It's been a while, anyone out there?

I'm going to assume I'd been hearing crickets right about now, but I'll digress anyways lol. It's been several months since my last post, and while I'll admit I haven't done a lot in the way of prepping since my last post, I will however state that I haven't done nothing. A few purchases here and a couple new thoughts there along with some intermittent learning and. Arrive here today. The main catalyst for my absence was a cross country move back in October. Our youngest daughter whom was diagnosed with classic autism at the age of 18 months started to show signs of bipolar disorder at the age of 14. With the two disorders life became very hard, and living in a small community in a small (numbers wise) territory in northern canada with no real services available, the move back to civilization became all too nessisary. Now being a mostly unplanned move made it a. Pretty costly, and b. very badly planned and executed. So with the cost and lack of jobs in place, we've spent these many months with barely enough money to scrape by, hence the lack of anything preppry. I pretty much altogether ceased even looking at stuff online or in person, due to the fact that it drove me crazy not to be ale to purchase anything. So, what have I been up to since my last post? Lets list it off. 1. Upon arrival here I received my last "cool" purchase in the mail, and that was a katana sword which is pretty cool and very not me to purchase. Not that I wouldn't want a sword, but that spending money on something that I definitely will not get to use (properly that is) until the shit really has hit the fan, is really not like me. I have a hard time justifying things I will use, so this was a change of mindset purchase for me. 2. For Christmas I got myself one of those folding pocket style camping stoves and a wire saw.... I know what you're thinking, "whoa big spender, calm down now save some for the next guy lol" but I chose to really not get anything for Christmas so the kids could have something decent, especially with this potentially being our eldest daughters last at home. 3. Over the course of the six months, I've purchased a couple decent used bags to start putting together bug out bags for the rest of the family. So far, my bag is the only one that has anywhere near what one could survive off of, with the others containing more spill ove items from my bag that could be "left behind" if need be. But I eventually hope that all the bags with be self sufficient yet complimentary to each other. One of the secondary bags contains one of those butane stoves that we use to take camping with us, that if we were to have to bug out, would be very nice for cooking. It doesn't take up much space in the bag either, even with extra butane canisters. A little too bulky for my primary, but nicely in a secondary grab if we can handle it bag. 4. I haven't stopped watching any and every eotwawki movie or TV show I can get my hands on over the past few months, I would imagine you can expect reviews on most of them over the next while. Movies and TV shows keep the brain thinking about things I never thought of, s they're good for that. 5. I've recently started another garden, after last years utter failure I decided to try it again. This year I've started planting seedlings inside and hope to plant outside in a few weeks, here's hoping this venture goes better than previously. I'll more than likely write a more detailed description of the garden in anther post soon. On a semi unrelated side note, I alo stopped posting to the TEOTWAWKI CONFESSIONS blog back in October as well. Not that I don't have more confessions to post, I do, and in time I will. So if you follow that blog or wsh to participate in that movement check it out at http://teotwawkiconfessions.blogspot.ca/ and send in some confessions if the mood strikes you, just follow the instructions on that site about submissions. So with all that being said, hopefully this isn't the last post got another six months, do until next time, here's hoping you get why you need before the shit hits.

How to Fail at Post SHTF Container Gardening Letting Your Family Die

Back in May I posted that I had started a container garden on the patio of my apartment. With little to no experience in gardening at all I started it all on a whim and with no information at all. Big mistake number one. I didn't take into account when anything should have been planted, or sprouted first or whatever, never took into account different soil variations for different plants and so on and so forth. I definitely had some special issues due to my patio being so small and adding on a full sized BBQ that we had purchased so that I could get familiar with BBQ'n before the shit hits the fan (yeah, I'm that much not a man). Needless to say at this point in the year I can safely say that if we were post apocalypse right now, my family would be f@$?ed right about now...I just killed my family lol. The good thing is, we're not post SHTF so the groceries are still coming. A few things I mentioned earlier attributed to my agriculturist demise, but also add on August having uncharacteristically warm days for here and me having no plan to supplement my crops with water in a consistent manner and my crops have been drying out frequently. Also apparently I've got aphids, which at this int doesn't matter as everything is pretty much dead and pathetic, so I've caved on my first year of growing. A complete and utter failure. For a while it was looking pretty good, had carrots growing pretty well, the cucumber plants were going crazy, little baby cucumbers everywhere, the peas were doing well for a while and the tomatoes were looking good. But in the end I got lazy and discouraged and everything died. I know for sure, that I'm going to spend a lot of this fall and winter preparing mentally for next year. Going to learn everything I can about anything and everything that I would want to grow, so that when spring comes around next year I'll be good to go, and living large once the product hits the table. Just goes to show that there is a lot of this that you can't just jump into without the information to back it up. Exactly what I got into this stuff for...information and knowledge. So I guess from one beginner to any of you that are considering yourselves beginners, learn your trade before you apply it lol. So with all that being said, I won't be discouraged from trying again. I know it's not uncommon for people to fail at their first attempts at gardening, and I'm fully aware that that attempts was pluralized for a reason, I may very well fail again next year, even armed with the information I acquire this year. So if your reading this, and you've failed only to become a good gardener one day, why don't you leave the tale of your failed garden and maybe perhaps what turned the tide for you and your gardens since. Maybe links to sites that directly helped you, or books you've read. Help a pre-post-SHTF-EOTWAWKI-brother out lol.