I Made the Buffalo Paper

and no it wasn't the Police blotter ... I had a phone interview with Tim Graham, a staff reporter for The Buffalo News both an online & hard copy newspaper. He wanted the low down from real life local preppers . 

Actually acknowledging to myself that I am a prepper has never been easy. 

I along with most of America has always thought of preppers as a gun toting fringe group hold up in the boonies. Cast members from the remake of Deliverance ... cue the banjos. 

Because to me in my mind the way I live my life wasn't prepping ... it was being prepared & being ghetto fugal ghetto Amish ... cue the boom box. 

As much as I'd like to say that I feel the need to use non-electric tools because I am green to the core or I worry about EMP issues the real truth is I'm cheap. In the past the cheaper I could be the less I needed to work outside the home when my babies were small. Now, well it's about hard economic times & saving for our old age.

I really didn't didn't expect to make the final cut of the article because to tell you the truth I was expecting a sensational over the top piece about the local preparedness movement here in Western New York ala Nat Geo's Doomsday Preppers. I had hopes that the subsection of preppers who prepare for lifes trails & tribulations like hubby's recent & ongoing unemployment wouldn't be excluded. 

I was pleasantly surprised ! Thank you Tim.

Here's the link - I'm mentioned under the heading Canned Goods not Zombies 

Some old homes have bats we have TP & old fans

The toilet paper was free thanks to Swagbucks which had $5 YaySave gift cards last month. Unforgivably the gc are no more which is a real heart break 'cause they were cheaper than the $5 Amazon gift cards. I bought the max allowed in March & April which was a total of ten = $50. Last year Swagbucks had the premium membership a $19.99 (free shipping & extra discount) value so I bought that with my swagbucks points. So yeah I got free Charmin no cost shipping. In fact the 4 roll Charmin packs also got me swagbucks so it was a double win win.

Now if I could only get Woods, to sell that finger tip slicing fan ! He said no, you never know when you'll have to slice up zombies with it.


~~ pelenaka ~~

Cheaper Than Dirt

Last week I got an email from Casey, whoever he or she may be, passing along a widget for a site that did a post on making a raised garden bed for $50. 

Five Zero. 

Fifty Washingtons. 

One third of a month of groceries.

Half a yard can buy allot in my world so I kinda was put out that this site was holding out their example as a cost effective fugal gardening method. It's a cool looking graphic that breaks down the cost of constructing a garden bed from scratch. 

I'd be impressed if it didn't cost so much.

Think of this as just a box spring.

This is a bed Woodsrunner built me four years ago out of old fence material I had saved from the but-ugly fence that surrounded my city lot. I didn't save much of that old fence but it's been enough so far. Woodsrunner had odds & ends (screws) laying around his workshop. I think we did actually spend some greenbacks on dirt but knowing myself I'd lay even money down that it wasn't more than $5 for bagged topsoil. 

Bed Me Baby

This year Hubby added a second frame or as I like to say a mattress to the box spring using a few more of those old fence boards tucked up in the rafters of his man cave. Only this time he was outta hardware so he came up with a tight MacGyver move ...

Metal Biscuits 

Those shinny circles are aluminium lids & bottoms from assorted nut cans used to join the fence boards. He's a good man to steal from his scrap metal stash - estimated cost/scrap metal value < 1¢

Like before I'll fill this level up with bunny poop, compost materials, egg shells, wood ash, alternating with bagged top soil that I scored last Autumn for a buck a bag. If you click on this blog post  the second pic is of this exact same bed using the direct compost method. Slick way to say no middle man a.k.a. no compost bin.

On a side note I love my free mulch courtesy of the city who had tree stumps ground the next street over last month. Thank you to hubby for snagging a few cart fulls.


~~ pelenaka ~~