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Being that I haven't been out other than Mass once, a KoC meeting, and once for grocery shopping and a visit, in the last three months or so, I haven't been keeping up on my food stores. At least I haven't been using them, either. So, tonight, I fixed that a bit. As I said, I would prefer more of my stores in #10 cans. I have ordered enough black beans for my needs in #10 cans. I still need a variety of other beans, and I would like to get lentils as well, first to try, but more likely to order in even larger amounts than actual beans. Rice after that, would be my guess. While I don't like the notion of white rice, I have tried the whole grain type alternatives. They are simply too... dusty tasting. So, enriched white rice will simply have to do. I also ordered a number of freeze-dried main entrees in #10 cans. That just makes life really easy when I am down or if a lot is required so that I simply can't cook. Boiling water, a container to combine... dinner. As well, I purchased a number of water packets. Sure, I have a (the) top of the line filter, I have a dozen devices in which to store water, there is a river that pretty much passes right through town... Still. And they weren't that expensive. I may, yet this month, order a heirloom seed grouping that is on sale at nearly half price. I could toss it in the freezer, or put the can in the basement. I dunno, thinking about that.
I am seriously considering a month or two supply of MRE's. Now, that means three entrees a day, if only one side dish and one dessert per day. I would probably try to order additional side dishes, as I am considering just eating one MRE whole meal every other day or every third day, as a supplement to what else I do. It is a bit expensive, but... when it is done it is done. No dishes, no pots, no pans, no fuss, no mess. It can be eaten cold or heated up. As well, it is an excellent travel companion, just in case. On the road, off the road, or into the hills. It's even waterproof, if... a little too buoyant for a large underwater carry... urhm, without a trick or three... just saying... :p
I just like the notion of having seed producing crop seed. Just in case the world literally switches from modern to the death trap it has always truly been. Men might be terrible to other men, but the world, when allowed or men forget how to tame/negotiate with her, seems to truly despise men like not even Pol Pot can imagine. She kept men fleeing, dying, hiding, and fearful, nearly destroying men before we could learn to write after we forgot that skill sometime in history. Some say the world does it's thing and deservedly so... and I disagree. If it all fails we will be at her very delicate mercy. How much certainty, or even hope, would a small selection of non-hybrid seed bring? How much certainty, or hope, does a gun bring a man against a overarching government, or even a local gang problem? How much hope does any man have in the fruit of his own seed? That is not for us, we can only... put forth the best effort we have, and the way to do that is to prepare to put that effort forward. The ends are out of our hands. Amazing, really, considering how well most of us truly do live. Never worry, that is coming to a swift and judicious end. Only judicious because... we chose it. Well, our parents chose it and we bought into it. Regardless of the election results, it is at least going to get as bumpy as an international economic and social Katrina hit.
Yeah, on to bed now that I am all cheered up.
Plant it. Grow it. Suffer for it and with it. Only then will you be able to sustain yourself by it when you need to.
ReplyDeleteYou think I'm growing stuff because I'm some sort of hippy grooving on organic nirvana? I'm growing shit now because my life may one day hinge upon the successes and failures and learning experiences that growing food right now is teaching me.
There *will* be failures, and it is far better to work through them when your life does not yet depend upon avoiding them.
I have horrid, crappy soil. I live in a desert, FFS! If I showed up on my patch of land post SHTF with a packet of seeds and no prior preparation of soil and self, I would die.
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ReplyDeleteNo, not growing heritage seed, or collecting seed from it, or any of the other things for and by yourself. It is when I see a lot of money going to buy 'commercially grown', big or small, organics that I start getting suspicious. If the shoe doesn't fit, take it as a tease. I admit, I tease about as pleasantly as a bison bull or a great white, more so on some topics. After having lived in IC, and seeing the near cultish affinity for "organics"... I'm... always nervous when I see conservatives suggesting they buy a lot of "organic" food.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have had to buy "organic" product, but mostly because there literally isn't another viable option, they don't make non-organic unprocessed coconut oil, for example. But I DO grumble about it.
Do you remember either version of Body Snatchers, the movies? Yeah, it's like that. Everyone is like, yum, you must buy and eat and love organics. I'm like, stfu and gth away from me. Have you seen some of these "organic" veggie loving mf'ers? A cross between an inbred elite albino and your typical severally mentally disabled folk. Yargh*!
*(since I forgot pirate day I'll go with yargh instead of one of my regular terms)
As for learning? We will see, in time. But if I buy seed it may simply be for others in my a.o. to "borrow", at the price of returns on investment. Many folk, even here in prepper heaven, have not switched their gardening to heritage seed. They use the "good stuff". Which is all fine and dandy until there is no more hybrid seed. That is one growing season, maybe two if they stocked up a bit. Now, if they have the skills but no seed, and I have seed but no skills or ability... that is how friends used to be made, even family.
ReplyDeleteI would absolutely love to garden. Hell, I would like to sit on my back patio from time to time. I... for now... can't. I would love to be planting, figuring out crop placement, learning about bugs and diseases, figuring out watering routines, and lots of stuff. The problem? I can't... do many things, think, read, walk, stand, dig. Sometimes I can do one but not the other, and so on, if just as often I can't do almost any of it. But I never have enough net to do enough of it, sum total, to make it worth even a stab. At least right now. I always hope, I always try little things to expand, test, check.
No, I don't judge you for growing, at all. I commend that. Even if you weren't doing it as a prepper, but just as a blithely ignorant human in a big world, thoughtlessly enjoying the spoils of your land, I would commend you and have praised many others. It is the people who buy "organic" food, and only "organic" food, who... get labeled hippies. Well, worse, but... that will do for now.
You're probably seeing the effect of veganism.
ReplyDeleteVegans are sick puppies. Literally. Eating organic doesn't do that to you, but avoiding all animal products will eventually kill you, for lack of certain essentials, and the toll that phytate-laden plant-based food sources take upon your system.
If you want to dig at a vegan or vegetarian, just say "Lectins! Phytates! Boo!", then go back to gnarfing on your medium-rare cow muscle.
My two favorites were case sensitive, so to speak. I always liked to ask them if they want a bite (if they were looking at me cork-screwy while I devoured a meat portion). :p Another general tease was discussing offal. Actually that gets many meat-eaters too, though, oddly. Ask a vegan if they have ever tried cow tripe (stomach lining), animal brain, chicken heart or gizzard, sweetmeats (which are actually pretty good, so I have heard, if they are a bit of work to prepare rightly). Something about guts and brains makes veggies somewhere between get sick and go into shock.
ReplyDeleteStill, I'll have to look up those words you used, if I can make them my own, and they make sense... Hey, I just enjoy learning new ways to torment fools out of their suicidal tendencies. See, we aren't that different.
Sorry about hitting my teases so hard. I guess I just needed to make sure. Destructive, extreme, but I test everything... as if my life... no, that is lost... my soul... depends on it. Because... to a degree... it does.