Thoughts on Co-Prepping and "Home-Grown Terrorism"

Some links about "Home Grown Terrorism"

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13290698/The-Modern-Militia-MovementMissouri-MIAC-Strategic-Report-20Feb09-

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/wp-content/uploads/ColoradoFBISurplusStore.pdf

OMG! These are the types of people I live around.
This week was pretty hectic at work. I was pretty involved in a lot of various out-putting of 'fires' - everything from social-services-induced drama with some teenagers to co-teaching a class on American History (I was able to give the Southern perspective and some factual information about the War of Northern Aggression ).

Talking to one of the teachers about her horse ranch, we discussed the recent lifting of the ban on horse-slaughtering in the US. Yes, that's right - the ban that PETA and HSUS fought for six years ago has now been lifted, and horses will now be able to be processed for meat for human consumption. My friend actually owns two ranches, one here and one in Wyoming. We discussed what this would mean not only to the wild horses of the Plains, but to horse ranchers in general, as well as human consumption and availability of horse meat. (When the US was slaughtering horses, most of the meat went overseas.) Horse ranchers will once again be able to 'cull' their herds, and the price of good sound rideable stock will go back up. The cost of good animals will soon be higher - since the culls will soon be sent to slaughter. So if you are thinking about getting a horse or two or several, you may want to look into it rather quickly. If you don't know anything about horses, their care, upkeep, and requirements as well as their training, find someone local who does, to school you.

We had a 47,000 acre ranch sell here yesterday for $11.7 million. The bid opened at $10 million, and there were no takers. Since this ranch employs many of our local cowboys and particularly the managing family who are friends of mine, we were concerned. There was some spirited bidding between Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, some overseas buyers and some Ted Turner factions, but the winner was an American family from ND. This family of 7 brothers owns much of the land in ND, some in SD, and now a part of NE. It will continue to be run as a cattle ranch/hay-and-corn harvesting ranch. We are all breathing a sigh of relief that the land won't be brutalized and overgrazed by some get-rich-quick schemer, or turned into a holiday property with delusions of "ranch life" for the rich and bored. Life will continue; lots of beef, lots of production, lots of good solid investment in the future of not only beef but the ranching way of life that is all too quickly disappearing.

 One of the local large ranchers has a wife with whom I work. We were talking about the sale and the ranching way of life. She noted that many folks who call themselves 'ranchers' now might have only 20 head, where they used to graze 500. Some kids are growing up to go to college and never come back. Her own husband joked that, "If we had known what it was like 20 years ago, we'd have sold grandpa's property and gone to town and gotten jobs!" Ranching is a risky proposition even in the best of times; and takes constant application. Her DH and two sons are jacks-of-all-trades; dig wells, repair their own tractors and machinery, even bore out engines when necessary. But as she said, the most important thing is that they hold onto the property - because even if cattle go down to $.15 a pound, they'll still have their gardens and their own meat. Most of the folks around here are canning and dehydrating fools, and are stocking our basements and pantries and freezers with alacrity. We are a dawn-to-dusk beehive of self-and-mutually-reliant 'terrorist activity'.

"Winter" is coming, the dark winter of struggle and survival, and we are watching it from our High Plains location; investing in everything to ensure that we will have food, not just for ourselves, but for each other and even to sell. The lye came in, so now I can make soap from the 50 lbs of pigfat I rendered down for lard. This spring I will go East to attend a UNL college course on - beekeeping. Wax and sugar from tiny little critters to advance my own self-sufficiency, as well as to share, trade, or even sell.

Incidentally, our first steer that we had processed came out to $250 for 4 100-lb boxes of steak, roasts, and burger... guess that definitely makes me a terrorist, since I've got more than 7 days of food, not counting the 400 lbs of pig (including the backfat) we got from the processor last month. There are several hundred "terrorists" around me, though; all planning and prepping, stocking up and harvesting, so we are in good company. Every news story, every new development, from a ranch sale to a slaughterhouse, we carefully fit into our futures. We don't talk about it much; there are no meetings of preppers, no political organizational meetings, no shouting disagreements at the local bar or restaurant. We are too busy to Occupy other peoples' property, too busy to go to meetings or protests, too industrious to sit and listen while folks tell us what is coming. We already know. We share work and skills and output, recipes and materials, and we work together to make our own lives full - often without a dollar being exchanged.