Resources and Encouragement to help you Prepare

Your Preparation Station – Current Shows

The most recent episodes before they are archived for members.

Join us as we talk about the basics of Pandemic Preparedness, Personal, Community & Government Preparedness with Mark Linderman

Sponsored by PREPARE Magazine! – Get your FREE Digital Subscription HERE

My Guest today is Mark Linderman. He is the Preparedness Coordinator for a local Health Department which he has
served for over 18 years. He is also an instructor for the Fairbanks School of Public Health at Indiana University teaching public health preparedness. He also instructs courses in Natural Disasters and Crisis/Risk Communications at Crown College and Ashland University, and Graphic Design for Purdue University. Additionally, Mark is one of 50 professionals in the United States who is certified as a Public Health Communicator, and currently instructs Crisis and Emergency Risk Communications for the Centers for Disease Control, as well as Vantage Point Consulting based in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Connect with Mark Linderman on TwitterYouTube & Facebook

We talk about pandemics, H1N1, Anthrax, Government Involvement and much more!

Garden Pets and PesticidesGarden Pests and Pesticides – they go hand in hand in some areas.  Dealing with Garden Pests and Pesticides is the second in the series of three shows designed to help you get the most out of your garden this year.  Hopefully you have had the opportunity to listen to the first show: Tips for Prepping the Garden

In this next episode of the series Scott talks with me about Dealing with Pests: Pesticides, Neighborhood Drift & Natural Options to do away with the pesky bugs (No, sorry no natural tips to do away with neighbors who use pesticides, just the bugs 🙂 ).

Listen here for tips to deal with Garden Pests & Pesticides:

Garden Pets and Pesticides – Second Show in Series

And don’t forget to sign up to learn more and ask your own specific questions while Scott joins us for further training.  Register to attend this LIVE, NO COST training scheduled after this series of Podcasts are through.  From your own home, you can join in and learn more that pertains directly to you!

To see more and to register simply click – HERE

Prepping your Garden - First Show“Prepping the Garden” is the first show in a series of three shows I have had the fortune of recording with my guest Scott Peterson.  Prepping the garden is also the first step for having a successful growing season.

In our neck of the woods the ‘old timers’ say not to put anything in the ground until after Mother’s Day.  Honestly, it’s for good reason too. We’ve had 4 days of frost after the ‘first day of Spring’ and I know our soil temperature is well below what will germinate.  So we’re still in the phase of prepping the garden.  Maybe you are too and this show is just what you need to tweak a few things before the seedlings go in.

Scott talks with me about Irrigation, Mulching &Timing when to put in your Transplants.  Take a listen to this short 30 minute podcast and be sure to tun in to the next one dealing with Garden Pests & Pesticides and the last one dealing with Seed Saving. 

Prepping Your Garden on Your Preparation Station

We also have a LIVE, NO COST training scheduled after this series of Podcasts are through.  You can click that image below to register for it for free. To see more you can also click – HERE

 Unlimited Food Source

Making Salt

Making Salt is honestly an activity, or rather I should say, a skill that had never seriously occurred to me before meeting my guest, Jim Bordwine: “The Salt Maker”.  I was as excited to interview him for my own education as I was to interview him for you to hear!  

It turns out, that in the USA there is a major source of salt that is actually harvest-able with out mining. The small town of Saltville, VA has played pivotal roles in the early years of our country – much of it due to the salt and what can provide from preservation to it’s value in war.

Jim graciously shares his wealth of knowledge based on his own family history, his skill as ‘The Salt Maker’ (both in practice and historical reenactment) and little known history of the role that salt played in our American History.  You can even connect with him via email at TheSaltMaker@yahoo.com

I hope you’ll listen and not only learn how salt can be but still is made today. You’ll pick up some great DIY tips from Jim and begin to see salt and salt making in a whole new light.  You may find yourself quite surprised how this natural commodity, that we often take for granted, turns out to be so very valuable.  As are some of the lessons from our history that revolve around it.

Listen to the Podcast Below:

Salt Making, The History and It’s Role in War

Native People Skills with Raven Pressley

The Skills of Native Peoples can help us survive. But how do we learn these long lost skills?  Skills that were advanced for their time but didn’t rely on electronic technology.  These were and are the skills of survival.  It would do us good to learn them, practice and experience them again.

Some folks, such as my guest, Benjamin ‘RAVEN’  Pressley spend their time practicing and teaching these lost arts.  I had the opportunity to catch up with Raven and find out about the new things he has to share in our area of the Blue Ridge & Smokey Mountains.  If you live in another area, please feel free to connect with Raven to inquire about bringing a class to your area.  Listen to the interview below:

Native Skills – Raven

A little more about my guest  “Raven”

Benjamin ‘RAVEN’  Pressley practices and teaches the skills of the past; primitive, survival and wilderness living skills practiced for generations by Native Americans and aboriginal peoples all over the world. Raven teaches all ages. He teaches independently on as needed/for hire basis and through the school he founded called EARTHTEK. He has taught and continues to teach at schools, civic organizations, Scouts, Y-Indian Guides, Royal Rangers, YMCA, museums and historical sites. He has written and self published 13 books on various primitive, survival and wilderness living skills. He is also a writer for magazines, such as:Backwoodsman, Wilderness Way and American Survival Guide. Benjamin has been a Staff Editor for Backwoodsman magazine and the Southeastern U.S. Field Editor for Wilderness Way magazine. He has played in instructional video curriculum and educational television movies depicting life in our country between 1750-1790. Raven is able to bring years of experience to your school, club, civic organization or group. He is also available for personal instruction. Raven is able to offer demonstrations, lectures, hands-on instructional classes and workshops of any length, whatever you have in mind. He is able to offer instruction and presentation of primitive, wilderness living, survival, early American (Historic, i.e. After Columbus), Native American (Historic and Prehistoric) and aboriginal skills and crafts.

Be sure to connect with the links below:

Life Cube Header

What is a Life Cube? Emergency Unit, Bug Out Home and More…

Have you heard of these before?  Ok, I’ll admit to feeling like a little kid when I watch the videos on their site of how easy these things ‘inflate’…I won’t lie.  They look fun!  But they may remind you of a ‘bouncy house’ for play – but they are far from just for fun! The Life Cube has a myriad of applications from large scale disaster to simplified camping.  

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I had the opportunity to interview Nick Pederson form Life Cube to get the scoop on this revolutionary building.  You can listen to our interview by clicking this link below: 

Interview with Nick Pedersen from Life Cube

Besides the primary use of providing emergency shelter,some of the other potential uses of the Life Cube are: 

  1. Field medical
  2. Communications center
  3. Virus/disease containment
  4. Recreational

Nick and I also discussed, that how it appears that so many Americans are unwilling to adequately prepare for disaster/emergency situations until it is too late. According to Nick, one of the things that contributes to this apathy are that most Americans think nothing bad can/will happen to them (American Exceptionalism). One major thing we tend to forget in America is that Mother nature does not play favorites. 

At Life Cube, they’ve  tried to make note of the fact that for every $1 spent in disaster prep, people will have to spend $4 in disaster relief. You would think that savings that high paired with the fact that preparation saves lives would be enough incentive to prepare but apparently not.  

On their website, lifecubeinc.com, it’s mentioned that emergency shelters are stuck in the 20th century and that the 21st century needs a 21st century solution. So we discussed what makes the Life Cube so much more advanced than other shelter systems currently in the market.  Some of the unique things that Life Cube offers: 

  1. Mobility both on and offsite
  2. Self-sustainable power
  3. Rapid deployment (these things ‘blow up’ in minutes and can be set up by one or two people!)
  4. Like previously mentioned, it can be equipped for a number of uses depending on what the user needs
  5. Currently, no other shelter system combines all of the aforementioned features and most don’t have any of them at all!

Of course Preppers and  Outdoorsmen/women have shown interest in the Life Cube, but also certain government officials and organizations have expressed interest as well, and for good reasons mentioned above.

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You’ll have to listen to the show above to hear how the idea of Life Cube came from napkin to prototype.  It’s a rather global humanitarian effort in addition to the practicality for recreation and preparedness. One of the most ingenious things about the Life Cube is its versatility.  We hope you will connect with them and see it for yourself.  I look forward to what Life Cube can do for the masses in a disaster situation and for the individual who just wants the added security of self-sustaining shelter in an instant. 

 

 

A little more about my guest, Nick:

Nick Pedersen is the Business Development Manager for Life Cube, Inc. A former student of UC Santa Barbara’s Entrepreneurship School, he partnered with Michael Conner, President of Life Cube, to explore the feasibility of Michael’s technology. After winning the New Venture Competition, he joined the company full-time to acquire the early stage investments that allowed the company to build the first set of prototypes, expose the product to government agencies around the country, and expand the core team. Alongside this amazing team in Santa Barbara, California, Nick works every day to spread the vital message of preparedness.

Here are some great ways to connect with the folks at Life Cube

  1. lifecubeinc.com
  2. https://www.facebook.com/LifeCubeInc
  3. https://twitter.com/lifecubeinc

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Please share so we can all help each other be better prepared! Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

Learn to Grow A Straw Bale Gardne HeaderLearn to Grow a Straw Bale Garden with My Guest, Author Joel Karsten.

Listen to the show using the player below:

Learn Straw Bale Gardening with My Guest Joel Karlsten

I had the honor of interviewing Joel and leaving tremendously encouraged about this method of gardening.  As think and prepare for my elderly years, gardening is not something I am willing to give up simply due to physical limitations and straw bale gardening sounds just like the ticket to keep at it!  It is not only for the ‘seasoned’ gardener, as Joel puts it, but it is great for so many other circumstances and living environments.

He is going to be one of the speakers you can learn from FOR FREE at the Home Grown Food Summit!  But you’ll want to register SOON so click this banner just below.  You’ll see several people with whom you are likely familiar.

 

JOEL KARSTEN, a farm boy who grew up tending a soil garden like other gardeners have for centuries, shook up the gardening world with his first, award winning book, describing his breakthrough Straw Bale Gardening concept.  The New York Times called Straw Bale Gardening “a revolutionary gardening method” and his ideas have been enthusiastically embraced globally, making his books best-sellers in many languages.  Karsten earned a BS in Horticulture from the University of Minnesota and spends his summers tending his vegetable garden, doing research, and experimenting with new ideas and methods he can pass along to his followers. 

Links to connect with Joel:

www.StrawBaleGardens.com

www.Facebook.com/LearnToGrowAStrawBaleGarden

Straw Bale Garden Illustration Side View Cut away

YPS 11 - HEADER Jared StanleyClick Below to Listen: YPS – 11 Jarad Stanley to Air 3-19-15

Today I hope you will gain some Homesteading Inspiration from J and J Acres. More accurately from Jared Stanley! 

Jared is best known for his YouTube Channel – J and J Acres,  where he has nearly 300 videos!

He shares the adventures of his big family on a small farm as they work to become self-reliant. Jared and Jennifer homeschool their 5 children who are also learning valuable self-sustaining skills as they help around the property.  More about his life can be foudn at J and J Acres.net

In addition, Jared is a certified Permaculture Designer. You can learn more about that area of his life at his website Permasapien.com. He often teaches on homesteading subjects, is a guest speaker at conferences and offers consultations to folks who desire permaculture design.  He also runs a very active and fun Facebook Page on Homesteading

No matter where you are along your homesteading and self-sufficiency journey, we hope what Jared shares will inspire you to dig in and get busy!

Keep Growing and enJOY the Journey!

Donna Miller

This show is sponsored by Millers Grain House & PREPARE Magazine

Want your ad on our shows? GREAT! Send us an email!

YPS - 10 Ready Alabama Show

YPS Podcast – Ready Alabama?

John Mason ReadyAlabama

In this podcast, I’m delighted to connect with John Mason from Ready Alabama.

We had the opportunity to talk about serving people in a community before, during and after an emergency takes place.  No matter in which state you reside, you can learn some very important information in this podcast.

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Jon Mason grew up in Demopolis, AL.  He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Alabama and a Certificate in Meteorology from Mississippi State. His professional experience includes 18 years as a Meteorologist in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham.  Currently, Mr. Mason is the Director of Serve Alabama, the Governor’s Office of Faith-Based and Volunteer Service.  He has been in this position since January 2011 after being appointed by the Honorable Governor Robert Bentley.  Serve Alabama provides education and outreach to faith-based and community organizations, promotes volunteerism and service, manages the AmeriCorps State program and the Ready Alabama campaign. Mr. Mason resides in Tuscaloosa, AL with his wife and three children.

Websites to connect with all that the organization has to offer and to be updated on important events and emergencies:

http://www.readyalabama.gov/

http://www.servealabama.gov/

https://www.facebook.com/ReadyAlabama

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History Channel's Mountain Man Eustace Conway & Desere Need Help at Turtile Island Preserve

It is my pleasure once again to bring The History Channel’s Mountain Man Eustace Conway (who I first interviewed several years ago because of his life at Turtle Island Preserve) and Desere, office manage at T.I.P.  This is their 5th time on the air with me and they have some time sensitive info to share in which you can help by getting involved – own a Commemorative T-shirt to help build the primitive building of an historic chimney!

Also, they have a lot on the calendar coming up that you might like to join in on.  From the 2nd Families Learning Together Day on May 3, 2015 or perhaps Woods Woman Weekend you can see what’s happening at the Turtle Island Events Page

Eustace has also agreed to be our special guest on the March 11, 2015 Preparinar! Eustace will teach some of the much needed skills of living off the land, while you get to join in where ever you are located!  At the end, you can ask him questions and interact with the ‘Last American Man’ through the Preparinar’s Live Chat. Sign up HERE to be emailed when it gets closer to the time to register – it’s FREE if you attend it LIVE!  And who wouldn’t want to do that?  (:

On with the show this is it….

Listen to History Channel’s Mountain Man Eustace Conway & Desere