Another thought to consider for those of us in northern climates is access to heat and shelter in the winter. It is amazing the difference in caloric requirements when you are warm vs cold and shivering. This difference is significant - possibly upwards of a 30-40% increase in caloric needs in cold weather. To put this another way, having firewood, shelter and weather appropriate clothing could replace 30% of your wintertime diet
1 Like
I think one of the base things you have to get right … to be more self sufficient is location near constant food source natural areas.
In my county and neighboring counties… arrow heads… and obviously indian camps… were located on somewhat high ground (a rise) near rivers or large creeks.
Rivers and large creeks offer a couple of key things… water… and an abundance of food… fish, crafish, muscles, duck goose beaver, muskrat, and an abundance of other animals that naturally frequent the river or creek area… for the water and the natural food source that it is.
My nephew has a 5 acre lake and his house built overlooking it. March thru November… he can harvest crappie, bass, bream, catfish… and does… in the summer months we collect bullfrogs… there are plenty of turtles, mostly snappers… they will eat too.
Yes… having your own chickens, quail, ducks… harvesting your own deer, turkey squirrel, dove, quail… and fish, frogs, turtle…
I do think that having a home on a nice body of water, river or lake, or just some nice sized ponds… would sure help with self sufficency.
If you are familiar with Hank’s song… a country boy can survive… we grow good old tomatoes and make homade wine… we can skin a buck and run a trout line… a country boy can survive.
Not sure wine would be in my top 4 … but Hank was a fan.
TNHunter
3 Likes
Ain’t it sad that articles in support of ‘climate change’ can be posted one after another, but a book of the opposite opinion is flagged for being ‘political’. ??
Too many of all persuasions are intolerant of other Opinions.
2 Likes
Yep, Hank liked to drink too much and died young.
“Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities” says my favorite Book.
Not a half gallon a day!
Climate change is not an opinion, it’s a reality. Really, we are entering the crisis.
2 Likes
Plagues for sins is reality, not opinion.
Just 45 years ago all the scientists got excited about the climate collapsing from ‘global cooling’ … go read up on it (if they’ve not canceled/erased those articles).
If by climate change you mean 1050 years ago Greenland is green…and 50 years later the settlements starved and died out…or if you mean the strongest hurricane to hit the US took place near 100 years ago and if you also mean Kansas has changed and has more trees than in the 1930’s ‘dust days’…then I’d have to agree the climate is changing.
But if you mean it’s the most dangerous thing ‘earthlings’ are going to experience in the next 100 years…you need to read up on the history of civilization and the battles and slaughters…not to mention financial collapse and atomic bombs. A degree or so difference in the average temperature has happened many times in the history of the planet.
It took something like a large meteor or a super volcano to extinguish life on the planet.
And those are things no scientist nor no climate worry wart can do a thing about.
This topic important…but irresponsible introduction of climate change politics may get it closed. Is that your objective?
3 Likes
Being adaptable to whatever life throws your way is what really matters, regardless of your political persuasion
2 Likes
A great point. I enjoy watching the show Alone on history channel where individuals try to survive in isolation with limited resources. The ones who have much success carefully balance how much energy they spend on hunting, building better shelter, and just resting. There are multiple examples over the seasons of the two extremes, those that build great shelters but tap out because they’ve run out of calories and others that are successful hunters but tap out because of low temperatures in subpar shelters. Experience is always the best teacher and I sure prefer learning watching or reading about the mistakes of others rather than living them myself.
2 Likes
This was one of the reasons that peasants in Northern Europe often shared a roof with their farm animals. The family cow put out a lot of BTUs!
2 Likes
That works pretty great during good times, not bad times. During more than one economic collapse, the 2001 Argentina one comes to mind, stray dogs began to disappear. People started tapping even that natural resource and will be drawn to more natural ones until is gone.
You got two types of disasters: the intense short duration ones (Covid, a 100’ tsunami smashing into the Japanese coast) that disrupts everything for months, and the long ones, such as civil war, or an economic collapse that last years. For either if you are still standing you’ll be doing the same thing you are doing now; trying to go to work, come home, stay safe, and batten the hatches until things get better.
1 Like
Like all human endeavors it is easy to get carried away with such things. My goals are simple as I’ve mentioned many times: The goal is to step outside my back door and bring in fresh organically grown fruit and veg every/any day of the year. This has worked for me for about 15 years running now.
Planting a successive ripening orchard and knowing what to plant, where and when are great skills to acquire. Canning, dehydrating, freezing and fermenting are great skills as well in order to be less wasteful and more self-reliant.
Carol Deppe’s book, “The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times” is a good read on this subject.
3 Likes
One thing to consider for sprays is that some of the ones not sold at HD/Lowes (like Avaunt, Actara, etc) are a bit more concentrated. For many of them, I could spay my 1/2 acre yard approximately 100 times from a single bottle. From what I’ve been told, most of the granular/powdered ones keep pretty well, as long as you keep them dry and around room temps. They aren’t cheap, but they don’t take a ton of space to store.
I’m guessing if things were that bad, the animals would be supplementing your diet…I bet that I’ve caught more calories in animals in the last few years than the amount of actual fruit I’ve harvested, at least from the trees. Not that I have any inclination to eat the animals, at least as long as I’m not starving.
Potatoes is definitely the most productive thing per area that I’ve grown. And I have very few losses to animals. Everything likes to eat sweet potato leaves, so it is much harder here.
Here’s a single Adirondack Blue plant from a few days ago. And yes, I did cut the largest one in half while digging…I’ve already eaten it now and it was tasty.
Thanks for mentioning this- I’ve never had them, but will look into it.
I want one of these someday. Good video on it is linked about half-way down the page:
https://greenhouseinthesnow.com/
I start a bit later (July), but I keep eating them until at least March and sometimes later. I put in a 2nd planting in July after digging the early ones. Then, I dig both the 2nd planting and the later first planting around the first frost, near Halloween. Those later potatoes can keep for a while.
I’m pretty boring (few ingredients and salt as the only seasoning) and can eat the same thing for quite a while, so my family isn’t always thrilled with my cooking choices… But I know I’d have issues if the only foods were ones I don’t like. When I had Covid back in Feb/March, I lost taste and smell. In ~3 weeks time, I lost over 10lbs , which doesn’t sound like much, but it put in the upper 130’s at just over 6’ tall.
Solar. Though many systems won’t work without a grid connection. A battery system would allow stand-alone operation. The inverters I got with my systems allow partial operation without grid, by powering just 2 plugs at 10 amps each. So during the last outage (3-4 days I think), I plugged the fridge and garage fridge in during the day. I couldn’t run both the garage fridge and freezer at the same time, so I’d alternate several times per day. Obviously a full battery system would be better…
Surprisingly potatoes have actually gone perennial in one bed. I haven’t planted any there for the last 4 years, but keep harvesting more each year. They are spreading from the bed and under nearby mulch. Originally 3’x10’, it is now probably 2 or 3 times wider. Last year was 20-25 lbs from very little effort (pulled the tall weeds a couple times and dug them). I had to look back at my old records, but I think the variety which is growing so well is Purple Peruvian.
I grew King Harry a few years ago. It is supposed to be disease resistant and I think the hairs are supposed to deter some insects as well. It grew well, but, it didn’t produce that much for me and wasn’t very good to eat. If I was going to be in a survival situation, I’d want to grow more Papa Cacho, a Peruvian land-race potato which is the strongest grower I’ve seen (I’ve probably grown 30+ types of potatoes over the years). PC has the same problem as PH- they don’t taste very good, at least compared to the other varieties. But if I was hungry and depending on the garden for food, both would taste just fine.
3 Likes
This is inaccurate. There was some preliminary research that was quickly debunked. For anyone curious this is the non breitbart version-
6 Likes
I always imagine if mars had our climate how easy they would say it would be to terraform and keep a stable planet.
1 Like
Certainly opinions differed in the 60’s and 70’s…not all though “cooling” threatened out lives.
But, it’s not a myth that stories by scientists having degrees after their names feared for another ‘ice age’ for the planet.
Just as 50 years from today it isn’t going to be a myth that a significant number of scientists though the earth to be in danger of getting gravely out of balance due to populations and consumption of fossil fuels.
Hind sight is good. But I think only One has a good track record at foretelling the future.
Despots in poWer or nuclear exchanges among rogue states
are of more significance than a degree or three rise in the temperatures on earth.
I think probably half the recent uptick in gardening is precisely for reasons or security & resiliency. Agree?
The scientists who resisted the research that smoking caused cancer were sponsored by tobacco interests, research based scientific consensus finally overwhelmed them. That is not going to swing back anymore than Darwinism will ever be substantially scientifically refuted. The scientists that spoke out against carbon based global warming were largely sponsored by the petro industry, but the consensus finally overwhelmed them. Koch Industries and Standard Oil have switched to different tactics, but the results of their campaign carry on in the minds of people they convinced.
5 Likes
What you are talking about is grounded in agreed upon sound science, just not on a global scale. I attempted to expand on this topic in the lounge but my post was flagged by someone as political and removed, so I think this is better to leave at private messages or another media outlet.
What do folks think about hazelnuts for resiliant crops? Looks like Rutgers has some new ones coming soon.
2 Likes
I assume Google is watching my every move as usual, so it brought me this article today. 1972 Warning of Civilizational Collapse Was on Point, New Study Finds - EcoWatch
No matter what WE do, others are failing to do, and there lies the challenges we all face as a result.
2 Likes
Tree nuts in general are a sound investment in my opinion if you have space for them. I’ll leave the rest to the experts. @Fusion_power and @Barkslip amongst others should be able to chime in.
2 Likes