bread and pasta, my cholesterol numbers have improved dramatically.

5/5/13 Sunday Action

–          Bought another blueberry bush (Tifblue?) since two are required for pollination – $10.  Neither is in the ground yet, still trying to determine the best place to plant for proper sun exposure and I need to acidify the soil for them.  I’ll probably buy (aaaargh: buy buy buy!!!!) some azalea potting soil mix to plant them in and water them with water/apple cider vinegar solution.

–          Bought a jalapeno plant for variety – $2.98

–          Created a very rough map to record what times the sun hits the different areas of my yard and what times they go back into shade

–          I have moved the basil plant to a much sunnier location because the first basil plant only gets about 2.5-3 hours of sun each day.  I’ll see which does better.

–          Bought another case of Raman noodles (12 ct)  to add to preps – $2.28

–          Bought a 16 pound brisket for 1.97/pound – finally, beef!!

–          Bought 3 sweet potatoes from the grocery store that I am going to plant and see if they grow.  I have done this with regular potatoes, and in fact are what is doing best in my garden currently.  Not only can you eat the tuber part of the sweet potato which is better for you than regular potatoes, but you can eat the greens as well.  At least this is what I’ve heard.  Don’t know what they taste like but they can’t taste worse than dandelion leaves or collard greens.

5/7/13 Tuesday

I have to keep this in the front of my mind when I think about just how much money I have spent starting my garden.  It is something that must be done for all the reasons I’ve listed in the past: if you can’t feed yourself you aren’t truly free; the quality of the food we purchase and consume is terrible; there is more to growing your own food than just sticking it in the ground, this is a skill that must be developed and there is a definite learning curve.

I find myself broke again and halfway wishing I hadn’t spent the money.  I don’t have to garden right now; perhaps I could have used the money more productively.  The garden isn’t going to make me money, not too sure it’s going to save me money – especially this first year.  I am trying to adjust to being a single dad and make it on my income without overtime.

Make no mistake, I thought I could learn to garden on the cheap, a little at a time, but that would just make the learning curve exponentially long.

5/7/13 Tuesday Action

–          None that I can think of

5/8/13 Wednesday

I took today off from work because it is my youngest’s birthday and I wanted to see her off to school and be here when she got home, she really likes it when I am.  It’s also a good dad thing, let’s her know that she matters and that she is important to me; that I would sacrifice for her.  This also gives me an opportunity to clean up the house before the ex comes over and it allows me to get a little more life done as well.  Priced materials for the patio cover I want to make.  Looks like I’ll need to spend around $200.  That’s just to get it covered, that doesn’t include the cost of building the deck on top of the cover.  The material I priced will be for supporting the second story deck, it’s just that instead of building the floor of the deck I’ll probably just add some of that sun screen material over the frame until I am ready to buy the remaining lumber and hardware for the floor and railing of the deck.  This is contributes to resilience because it will reduce my cooling bill this summer.  I know this for a fact.

5/8/13 Wednesday Action

–          Bought some organic azalea soil mix to plant my blueberries in – $12.99.

–          Priced materials for the patio cover I want to make.

5/12/13 Sunday

I have a 30gal trash can in my garage that I have been using to keep random things like scooters, tarps, bicycle pumps etc. in.  I originally found it in that alley waiting for trash pick up because it was filled with rotting yard waste.  Someone had filled it with leaves and grass, then left it through a couple of rains and sun, and it stunk.  I took some garbage bags and dumped the rotting debris into it, took the can home and cleaned it.  Well today I found new homes for the stuff it was holding it took it out back to use as a water catchment.  The plan is to set it up on two cinder blocks for some elevation right under my drain spout.  I will put a hole near the bottom and run a hose into it so I can use rain water for watering.  I guess I’ll have to use aquarium glue instead of caulk to avoid any chemicals in the water.  I have some screening that I will put over the top of the trash can that is long enough to hang over the sides so I can just wrap some cordage around the can to hold the screen in place.  I believe the mesh is fine enough to keep mosquitoes out.

5/12/13 Sunday Action Taken Toward Resiliency

–          Planted two blueberry bushes, amend soil. Put excess dirt from the holes along the back fence (lowest part of my property) to form a berm – 1 hour

–          Dug out container for water catchment – 20 minutes