Caring For Flu Sickness In Your Home

In light of the breaking news this evening in Tennessee that there is a likely case of H1N1 flu virus in a child who lives in Williamson County who attends Harding Academy in Nashville, and 10 other cultures awaiting confirmation as H1N1 in our state, here is some information that you might want to have just in case you have someone in your home who comes down with flu symptoms.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a very good web page set up that tells you the best steps you can take when caring for someone with the flu in your home. You might want to bookmark this page for quick reference:

CDC: Interim Guidance: Taking Care of a Sick Person In Your Home

Another link for reference: PandemicFlu.gov

Swine Flu Resource

Here's another blog that is a resource with lots of information, news feeds, etc. that you might want to bookmark as you are trying to keep up with the swine flu information that is out there. Remember to read, research, understand, plan, prepare, but don't panic.

Swine Flu Pandemic Info

Why We Prep - Swine Flu!

UPDATE 02 May 09:

Continuing to monitor the global situation - here are a couple of alternative flu tracking maps that are providing great up-to-date information:

FluTracker

One of my favorites:

RSOE EDIS - Pandemic Monitor

UPDATE 28 Apr 09:

AP: Swine Flu's Ground Zero? - article mentions first new illnesses back in Feb 2009

Good Forum Post on buying preventative masks from Survival Forum

CDC Daily Update

Bloomberg: Flu Spreads to Hundreds in New York

Reuters: New Swine Flu Infections Intensify Travel Fears

Texas Dept of State Health - Guidelines for First Responders

UPDATE 26 Apr 09:

CDC Swine Flu - What's New

Excellent source of historical tracking and information: Biosurveillance

Talk Back: BBC - Real Accounts from healthcare and others with first-hand knowledge in Mexico describe what they have experienced / seen.

Keep in mind that the CDC website states that they only confirm illness/death on this new strain if they have received confirmation of the strain from a CDC laboratory.

UPDATE 25 Apr 09: Track cases via Google Map - H1N1 Swine Flu

By now most of you have probably heard about the 1000 people sick in Mexico with a new, never before seen version of swine flu. At least 20 deaths in Mexico have been attributed to this new strain. While there have been 7 reported cases in the US (San Antonio, TX and San Diego, CA), the people in the US have recovered.

The reason there is growing concern about this at the Centers For Disease Control and the World Health Organization is that this particularly nasty strain is hitting otherwise normal, healthy people - in Mexico those with this illness are sometimes on a respirator within 48-hours of becoming ill. Also, this particular strain is a combination of swine, avian (bird) and human influenza and is a strain that has never before been seen in man or swine - this is something that definitely bears our very close attention.

We can assume that the mainstream media is downplaying this at this point to prevent panic, but as "preppers" this is one of the many things are / should be prepared for.

If this turns into a full-fledged pandemic it will be good to know that we can stay at home and have everything we need for several weeks without having to go out in the general public.

Here's a late story from today about the virus so far:

Tonight, from Reuters:

WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday it was too late to contain the swine flu outbreak in the United States.

CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser told reporters in a telephone briefing it was likely too late to try to contain the outbreak, by vaccinating, treating or isolating people.

"There are things that we see that suggest that containment is not very likely," he said.

Others:

Reuter's - Deadly New Flu Strain Erupts in Mexico

Here's some information on Swine Flu from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

Here's the CDC page where they are Investigating Human Outbreaks

From the World Health Organization - Mexico apparently had cases under surveillance as early as 18 March 2009

Prevention Guidelines from the CDC are at the link.

You might want to consider stocking up on some Vitamin C, masks (N-95 particulate one), fever reducer (tylenol), gloves, over-the-counter and/or homeopathic flu relief medications, bleach and/or other disinfectants for washing clothing, bedding, mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms.

This is also a good time to make sure you have your food and water preps in order just in case you find yourself needing to stay at home for an extended period of time.

Pay attention to this one everyone.

Works of a Master Prepper

I don't know about you, but sometimes I learn more from reading about something in a story format than I do studying the facts and figures.

There is a Master Prepper out there by the name of Jerry D. Young who writes stories that encompass the fine Art of Prepping like few others can. Almost all of Jerry's stories are free, but the wealth of how-to information that you'll take away from them will make you quickly realize their value.

Jerry posts most of his work in the "Books, Movies and Stories" section on Survivalist Forum, although he does have a website of his own as well ~ Jerry D. Young Library.

I'd like to introduce you to Jerry and some of his work. You'll be glad you had a chance to meet. Enjoy!

Bad Times Coming, Chapter 1

Shake, Shake, Shake (Youth)

Influences

Rudy's Preparedness Shop

Low Profile

Who's That Cowboy?

Dominic Santelli, Prepper

Disaster In The Burbs

A Recovery Thread

Is The Mail Here Yet?

Jerry's ad-free Preparedness site

Jerry's E-book ~ Mr. Man

Jerry's published book ~ Shipwrecked

Tire Garden: Day 42

Here's a long over-due update on our home tire garden, now on Day 42.

I've been very pleased with our efforts so far. We did our initial planting the weekend of March 7-8, 2009. You can read about Day 1, Day 2, and Day 13 by clicking on the links.

Just this week, I've started gathering mesclun and radishes for eating:

Mesclun blend: Radishes:

We succession planted the mesclun and spinach so it wouldn't all come in the same week, so we should have some nice greens to eat for the next few weeks until the weather starts to stay too hot. You can see from the photos above that the radishes look great, and the greens are growing nicely.

This photo shows the entire bed of greens: in all the tires are spinach, mesclun, romaine and bib lettuce. In the center of the tires at the top is radishes, middle is green onions just starting to peek through and at the bottom is more beets.
This other set of beets didn't produce quite as well as I had hoped, but we do have few coming up. I hope the beets planted in my mesclun bed will produce better for me.
You can see in the photos below that my dear little 3 year old helper put quite a few carrot seeds in her tire - these will have to be thinned out some.

Of the six tires we planted in peas, 3 tires did not produce; I had older seeds and was using them in hopes they were still good, but apparently they aren't. Not to worry, I'll be planting swiss chard in those tires this week instead.

The other 3 tires of peas are doing very well.

Here are the 6 tires of potatoes. I need to add more dirt on top of the potatoes and another tire, to make them deeper. I'm out of good dirt and will be getting some this week so I can get this task accomplished.

In the next couple of weeks we'll be starting our tomatoes and peppers - this year we are going to do some of our tomatoes as hanging tomatoes - I'll be sure to post and provide photos of that as we go along.

Are you gardening yet?

Keeping Up

Are you all trying hard to keep up with the goings on of our government in Washington?

I strongly recommend that you add The Market Ticker to your DAILY reading if you don't already. Karl Denninger puts it straight, on a daily basis, so you'll know exactly what's going on in, around and behind the scenes.

A few highlights:

Open Challenge To The States

Washington Corruption

Check it out if you don't already.

Tea Party Review

Did you attend a tea party in your area yesterday? How did it go? Where do you think it will go from here?

Here's a roundup of tea-party news from across the state and nation:

Fayette County (Somerville, TN) - crowd of about 500

Memphis - crowd of about a 1000 - not good news coverage to be found

Chattanooga Times Free Press - crowd of approximately 2000

Knoxville WBIR.com

Shelbyville Times Gazette - reporting on Nashville (10,000 in attendance) and Murfreesboro

Scared Monkey - blogged about the Nashville tea party

Tax Day Tea Party - good info on attendance across the nation

Make Your Own Cloth Toilet Wipes

For those of you who want more information about what the whole cloth toilet wipes thing is all about, you can read my post here: Ready for Cloth Wipes?.

If you are interested in an easy way to make your own wipes, you can do what I did this week. My mom happened to find a couple of flannel baby blankets at the local dollar store.


After washing them, I simply used my pinking shears to cut them into squares that were about 7 inches square. Using pinking shears will help keep the edges from raveling. I could also have sewn a serged or zig-zag edge on the squares, but using the pinking shears was much quicker.


I ended up with 16 cloth wipes from each blanket - a total of 32 wipes from 2 little blankets that only cost $1.00 each.


If you don't have access to flannel blankets like these, you can look for flannel sheets or some people even use packages of shop towels that are nice and soft.

CAGW: Know Your Pork

Even though it has been a while since the 2009 Federal Budget was passed with all of it excessive pork spending - I thought you might want to have the link so you can browse at your leisure all of the 10,160 pork projects that were included at a cost of 19.6 BILLION. Be sure to check out your state representatives and see how much pork was promised to your state!

Here's the link: Citizens Against Government Waste: 2009 Pig Book Summary

Community Gardening

Interested in getting a community garden started in your area? It might be as simple as approaching a local church to get your idea going.

What started as an idea I expressed in passing to one of our church pastors has now turned into a successful adventure - at least so far!

In about 4 weeks, we've signed up 32 families to participate in the first ever community garden at our church. The church has provided the ground and the lumber for us to make our square foot gardening frames. A church member has stepped up and offered to provide all of the seeds and vegetables that our families will need to plant their garden plots. Another church member donated an 18-wheeler full of compost to improve the soil. Many other church members have volunteered their time helping me design the space, for tilling the ground, moving in the compost with a backhoe and we all met this past Friday to build our garden frames.

Each family participating will have (2) 4x8 garden plots that they will plant and can keep their harvest. All participating families will also help tend a 20 foot x 40 foot "community" plot for the church; the church receives all the harvest from this plot to give to families in need at our church our community.

At our first class meeting, the families gave me the list of veggies they most wanted to plant. Since most of the families participating are very new to gardening, I then took that information and helped them by plotting out what would be best planted where in their square foot garden sections.

Each family now has a planting plan for their garden section that they'll use when we meet again as a group on April 25th for our very first planting day.

If you have a dream or desire to teach others to garden, but don't have the space for a large community garden - the key might just be as close as your local church - you never know until you ask!

CyberSecurity???

Funny, I don't feel any safer after reading this information. Two bills, both introduced by Senator Jay Rockefeller, are being started in the Senate as part of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009: S. 773 and S. 778. The text of these bills is not available yet on GovTrack, but I'll keep looking for it so I can read the text in its entirety. But here's the premise:

S. 773: A bill to ensure the continued free flow of commerce within the United States and with its global trading partners through secure cyber communications, to provide for the continued development and exploitation of the Internet and intranet communications for such purposes, to provide for the development of a cadre of information technology specialists to improve and maintain effective cybersecurity defenses against disruption, and for other purposes.

S. 778: Bill to establish an Office of National Cybersecurity Advisor

A summary can be found here: Cyberbill Summary

According to a news article by WorldNetDaily, after viewing a working copy of the bills, they can:

"First, the White House, through the national cybersecurity advisor, shall have the authority to disconnect "critical infrastructure" networks from the Internet – including private citizens' banks and health records, if Rockefeller's examples are accurate – if they are found to be at risk of cyber attack. The working copy of the bill, however, does not define what constitutes a cybersecurity emergency, and apparently leaves the question to the discretion of the president.

Second, the bill establishes the Department of Commerce as "the clearinghouse of cybersecurity threat and vulnerability information," including the monitoring of private information networks deemed a part of the "critical infrastructure."

Third, the legislation proposes implementation of a professional licensing program for certifying who can serve as a cybersecurity professional."

This is definitely something for us to keep track of. For those how-to articles and bookmarked sites that you love - you might want to consider having a copy on your hard drive!

Spring Freeze - Again!

Okay everyone, get ready for another spring freeze this year! Here in West Tennessee, it was a balmy 73 degrees today. Forecast for tomorrow is rain, high in the 70s, with temps dropping drastically in the afternoon and evening - rain possibly changing to snow after midnight. Can you believe it?? No accumulation expected, but a low in the upper 20s is forecast for Monday night into Tuesday morning.

We seem to have one of these every year - at least this one is a bit earlier than the past two years, when we had a freeze near the frost-free date of April 15th.

If you have any garden veggies already out - get ready to protect them! We use old sheets, towels, old blankets, tarps, whatever we need to get everything covered from the elements. If you have any ideas that work well for you, let us know!

Keeping Up: News To Know

A quick post this evening with news you need to know, if you don't already:

Inside the Obama meeting with bank CEOs

World leaders pledge 1.1 Trillion to fight global crisis

Russia hails "comrade" Obama

Clinton announces million-dollar scholarship program for Palestinian students

Just to keep up:

Federal Register of Executive Orders by Obama (ongoing updates added as they are issued)

The Market Ticker

Free: Pocket Constitution and Declaration of Independence

Exaggeration!

Exaggerate:

v. ex·ag·ger·at·ed, ex·ag·ger·at·ing, ex·ag·ger·ates

v.tr.

1. To represent as greater than is actually the case; overstate: exaggerate the size of the enemy force; exaggerated his own role in the episode.

2. To enlarge or increase to an abnormal degree: thick lenses that exaggerated the size of her eyes.

v.intr.

To make overstatements.
(definition courtesy of The Free Dictionary)

Seems that our elected officials have gotten really, really good at this of late. Examples:

1. Fox News Political Grapevine: The DNC apparently reported that they presented 642,000 petitions to Capitol Hill on Wednesday in support of the President's budget. PROBLEM: There were only 114,000 - until they went on a door-to-door weekend campaign and added another 100,000. This, in basic math, adds up to 214,000. Then, they made THREE COPIES of each one so every Senator and Representative would get one.

The same link talks about Vice President Biden taking credit for the stimulus package building a new firestation, when in fact the funds were approved in the previous administration.

2. A Perpetuating Myth: Keep hearing that "90% of the guns used in crimes in Mexico come from the US" statistic? IT IS FALSE. Actually, the true statement is that 90% of the TRACEABLE guns used in Mexico. Turns out that only 17% of the guns used are traceable to the U.S. The rest come from Central and South America, China, Russia and other countries. But boy, it certainly is dramatic to get media attention with that 90% number, even if it is a lie.

Can't believe everything you hear or read, you have to do your homework!