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While I do feel good, I am crashing, hard... too hard to stop or play with or alter. I'm taking medicines reasonably well but little else save the girls get breakfast, dinner, and their hard foods and water regularly. Well, and I have been eating a bit every day. That last may seem silly, but in the worst of times I have simply stopped eating, and mostly keeping up on the kitchen. No focus, no interest, no way. Not eating for a week or three is very hard on the system. The g.i. simply shuts down. Don't go there. Starting it up again is painful in every way, and full of oddities, one way, then the other, as a yo-yo, until it all settles back to some norm again. So, this is probably the best crash I have known, plus being conscious, even if through some harsh pain early on and probably coming up.

I have been sleeping for four hours then popping awake, being awake four hours, going down for eight or so, then being back up for four more hours. I simply don't have a real schedule. I don't mind, especially since despite it all, there is SOME regularity, and when I am awake I have a bit of capacity to at least eat and do some washing. There is worse and there is much 'worser'. This is merely worse, and the cream of the crop of it at that.

Some suggestions for preppers. I know, I have been remiss as to advising lately. Or even dealing with this issue. Truth be told, other than learning to can meats, buy a solid wheat grinder, and a few other things, I am nearing my practical capacity for that. Ugh... I do need to refill the shorter term larder, check stocks, see what I have been using, and such. But other than that, I am almost as prepped as I can be, all givens included. Still, there are notions, about food, and incentives, that I can pass on. These aren't from other people, these are from my very own experiences.

The first, is the notion of storing some food replacements. Enriched white rice lasts longer, much longer, than brown rices. But there are other grains that last as long and are easier to cook, lower on the glycemic index, and full grained so you get more bang for your buck. Among these is quinoa, as an example. My personal displeasure with white rice lead me to try this. Being a nearly true eater of all things, I thought this would be a simple replacement. As it turns out... I truly do not care for quinoa. Oh, but you suggest, hunger solves all. Well, no, it doesn't. If I had ended up stocking all such grain as quinoa, there is a chance I would have gotten over my dislike. The other possibility is that I would have become unable to eat much when that was served, a very bad thing when physical exertion is demanded by new realities, short or long, on the ground, and where stocks have to be used and watched carefully. In need, one does not make a meal for me and a meal for thee. No time, no energy, not enough stores, limits on replacement. It's not like one simply, in that, goes to the store.

Oh, I haven't given up. I will try to make room for quinoa and amaranth, possibly other grains, which can be stored for longer periods. Nutrition is important. While we, all of us to be quite honest, are wealthy enough to ignore nutrition at this time. In a hard spell we will do that to our great personal and social peril. People forget that during the great depression even children became so malnourished that, when the government put out the call for the draft in WWII, many were turned away because they were completely unfit. The reason there is a school lunch program is because of that. Yes, it has outlived it's usefulness at least among the civilized, or more those who choose to be civilized, and further under this new admin seems to be trying to impose malnourishment (don't feed farm hands or the like what the nobility eat, innit? as well, come on mooshell, don't tell me that is what you eat... look in a mirror,
we know). The notion that started it was that so many children were so grossly underfed that they couldn't even be drafted.

I am suggesting, again, from personal experience, what many other preppers or faux preppers suggest. Make sure you can tolerate the foods you are storing. Don't just sample them, try them with other foods you are storing. I would even suggest getting used to them, even if they aren't going to be your "always" diet, if that is preferred. Know what you like, what you can put up with, and what you simply cannot eat. And more... Try to expand your 'food vocabulary'. I plan, when picking up more brown rice (yeah, shut it, I know I can eat enriched white... and have it in store, but preferences so hush), also picking up both those grains and experimenting. No, I don't like doing that. No, I don't want to. But I am not a child and sometimes have to do what I don't like. And, who knows. I didn't like couscous either, until the lady who feeds me put it together with some stuff. Ignorance is no excuse in a time of want. Hmm, ought to check on couscous as well. Gah!
Next, this winter, perhaps in the late winter or spring, I will be getting into another hog. I did not can this year, but next year I would like to do so. Practice with pork, then beef if/when the price on that comes down. Last I looked, a package of ribeye was $10-$11, and seemed to be that price for some long time. I hope Ted (Bundy) Turner goes broke trying to price strangle Americans out of beef. Why would the government allow a communist to own a major culturally significant fragile food industry? Ah, right. Never mind. Remember, your government knows best, it is all you will ever need. Forget beef, forget the family... forget God. Right...

I offer these notions up for my own purposes, of course. I need incentive, and writing about these things... sort of reinvigorates me in this cause. I write about this for your sake as well. You really need to understand. This isn't fiction, it isn't make believe, it is coming. No, it hasn't happened yet. But understand, in all the history of economics? The situation we, and the whole world, is in right now is unprecedented. Imagine if economics was like a human brain. And the doctors had pumped that brain full of chemicals so that it was still alive but followed no known, or even imagined, patterns. Then imagine if they had put that brain, without understanding or communicating with it in any way because they couldn't, in charge of the world. This is not a tale that is going to end well. And that, essentially, is what has happened. You, yes you, if you are reading this, lead a lush life... compared to even the French, English, even Germans, but so far beyond the typical South American and African that you cannot imagine the difference... yet. Your government, and seemingly big business, is wanting you to live as Africans. Hungry people, the poor, the powerless... these are easy to manipulate. You must be brought down, or eliminated if you will not yield.

Don't tell me they can't do it. They ARE doing it. ACA to SS to Medicaide and Medicare are crushing the life out of this nation. Throw in new business regulation every day, literally, new attempts to take your firearms, attempts at opening our borders for all comers, and many other initiatives, and it is plain to see what is happening. Europe is ahead of us in these things and Russia is already crushed, the typical paycheck is $300 a month there. Why do you think people there commonly take a drug that literally rots the body, and why do you think that the use of that has spread to Europe and America? Seriously, folks, if you think this is bad, wait. We have allowed it. Nobody wanted to say "Boo". Of course many were, and still are, for the changes because of 'for free stuff'. You get precisely what you pay for. It's coming.
The US has run red, and it is about to do more than bleed us dry of the wealth earned. What is left to do with a beat that has nothing left to bleed? The sugar plant. Economic Soyent Green, with the boot and the bayonet and terror to keep the machine greased.