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A Primer on Growing Your Own Dyes
Dying your own fabrics and yarns can be fun, but to do it on your own, you’ll need a dyer’s garden. Choose an area specifically for this special garden where the plants will have the sunlight needed. When planting your dyer’s garden, be sure the location of the herbs allows you to take them without injuring other nearby. Prepare it as you would for your kitchen herbs.
continue reading...Recent Posts
Below is a collection of the most recent articles published in the Off The Grid Newsletter.
- The Corruption of America with Martin Selbrede – Episode 086
- A Primer on Growing Your Own Dyes
- Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Calls President Obama “Thin Skinned”
- Helping Your Dyslexic Child Succeed
- Google Again Raises Privacy Issues With Announcement
- The Scarborough Herbs
- Most Powerful Solar Storm in Seven Years
Off The Grid Marketing
Helping Your Business Weather a Recession
Grim economic forecasts can trouble new small-business owners. But veteran entrepreneurs will tell you this is not the time to give up hope. Instead, it’s time to strategize so that your business will weather the recession. During a recession it is possible for your business to survive and thrive, when you make smart decisions…. In a tough economy, volume is important, and you want to keep your customers happy and coming back for more.
continue reading... Financial
The One Commodity Worth More Than Gold Do you want real financial security? Would you like to go to bed at night knowing that when you wake up in the morning, your job hasn’t been packed up and shipped overseas to some call center in India or to some factory floor in China? While there is a place for a saving program
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Secrets for Funding Your New Business Idea Small and independent business owners all over the country have a serious problem. They need loans, but they can’t get them from the banks. At the same time, the federal government is flooding the airwaves with promotions for easy money programs and bragging about how much capital is available. Clearly, there’s a disconnect, and it’s
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Easy Credit vs. Regulations: Why You Can’t Get a Loan Interest in alternative financing methods is accelerating all over America. This is no accident. It is a direct reaction to the way banks seem to have shut their doors for good. If you’re not trying to borrow a million bucks, they don’t want to talk to you. Even if they do “open a dialogue” with
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Religion
The Success Secret Entitlement Culture Hates The Most What if coming from a culture shaped by the demands of growing rice also makes you better at math? —Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (2008) Time and Chance There is more to success than genius or talent, we all know that. Sometimes success stories are bound up with what look like coincidence and circumstance far beyond human
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The Covenant Calendar They had the shadows, we have the substance. —Matthew Henry on Colossians 1:17 The Ever Circling Years In pagan religion, man helps sustain the cycles of Nature and perhaps the universe itself through ritualistic magic. The traditional magician’s formula is, “As below, so above.” For pagan worship, the microcosm always turns the macrocosm—the universe. Since
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New Year’s Resolutions Or New Year’s New Hearts The kingdom of this world/Is become the kingdom of our Lord, And of His Christ, and of His Christ;/And He shall reign forever and ever… —“The Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah Time… it is the one unifying constant, besides death, across the earth. We all march to the beat of its drum. Minutes stream into
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Politics
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Calls President Obama “Thin Skinned” Arizona Governor Jan Brewer expressed disappointment concerning her meeting with President Obama at a Phoenix airport on Wednesday. In her words, the president proved “thin-skinned” in his remarks about her recent book Scorpions for Breakfast. In an interview with KFYI radio, Governor Brewer said, “”He brought up my book. And he was a little tense. “I asked him if he read my book, ‘Scorpions for Breakfast,’ and he said he read the excerpt and he didn’t think that I was very cordial… He was somewhat…
Google Again Raises Privacy Issues With Announcement Google recently announced its intention to track the activities of users across almost all of its holdings.Users of YouTube, Gmail, and Google Search will not have the option of opting out. It will apply to all of its services with the exception of Google Wallet, Google Books, and the Chrome web browser.
Google promises added benefits to its users and a simplification of its privacy policy. Privacy advocates, on the other hand, believe the changes not only are an invasion of privacy but will invite …
Thirty Years of Living on the Dole Ends for the Ethanol Industry Convincing the federal government to end wasteful spending programs is usually about as easy as getting a crocodile to sit still so he can have his teeth brushed. Once the government starts subsidizing some kind of private interest or industry, those who benefit from this largesse will do everything in their power to keep those handouts coming. Because there is no money to be raised or votes to be gained in ending a government program, these efforts usually succeed, and the wasteful spending then continues indefinitely.
Energy
Most Powerful Solar Storm in Seven Years The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has confirmed the most powerful solar storm on our sun since 2005.The height of the resulting barrage of charged particles triggered by the solar flare is expected to last from early Tuesday, January 24 through Wednesday January 25.
There are numerous solar storms of varying intensity but this may mark the beginning of a series of solar super-storms. The sun is nearing the height of a predictable 11 year cycle. That cycle will culminate with its greatest solar activity…
The Big Picture Behind the Keystone Pipeline The proposed 1,700-mile long Keystone pipeline would transport crude oil from Canada’s oil sands region in Alberta to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. TransCanda (TRP), the company that would build the pipeline, predicts Keystone would create 20,000 direct jobs and upwards of 120,000 indirect jobs. So, with 13,000 construction jobs, 7,000 direct support jobs,
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Saving on Heat and Energy in the Wintertime: A Primer Longer days and warmer nights lighten energy demands considerably during the summer months. As the calendar turns in most parts of the United States, however, the situation changes dramatically. In these locales, the cold and darkness of winter will eventually descend to confine people to their homes and increase the size of their heating and
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Privacy
Google Again Raises Privacy Issues With Announcement Google recently announced its intention to track the activities of users across almost all of its holdings.Users of YouTube, Gmail, and Google Search will not have the option of opting out. It will apply to all of its services with the exception of Google Wallet, Google Books, and the Chrome web browser.
Google promises added benefits to its users and a simplification of its privacy policy. Privacy advocates, on the other hand, believe the changes not only are an invasion of privacy but will invite …
You Don’t Need a Perfect Password Given enough time, ingenuity, equipment, and resources, virtually anything can be hacked into. The truth is, there is no such a thing as a perfect password. Many burglars admit they don’t bother with the house that has all the security. Why should they when a house two blocks down has none at all? The same
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The Privacy Trade-Off It’s a safe bet you will have heard, perhaps paraphrased many times over, Benjamin Franklin’s observation: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Why would I make such a bet? Because if you are reading this, you have likely already decided that to arrive
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Health
Healthy Skin Without Harsh Chemicals I once spent more than $60 on a tube of face wash. There, I admitted it – but I’ll also admit that now I spend less than a $5 to get the same results. I’m making my own stuff now, and surprisingly enough, it puts the junk I used to get from the store to
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Easy Homemade Beauty Treatments Exfoliation is not a primary preparedness worry, but I’m vain. I want to look good while I’m growing my own food, distilling my own water, and otherwise living off the land. To buy something from the beauty aisle would be cheating – but making my own stuff is fine. Body scrubs are one of the
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How to Make Your Own Deodorant Deodorant. It’s the one toiletry most of us won’t do without – after all, who wants to stink? Not even our ancestors put up with nasty body odor. Early commercial deodorants ate through clothes they were so strong, but people enthusiastically put them on to avoid smelling foul all day. Unfortunately, even modern deodorants still
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Education
A Primer on Growing Your Own Dyes Dying your own fabrics and yarns can be fun, but to do it on your own, you’ll need a dyer’s garden. Choose an area specifically for this special garden where the plants will have the sunlight needed. When planting your dyer’s garden, be sure the location of the herbs allows you to take them without injuring other nearby. Prepare it as you would for your kitchen herbs.
Helping Your Dyslexic Child Succeed When teaching your children at home, you can encounter some tough moments. There will be times when your child refuses to do anything, when she gripes and complains, and worst of all, when she tries her best, but feels like a failure. When you are trying to educate your own kids, you are bound to be busy, stressed, and tired. If one of your children has dyslexia, you can multiply this by ten. Both you and she will encounter moments of intense frustration and feelings of hopelessness.
Composting: Practical and Educational You probably encounter teachable moments on a daily basis as a homeschooling parent. Being self-sufficient lends itself to a wealth of opportunities for teaching your children about science, math, language, and history. Composting is one of those great chances for science education. And with a little creativity, you can turn the experience in to other
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Extreme Survival
Mountaineering Tips and Techniques Mountaineering in the remote wilderness requires almost complete self-reliance. There is no backup plan. Everything a mountaineer does will have a direct and dramatic impact on comfort, success, and the end result: whether they get home safely or not. Subjecting oneself to the harshest environments, for whatever the reason, breeds the same types of techniques
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Edible Plants, Part 5: Allergic Reactions from Plants and Mushroom Identification Sometimes a wilderness scenario it isn’t always about “survival” but rather about testing your survivability, or training your skills. This article is more about not being ridiculous. Sure, test yourself, build your skills and use them to their maximum levels if you are ever in a real survival situation, but forget the idea that you
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Edible Plants, Part 4 In an extended survival scenario, food will become a primary concern; however, plants can be used more than just food. This article talks about a potentially more pressing concern in a survival situation: medicine. Medicinally, wild plants can be helpful during extreme situations and even prove to be life saving. Remedies for common concerns: Jewelweed:
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Misc
Purely American Fun Facts I’ve always been a collector of trivia and otherwise little known facts. Here is an assortment of totally unrelated yet interesting facts about all things American. The number “172′” can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. President Kennedy was the
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Wentworth Cheswell– African American Founding Father Wentworth Cheswell was the grandson of black slave, Richard Cheswell, who gained his freedom in 1717 and became the first black man to be a property owner in New Hampshire. Wentworth’s father was a house wright who was distinguished for building the homes of several of the patriot leaders, including John Paul Jones and the
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27 Reasons Why We Became a New Nation In 1989, a bargain hunter purchased a frayed painting at a flea market for $4. You can imagine his surprise when the shopper later discovered an old copy of the Declaration of Independence tucked away between the canvas and the frame. But his surprise didn’t stop there. As it turned out, the find was one
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Food
The Scarborough Herbs I might not be sure what “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme” are doing in the Scarborough Fair song, but I do know why I like to grow them. They add pizazz to my cooking, and they’re easy to grow. While some people like to grow their herbs right along with their vegetables in their survival gardens, I prefer to give them a separate space. Some herbs can be a bit unruly. Sage, for instance, has a tendency to sprawl, while unsupervised mint will try to take over your entire garden.
Stand-Out Desserts I don’t know about you, but when I come to a family or church dinner, I don’t always like to have the traditional items. Yes, my mother’s banana pudding recipe is to die for, but lots of other people come to get-togethers with banana pudding in tow. I like having a few unusual (but tasty)
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Homemade Birthday Cakes With my birthday this week, cakes have definitely come to mind. My mom never bought cakes– she always let me pick a delicious and amazing cake from her recipe book, and then she made it for me with her own two hands. They made for some sweet memories! Plum Cake 1 cup oil 2 cups
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