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
It is good to see your name on the thread, please come often and do join in.
There is a fig tree near here that is at an old homestead, near a spring, it is huge and 100 or more years old.
It looks as tho mine has died, since I have been sick, and it was almost 40 years old.
The birds would eat the figs, until they were so full, that they could not fly, you would find the birds sound asleep on the branches.
I like your recipe, for I like the brown rice with mushrooms.
Your recipe would be good in stuffed cabbage leaves or bell peppers, I think.
My husband does the refunds from Menards home improvement store. Most items are free with rebate. Then he saves the rebate money (Menards money). In about 6 months time, he had earned enough rebate money to pay for a drill press.<<<
That is the fun of refunding.
When I was active in it, I had a set of Campbell Soup mugs and even a Jolly Green Giant stuffed doll, and the Coke ice chest that I won.
How simple those days were.
Hi Jon,
Can you restate your question? I’m not sure what you are asking me.
ROFL!!
That is what is great about posting here. You know how to take ideas and make them even better. Double yum!!
Not asking a question. Just making a statement and confirming the premise of your article.
Are you free today? I know that I’m not nearly as free as I was in the 50’s AND 60’s.
The money that you have is under the control of people who do not have your interest at heart but rather theirs.
We used to go swimming in local creeks, lakes and even cattle tanks and nobody complained. Now you have laws which prevent you from doing so in most places (For your safety of course).
When I go hiking I don’t use the trails and all the trails and Rangers tell you to stay on the trails for the preservation of the area or for your safety.
When I went to high school we had NRA days when we brought our rifles to school. We handed the rifle to the bus driver, he checked it and put it in the rack behind his seat. As we left the bus we were handed the rifle and took it immediately to the shop where they had a storage and where they held the classes. Think ANY school in the USA will do that today?
Every boy (and many girls) carried pocket knives. Nobody ever got stabbed or killed. A few got cut - but what the heck can you expect from kids and knives. It’s going to happen. It is a learning experience. We used to play mumbly peg at recess and the only things the teachers would say was “you kids be careful now”, and they would go their way. Now you would be brought to the office, the police would be called, your parents charged with a weapons crime and you would end up with a record.
One of the reasons things seem so much worse (referring to crimes / murder / rape / etc) was the press. It used to be that news was local. It rarely if ever left the city in which it occurred and only lasted one or two news cycles. Now it is posted across the US in every local paper, on every radio and TV station for months on end. Newspapers used to have news, advertisements and articles on local interest and who was having a social event or wedding etc. Not now. It is about events all over the USA and the rest of the world.
Laws reflect pressure from social nincompoops who hear this condensed information and go into fanatic fear mongering mode and start passing more laws.
Yes Virginia - we are no longer FREE and it is only getting worse.
>>>When I went to high school we had NRA days when we brought our rifles to school. We handed the rifle to the bus driver, he checked it and put it in the rack behind his seat. As we left the bus we were handed the rifle and took it immediately to the shop where they had a storage and where they held the classes. Think ANY school in the USA will do that today?<<<
Boy do I remember those times... We had some angled steel backstops with sand in the bottom, on wheels, in the gym - we had a High School Rifle team and only requirement was to show the bus driver that it was unloaded, and we even kept them locked in our lockers with our ammo till practice/match time.
All the Orwellian things we said ‘could happen someday’ seem to be coming into place at a dizzying pace.
Well said. I’m glad you are on this thread.
My husband took third place in marksmanship in his Jr. High School for the state of California. The school issued him the firearm!
A friend of mine used to take rifles to school in the trunk of his car so they could ditch school and go hunting. The principal found out and got after them because they were ditching too many days to hunt.
Here’s another post from FerFAL. Keep in mind he lives in Argentina... this could be us soon.
SUNDAY, MAY 24, 2009
Keeping a low profile
Some people refer to it as “gray man”, urban camouflage.
I’ve written before about dressing in a way that doesn’t attract attention. Mostly black, gray, and dark blue or brown colors. No insignias, no cammo and no bright colors or political message stamps or tshirt. You want to be as forgettable as possible.
Once you realize how rumors and failing to keep your mouth shut can get you kidnapped, “ loose lips sink ships” achieves a new level of importance. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I can tell you that the stage you are in right now in USA is something we were once familiar with.
Right now in the various survival forums , “I lost my job” seems to be a frequent post. It’s happening folks, people are getting fired, and most don’t have any preps to fall back. Again, these are things I do and you may want to implement in the near future:
1)Don’t dress like a million bucks… or a thousand.
This is just common sense, but at least in my opinion it doesn’t hurt to look even a bet worse than people around you, not a bum but still on the poor side, rather than the well off. Worn jeans, tennis and shirt or tshirt are generally what I wear, unless I really need to look better because of business. I don’t need to brag about anything. I prefer to look ordinary/lower middle class.
2) So.. how’s business/work?
My standard reply: “Barely making it man. You know, like everyone else. Times are tough for us all. Had to spend 200 bucks the other day on a car repair and that hurt quite a bit. It seems I can barely keep my head above water” Talk, poor/lower middle class too.
A fool that brags about how much money he made selling a house or boat or whatever will only risk getting kidnapped. You tell a good guy, a friend, but destiny wants your friend to make an innocent comment to someone that is not that nice and bam!, you get targeted. “Things aren’t that bad for some of us, as a matter of fact my friend Johnny, you know the guy you saw me with the other day, he just told me yesterday that he managed to get rid of that boat he had rotting at the marina, just burning a hole in his pocket. I bet he made a few buck out of it too.”
3) Even in the bank, as things get worse criminals will have informant inside banks.
Even if you have a bank you trust and visit more often, where you try to build a relationship with the manager, try using other methods of moving money around too, so that lower level employees don’t notice you as a guy that moves around large sums of money. The cashers are generally the ones that mark you.
4) A low profile is even relevant to stay away from the government goons.
Ricardo Montoya, one of the governments goons in Argentina, would track down people that where making purchases of expensive electronics or cars. Bought a big screen Sony TV? That placed you in Montoya’s list and he would investigate you further, making sure he was taking every cent he could out of you, the fat tax payer. Whenever possible keep all purchases anonymous, use cash. Of course, destroy the box, don’t leave the HD TV box next to the trash so that the neighborhood junky keep it in mind next time he needs cash for a fix.
5) In terms of guns and gun confiscations, whenever possible buy guns at gunshows and private purchases that leave no paper trail behind. Also, be very careful of who you tell about your “hobby” and how you describe it. IN the eyes of the politically correct wimp:
Target shooting sounds like the Olympics.
Firearms training sounds revolutionary.
You don’t want your sissy neighbor calling SWAT on you. Risk getting shot by paramilitary police that is more concentrated these days on no knock raids than serving an protect. It’s important to educate people about survival and self reliance, but learn to know when you are throwing pearls to the pigs or even worse, putting your family and yourself at risk. All this may not sound that relevant right now for your current situation. It may sound exaggerated or paranoid.
One thing we’ve learned here is that reality changes. And I’m not talking 100s of years, it’s not volcanoes, mountains and planetary tectonic plates moving. Back when NY city was a hell hole full of crime, Buenos Aires was a rather good place to live in comparison, and Argentina in general was rather safe. It was 1990 when NY was a mess, and Bs As was really a rather safe “Latin Paris” where violent crime like murder existed but was not at all common as it is today. In a couple decades these extreme changes took place.
FerFAL
Posted by FerFAL at 11:32 AM 2 comments
Thanks!! Lots of good info in this thread. We have some very smart FReepers around these parts!
>>>The school issued him the firearm!<<<
Wow, I was not that lucky till ROTC in College - and of course in the Army - Had my trusty M1 Garand and since I shot on the base pistol and rifle teams, they issued them as well. (both small bore and large bore - all the way up to the BAR. - Browning Automatic Rifle - 50 Cal. fantastic weapon.)
Vertical Farming - Video of experts in conversation - from the National Building
Museum
Presenter(s): Dickson Despommier, Robin Elmslie Osler, Carolyn Steel, and J. William
Thompson
Date Recorded: April 29, 2009
Duration: 01:29:59
Sponsored by: The Home Depot Foundation
Learn about the future of urban food production with Robin Osler, Elmslie Osler
Architects; Dickson Despommier, Professor of Public Health, Columbia University;
Carolyn Steel, Author of Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives; and J. William
Thompson, FASLA , editor, Landscape Architecture magazine.
Campbell’s - Help Grow Your Own Soup
“At Campbell, we believe quality ingredients are grown from the ground up - and
make truly delicious soup. That’s why, for over 70 years we’ve painstakingly cultivated
seeds for tomatoes that go into our delicious soup.
“Now you can get seeds we use for growing tomatoes. Your request will help Campbell
donate seeds to plants gardens in communities and schools across America. This is
all part of our commitment to the National FFA Organization, which is dedicated
to developing our future leaders through agricultural education.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More about these stories here:
City Farmer News [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102590095157&s=1304&e=0016pfHFg0tVPaXnqjJAW9aw838h09vb7j4XhK1jnAVpO_riKAgCdwN_XCcwgmfDZc2j2JaiZYLLEEfOcYn_7TZLmw3dk5u7JLlnjx-92kmu7-xMXjLr0ZA1Q==]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Levenston
City Farmer - Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture
Thanks for keeping us up to date on the FerFAL posts.
Having lived in Cuba during the Antonio Prio Socaras era, it can be pretty scary. Back then, any policeman who was anybody carried a Thompson sub-machine gun, and they loved to wave them under peoples noses...
Although some of the incidents were rather comical.
I remember once when we were out for a ride in the countryside, police jumped out from both sides of the road, sticking their Thompsons in all the windows and ordered everyone out. They checked under the hood, under the seats, glove compartment, trunk, everywhere - when asked what they were looking for we were told - ‘Ay señor, somebody stole the Cuban Liberty Bell last night - we are searching for it. (Danged thing weighed 4 tons and they wanted to check the glove compartment and under the hood...) We asked if they expected it to be there and he laughed and told us ‘probably not.’ ‘ Never thought of that.”
But such is life in Latin America... (and now almost the same here)
We have some very smart FReepers around these parts!<<<
Agree, the smart Freepers, is what kept me coming back to Free Republic, they knew so much that I did not.
Still learning from them.
The posters on this thread are a fine example.
Judy and I concluded the next to last round trip from our personal "Gulch" to WA. state a few days ago... How's that song go: What a long strange trip it's been? LOL! Indeed it was! This was the leg of our move that we brought out our motorcycles along with the next to last large cargo load.
Everything was going along swimmingly... Sammy, my adopted son rode Judy's bike, I on the hawg... Judy and her sister took turns playing truck driver and "chase" car, which to those of you not in the know, is for being behind the bikes in case of a breakdown on the run.
Yep! good thing we planned it that way! My 'Lil girl (the Harley) decided she needed me to upgrade her charging system about 300 miles into the trip (of 1745 miles)! We were about 120 miles short of Spokane, on new construction grooved payment I heard what sounded like the whole bottom primary go BANG! Sam heard it too, but yelled back at me it was just the loose gravel kicking up...
Oops! She ran fine for another 80 miles, then just lost all power, I could tell it was electrical just from experience in such things... the battery was drained... 20 or so miles from town. I sent Sammy into town to get a new battery at Walmart (HD stores are closed on Sundays and Mondays), replaced it, and down the road we go! Err... for another 90 miles... Damn! Drained battery again!
Well dang it! Where in Hades do you get a voltage regulator for a Harley on a Sunday night? You don't! So I put on my thinking cap (need that more than often these days) and decided to keep this train on time by sending Sammy to the next town and pick up a digital charging unit (I love Walmart!) so we could use the ac/dc convertor that I use for the laptop computer on trips... that way we could go charge one battery in the truck, and scamper down the boulevard until that battery went dead, and change out back and forth! That plan worked for 6 change outs...
Rolling to the edge of Missoula Montana I spied their new HD shop at the edge of town... IT WAS OPEN! On a Monday even! I led our 'Lil caravan down the off ramp and pulled right into their service center where the Manager put her right onto the bike lift to do what needed to be done!
Granny, I be one lucky man! We pulled the primary case and Lord all Mighty! The rotor and stator had exploded like a hand grenade in there... large chunk of magnets and iron casing filled the case... That was the Bang I heard... all that shrapnel could have froze the gears, or seized the belt and flopped me down on the pavement at anytime! Lucky lucky lucky! Thank You Lord!
We cleaned the case out, and repaired what had to be replaced and made it home to the gulch with no further incidents all in 3 and a half days!
BTW DelaWhere... I milled some wild rice, peanuts, corn, coffee, on that grinder we discussed... it's a first rate mill! I'm ordering some wheat and other commodities this week for our stash, and am confident I purchased the right grinder for the job!
The "Gulch" is taking good shape... still haven't found a way to kill off the wood ticks that are having a prolific year here, getting real good at knowing when they climb on board! The native folks tuck their pant legs into their socks to prevent them from crawling up your legs, but them suckers drop off the trees and vegetation onto everything else however! I could become a very rich man if I could find a way to eradicate them... no one here knows of a method to do that! Wish I had a source for DDT!
The Tribe gave out seed packets, and, starter plants to everyone who wanted them yesterday, we are still having occasional freezes so it is just now that we can plant without fear of losing everything... Judy's nephew is bringing his tractor out this week to bust up the plot I set aside (and busted a gut trying to do by hand...LOL!). I purchased a honda cadet cub rototiller to refine that with... excellent unit! Better than a troybilt, who btw has started using honda engines as well! The model I bought should really help do what must be done... with relative ease...
They had a gun show here this weekend, some components but no primers. Some ammunition but ridiculous prices... I DID however score some silver rounds and one ounce ingots at 14 per Z... not bad considering the spot...
Some of you have asked me when I thought it might be the time to go all in at the bottom of the deflation cycle... I have priced commodities between here in NE MN to the West Coast, and have, as I'm sure all of you have, seen a BIG increase in food prices just in the past few months. I have heard from others that gas prices will increase as much as 30-40% by July... It's looking to me like that time is here, I'm jumping in for the big buys on things I believe we will need for the next few years now. There's just too damn much money chasing the goods now, that hyperinflation on the horizon is getting close, and this 'ol cowboy can smell a storm coming...
For those who have been looking and looking, and for whom the different grinder mills are running together in their heads, JDoutrider is reporting on this previous post.
>>>The best I could find for the money came from Walton Feed...
The Grinder-Wonder Junior (Deluxe) at $219.95.<<<
From his trials so far.....
>>>I milled some wild rice, peanuts, corn, coffee, on that grinder we discussed... it’s a first rate mill! I’m ordering some wheat and other commodities this week for our stash, and am confident I purchased the right grinder for the job!<<<
Sounds great to me... Particularly being able to do the hard right down to the oily tasks...
Thanks for the report... Know which one I’m getting now.
Hmmmm, maybe I should order mine before I post this so they won’t be out of stock... 8^)
http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/0/1/2/10122/10122.htm
THE CATERPILLAR
Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A creeping, coloured caterpillar,
I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,
I nibble it leaf by leaf away.
Down beneath grow dandelions,
Daisies, old-man’s-looking-glasses;
Rooks flap croaking across the lane.
I eat and swallow and eat again.
Here come raindrops helter-skelter;
I munch and nibble unregarding:
Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm.
I’ll mind my business: I’m a good worm.
When I’m old, tired, melancholy,
I’ll build a leaf-green mausoleum
Close by, here on this lovely spray,
And die and dream the ages away.
Some say worms win resurrection,
With white wings beating flitter-flutter,
But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?
Either way I’ll miss my share.
Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A hungry, hairy caterpillar,
I crawl on my high and swinging seat,
And eat, eat, eat—as one ought to eat.
Granny, I be one lucky man! We pulled the primary case and Lord all Mighty! The rotor and stator had exploded like a hand grenade in there... large chunk of magnets and iron casing filled the case... That was the Bang I heard... all that shrapnel could have froze the gears, or seized the belt and flopped me down on the pavement at anytime! Lucky lucky lucky! Thank You Lord!<<<
That is worth saying a prayer of thanks for.
I am so glad that God kept an eye on you and your travels, as we all prayed he would.
I sounds like you are moving along at a good pace and that is worth being proud of.
Thanks for the update on the grinder, so many wanted to know and I am glad it worked for you, as you wanted it to do.
Your Gulch sounds like a dream we have all had and many still do....Wish I could come and help you.
Yes, on the increase in food prices, they are really raising the prices out here.
I suspect that Walton’s and others like them will be having increased orders and soon.
Take care, keep reporting in, have fun and stay safe.
Hug Judy an extra time for me.
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