Stephen checking in from Florida

[Stephen]

I am the same "Stephen" who was very active on another popular preparedness forum several years ago. I've been at this long enough to have gone through several phases. I've gone from the "Zombie Apocalypse TEOTWAWKI" phase, to where I am now - mainly concerned about the future of my descendants and making sure that my grandson gets a good education even though there may be no schools or internet by the time he is old enough (he isn't quite a year old yet). Tip: Goodwill is a great source for building your reference library.

Our family is fairly focused on general self-reliance and homesteading as a life-style. We have 240 square feet of raised bed garden, several assorted garden areas (including a nice sweet potato patch), chickens, and a hand-pump well. I'm past the point of "Opsec" that some folks are concerned with - I've been writing a blog about gardening and chickens for a couple years, so it's pretty much all out there for anyone to see anyway.

I'm also very interested in Southern culture (not a topic for this forum, so that's the first and last mention of it from me) and I write yet another blog on the topic; I also am a national level staff officer of a Confederate heritage organization.

Even though I've been at this since Boy Scouts in the early 1960's and got really serious about it in the pre-Y2K years, I'm mainly here just to listen and learn. I'll try to add my thoughts where I can - I've made plenty of mistakes along the way that might help someone avoid wasting time and money as I have done. Here are some areas that I've probably got more than the average level of experience in, and might be able to help others with:

[1Admin]

Hey Stephen, glad you made it over to the show! It was good seeing you again.

Stephen is the real deal, old school guy from way back. Good fellow to know!

Welcome to the forums.
Robert

[Rmplstlskn]

Welcome Stephen... From the fine state of Virginia.

[rice paddy daddy]

Welcome from North Florida.
The wife and I have a small farm with chickens, horses, a vegetable garden, and dogs.
She's the farmer, I'm still gainfully employed in town.

[Stephen]

Thanks, folks! It sure is great to see names I recognize.

How far up into North Florida are you (approximately)? Although I live in Volusia County, I own a 120 acre farm (currently rented out) on the west side of Alachua County. As far as farm land in Florida, that's fairly good soil in that area. I have no plans to move there though - I like where I am.

[hidden_waldo]

Welcome! Look forward to hearing about some of the experiences.

[protus]

Thanks, folks! It sure is great to see names I recognize.

How far up into North Florida are you (approximately)? Although I live in Volusia County, I own a 120 acre farm (currently rented out) on the west side of Alachua County. As far as farm land in Florida, that's fairly good soil in that area. I have no plans to move there though - I like where I am.

welcome to the forums.....glad to see more central fla folks here....
vol. county the lowest median income and highest taxed county in the state ,,,,.....
lived there for a long time till we packed up the wagons and headed west to bfe lol

[Stephen]

Hi, Protus - good to hear from you!

I fully understand your reasons for leaving Volusia County - those reasons and more. The things that are important to me would mean little to others - family ties, decades of personal contacts and reputation, a great church that families have moved to from all across the country and from other nations to attend - those are some of the intangibles that often get missed when folks consider why they live where they live.

[610Alpha]

Welcome!

Sounds like you and 1Admin know each other so I won't post my standard greeting. Would love to hear more about your raised bed garden since that is what I use.

When you do decide to create a new thread on a specific topic please add a Meta Tag to it, right underneath the big box area is a little text area that you can add up to 5 tags, this will make it easier for people to search for it later.

[Stephen]

Thanks, 610Alpha. Yes, I've known 1Admin for quite a while both from the "web world" and going on a couple of camping trips with him. I'm glad we reconnected at the Preparedness Expo last weekend.

I figured I'd wait until I have a better feel for what is and is not acceptable linking here before posting any "here's what works for me" articles. Most of what I can add I have already posted on a blog that I've been writing, and I've read the forum rules about no links in the signature or what could be considered promoting other sites. Since you asked about it though, I'll point you to a page with lots of photos of it being built. You'll find other info there with the growing mixture that I have in it and other things - http://www.southernagrarian.com/gard...garden-part-1/. I'm currently adding more growing mixture to it since I didn't add quite enough back when I first built it. Been taking photos of that process (just mixing those quantities isn't simple if you want to get it thoroughly mixed) to add later when I have the time. I suspect adding that link is probably OK, but I can remove it from this post if I've stepped over the line.

Thanks for the info about using tags. That's not something I would normally do on a forum, so I'll make a point of doing that here.

Again, thanks to all for the warm welcome.

[rice paddy daddy]

Thanks, folks! It sure is great to see names I recognize.

How far up into North Florida are you (approximately)? Although I live in Volusia County, I own a 120 acre farm (currently rented out) on the west side of Alachua County. As far as farm land in Florida, that's fairly good soil in that area. I have no plans to move there though - I like where I am.

After watching my childhood home of Palm Beach County change from paradise to a concrete high rise, paved over, crime ridden cess pool by refugees from other parts of the country we moved as far from there as we could get without actually leaving the state. That turned out to be on a dead end dirt road 2 miles from the Ga/Fla state line. We lived in Georgia for a few years, but that state is tax-happy, and we moved back across the line.
I am a 56 year resident of the state, my wife is a native.

[protus]

Hi, Protus - good to hear from you!

I fully understand your reasons for leaving Volusia County - those reasons and more. The things that are important to me would mean little to others - family ties, decades of personal contacts and reputation, a great church that families have moved to from all across the country and from other nations to attend - those are some of the intangibles that often get missed when folks consider why they live where they live.

Yeah I hear ya....only reasons why I did not move out of state..job...family etc etc....plus I think me and the wife unit would feel odd anywhere else.

[Chief]

Hey Stephen nice to have ya also from Florida central.

[rockriver]

i just read one of your posts and asked if you were "the" stephen.
reading your intro, i see you are...
congrats and welcome.
we met at a campout in florida several years ago.

[Stephen]

Hi, Rockriver! Good to "see" you again. Laura and I had a great time at the campouts. We still keep in touch with the lady who arranged them.

By the way, regarding keeping up with folks, I invited a friend - John - to one of the campouts and he came for the day. You probably don't remember him, but he passed away about a year ago. He moved his family out to Texas where the family had some land. Started getting headaches and found he had a brain tumor. Mercifully, he went quickly. He was the first serious prepper that I knew (besides myself). We met when he was a speaker at a preparedness seminar taught at a local LDS church back in the late 1970's - I'd known him for quite a while.

In addition to letting folks know about the passing of a fellow prepper, I say that to remind folks that we need to remember that TEOTWAWKI comes in many different shapes and forms. Fortunately, John had prepped for that sort of thing also and made sure that his family would be cared for if something should happen to him. It was an important reminder to me. To the Believers here, John was a Born Again Christian so he truly is in a better place.