Cooke's Frontier Podcast {Landscaping for Home Security}

You can listen to this podcast on the Survival Mom Radio Network: Landscaping For Home Security.

This week, I wanted to talk about the ways we can protect our homes from thieves. There are many levels to home protection, from as simple as keeping things clean and tidy to avoid hiding places to more extreme and costly measures like full scale security systems
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This topic has been on my mind since we had a near-miss with a burglary a couple of weeks ago. We've had to re-evaluate our outdoor spaces and make some changes around our property. What happened to us was that we had a boat parked alongside our chainlink fence. The fence seperates us from an empty house, so there was complete cover for the thief. Someone cut the fence and came through, we can only guess they were taking stock of what they could see, and then went back out, thankfully taking nothing. The funny thing is that our chickens found the hole and went out, or else we wouldn't have noticed it for some time.

Nothing makes you feel more vulnerable and violated than knowing someone was walking around outside your bedroom window while you were in your house unawares. It really freaked me out for a few days and I was really careful to have all of the doors locked and I carried my pistol with me at all times. We live in a fairly decent area, but our neighbors leave a lot to be desired and I am always very careful to avoid creating a pattern that they can learn. I stay at home all of the time, and my husband leaves for work and returns home, at various times of the day. His days off are also pretty random, so we do a good job of being unpredictable. However, it has become a matter of the utmost importance to secure our property BETTER.

The first thing we did was to move everything away from all of our fences. Everything. I can now look out of my window and see, clearly, all of our fenceline in a clear glance. The second thing we did was to remove any tempting looking items from our yard. We had gotten lax and there were a few thigs out and about that were targets for theives. We put everything away in a locked garage that we could fit. Then, the items that wouldn't fit, like out quads, we chained together with heavy chain and  cable and padlocked them.

We also installed another set of motion dection lights on the back of the house, and replaced the bulbs that were burned out in our existing lights. We have a murcury vapor light that comes on at dusk and goes off at daylight on our garage, and that lights up our driveway like the brightest of summer days.
The next thing we did was to go outside and view what we could see on the inside of the house at all kinds of angles. This may sound paraniod, but knowing what people walking by can see through our windows when the blinds are open means I can move tempting items out of view. If they can't see your laptop, they might not be tempted to steal it, know what I mean? So, we did this with all of our downstairs windows and moved items out of the line of sight accordingly. We also tend to keep our windows shut most of the time, so that we aren't creating a pattern of "windows open, people at home, windows closed, people gone"

As far as the inside of the house goes, if you can get past our dogs you'll have plenty of barrels to be looking down. Dogs are another great deterent. Our larger, female sounds like she should weigh 100 lbs and would eat you with one bite, when in reality she weighs about 55 lbs and has a deep bark. Even if you don't have dog, putting up a "Beware of Dog" sign might make a burglar think twice about entering a property. We did used this scare as a good time to hit the range with our home protection firearms and make sure everything was in good workign order, and to get a little practice. We shoot all of the time, but shooting at some targets is always a good idea.

Now, here's something that I really wanted to talk about and that is plants as home protection. Sounds crazy right? No way!! There are a lot of realy beautiful plants out there that have wicked thorns or are really pokey and unpleasant. Here's a list of some plants to consider in your landscaping in prime locations, like under windows or around the house:

• Roses
• Creeping juniper- spiney foliage and stems
• Blue spruce- if you've ever touched one of these in the garden center, you'll know how stiff and spiny they are.
• Holly- probably the most prickly plant of all time
• Bamboo- can make an inpenitrable wall of dense, thick canes
• Juniper- again, very pokey
• Blackthorn, or Sloe- these are really bushy, bloom prettily and even have a berry that you can use to make sloe gin! 
• Gooseberry
• Blackberry
• Raspberry
• Cacti of all shapes and sizes

Any bush, shrub or tree that you can think of that has spines, thorns or is generally irritating to deal with would be a good choice.

I think the best advice I've been given, that I wanted to pass on to you, is this: We can't be perfectly safe all of the time. But, we can do everything possible to create a safe, defensible space around and within our homes. Be proficient with a handgun or shotgun and practice with it regularly. I'd add to this that outside lights are a good thing, especially if you live in or near a town of any size and to consider getting a dog if you don't already have one. I'm not advocating raising vicious attack dogs in any way, but a dog can be a really great indicator that some thing just isn't right.

Now, for the Recipe of the Week!! This week I'm sharing a recipe for a healthier, knock off version of a Costco muffin- Apple Oatmeal Muffins with Maple Glaze.


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