Posted on 02/09/2009 12:36:11 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny
Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases along to the consumer. A recent stroll through the camping section of Wal-Mart did give me pause - what kinds of things are prudent to have on hand in the event of a worldwide shortage of food and/or fuel? Survivalist in Training
I’ve been interested in survival stories since I was a kid, which is funny considering I grew up in a city. Maybe that’s why the idea of living off the land appealed to me. My grandfather and I frequently took camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and around the Smoky Mountains. Looking back, some of the best times we had were when we stayed at campgrounds without electricity hookups, because it forced us to use what we had to get by. My grandfather was well-prepared with a camp stove and lanterns (which ran off propane), and when the sun went to bed we usually did along with it. We played cards for entertainment, and in the absence of televisions, games, etc. we shared many great conversations. Survivalist in the Neighborhood
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I have a room with windows on the south and west attached to the house. Not enough room so I’m building the greenhouse.<<<
Good for you, a gardener never has enough room for all the plants, does not matter what kind of plants they are.
And have LOTS of friends.<<<
Lots of friends is always good to have...
LOL, not sure what you meant, so will agree and say glad you found the thread and welcome to our world.
Delawhere is there a name for your trees?
I didn’t realize that you grew 5,000 starts each year.
I meant to mention that my friend (with the degree in poultry science) showed us another way to kill chickens. You hold the bird in a way that basically permits you to distend the vertebra in their neck and it severs the spinal cord. They do NOT move much after that! We can’t quite get the hang of it though and I need to get him to show me again HOW he did it.<<<
That sounds like what Mary taught me, it has been a few years, but you take the neck and the head and stretch them out, pull hard and then he just lays there and lets you chop the head off.
Your daughter sounds like a special lady, smart and wise, it is good that she showed the buck who was the alpha of the pack.
They can be dangerous, I don’t think the one that attacked me, was thinking breeding, he had a chain around his neck and I managed to catch it as he came down with his front feet and keep them off the ground, I stood there for what seemed like hours and was at least a half hour, until Bill realized that I had not come back to the house, after going to check them about 10 pm, and came looking for me.
As luck a rancher wanted him to run with his sheep for the summer and kept him, I suspect that he also taught him who the alpha male was, for he was a real old timer.
I love goats and have since I was a small child, so fully understand how your daughter feels about them.
I simply will not cook store bought chickens, for they stink to me.
Back in Scottsdale, Arizona, there used to be a place called Rawhide (it’s now on the Indian reservation south of town).<<<
I have always figured that if I had lived in those days, I would have been on a wagon headed west.
Next time you go, be real still and see if you can imagine being on the train with them.
I am always amazed at the loads they pulled with the oxen.
We got that stuff with our commodities. It didn’t taste like anything.<<<
Agree, wet and a little sweet, no taste.
LOL, I thought those blogs would interest you.
I’ll call Carol and see what she has available.<<<
Thanks, there may be others on the thread that want to know too.
Mexifornia and they wanted a ridiculous amount of money for really ugly land! But now...prices are coming down since people bought the country houses for a ridiculous amount of money and are now being foreclosed on.<<<
Yes, it had to come down, there was no way that it could keep going up, forever.
They say the value of real estate is what a willing buyer will pay for it and the seller will accept.
All areas that go up, will also have a stale/adjustment period.
Or the other option, is a devalued dollar that you need a case of it to buy a loaf of bread.
Once one has lived on acreage, it is difficult to go back to town, I tried it and lasted 3 months, was sure glad that I had not completely moved out of the mountain place and had not sold it.
Couldn’t stand having to get dressed to even open up the windows and did not like folks walking by and looking in the windows, spent the last 38 years, with the drapes open or missing entirely, I hate drapes.
Grew my own SP slips this year.....Happened to find a sprouting sweet potatoe in the organic bin. Know the green grocer who offered to give me others....
SInce there are just the three of us, we thought we’d try it and see if it worked. Stuck the tooth picks in the potatoe and placed in a large glass of water. So far we have six vines. Placed them in a recycled plastic barrel bottom in sandy loam that I created using compost, sand and peet...(We have yellow clay and lots of rocks, not good for root vegtables...Have created raised sand beds for other or used lasagna methods for potatoes). The direction I was given said just turn the barrel upside down to harvest.
If we have any, they will be free.
Good advice on the kidney beans....Have not been able to grow limas here. Don’t know why....It may be the clay.
>>>Delawhere is there a name for your trees?<<<
LOL the names are not very meaningful - OP367 and DN34 are the two varieties of Hybrid Poplars I grow. I also have some NZ67 Hybrid Willows too.
I sell quite a few cuttings and whips for windbreaks/barriers around chicken houses - all those city folks get crazy when they buy land near them and then complain about them - but when they are out of sight, seems they don’t mind as much. They usually mix with evergreens for winter view blocking.
The DN34 poplars are used a lot in soil remediation - soaks up a lot of hydrocarbons where there have been fuel spills or leakage over the years, tolerates salinity well, etc.
Oh, the name stands for 367th hybrid attempt by Oxford Paper - They do not produce seeds as they are all sterile male, and are reproduced only by cuttings, so no bothersome seed pods.
I’ve been hunting for some willow that will reproduce. Is yours a hybrid or the old fashion kind?
>>>Is yours a hybrid or the old fashion kind?<<<
Mine are hybrids.
I am assuming you want a Weeping Willow. If you can find one, (best time is before they leave out) ask the owner if you can get a few cuttings - pick sections 3/8 to 3/4 in diameter - cut into pieces about 8-10 inches long and stick in ground or potting soil.
Sometimes if you don’t let them dry out, you can strip the leaves from one and still get it to root even now. Rooting hormone is not usually needed for them, as they root readily.
You can also use whips which are about 2 feet long - they give you a better start. Stakes which are about 6-8 feet can also be used for an even better head start.
Just got in from putting newspapers in the area around the green beans....Hoe once and mulch....easier than the constant hoeing.
Took dad to town this afternoon and drove him past Miss America's house—two story white farm house with the expected outbuildings. She's a real farm girl. She's a ten year four-H member as were her mother and aunt and uncle. Often won ribbon at the fair.
In the mid eighteen hundreds a large area of our county was settled by ten large Lutheran farm families from Germany. Read THE LAST FARMER for more background. John Melloncamp is following in the authors footstep. Liberal during youth and turning more conservative as he ages.
Miss America, Katie Stam, and Melloncamp are both ancestors of some of these families. They know the meaning of hard work and perseverance.
Well, the good news continues:
- - - - - - - - - -
Events Priming for Apocalyptic Food Shortages
HOLLY NOTE: Yesterday we received an interesting message from a website reader. She is LDS and if anyone should be up on preps, food storage and current event, she should be in the know. The information below is as it arrived, though the personal comments have been removed. Read what she shares:
I am relatively new to viewing your site (about 4 months) but I love the information you list. I purchased your Garden Gold book and love it! Like you, I am a Christian (LDS...aka Mormon), and have been following the world events closely, noticing many “signs of the times” being fulfilled at an alarming rate! I received an e-mail yesterday that I thought you may be interested in, although I’m sure you’re right on top of the subject! I have just copied and pasted it rather than to forward it as I don’t know if the original senders would want me to hand out their e-mail address. Thanks for all you do! Your site is awsome!
Take a look at the attached email describing the shutting down of irrigation water to California Central Valley farmers. Folks, if this is not a wake-up call to get your non-hybrid seed gardens planted and your short- and long-term food storage in immediately, I do not know what is.
May 16, 2009
Name Withheld
We have the perfect storm brewing:
(1) No bridge credit for farmers to get their crops in this year due to the credit crisis, resulting in many farmers not planting this season;
(2) Farmers in Colorado, Texas, and possibly other states not planting this season because they cannot get as much for their crops as it costs to produce them;
(3) Foreign countries shutting down exports of food to the U.S. (which is a net 15% food importer as of today) due to crop failures and food shortages in their own countries;
(4) A daily devaluing dollar that will not buy as much foreign food as it used to, with the high probability of runaway inflation once foreign countries are no longer willing or able to subsidize our debt, which will further decrease purchasing power and increase food prices;
(5) No export restrictions on American farmers, who can and do sell their crops to foreigners who will pay more for them than Americans will, with the result that our production goes overseas and not to us;
(6) Pending legislation that may soon may make it much more difficult to farm and/or will shut down organic farms, farmer’s markets and possibly home gardens in the near future;
(7) The potential of a flu pandemic with potential quarantines and consequent cessation of shipping and ability to shop; and, now, for the piece de resistance,
(8) California shutting down irrigation to farmers in the Central Valley, thereby killing off the source of much of our fruit and vegetables, to save the allegedly endangered smelt! All of these circumstances, documented in mainstream media, point to very little food being available this fall, and with what will be available being very expensive.
These circumstances are the setting for an apocalyptic food shortage of biblical proportions. Only the very most blind and arrogant among us could fail to see the immediate and obvious necessity for the home production and storage of food and other necessities that our prophets have been teaching us for decades, but which most of us have been blowing off for the same period of time.
(Only about 3-5% of LDS families currently have food storage.) One of our latter day prophets has stated that storing food may be as necessary for our temporal salvation in this day as Noah’s entering the ark was for his temporal salvation in his day. This time is coming and may be here very soon.
Wheat, corn, and legumes doubled in price last year. If you don’t believe me, compare the prices you are paying for things now with what you used to pay for them. A little over a year ago, I could buy a one pound bag of dried beans in any grocery store for between $.69 and $.89. Last week, I paid $1.49 to $1.69 for the same, non-organic, one pound bag of dried beans. Two years ago, I was buying hard white wheat for between $11 and $12 for 50 lb. Today you will pay between $18 and $26 for the same bag. Six months ago, that bag of wheat cost $32. Bread and cereals have doubled in price. You may still be paying $2.00 for a box of cereal just like you were a year and one-half ago, but the boxes are half the size. Don’t believe me? Go check the size of your boxes. As the conditions I listed above come home to roost this fall, however, even these times, with these current high prices, will begin to look like the good old days.
I have been warning this audience for over a year now about the necessity of getting food storage and other preparedness items, and have been providing information as I have become aware of it to help you succeed in this endeavor. I cannot emphasize or stress more strongly now the need for getting in food storage and for planting a garden this year while food and seeds are still available and still affordable. I recognize that I am going out on a limb by suggesting that if you do not get what you need this spring while things are still available that you might not be able to get them at any price. But, the fundamentals, underscored by the conditions I outlined above, suggest that this may well be the case. If it turns out not to be the case, you can have a good laugh at my expense and tell me to go and get a tin-foil hat, but the apocalypse is still coming. Consider any extra preparation time to be a gift.
There is a reason why the brethren, for the last two years, have been emphasizing preparedness, and why, in the last general conference, they stopped preaching preparedness and started preaching faith and hope in the face of adversity - the last remedy after it is too late to prepare. I am going to suggest that if you want to be considered to be a faithful Latter Day Saint, that you will put your money where your mouth is and actually do what the people you revere as prophets, seers, and revelators have told you to do, not just give lip service to them being prophets, seers, and revelators. They have said, repeatedly, to get financially and physically prepared. These are not mere suggestions for the faithful. For the faithful, they are calls to action. The definition of faith (cf. Alma 32) is that after you hear the word you act on it and then see the results. Act on the word. Now.
I am going out on a limb here by suggesting that the window for preparation is closing rapidly, possibly this summer and fall. Get your preparations done now if you have not done them. The Church cannot prepare for you. There are too many of us and there are too many members from third world countries who are physically unable to prepare. The Church has to look out for them, not for those of us who can and should look out for ourselves, and have been commanded to do accordingly. Your neighbor or family member cannot prepare for you, either. Planning to raid your neighbor or family member’s larder when times get tough is not only improbable, but evil. Your neighbor or family member does not have the responsibility or the resources to prepare for you, and your neighbor, and your neighbor, etc. ad nauseum.
I will not list here all of the possible resources for preparation. Refer to my preparedness announcements for this information. But, I will reiterate the value of the church canneries. Long term storage foods, such as wheat, beans, rice, and milk are available there, and are available for approximately half the price you will pay for them elsewhere. They are good. I use them. I particularly like the hard red wheat. It is excellent. Store things so that they will keep under adverse conditions. Be wary of plastic pails - rodents can and do chew through them, and they split over time and under stress. Metal cans are far better, particularly if kept in a dry
(read rust-free) environment. These, and the canners to fill them, are available through the church canneries. And, do not forget to store the other ingredients that you will need to make the contents of your cans palatable. Learn how to make your bread, and how to cook and eat your beans now, before you have to depend on them.
I would not be sending this email to you if I did not care about you, and your and your family’s welfare. The window of opportunity is slamming shut fast. Don’t let it slam shut on you!
Note: If you have been preparing, good for you! It is always fun to preach to the choir. But, once you have your house in order you can go out and help others to prepare. You are not fully prepared until your neighbor is prepared.
Government Has Shut Off All Canal Irrigation Water to Central Valley California Crop Lands!
I’m just so upset!
When we lived in California, we would often drive out to the central valley to drive along gazing at the beautiful orchards. It was such a wonderful experience to be surrounded by tall, lush orange trees, avocado trees, or almond trees in turn. We’d talk about how they spaced the trees, how they were irrigating the trees, what was used as a ground cover between the trees etc. Various farms would have unattended tables along the road where, on the honor system, you could leave money in return for a basket of Kiwis or Plums. It was heaven.
Last night on the news a segment came on totally shocking my husband and I. Because a 2” fish, SMELT, has recently been placed on the endangered list, and because it might get caught in the canal water pumps, all water to these farms is being cut off. The water is being pumped into the sea rather than go to the farms in California’s central valley (our country’s fruit and vegetable basket) because we can’t have a SMELT caught in the canal water pumps now can we?
Footage was shown of dying almond orchards, or the empty water canal, of lines of the unemployed: some cities there now at 40% unemployment because of no work on the dying farms. Third generation farmers were interviewed almost in tears seeing the work of generations being totally destroyed.
This is as outrageous as the new bills trying to be passed forbidding people to save their own vegetable seeds, and another bill insisting that every single person’s animals or birds be individually microchipped and paper work done on every single one of them. (rabbits come and go)
Some people are figuring things out and PLANTING in their own yards. I know this because Indiana Berry has been totally sold out of all their berries for a month or so as also Nourse Farms in Maine. Spooner Farms in Oregon which also supplies nursery stock to the whole country is sold out of all their Caroline Raspberries and has backorders for the next two years.
I think my husband and I will meander over to the nurseries here this afternoon and see if we can’t purchase and then squeeze in just a few more different varieties of fruit trees.
If ALL of our fruits and nuts are to be imported from foreign places as the Central California Valley becomes a dust bowl............ this will HIKE PRICES TERRIBLY and increase worries about possible diseases. Yet, the sources will be so hard to track.
Lots of my friends still living in California laugh off their current woes, (legalizing marijuana being discussed, Prop 8 woes, wildfires, bankrupt cities, possibility of more earthquakes, drought, and now dying orchards....... they say they are not worried because if things get tougher...... they will just come and live with me. If all your friends and family are planning to just come and live with you too..... maybe I will see you at the nursery this afternoon also......... and we will buy a few more fruit trees together.
Sincerely,
EM
http://www.millennium-ark.net/NEWS/09_Food_Water/090516.apolcalyptic.food.shortage.html
You may want to check with Segal Ranch for those willows:
http://hybridpoplar.com/home/sr1/smartlist/12/0
I am guessing you mean Coyote or Sandbar Willows. They have pictures there you can check out too. Hope that helps. I have bought from them a couple of years ago.
>>>Took dad to town this afternoon and drove him past Miss America’s house—two story white farm house with the expected outbuildings. She’s a real farm girl. She’s a ten year four-H member as were her mother and aunt and uncle. Often won ribbon at the fair.<<<
As a long term 4-H’er, it is heart-warming to hear that she was too.
I was a member of if not the first, then one of the first (they could never seemed to be able to decide that) 4-H Clubs in the U.S.
The Houston Cardinal 4-H Club... No, not Texas either...
No, I was not a charter member either. (Old but not that old) :^)
Yup, they want us to recycle, forbid dump picking and now they have contracted out the recycling to a company that has the most unpleasant employees so that we avoid going to the dump with a passion. Luckily, with our composting and our wood stove, we have very little trash besids newspapers and magazines and we have now reduced those items to the minimum. It’s no wonder people are just heading down dirt roads and dumping all their trash.
Just in and tuckered out as usual, but got to catch up on this thread before retiring. Corn is very, very particular about sprouting at low temps. I just love fresh corn so much that I sprout some in the house, plant and cover with black plastic just to get a jump on the season. Tedious work, planting that sprouted corn, one kernal at a time, but worth it when you finally get to eat it.
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