The Bantam Voice

Here is my new blog I've started.

Bantam Voice.
One small voice on political and life issues

The blog is

bantamvoice.blogspot.com

The Crisis Club Interview

I recently was interviewed by Robert Joseph of "The Crisis Club" on his podcast.
I highly encourage you to listen to the whole podcast of which I was a part. This podcast isn't for everyone, but I feel it has a important role to play in our society. Their slogan (as seen above) is "Waking Mothereffers up Everywhere." That is what they hope to accomplish waking people up to not only the political craziness that is going on, but also to take responsibility for our nation by taking responsibility for our lives and to make changes accordingly.

They sometimes are a little harsh and crude. You can download the mp3 and skip to minute 35 which is where the interview starts, but once again I highly encourage you to listen to it all and give it a chance, If at the end of it you don't want to continue to listen, no problem it isn't for everyone, but if you like it please listen to their podcast and get involved. Either way you are already living their message by being aware and taking charge of your life.

My wife and I are good friends with Rob and he actually spent the 4th with us helping slaughter the chickens. We are trying to help the "crisis club" in any way we can and are "members" of the "cape fear crisis club." Please click the link and listen to the podcast and be encouraged to make an impact around you.

Click the crisis club banner on the side of the page or copy and paste the link below to go to the interview.
http://thecrisisclub.com/new-dialogue-crisis-club-dialogue-part-4-independence-day-spectacular/

The chicken was awesome

I have had a few people ask how the chicken tasted and it was amazing. I grilled it with our favorite sauce and the breasts were perfect and the legs a little dry, bit that was my fault. I needed to cook the legs in a moist environment and I did not.

Ill raise my own thanks

Makes me appreciate my home grown chickens and their hygiene compared to store bought.

Chicken roast 4th of july

My family and I along with a family friend slaughtered three chickens and are about to enjoy it. This was much easier than the last time and.re chickens are bigger and I believe will be tastier.

Harvest

We are currently in the process of harvesting some of the fruits of our labor. We will soon have a tally up on how much produce we have gotten that we will update when we pick new produce.

Last weekend we pulled up the potatoes and were pleasantly suprised at how many potatoes we found.

We harvested 8lbs of potatoes and used only 4 potatoes to plant the crop. This crop was started later in the season and we are excited about the harvest we will received when we plant our fall crop.

We are raking in the tomatoes, zuchini, squash, peppers, and eggplant. It is so exciting.

Garden Comparison from Spring til now

I couldn't believe the pictures when I found this picture of when we first started our first "square foot garden." I don't think there is any question it is the easiest gardening I've ever done and I will continue to do the "square foot Garden" method for most of my gardens.

Life Beyond the Budget

This is a great site with different views and thoughts on money. This site will make you think, entertain you, and most of all save you money!
This is a friend of mines blog and I think it is really worth a read.

http://lifebeyondthebudget.com/

Wood for Gardens

Quick tip you probably already know

When looking for anything.... I do mean anything check craigslist. Check it often and if available use an alert system for your trigger woods such as, lumber, baby swing, chainsaw, etc...

We were able to get almost $400 worth of raised garden bed lumber for $160. It took some work to knock them apart and then get the nails out, but we succeeded and swapped 4 hrs for over $200.00 in savings. Pretty good hourly wage.

We use raised gardens with the square foot garden method. If you are unfamiliar with this I will go into detail later. Just know that it is awesome and extremely effective and I don't plan to garden any other way anytime soon.

Tackling the deer flies

Our property has one major set back that has "bugged" Sandi more than anything else. That problem is the deer flies. They buzz around your head and eventually bite you which is painful.

Sandi researched and stumbled across a solution that no one else had suggested. Bug zappers don't work with them, bug spray doesn't work, but this idea was so outrageous that it just had to work..... and it did.

You take a cup or any object really and put blue tape (or a cub that is blue) tape it to your head (I know sound silly) and cover it with tangle foot.

Tangle foot is a sticky almost like tree sap that you put on trees to prevent bugs climbing up and infesting your trees or fruit. They get stuck in this goo.

Well you coat your cup in this and walk around and work with it on your head. As the deer flies buzz around your head they are attracted to the blue (looks like water) and they like going for you head and when they hit the cup they don't leave. Their stuck and they die right there on that cup.

We caught 50 deer flies walking to the end of our property and back the first time, then today working 3 hours out there with it on my head I caught six more.

Deer fly trap ....... $5.00 and my pride
Cost of Freedom....... priceless

Driveway to Freedom

Sandi and I have worked for about 12 hours on our driveway. I wanted to show you some pictures of what it is looking like now.

If you want to imagine what is looked like prior just look to the side of our path and imagine not being able to walk into the woods due to vines, thorns, and trees. It got easier after getting a quarter of the way in.

If you were ever stressed about clearing your own land.... DON"T BE if isn't impossible.

We believe we will need two more trips to get to our house spot and front yard. Then we'll start clearing that.

Driveway..... $500.00 (chainsaw, saws, trimmers, warranty)
Freedom..... PRICELESS

Ready, ready, set, wait....

We traveled nearly 3 hours for the second time to go see our new home to be (our 1963 Airstream pull behind trailer.) The tires were dry rotted on the rt side and we ended up not having the right trailer ball.

So now we have to wait to bring our new home to our current home until we can get out there during the weekdays when the local used tire shop is open.

It was sad to have to leave our home after 3 hours there and having to return somewhat empty handed. On the other hand Sanid was so excited to see the trailer again and find out what year it was, how long it was and of course to get pictures. I'm putting them attached here for you to see our huge new project.

1963 27 ft Airstream price...... $1500.00
Freedom...... priceless!

We're Back

I know we have been missing from the blog for quite some time now. So much has happened in the last year? I can't believe it has almost been year.

Quick rundown of the events
We changed jobs and moved onto a sail boat for a little over a month which was in the winter of 2010. Sailed down to Florida then got fired from our job as we got there.

We then had to turn around and rent a car and come back to NC and get our old job back.

After that we were kind of lost in our way trying to figure out what was next and what to do.

Within the last month really two weeks we have obtained seven acres of property, we have purchased a pull behind air streat (tin can love it!) for $1500.00 and have nearly cleared the entire driveway so we can drive back to our property. (it is wooded.)

We will be posting many many many posts in the coming weeks and months as we move onto this property and into the trailer. We plan to be totally "off grid" with Solar power and a well for water when we move onto the property.

Our house will be going up for sale shortly and once it sells should be completely 100% debt free with 7 acres of land a trailer and hardly any bills. We are very excited.