Life in the suburbs makes dealing with trash relatively easy. You simply bag it, drop it in the curbside bin, and have it hauled away weekly. However, homesteaders living in rural areas have to be more mindful of their waste, as they often don’t have the benefit of a trash service. If you’re new to homesteading or are just looking for ways to manage your household garbage, this article is for you. Trash: How to Reduce It In Your Homestead Reducing household waste is one of the easiest ways to cut back on both spending and pollution. When shopping, look at the products you buy and reflect on ways to get around the need for packaging. For instance, is it something you can make yourself (cookies, bread, etc.)? Is there an alternative product with better packaging (paper vs. plastic)? Can you buy it in bulk and store it in reusable containers? Use reusable bags when shopping. I’m not just talking about the canvas totes either — you can also get reusable produce bags! Keep extra bags in your car, just in case you forget to grab them when leaving the house. If you find yourself at the store without your bags, choose paper over plastic. You can still reuse it, and, eventually, recycle it. Gardening is another fantastic way to reduce waste. There’s no need for packaging, no carbon footprint from transportation, and no unnecessary food processing (I’m looking at you, baby carrots!). If gardening isn’t your thing, buy fresh local produce from a farm or from the farmer’s market. Again, you’ll be able to skip the need for plastic packaging, and it will be fresh and in the season. Once you’ve had your fill of the fresh goodies, can the rest. Not only will you have the produce picked at peak ripeness, you’ll also cut down on the metal and plastic waste from canned and frozen produce. If it’s practical for your family, consider going zero waste. From using cloth and glass to keep food, to making your own hygiene products, Joybilee Farm has a ton of fantastic tips on how to accomplish this awesome feat. Responsible Waste Disposal When it comes the time to get rid of something, there are a lot of options for doing so in an environmentally-conscious way. Start by reusing anything you can. Glass, metal, cloth, and even cardboard packaging has a number of uses on the homestead. For items that cannot be reused, or have simply met the end of their lifecycle, consider the following: In the Home The first place garbage usually ends up is in the kitchen trash can. When choosing a bin, look for something that will keep odors from getting out and insects from getting in. If you have dogs or cats who like to tip over the trash can, you’ll want to look for a model that is sufficiently pet proof. If you’re worried about the can smelling up your kitchen, sprinkle a little baking soda or kitty litter in the bottom of the trash bag to absorb unwanted odors. The number one thing to remember with in-home trash cans is to never discard cigarettes or hot ashes until they’ve been extinguished, as they're one of the top causes of house fires. If you compost, purchase (or DIY) a kitchen compost bin for cooking scraps and leftovers. When it fills up, you can carry it out to the compost pile! Compost That leads us nicely to my next point; if you’re not composting yet, you really should give it a try. It’s one of the best (and easiest) ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Plus, it turns kitchen scraps into fertilizer gold! Any organic items that can’t be fed to your pigs, chickens, etc. should go into the compost pile. Plus, there are a ton of other household items that can go into the pile that you may have never considered, such as nail clippings, vacuum cleaner contents, toothpick, dryer lint, and even latex condoms! For more on what you can and cannot compost, check out this great guide. Recyclables Before chucking things into the trash can, separate out any recyclables. The majority of plastic containers are #1 and #2, which are highly recyclable, while plastic grocery bags can be dropped off at most grocery stores for recycling. Bag up your recyclables and stash them somewhere on the homestead until you can make a trip to your nearest recycling center – just make sure you wash them well to avoid odors that might attract scavengers. Burn Barrel Many state and local governments prohibit or restrict some or all backyard burning of waste. Be sure to know the regulations in your area before burning trash. A burn barrel is great for bones, meat scraps, paper not suitable for recycling, and yard trimmings — but please, PLEASE do not burn plastic. It’s bad for both you and the environment. For safety’s sake, don’t burn on windy days, or after a long stretch of hot, dry weather. Be mindful of your neighbors; don’t burn if they’re outside enjoying nature, or if they have laundry hanging to dry. Once your barrel is half-full of ash, empty it into a large, heavy-duty trash bag and take it to your local landfill. The Landfill It’s important to know the location and rates of your local landfill, as you’ll be visiting it often. Anything that cannot be reused, recycled, composted, or burned will eventually need to make its way here, but the amount of those items will be entirely dependent on you. Like recyclables, bagged garbage will need to be stored on the homestead until you have time to take it to the landfill. Take the necessary precautions to make sure it isn’t scattered across your property by scavengers. There are some household items that not only can't be recycled or reused, they can’t go to the landfill either. These items have to be disposed of at a hazardous waste facility. To the best of your ability, reduce your consumption of the following items, and when you do use them, dispose of them according to your city's laws: Batteries Electronics Light bulbs Paint Solvents Used motor oil Pesticides Another often overlooked item that should not be tossed away haphazardly is unused or expired medication. Make sure to dispose of medication responsibly — it cannot go in the trash can or down the toilet. Let's talk more about the trash on the homestead in this video: Trash plays a huge part in the story of our lives, but we rarely give it more than a passing thought. However, by reducing the amount of waste we create, and reusing and recycling what we do, we can make a huge impact on both the environment and our wallets — and that’s good no matter which way you bag it. How do you manage your trash in your homestead? Please leave your tips and experiences in the comment section below! Get to know these 10 simple tips every urban homesteader needs to see and be on the right track! Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook!

There was one supervillain in the story of the 2024 campaign that almost surpassed Donald Trump – Elon Musk. From the minute he bought Twitter in 2022, the leftists who aspire to complete messaging control were furious. They knew their 2020 jig was up, that they couldn’t just suppress damaging stories like the Hunter Biden laptop. Reporters like Cleve Wootson of The Washington Post complained in the White House briefing that “misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue…it's an America issue.” Post columnists call it a "mind-polluting app." Suddenly, “independent” agencies in the Biden administration unleashed their probes: the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission. Government was weaponized against Musk. After the Democrats installed Kamala Harris, Musk became an explicit Trump supporter and super-PAC funder. Now the press warns he’ll have a massive conflict of interest if he’s brought on by President Trump as a “government efficiency czar.” He has many millions of dollars in government contracts. Musk’s publicity stunt of handing over $1 million a day to Americans who signed his petition in favor of the First and Second Amendments drew all kinds of negative attacks from the press. On October 21, CBS Mornings brought on their elections expert David Becker, who lusted openly about sending Musk to jail for five years for bribing voters. On the last Saturday before the election, NBC News was warning that “at least nine of the 15 winners” of the big checks were either “registered Republicans” or “Republican-leaning.” Is that really a surprise or a scandal, conservatives backing the constitutional amendments? Then on the night before Election Day, MSNBC star Rachel Maddow went on a wild rant about how the federal government will have to shed all ties to Musk, everywhere. They are an “untenable” reality for national security.   The meltdown intensified as the votes piled up for Trump after the polls closed. CBS host Margaret Brennan railed at 1:30 in the morning that Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) warned, “no single person is more beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. Because of the business interests he has in that country.”  Hunter Biden’s thicket of business interests in China were never interesting to CBS and the Democrats. But now that Musk is helping Trump? Look out! Warner and the Democrats are upset that the social-media atmosphere isn’t censoring conservative “misinformation” enough. It’s not just X, but Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Musk made censorship uncool. Journalists like Brennan complain about Musk spreading misinformation willy-nilly and then insist, “The facts were in Joe Biden’s favor on the economy. The facts were in Kamala Harris’s favor on the economy.” Liberals have this funny habit of declaring their opinions are facts. Therefore, dissenting opinions are “misinformation.” Liberals and conservatives alike feel that Elon Musk’s billions have transformed the “information space.” He made it….more spacious. Our media elites want everyone to have a very limited diet under their control. In their strange minds, losing control of the narrative is equated with the loss of democracy.  This is why Musk is their Public Enemy Number One. This is why conservatives should be emboldened to push the information that the leftists want squashed. The election demonstrated that a more liberated marketplace of news and ideas is what made democracy great again. 

Border Patrol Agent Zachary Apotheker faces an ongoing internal investigation that could potentially lead to his termination after he publicly expressed concerns about how open-border policies are fueling the illegal child trafficking crisis in the nation. Apotheker started his Border Patrol career at the southern border and moved to the northern border's Swanton Sector last year. Since sharing his concerns during podcast appearances and interviews with media outlets, he says that Customs and Border Protection has retaliated against him despite whistleblower protection laws. Apotheker has warned that there are "many ways to beat the [immigration] system" as it currently exists. His biggest concern is the disturbing increase in child trafficking. 'I'm assuming they're going to move to terminate me.' He noted that the Border Patrol's ability to look into the criminal background of foreign nationals crossing the border is limited. "We don't have their criminal history," Apotheker told Blaze News. "The adults may not show up with documents, but then the children may not show up with documents, or maybe false documents. So we're just taking their word that this child is now this person's child — that's their biological parents," he said. "We don't even know if the adult that they're with is a criminal." "We really can't definitively say, and we can't track them," he continued. "Now, imagine if they're unaccompanied [minors]." "We're just sending them somewhere, so maybe a relative's house. How do we even know that it's the relative's house? And then who's following up on it?" he questioned. In early September, Apotheker appeared for an interview on the "Fresh&Fit Podcast," where he shared how illegal immigrants exploit the current border policies to traffic humans and drugs into the United States. Shortly after the podcast's release, he received a cease-and-desist letter from Customs and Border Protection. Around the same time, Apotheker was also featured in James O'Keefe's documentary, "Line in the Sand," where he spoke out about child trafficking. In the film, Apotheker mentioned the horrific slaying of 22-year-old Laken Riley, a University of Georgia nursing student, who was murdered while jogging near campus. The man charged with Riley's murder is a 26-year-old Venezuelan national who was in the U.S. illegally and is a suspected member of the transnational gang Tren de Aragua. Apotheker told O'Keefe, "When a girl like Laken Riley is jogging, she's top of her class at nursing, and we sign those f***ing files, man, that's blood on our hands." "If it was your mother or your sister or your aunt, how would you feel?" He told Blaze News that CBP questioned him about his appearance in the documentary film. Apotheker responded to CBP officials, writing, "I participated in Line in the Sand Film on duty in uniform, as did many other Border Patrol Agents." In the film, several other Border Patrol officers spoke with O'Keefe while on duty. He also added that he provided "no CBP information to any non-CBP employee" and gave "zero information that is not public." Apotheker noted that the "only compensation" he received for participating in the film "was a free, clean, and clear" conscience. "I told the truth to the American Public and fulfilled my duty to the Constitution of the United States of America," he wrote. In his letter to CBP officials, Apotheker highlighted that the Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that over 300,000 children are missing. He further pointed out that CBP's failure to collect biometric data on children makes correctly identifying them "effectively impossible." According to the Department of Homeland Security, "As the regulations currently exempt certain aliens from the collection of biometrics, including those under 14 and over 79, as well as individuals in certain visa classes, CBP does not use fingerprints to confirm the traveler's identity in these cases." Apotheker told Blaze News that the agency stripped him of his government-issued firearm the same week he responded to the questioning. 'It's like these little mind game tricks. ... They found a way to do what you can't prove.' On October 11, he received a memo from a CBP division chief informing him that he is "currently under investigation ... for allegations related to serious breaches of integrity and/or security policies." The agency's memo explained that it was "in the best interest of CBP to temporarily revoke your authority to carry a Government-issued firearm." However, it claimed that the firearm revocation was "not a disciplinary action." Without a firearm, Apotheker was taken out of the field and instructed to report to work "in business casual attire." The memo was signed with an indecipherable handwritten signature belonging to a Swanton Sector division chief. No corresponding printed name to identify the individual was listed. Image Source: Zachary Apotheker Apotheker told Blaze News, "They pulled my gun, which takes me out of the field. I can't do my job." "It's kind of rare for them to take your gun for no other reason and say it wasn't disciplinary but not take your law enforcement credentials," he added. Soon after receiving the memo, Apotheker was served another notice, this one compelling his sworn testimony on October 17 before a Department of Homeland Security special agent. Apotheker was informed that he would be questioned about his "general misconduct/disruptive behavior." He attended the compelled administrative hearing but was advised by his legal representation not to answer any questions. "I feel I've done nothing wrong," Apotheker stated. He acknowledged that wearing his Border Patrol uniform during the podcast appearance breached the agency's policy. However, he explained that he only did so after filing a whistleblower report through the DHS' Office of Inspector General and speaking to a member of Congress, and "nothing was done." "I used discretion," he said. "The country needs to be made aware of this." He explained that his legal counsel, obtained through the Citizenship Journalism Foundation, instructed him not to participate in the CBP's "retaliatory investigation." "We just didn't want to legitimize that meeting," he told Blaze News. "I don't feel like I should be being investigated. If anything, I feel like they should be asking me what I know and how to resolve it." The day after the hearing, Apotheker received a notice informing him that his law enforcement authority had been revoked, citing his "fail[ure] to respond to questions asked of you during an administrative interview conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of Professional Responsibility." "Your refusal to participate in a compelled interview called into question your ability to perform the law enforcement functions of your positions as a Border Patrol Agent," the memo read. Apotheker was required to hand in the rest of his Border Patrol gear, including his badge, body armor, and radio. "Consequently, you will be placed on administrative duties immediately," the memo continued. "Your access to the building and computer systems will be modified to limit your accessibility only to those areas necessary to perform your assigned administrative duties. Since you will not be performing law enforcement duties, you are not to wear your uniform and will adhere to business casual dress code standards." Again, the memo mentioned, "Please note that this is not a disciplinary action, but is necessary, given the nature of the allegation(s) against you, in order to preserve the trust of the public we serve." The memo contained the same division chief's signature and, again, no printed name. Image Source: Zachary Apotheker Apotheker told Blaze News that the agency changed his schedule and significantly cut his hours. "Not only did they cut my overtime, which is a big amount of money, but from switching me from nights to mornings, what they're basically trying to do is apply financial pressure to me because you get a 10% night differential for every hour after 6 p.m.," he said. Apotheker stated that his pay was slashed by at least $25,000-$35,000 with "all the tricks they did." He feels the changes were "100% retaliatory," despite the agency's insistence otherwise. "They would do everything they could to make it more difficult for me," he said. 'We're gonna battle this out.' Apotheker recounted that even before his equipment was confiscated and his law enforcement powers were stripped, his superiors seemed to go out of their way to make his time at work more challenging, including stationing him in the most remote areas of the sector. After driving for hours to reach his assignment, he would soon be summoned back for last-minute meetings, he said. "They'd send me out to the furthest part of our area. I drive out there for two hours, they call me back. Now, it happened consistently," he said. "Every day, I knew that I was gonna get called over the radio to come in for another meeting where they could have just had the meeting then and there." "It's like these little mind game tricks," Apotheker added. "They found a way to do what you can't prove." He explained that before he left the southern border and relocated to the Swanton Sector, he "was known as someone that was not happy with what was going on in Arizona." "And when I came up here, I felt like that followed me — that I was a person with a reputation that would speak out against what's going on instead of just doing it and shutting up," Apotheker added. He stated he got the impression that his leadership "wanted to make it known to me that that wasn't going to be tolerated up here." Apotheker told Blaze News that Border Patrol Agents have "worked harder on the northern border than we have down south because, per capita, we have less agents to do so much work." "We have a lot of drive-throughs up here, which means people will physically take a vehicle and drive from Canada into America, which should be a massive crime. You're not just crossing; now you're taking a vehicle across. You're driving past an international boundary," he explained. "If it's a family, sometimes they've taken us on chases." The Swanton Sector is the most heavily trafficked northern border section, covering 24,000 square miles. In October, Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia announced, "Border Patrol Agents in Swanton Sector have apprehended more than 19,222 subjects from 97 different countries since October 1, 2023, which is more than its last 17 fiscal years combined." Apotheker is concerned that the CBP's internal investigation will ultimately result in his firing. When asked what is next for him, Apotheker told Blaze News, "We're gonna battle this out." "I'm assuming they're going to move to terminate me," he continued, but he noted that "there's a lot of different things that could happen." "I don't want it to be about me," Apotheker added. "I want it to be about what's going on the last three and a half years, which everybody knows, and I want to expose the people that are trying to remove me for telling the truth. And that's my goal is that I'm not going to give in." Neither CBP nor DHS-OIG responded to Blaze News' requests for comment.

The 1898 Wilmington massacre left dozens of Black North Carolinians dead. Conspirators also forced the city's multiracial government to resign at gunpoint

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Artificial intelligence might be the main selling point of smartphones this year, including the iPhone 16 series, but the camera experience will continue to be a big factor in choosing one model over the other. Apple has continuously improved the hardware and software of its iPhone cameras, but it did it at its own pace. Apple never bumped camera resolution to keep up with rivals, nor did it add a periscope camera to the iPhone before it had the right tech in place for the technology. That's probably why we've never had iPhone cameras with variable apertures, but that's about to change in the coming years. According to Ming-Chi Kup, the "2026 high-end iPhone 18" will get a wide camera lens with a variable aperture camera, "significantly enhancing the user photography experience." Continue reading... The post iPhone 18 Pro to feature a major camera upgrade: Variable aperture lens appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales Today’s deals: $30 in Amazon credit, $149 Roomba, $100 Fitbit, $180 Ninja CREAMi Deluxe, more Today’s deals: $199 iPad, Shark air purifiers with 5-year HEPA filters, $60 Ring Battery Doorbell, more Amazon gift card deals, offers & coupons 2024: Get $365+ free

Israel was sending two commercial planes to the Netherlands on Friday to repatriate hundreds of Israeli soccer fans after overnight attacks in the streets of Amsterdam that officials described as antisemitic. Videos on social media showed riot police intervening in clashes,...

HOBO CASSEROLE Our most popular recipe from the last Weekend Potluck was this Hobo Casserole from Southern Home Express! Our other featured recipes include: Maple Glazed Pork Chops from Chew Out Loud, No Bake Eggnog Pie from Semi Homemade Kitchen and I am sharing my recipe for Sweet Potato Casserole (can you believe Thanksgiving is right around the corner?!) HOW DO I GET TO THE RECIPES? PLEASE READ THIS! Just click on any of the photos below to take you to the full recipes! Also, when you scroll down to the bottom of this post, you’ll see a bunch of little thumbnail photos of recipes that your favorite food bloggers are sharing right now! THE RECIPE WITH THE MOST CLICKS: Hobo Casserole by Southern Home Express RECIPES THAT CAUGHT OUR ATTENTION: Maple Glazed Pork Chops by Chew Out Loud No Bake Eggnog Pie by Semi Homemade Kitchen FEATURED HOSTESS RECIPE: Sweet Potato Casserole by The Country Cook YOUR HOSTESSES: The Country Cook~ Brandie South Your Mouth~ Mandy Sweet Little Bluebird~ Mary You are invited to the Inlinkz link party! Click here to enter

Astronomers have used a range of telescopes, including Hubble, to watch as particles dance around a neutron star collision that created the smallest black hole ever seen.