A new heifer, more work, and preparedness blog posts

This week we got a Jersey heifer calf!

I told Jeff I would milk for three months if he would get me a calf.  He agreed.  We named her Daisy, she is eleven days old today, and she is absolutely adorable.  We won't actually get milk for a couple years, but we're still excited to have her.  I bought a halter for her, and we're teaching her to let us lead her, but cows don't really like going where you want them to.  We (okay, I) wanted her so that we can use her milk for cream, butter, and cheese.  Her mom gives 6-7 gallons per day, so Daisy should be a pretty high producer.  When she is full grown she will weigh about 800 lbs.


I've been working on building my property management business.  So far I am not managing much, so I've been working on marketing a lot.  I sent out 273 postcards to people who either bought or tried to sell multifamily housing in Salt Lake county within the last year.  A couple people called from that, but it hasn't resulted in any new management contracts---yet.  I also developed a flyer for other Realtors to give to their clients that are having trouble selling in this economy.  I designed sticky notes (with a message to the Realtors), and once the flyers arrive (probably Tuesday), I will be able to go out to other real estate offices and introduce myself to other Realtors.  I had 500 flyers printed, and I think they are a good direction to head.

Last week started a property management blog.  I am http://thepropertymanager.wordpress.com.  I have other websites, like my name .com and slcpropertymanagement.com, but I don't know how to put a blog on one of those sites (yet) so I figured I might as well start anyway.  The blog only has a few posts so far, because it is new.  I keep checking statistics to see if other people have found it at all, and it never has any views at all.  That's okay!  I'm still excited about it.  These things take time. 


I have also written more emergency preparedness blog posts.

I haven't mentioned this for a while on this blog, so there are a lot of new posts. I finished my series on sprouting, and then I wrote about: HAM radio, storing various types of fuel, food storage for restricted diets, a couple posts about specific eFoods Direct products, and bartering.  Now I am writing a series called "Preparedness Chickens" which is to help people understand how they can start keeping chickens in their backyard, as part of their emergency preparedness and food storage. 

11 April 2011 - Sprouting: How to Choose Seeds
18 April 2011 - Sprouting Supplies
25 April 2011 - Try Sprouting!
2 May 2011 - You'll wish you had a HAM radio!
9 May 2011 - How to get your HAM radio license
16 May 2011 - Storing Gasoline?
23 May 2011 - Storing Propane for an Emergency
30 May 2011 - Food Storage for Restricted Diets, part I
6 June 2011 - Food Storage for Restricted Diets, part II
13 June 2011 - Kerosene, White Gas, and Butane
20 June 2011 - Storing Wood or Coal
27 June 2011 - Best. Snack. Ever.
4 July 2011 - eFoods Direct Blueberry Muffins Recipe
11 July 2011 - Bartering in an Emergency
18 July 2011 - Everyday Bartering 
25 July 2011 - Prepare to Create Value in an Emergency
1 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 1
8 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 2
15 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 3
22 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 4
29 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 5

I have three upcoming posts about chickens, and then I will be moving along to another topic.  There has also been a change in the schedule, so now I will be posting every other Monday, instead of every Monday. 


Well, this is about enough for now.  We're doing well.  Please think happy thoughts of me finding properties to manage.  :)

More of my Emergency Preparedness blog posts

Remember how I blog for eFoods Direct? Here are the links to my posts that have published since the last time I mentioned this on my blog:

1. Creating a Family Emergency Plan
2. Preparing for an Earthquake
3. Preparing for a Fire
4. How to Turn Off Your Gas
5. Sprouting Basics


In other news, I started my garden! A couple weeks ago there was this really disappointing day where it snowed after it had been sunny and warm for a while. So, in order to spite winter, I planted a bunch of seeds. I did one of those 72-cell seed starter things and it is in my in-laws' greenhouse. Last time I saw it (about a week ago), some of it was growing. I think my Rich Sweetness 132 melons were growing, plus some cauliflowers, and my Romanian beans, and, well, I forget what else. Gardening is less exciting when it isn't at your house, because you can't really get excited about stuff that does well. Ah well. Soon I'll bring it back home and then I can enjoy the rest of the season more.

Emergency Preparedness!

A little while ago I mentioned I've been blogging for eFoods Direct lately. I write a post on emergency preparedness every Monday. It looks like the new site has launched now! Neat!

Want to see what I've blogged about there?
1. Why I Choose to Prepare
2. 2011 is Your Year to Prepare!
3. Collecting Important Documents
4. Emergency Preparedness on a Budget, part I
5. Emergency Preparedness on a Budget, part II
6. Which Emergencies are You Preparing For?
7. Involving Kids in Emergency Preparedness
8. Fire Extinguisher Basics
9. QUIZ: How prepared are you TODAY?

I have a bunch of other posts (on a variety of preparedness topics) scheduled for upcoming weeks, so there's a lot to look forward to.

I also really recommend going in and reading all of the posts by Rock Waterman. He writes about storing water (and sometimes he writes about other things), but he's fun to read.

I'm so excited about getting prepared! When I found out I was going to be writing about emergency preparedness I made this whole long list of different topics I could write about. Some of them are things I already know about, and some are things I'm learning about before I blog. I love writing about this stuff. I love being prepared.

A couple days ago I (finally!) filled my water storage barrels. We bought water storage barrels a few months ago and then left them empty. It felt really good to cross that off of my to do list.* The thing is, we're headed toward some really significant inflation really soon.** Things are probably going to get pretty bad, so it makes a lot of sense to do what we can now to prepare.





* No, really, it did. I use an app called "Astrid" which reminds me of my to do things all the time. "Won't you please just take care of this?" it asks. "You'll feel better when this is done." "This won't take long, I promise." GO AWAY!
** It's already happening, actually. J likes pre-sliced packages of cheese, and last week we realized the packages are now 6-7 oz. of cheese instead of 8 oz. Ice cream comes in different containers now too, because they're like radio-sized instead of lunchbox-sized boxes now. Hmmmm. Think about this: how much work does it take to change the size of an ice cream box? They have to change the machinery to work with different packages...they have to change their stuff that they use to print the boxes (to print a different size box, and to say a different amount on the box)...now, why would they go to all that trouble?