Thinking...

In the past few weeks, I have spent more and more time thinking about our preps. (I still despise that term but nothing else really fits) Why? I can't name just one reason.

Our current economy scares me. While I know and hear of more and more people losing their jobs or being layed off, I hear our government tell us that employment is on the rise. Unfortunately, these figures are highly exaddurated or even totally made up. It's hard to believe them at all when the give you employment figures for areas or districts that don't even exist. They know how bad it is, they just won't admit it.

I get scared to death when I think about how long I have been layed off. I have NEVER seen or heard of it being this bad in my lifetime. What if I'm not back to work in the middle of January, my unemployment runs out, and I don't qualify for another extension? Sure, there are jobs out there somewhere, but the payscale is rediculous. I often wonder how anyone survives on $10 an hour. I've seen warehouse jobs or physical labor that pays $8. In my eyes, thats slavery. Taking a $10 an hour job would leave me with LESS than I currently bring home in unemployment benefits by roughly $60 a week, how could we survive on that? Will I have to work two jobs and give up everything we do here just to get by? Yes folks, I'm scared.

What if we can't pay the electric bill and it gets shut off? What about the gas? Phone? ...all possible. Sure, no one wants to live without the slightest minimal electric gadget or without ready hot water or heat at the touch of a thermostat, but I want to be sure we can make it IF one of these things were to happen with little to no interruption in our daily lives.

Now I've said many, many times in this blog that I an not one to worry about any of the "SHTF" scenerio's that many people talk about, but that doesn't mean it doesn't cross my mind from time to time. Am I worried about an outright attack on our town? Of course not. But taking out power plants has been a threat since the cold war era, and it's no different now with our threats of terrorism. With everyone in this nation being so reliant on electricity, losing it for an extended period of time would cause panic everywhere affected. Not just no tv or video games, but your food would spoil, you would have no heat, no lights, no a/c, no communication, nothing. Imagine NYC or L.A. without power for a month, it would be total chaos. (Yes I know, none of us live there, but it was just an example.) There's also always been a threat of nuclear attack, but I don't think about that at all, there really is no point. If one would ever hit nearby, we're gone, plain and simple. No matter how much you prep, no matter how many iodine capsules you swallow, it's not gonna be Mad Max, and I'm not going to run Bartertown. (though the car would be pretty fun to have lol)

I'm sure that what I am about to say, I have said many times over and over since I started this little blog. I think more of acts of nature far more than I think about all the things others do. This is Ohio. We aren't in earthquake flood, or tornado/hurricane territory, but once again, thats not saying it can't ever happen. I remember a few VERY small earthquakes, and a handfull of tornado touchdowns here in my life., though they are very very rare. Flooding isn't a big issue from any nearby rivers, not to mention our county is a higher elevation. (it was named SUMMIT for a reason!) But it is possible that our basement can flood with heavy rain. We are 100 yards downhill from the main road, and with the way the road falls, we get more water down our drive than the ditch beside our house. (gotta love county engineers) Twice since we have been here, our basement has flooded. Granted, it was only an inch or 2 of water, but still enough to cause damage. A stronger than normal storm could easily do more. Also, our septic system is behind the house where the yard levels out. It would be easy for a heavy storm to send water down the drive, past the house, and flood out the system, backing it up into the house.

These are the kinds of things I think of when I look at our preps. Rainstorms, lightning,ice, snow, wind, and ice. We've had 3+ foot snowdrifts across the driveway. We've had ice storms that take down tree's and powerlines. We've had strong winds to the same. (see post sept16th 2008) We had a 2 day outage and never skipped a beat thanks to things we had on hand.

Once again, as I always stress, I don't "prep" for WW3. I have no plans on living in a basement bunker eating MRE's and clutching an AR15 waiting for the "enemy" to come. We try to use a little more common sense, and base it all on things we know. We stock nothing we don't use on a daily basis other than camping, fishing, and hunting gear. We use what we store, and we store what we use. It's pretty simple, just the things we need to get by.

For anyone reading this who has no idea what I am talking about, think about this: You are awakened by a loud storm and turn around to check your clock, the screen is black, your power is out. There are trees down across your drive and/or the road. Your phone is out too. You can't get out, no one can get in. What are you going to do? What if this turns from a simple hour or two that we've all dealt with to a tri-state outage like NY, Pa, and NE Ohio had several years ago? What if it lasts a few days? A few weeks?

I've asked this question to many people, and though general answers vary, most say that they would find a way to leave and head to a friend or family member that wasn't affected. OK....How far away are these people? You have 1/4 tank of gas. Your ATM card is worthless, and since gas pumps are all electric and digital, you can't GET gas. Yes, you're stuck. Are you going to be able to survive?

This is the part that sometimes makes me shake my head, and other times want to laugh. I know people that barely have enough food to last them two days. I know people that don't have such simple things as a flashlight or small first aid kit. Some of the people that HAVE some food have nothing but frozen meals or canned soup. Well, you dont have an oven or microwave, and you never thought of a hand crank canopener,oops. It amazes me sometimes how so many people have so little, if not nothing, to get them through even the smallest emergency situation.

Many of the people we talk to about all of this think we're crazy, stupid, or just plain paranoid. Let them think what they want. I've made it through things in the past just fine. Ice storms, power outages, snowstorms, been there-done that. I can in no way compare myself to someone who has dealt with tornado's, earthquakes, flooding, or hurricanes. I commend those who live in the areas prone to such things and prepare for them in the same way I prepare for things I am fimilar with. I can't imagine boarding up my house for a pending hurricane any more than those people can imagine shoveling snow for 2 hours just to get out of the driveway. We all prepare for things we know and have dealt with.

I'm writing this long post today for a few reasong. One is being able to express my view and opinions on preparadness. ( it IS my blog lol), and two being to hopefully make even just one person reading this to think and prepare themselves. I don't want anyone to think they immediately need to run out and buy a years worth of groceries, buy out the local army surplus store, and get a generator and 100 gallons of gas, but I want people to at least think about what they would do in an emergency BEFORE it happens, not during or after.

I'll end this much-longer-than-I-intended post with just a few simple questions:
Are you prepared?
Why not?
What's stopping you?

Chris has left the building...err bunker lol

Ode to stuffed pantries and a freezer

As I'm sitting here,I was thinking about doing some squirrel hunting this week or weekend, then realized I have no idea where I am going to put them if I make it out. Our freezer is VERY full. Last week I butchered the last 3 rabbits and 4 of the roosters, then finished the other 3 on Sunday when Farmergeek brought over his flock of chickens and ducks to butcher. He offered a full duck, which I gladly accepted and is now in the freezer as well.
We have two turkeys in there that we got over the weekend. We origionally planned to order and buy a "free range organic" turkey from a local market, but changed our mind after we ordered it and thought about it. At first, the $2.30lb didn't seem bad until we realized that a 20+ pound bird would end up costing us somewhere in the vacinity of $50. I'm all for buying local and organic when we can, but neither of us could wrap our heads around paying 50 bucks for a bird, it just didn't register. We ended up seeing birds at the grocery store we went to for .59lb, and got 2. They aren't "organic free range", but damn, I can get 4-5 birds for the price of the one we would have gotten at the market. If I can make room by shifting around a few things, later this week we'll head back for a third. Just like most of the chicken, we'll make 1 or 2 into soup and can it. Lisa made a batch of soup on Sunday while Farmergeek and I were outside, and I canned it yesterday. It was only 5 quarts, but still, its 5 quarts we didn't have. Later this week I plan to make more, which will open up room in the freezer by using the broth we have frozen in containers and one of the birds.
The rest of the freezer is full of various things. Strawberries and blackberries are waiting for one big batch of jam, which Lisa will do soon so we can put them in our usualy Christmas goody baskets for friends and family. The door is full of bags of chopped peppers and whole corn on the cob. There is quite a bit of pork in there, thanks to a generous friend that was clearing out some room in his freezer. Everything else is mainly things we buy when it's on sale. When we see sausage or kielbasa buy1/get1, we usually buy 3-4 so we're freezing 6-8. We've saved a lot of money this way, and it always ensures a full freezer for us. We plan to start saving money soon to buy bulk beef from a local farm/butcher. The prices are a bit more than grocery store beef, but the quality is worth the money. I'd like to have a 2nd freezer to buy basically a half steer, but as with everything else, the budget won't allow it.
Just the same as the freezer, we're out of pantry space. We have two large closets converted to pantry space, as well as a 3x6 foot freestanding cabinet....all 3 are stuffed. Eventually I want to make more shelves downstairs for some of the bulk items, and for a lot of canned goods, but again, that budget thing gets in the way. For now I'll just keep my eyes open at Goodwill, freecycle, cheapcycle, and craigslist for another freestanding unit and/or shelf units. Neither of us have plans to stop our food storage just because we don't have a clear space. We have the room, just not the shelves. I can always resort to 5 gallon buckets or boxes until we can get shelves or a cabinet. Our goal is for a one years supply, so needless to say, we won't stop.

Two post Thursday

Since Debbie over at HappyDays asked about our storage and prep areas, I decided to make this a two-entry day.

Our basement is divided up rather strange. Origionally in the 1930's, our house was built as a basement home, not so different from what I grew up in, but a LOT smaller. The larger 16x22 foot room was the kitchen/dining/eating area and I can only assume also where they slept. The room next to it was laundry and storage, and the full bathroom was always there.(haf bath now since the tub wasn't re-plumbed with the rest of the house, I removed it in 2000) Sometime in the 40's, they added on another area, what is now the furnace room and our prep room. Neither of these rooms had doors on them when we moved in, and the prep room didn't even have a dividing wall, it was just open. I added a wall, built in desk & shelves, and put doors on both. For a short while it was Lisa's sewing room till she outgrew it, then it was our bedroom till the kids moved back home, then it was Adams room, and now its for prep and my own little space. I cut a door from inside that room into the rear of the furnace room and added another door and wall, this is more storage for prep items. The old living area is now Lisa's sewing & craft room.

The room is not really as organized as I would like it, but it does it's job. I have all my hunting and fishing gear in there, as well as camping gear and supplies. (I dont like taking chances of mice in the garage tearing at my tents or sleeping bags) My large 12 man tent is in an old navy footlocker, safe from critters or anything else. My 2 smaller dome tents are in sacks stored above it. Sleeping bags, pillows, and misc bedding items are in a large plastic tote right beside them. Inside the closet area are my lanterns, camp cookware, campstoves, heaters, white fuel, propane, oil lamps & lanterns, and lamp oil. In the same room, under the stairs are footlockers of misc camping/emergency gear and a closet bar of hunting and other camo clothing. This area stays dark and cool, so we also store our potatos and onions there.

Four desk shelves are lined with all of our books on survival, self sufficiency, gardening, hunting, fishing, map books, and almost every subject imaginable. The others are full of misc hunting and fishing gear. I have a tall metal cabinet along one wall that contains all of my knives, 1 good camp hatchet, knife sharpening tools/stones, batteries, rope, and larger first aid items that dont fit in my jammed-full industrial kit that hangs on the wall. Beside that is a simple 4 drawer filing cabinet full of notes, things copied from online, instruction manuals, and copies of magazines we get or have gotten in the past. Grit, Small Farm Journal, Mother Earth News, Backyard Poultry, Shooting Times, Countryside, and others that I can't remember at the moment, all full of great information that I refuse to throw away. I have a metal office desk in there too. It used to be where I had the old desktop computer, but now it's for me to sit and read or draw up plans for something or another.

In the center along one wall is a small fold up table. Its where I sit to clean guns or work on things too big for the desk, but it's also our wintertime hangout. We've spent many an evening there reading, talking, playing board games, planning next years garden, looking through wishbooks, or just enjoying the peace and quiet. Above this table is an oil cottage lamp hanging from the ceiling in case of power outage. We keep the house temp as low as possible to save on the gas bill, so we turn on a small electric heater, close the door, and enjoy a nice toasty warm place to get away. I keep the 2 camp cots open along the other wall for the dogs to have somewhere to lay, and also for me to crash on if I happen to stay up too late when I get into something.

I spend a lot of time in my little room, more so soon when the weather keeps me from doing things outside. I'll be re-organizing a lot of it soon, trying to utilize what little space I have left. My prep list and wish list never seem to end, so I have to do the best I can with what space I have and as our budget allows. Though the thought of it makes me feel somewhat silly, I want to have a BOB ready and hanging for each of us. Again, if I need it, it's there, and if I never do, it's not a big deal at all. Better safe than sorry, right??

The general plan for this room is actually beyond just my own space and a place for storage. I'm having this room together in case of emergency as a place to go. No, it's not one of the cold war era bomb shelters by far, or a "safe room" by any means, but merely a place to go. If we have a power outage in winter, I can fire up the generator, run a cord to the small heater, and have a place to keep warm. OR with use of well kept CO2 detectors, a camp heater. Even with using oil lamps or cookstoves in enclosed spaces, CO2 detectors are a must, as is a good fire extinquisher.

A few people we know think we're insane to prep for such things, some think it's laughable and look at us like "crazy survivalists", but we're far from it. Like I've said many times, neither of us are those SHTF scenerio kind of people, we're not preparing for WW3 or for the Cubans to drop in like Red Dawn, we're just preparing ourselves for emergencies. I like being prepared for the occasional storm or power outage, and going another direction, this economy scares me at times. IS it possible to see us in another depression? It's very possible. But...rather than dwell on that, I'll just say I like being prepared for a power outage or other emergency. (at least thats what I tell them) lol

I almost closed this entry at that, but decided to add just a little more. (if its possible for me to write a little)
Everything I store in that basement room is on a list. It took a lot of thinking and research to make my list, but I feel that it's fairly complete. At each area of storage, whether its at each food pantry or each prep storage area, I have a clipboard of graph paper. Each item is listed individually on a single line, and quantities are marked in the graph boxes with a /. As an item is used, the / is turned to a X.
Example:
10 packs of AA batteries would list like this-
aa batteries 4 pack //////////

Using 2 packs would show
aa batteries 4 pack ////////XX

If I use an entire line, (all of the squares across), I cross off the item and line with a highlighter and start a new line for it on another page or line. This method makes inventory and shopping lists extremely easy. I know I wrote about this method before, but it's been quite a while, and seemed fitting to add to this post.

OK I'm done now......maybe......I think so........I'm pretty sure.........yea........I am.....finally

Things around here have been a little dull lately. Lisa came down with a nasty cold last Sunday after the party, and of course I ended up with it. I fully admit it, I'm a big baby when I get a bad cold. I just want to sit around. I've kept up with what needed done and caught up on a bunch of reading, but thats been about it. Finally 2 days ago, I started feeling good enough to get some things done.

I finally decided to get out of the rabbit business until next year. While my buck fathered a few litters for my friend tammie, my does have had ONE litter in the year I've had them. With winter just around the corner, and the thought of frozen water bottles and feeding something that wasn't paying back, I figured it was time. All three are now in the freezer, along with 4 of the 7 roosters I got a few months ago. I planned to get to all 7, but I made my cleaning station a bit too low, and after 3 rabbits and 4 birds, my back was killing me from stooping over. I'll get to the other 3 either today or tomorrow, depending on weather. (yesterday was just too cold and horribly windy) The plan for all of them is 2-3 giant batches of chicken soup in the canner, though it's all pieced and in the freezer for now.

Tomorrow we are going out for groceries. Some will be for stock/storage, and others will be to make meals and things to freeze and can. A while back we tried canning meatloaf. Neither of us had ever canned meatloaf before, let alone ate any home-canned. It was delicious! So, we plan to make a good sized batch to can this weekend as well. Other plans are for casseroles to put together and freeze, along with some meatballs. It's nice having some things pre-prepared and ready for those days when neither of us really feel like cooking.

Already we're working on plans for next years garden. Since we grew so many onions and potato's, we've been eating more of each. Well.....thanks to that, we won't have enough to get us through till spring, which was the plan the whole time. Next year, I'll double each so this won't happen again. The same will go for carrots. I planted some just for the hell of it, we don't eat many carrots, but now that we've decided to can more soup to store, yea, we need more carrots, lol. Ah well, live and learn right?? We'll work on more of next years list this weekend while we're in the kitchen, then start picking through the seed catalogs soon after.

Every year our garden gets bigger, and next year will be no exception. Every year we make mistakes, major and minor, but we learn from them and re-plan for the following season. Again, next year will be no exception. We'll base more planting on more than just the basic things we usually can. (peppers, tomatos, beans, etc) and plan more on things for soups and such. (celery, carrots, etc) Each year as our garden and knowledge grows, so does our list of things we make for ourselves. As a perfect example, I'm EXTREMELY happy to say that we haven't had any store-bought canned soup in a very very long time. Between Lisa's chicken soup and my chili, we haven't had to. Yep, the garden '10 notebook will be chock full of new things and new items. (we also seriously plan on more meat birds next year, though where they will be is still up in the air)

Later today, I'll be working on cleaning and re-organizing my room downstairs. I need to rearrange all of my camping gear, and go through my checklist of things to keep on hand. More and more as I hear and read of things to come, I think about the things I keep there and want to make sure I have all that I need. No, I'm not one to prepare for WW3/SHTF or some other things that so many conspiracy people continuiosuly think about, but I do think of other things. Snowstorms, power outages, etc are my main concerns. A few days ago we had electrical problems at the main pole connection. The power was off not quite an hour while the worker re-wired and changed the connections. Some people I know would have been in a tissy, but we lit a couple oil lamps and grabbed a book. No big deal at all. We've dealt with an hour, we've dealt with a few hours, and a year ago we made it through a few days without a worry. I want to make sure we STAY that way.

There are a few things I want to work on in this small preparadness list though, mainly things we didn't think about before. We need water storage for sure. In case of emergency, we'll need water for cooking and for toilet flushing. (unless I get the camp toilet that I want) I'd love to have some 55 gallon drums of drinking water on hand, but we simply can't afford any right now. I think what I will end up doing is cutting the power line to the well pump and putting plugs at either end. This way in case of power outage, I can run a cord from the generator to the pump and we'll have water. I'll still want some sort of storage on hand though, maybe just 5 gallon "camp" containers for now. Hmm....I see my xmas list being mostly "survival" stuff, lol.

Other things I need to concentrate on checking stock are basic items I should be checking more regularly-first aid, meds, TP, batteries, lamp oil, gasoline, propane, spare flashlight bulbs, generator plugs, etc. My plan is to at first base the entire storage on a possible month-long power outage, then continue from there. Crazy? maybe. But I'll tell ya, I'd rather have these things and never use them, then need them and not have it. I know people that don't have something as simple as a basic flashlight in their homes. I don't want to be them.

As I've said, I don't sit around and worry about what *might* happen. I don't think of many things that I see on the internet. I don't want to be one of these people that constantly talk of the government taking over and forcing martial law. I don't want to be one of these people that talk about invasions and possible wars. And I'm surely not one of those guys with a basement full of guns and ammo waiting patiently for WW3 to break out or the police to knock on my door to take everything I own. (where do the get this stuff???) I just want to be prepared. I think about storms, power outages, and everything else I have said over and over. I refuse to be one of those people who packs up and leaves just because they can't watch television or turn on a light. I'll start the generator, light a few oil lamps, make some coffee on the campstove, and watch the people run like ants.

Party overview and back to normal

The party was a HUGE sucess. We checked the guest list the day of the party, and figured on around 30. Some we knew would show for a while and leave, others we knew would probably not come at all, and some we knew just wouldn't dress up. Well........we had 40 people here! The majority of them came in costume, but the few that we didn't expect to of course did not.
Lisa spent most of Friday and Saturday cooking and baking, and no one went hungry. We didn't supply any alcohol, and everyone that wanted any brought their own. Some brought a single bottle of something to contribute, some brought beer, and my wonderful friend Ben brought several mixed drinks, a few bottles, and a deadly little jar of cherries soaked in shine for 2 weeks. Everyone ate well, drank well, and we only had one person get a little too much to drink. Sadly, by 12:30, everyone was gone except for us, the kids, Ben, and one of the kids friends. LAME!!!!! But....everyone had a great time and all were amazed at the decorations. We both thought we needed more, but everyone that came fussed over how much we had done. hehe wait till next year folks, you haven't seen anything yet.
I wish I could say that I had a bunch of pictures to post, but I don't. After 15 or so jello-shots, a few zombies, and other concoctions I shouldn't have had, I lost my camera. After everyone left, and we were sitting around sipping coffee, I decided to take off my costume. Oh yea.......found the camera.......in my right shirt pocket.....oops. hahahaha We had a few guests take a lot of pictures, and when I get them all e-mailed to me, I'll post them here. Yesterday I got up early, made coffee, and while Lisa was at work, I took down and boxed up every single decoration and got it all downstairs. By the time she got home at 7:30, it was all done. I heated up some chicken soup and we spent the evening watching old horror movies. Other than the cold we're both fighting, it was a great end to our Halloween season.

Now that this is all over and we can actually concentrate on things at hand, we'll be returning to our food storage and other things. While the garden is completely done, we'll continue canning more chicken soup and probably more of my chili. I'll be finishing the rest of the roosters hopefully tomorrow so they'll go straight into soup and chicken stock. I'll butcher the last 3 rabbits as well and put them in the freezer too. They haven't bred all summer, so I'm not keeping and feeding something that isn't returning my efforts. I'll butcher them, clean out the hutch, and start over in the spring with fresh ones. I'll be running a cord to the henhouse for a heat lamp soon, just so I don't have to mess with their waterer freezing inside. Fall came on so fast that the aricaunas quit laying all together, but I'm still getting 3 brown eggs a day from the barred rocks, and about 2 a week from the bantam. They won't be as productive as they were last year since they're outside now. Last year they had heat lamps, atomatic timed lights, and never really knew it was winter. They all layed heavy all winter long, but they won't this year.

Sometime this week, I'll be going through all of the food storage and see what we are short on and hopefully replace it. We managed to get 50lbs each a few weeks ago of flour, bread flour and sugar, so those will be ok until the Christmas baking season starts. The rest is looking ok, but I want to make sure we don't run out of anything. The forecast calls for a bitter cold winter this year, and I dont want to have to make runs to the store for something silly, I want it all here before hand. Because of the forecast, we're also going to be putting that shrink wrap window covering on every window and probably heavy drapes. I hate how it makes the house so dark, but with the forecast calling for bitter temperatures, gas prices being high,and me still being layed off, we're better off dealing with a dark house than with an outrageous gas bill that we'll have to struggle to pay.
HOPEFULLY this weekend I'll get the last mowing done, take off the belly mower and put the snowblade on the Loboy. I have to fix the starter first though, ugh. The nut that holds the pulley on worked loose, let the pulley spin, and rounded off the keyway in the shaft. I'll get it out, but I may have to drill & tap it and put in a set screw along with a new keyway...just have to see how it goes.
All for now, I'm off to put the living room furniture back where it belongs....yay me.

Again, I've spent a majority of my time working on the things for the Halloween party. I'm nearly done with the bathroom (FINALLY), and will be starting the final stages of the "torture chamber" this weekend. Last weekend, our friends who handed us the party this year came for dinner and brought 5 boxes of their decorations/props to use. I gotta say, I was like a kid in a candy store digging through all that. A lot we could use, and some we can't or just won't. C'mon...I have a guy in a woodchipper and a real wooden 7 foot coffin, I'm NOT using those silly smiley face pumpkins or cute little grinning ghosts. That would be my equivelant of turning off my Slayer cd, putting in The Carpenters, getting a minivan, wearing sandals and taking up golf..................................NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!!! lol. Today we went to the big Halloween store and decided to go ahead and spend the $15 on a timer for the fog machine that our friends let us borrow. That thing works great, but it has a switch that has to be pressed every time you want fog. This timer lets me set how often it goes off, and for how long it fogs. I hooked it up and of course HAD to give it a test run. See the pics below and you'll see it gives a whole new eerie look to the "graveyard". I want to build a "chiller" for it, so the fog lays on the ground rather than rise, but that's going to depend upon spare time and materials I have on hand. (the liquid sprays across heated coils to make the fog, so it's hot, lighter than air and rises. A chiller cools the fog after the coils and it lays low to the ground) I'm sure I have pipe fittings to use, but it's made from a cooler and I really don't want to cut holes in one. (I know I know, I really don't need SEVEN coolers lol)

Normally at this time of year, we go on "haunted" walks or tours, but this year we have decided not to, since they're $20-$40 each trip, plus gas and usually food on the way home. Instead we have decided to take up our own sort-of similar hobby and just visit old local cemetaries during the day. The artwork is sometimes fascinating. The history of some is incredible. The stories of some are strong, and some very sad. In the past week or so, we've visited six local cemetaries, and taken LOTS of pictures. Our plan is to open another blog, but we'll work on that after Halloween. So far we've seen GIANT monuments, tiny unmarked stones, old ones back to the early 1800's, and today found not only 5 WWI vets, but a Revolutionary War vet, my grandfather, (died when my dad was 3) and my great grandparents. (maybe a kinda creepy side note-I found my grandfathers grave today, 10-21-09 and he was buried on 10-21-41!) I know this may seem like an odd hobby to a lot of people, but during these "haunted" walks, we've both been more fascinated with the stones and history than with the actual ghost stories. I'll post more as we progress in this, and eventually post a link when we open a blog and/or a website.

I still keep somewhat in touch with an old girlfriend from long ago. We dated from when I was about 22 till around age 27. We broke up really rough, but it's been years. I have since apologised for what I did to her, and we remain friends. Her parents were wonderful people, and were always quite fond of me. Last year she told me her dad was sick, and I made it a point to go visit them. Yea....15 years or so after I dumped their daughter for who was not only my first wife, but her best friend, they welcomed me into their house with open arms. That short "hi how are ya" visit ended up being over 3 hours. I left happy to know that they still thought highly of me, and left planning to visit them again soon. Well...that visit didn't happen. She called me last week to know that he was in the hospital, and I planned to visit within a day or 2. She called yet again on Monday, crying and telling me that the doctors gave him days to live. I planned on going first thing the next morning, but she called me at 9:30 that night, telling me that he was gone. I felt awful for her and her mother, and sad that I didn't get that last chance to talk and shake his hand. I went to their house last night, and during what turned out to be a 4 hour visit, they asked me to be a pallbearer. I'm somewhat shocked about being asked, but I'm also honored. The funeral will be this Friday, and a military one since he was a WW2 Navy veteran. Sadly, the forecast calls for heavy rain, but lets hope that will change. I know it's a strange situation, and strange for me to write about here, but I can't help it, I really liked that guy. He was one of those nearly rare people that was always in a good mood, always smiling, and always joking. He was a bit of a drinker on occasion, but he was a funny drunk. No, let me correct that, he was a hilarious drunk. One night (I'm chuckling even as I type this) he came home drunk from the VFW with a case of butter. Yes you read that right, a CASE of butter...somewhere around 40 of those 4 packs of sweet cream butter...hahahaha. Turns out that one of the guys at the bar was a dairy driver and ran out of beer money. He went to his route truck and returned with a case of butter, offering it to the first person to give him $20 for beer. Well.....yea.....he bought the butter and came home with it, smiling like he had just made the best purchase of his life. Needless to say, his wife was NOT all to happy that A-he came home drunk, B-he spent $20 on something foolish, and C-she hated butter. Yep......he slept on the couch for a few nights, lol. Adrian "Sonny" Marko, I'll really miss you.

More Halloween pics

OK so I have gotten really really addicted to making props for Halloween, lol. Since the last post, I've added a gallows with a man on it, rewired a rediculous mat that said "trick or treat", (it now screams really loud) and rewired the swith under a halloween rug on the front porch. Thanks to the loan of friends, I have 2 strobe lights and a fog machine mounted under the awning at the front of the house, and finished my evil birdbath. I took apart the rotating head Jason, and it's toast. It got so hot that it melted the plastic gears that drive the mechanism, grrrrrr, I thought I could fix it and mount him outside.....ah well. I brought the wood chipper to the front corner of the house, made legs sticking out of it, and even fake "guts" with expanda-foam. (what a PITA to paint, but well worth it) I'm still toying with the idea of a flying ghost or ghoul, but that one is still on the "not sure" list. The "torture chamber" in the spare bedroom is nearly complete, though I need 2 more dummies and I think I am out of clothes that don't fit anymore hahaha. I'm sure that in the 2 1/2 weeks till the party, I'll come up with more........