The Bantam Life
The pursuit of self sufficiency by Bantam Farms
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Blog is moving
Due to the changes in Googles privacy policy and how cozy google seems to be with the Federal Government I am using my right of the open market to try and remove myself from google products as much as I can.
I don't believe Google is evil or anything like that I just am on principle making a focused effort to move onto a different company for my services.
Web Search was Google will now be BING
Email was GMAIL will now be GMX
Web browser was Google Chrome will now be Mozilla Firefox
Didn't really use YouTube but will not be supporting that with hits or uploaded content from now on.
My blog is obviously Blogger and will be now a Wordpress blog located at
http://bantamfarms.wordpress.com
Bantam Farms new location is up and running and content will be moving over to that blog slowly due to my work volume.
Thanks guys
Chris
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Property Layout
Here is the current layout of our property. The chickens are closest to the road (As far as where we are developing) then the trailer and garden are behind the chickens and behind the trailer is the blackberries. All this is a little less than 2 acres.
We then have 4 more acres behind where we are developing that are grown up woods and marsh land.
Using Pine straw to Fight Frost
We planted 5 blue berry bushes along the back side of our garden last week. 3 were pink blue berries? and 2 were traditional blue berries.
We had a few nights of potential frost coming up so we mounded up pine straw all around and over the top of the newly planted to bushes to try and preserve the new growth they had on it.
The frost was heavy and it got down to 27 degrees, but all of the plants did great except one. It was sticking out just slighty of the pine straw when we came to check on it and got the tip of it burned.
Overall great success and we used what we had on the property versus using plastic, buckets, or jars to cover it up. My wife was a genius when she thought of that one.
The Bantam Voice
"Freed People, Free People"
Monday, February 27, 2012
A New Way to Cook
We have been cooking using our camping stove that runs off of gasoline or coleman fuel. We've been wanting to upgrade for awhile now and add another form of cooking that would create multiple options for us.
We searched on craigslist and found us traditional barbecue grill that was $40. It had some rough spots on it, but was at least a $300 grill when it was new. It has 3 burners and a side burner and is stainless steel.
We brought it home and set it up excited to have another way to cook. Sol was equally excited and happily cooked the hamburger for us (under our careful supervision of course) on the sideburner. We made soup and kale chips.
It is a great improvement over our previous situation. It just made it even better that Sol loved cooking on it and it made a great memory for our family.
We searched on craigslist and found us traditional barbecue grill that was $40. It had some rough spots on it, but was at least a $300 grill when it was new. It has 3 burners and a side burner and is stainless steel.
We brought it home and set it up excited to have another way to cook. Sol was equally excited and happily cooked the hamburger for us (under our careful supervision of course) on the sideburner. We made soup and kale chips.
It is a great improvement over our previous situation. It just made it even better that Sol loved cooking on it and it made a great memory for our family.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Planted Garden 02-17-12
Friday we planted peas, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, radishes, beets, kale, blue berry bushes, and strawberries.
We will provide our layout shortly for the row garden and our property.
The row garden has 3 foot sections of a plant then is book ended by onions (except the peas which don't like onions being close to them) and then we switch to a different plant. This is a version of companion gardening with traditional rows. We have made it up as we went with a little research online with what the plants like and don't like.
We also planted our potato patch and an asparagus patch. We put leaves in the bottom of the two patches to help feed the sandy soil.
We will have more updates shortly.
The Bantam Voice
Freed People Free People
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Our Dream of Liberty
Most would agree that it is sad and even tragic that our dream (mentioned in a previous post) of living off grid is almost impossible due to the "illegal" and taboo nature surrounding our lifestyle.
I long for the freedom to be able to do whatever it is that I decide I would like to do, but more importantly I long for liberty to return to our nation. Liberty that would bring about the freedom to be able to do what is best for my family. Liberty is freedom in all areas, complete freedom.
I believe that our country needs liberty and needs it now, but most of the country (including people I know) may say they want "freedom and liberty", but really they just want to do what they want to do. When they hear what "freedom and liberty" would bring most would run from it. With liberty (which is true freedom) comes great responsibility. (sounds like a comic book character line)
Liberty and responsibility are not separate and cannot be separate. Without responsibility liberty turns to anarchy and despair. True liberty would look like this
1. I live my dream lifestyle of living off grid having a compost toilet and all the other non-traditional methods of living mentioned previously.
2. The young man up the street sits out in his porch smoking weed. It would be legal along with every other kind of substance including raw milk.
3. No one would get tax breaks for being married. Straight, gay, boyfriend girlfriend, everyone would be treated equally under a fair tax or flat tax system (no more income tax or IRS to get tax breaks from)
4. There would be no government run medicare, medicaid, food stamps, health insurance, social security, FDIC mortgage loans, public education, environmental protection agency, USDA, etc.
5. All those social welfare programs would be run independently by the people of their own free will. Churches and soup kitchens would feed the hungry, neighbors would help those who lost their job, families would live together in a close knit circle to help each other survive. Our children would be home schooled or taught at a school each parent helped pay for the teacher.
6. There would be no Homeland Security, TSA (Transportation Security Administration airplane people), and no "protection" from the Patriot Act.
7. There would be no subsidies or government intervention on corn, oil, cars (GM and Chrysler), sugar, wheat, or any type of food.
8. Business would rise and fall based on their product and customer service, not based on the governments "need" for them. Banks would fail and default if they made bad decisions.
9. Stock Market investors would make millions and lose millions based on their willingness to take risk and assume the responsibility.
10. There would be no suing each other without consequences. You try and sue me for $50,000 and lose, you pay me $50,000 and vice versa.
If one of these things listed didn't make you cringe and want to say "Never mind I don't want liberty" you are either already a liberty loving Libertarian at heart or you didn't read the list right.
Responsibility is scary. There is no blaming anyone else. If you got sick from ecol i then you had chosen to buy your meat from someone who probably didn't let their cow eat any grass. That is your fault. No one to blame, but ourselves.
Yet that is what we need. That is what we must have to succeed in changing not only our culture, but more importantly ourselves. It starts with you and it starts with me. We can't change our culture or our laws instantly, but we can change on how we think about things and change the way we deal with situations. We need to start taking responsibility for our own actions and then through our actions we will start to infect the culture with liberty and responsibility.
One of the most obvious actions we can take (but not always the most productive or important in comparison) is voting for our elected officials. I have until recently been very naive and uninvolved in this area. I have done lots of research and I care very much about my country and who we elect as President all the way down to our local officials.
I wanted to let you know the why prior to telling you who I endorse as president. You may not care who I endorse and I would never want you to vote for someone prior to doing your own research (just know I've done a lot!)
I strongly and emphatically endorse Ron Paul for president. I endorse him even to the point that I will write him in as a third party candidate if the Republicans do not give me a solid option. (and I don't see it happening unless it is Ron Paul) Ron Paul has a message of "liberty and personal responsibility," He wants to cut 1 trillion dollars from the budget the first year. He wants the government smaller and personal responsibility and liberty bigger. Even if he gets elected he won't be able to get us to the point of the list above, but I believe we will start heading in the right direction.
I do not like any other GOP (Republican candidate) and will not vote for any of them even when it comes to going up against President Barack Obama. I know I am to vote for who is the best candidate not who an organization (GOP) tells me to vote for.
Take it for what it is worth to you. If you have any questions feel free to comment or email me, or check out my blog at bantamvoice.blogspot.com but I won't go on any further with politics (unless it directly relates to self sufficiency) because I have a whole blog for that.
I became passionate about politics because I wanted to take responsibility for my own actions and I met resistance everywhere I turned from the government and our culture. My lifestyle dictates that I care about politics and I hope that we can find common ground with Liberty.
The Bantam Voice
"Free People Free People"
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
ACTION REQUEST-NC Beekeeper facing jail time
Please read the story below and if you could take 3 minutes to call the Louisburg NC town hall and speak to Mrs. Patterson and express
"that you believe they should grant Pat Walker a waiver/variance/special permit because keeping bee's is beneficial to everyone and essential to our environment and that bee's will be there in nature regardless."
Please call
919-496-3406
I just spoke with Mrs. Patterson of Town Hall on the phone and she was very nice and glad I called. Please tweet, facebook, email, call anyone you know and ask them to call. One small thing like this can really impact things as a whole.
Read the full story below (I heard about it on the radio)
http://www.wxii12.com/r/30453354/detail.html
LOUISBURG, N.C. -- A Louisburg woman is facing possible jail time over a local ordinance that she feels is unfair and unconstitutional.
WRAL-TV reported that Pat Walker is scheduled to face a judge Tuesday to determine whether she will go to jail for 20 days and be forced to give up her beehives.
Walker said her family started keeping honeybees last March. After two months, the family received a letter from Louisburg police telling them they were violating a town ordinance saying hives have to be at least 75 feet from a neighbor's property line.
Louisburg Councilman Boyd Sturges said the ordinance doesn't restrict most homeowners from keeping bees, but he couldn't estimate the percentage of homes that would be allowed to keep bees and still abide by the 75-feet rule.
The Bantam Voice
"Freed People Free People"
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