Doomer Update

Well spring has energized me to once again pick-up working toward sustainability. My motivation has several facets: stewardship of the earth, a deep belief that this is what is "right and good", a concern for my children's future, as well as a spoonful of belief that all is not going to go smoothly for any of us in the future. It is this last point - the idea that there is a kind of future that needs special preparation - where this blog tends to find its niche.

While I don't think I'll do a marathon 21-day challenge again (which seemed to coincide with some scary financial times where are still grappling with), I am reviewing family preparedness again. We hardly set foot in the grocery store this winter as we ate the foods we had produced and preserved from our garden as well as those we had stored.

One of the things I'm doing now is looking over the pantry - and seeing how we used our food over the winter. I'm getting a better ideas of how much of what we actually use. I bake a lot, and so in addition to grinding wheat, I used 25# of white flour. Some things were hardly touched - some of the fruits and juices are so prized we hardly get into them duing their shelf life (now that's silly and I'm encouraging their consumption while they are prime). I found I'm not that fond of vinegar pickled cucumbers, and that if I were to try and meet all our needs, I would need to dehydrate onions and potatoes to make it through the year (or get much better at cold storage). We are heavily dependent on onions and potatoes. Dimitri Orlov mentioned how crackers were an item to store and I began to watch how many crackers we really did use.

One place where we are completely dependant: cheese. We love cheese, and yet I horrible at making it. This has to change.

I am entering into a different level of food storage - and that is the dehydrated long-term storage. No I'm not also buying cammo and night vision goggles to go with it (yet ;-). I still plan to preserve the bounty and harvest, but I've lost my garden space for good and I think of the dehydrated foods as insurance in tough times - job loss, interrupted harvests, economic collapse... It's also easy to do here - hey, Walmart sells blue water storage barrels and gamma lids for buckets. The grocery store has an entire isle of 10# cans of long term food storage - dehydrated butter, sour cream, milk, all sorts of flavored TVP, peas & carrots, muffin mix, pudding and on and on.

Reading the super-doomers (who have so far been batting better than say, the media or the experts) I get a picture that while we may soon enjoy a return of what looks like the good 'ol days with the pundents proclaiming the return of a healthy economy and easy money, it won't last long. The idea is that for one thing the card house that is modern economics and culture is beginning to develop structural problems, and for another our infinite energy consumption and finite supply will one day collide.

As the darkness of winter lifts (even if it is still snowing), I will once again be
looking toward posting about our own preparations. Such is the saying: make hay while the sun shines

I'm beat, tired, sore, happy

This is what I've been up to:


We tilled yesterday, put in furrows last night and this morning, and began planting this afternoon and evening. I took a vacation day from work and will continue after work all week. I'll have totals on Friday.

It's cold, cold here. When I went out to furrow this morning it was 55 f. There is talk of getting near freezing tonight. We're not that far north!

Made cheese and bread as well today. Took a loaf of bread over to the garden owners. Chibi was dissapointed we didn't need any wheat ground - we used the last of what they had energetically ground earlier.

"Stimulating" the economy

Well, I"m thinking that there are shops that sell apparatus that stimulate and perhaps and I'm of the opinion that the powers that be should have stuck to the corner drug store. I'm not in favor of stimulating G.W. and his cronine's businesses - but I'm not returning the money it either. Call me what you will, but there's a lot of us.

The irony is that we are so stimulated.. er inspired to use this money for greater self sufficiency. I guess everyone gets something out of the deal. We spend the money, someone else makes the profit, and we boost our personal security.

So, how did we spend the dough:

I've blogged that we were putting up a chicken coop. Now, at first I was going to put up a newly purchased shed with chain link run. The cost was going to be over $2000. Now, Mr. Greenjeans has a lovely shop inset on the property line. I have to admit I've eyed it but I did not ask for the space. Instead, he offered it himself. This is one of those times where you fall in love again. On his days off, he is walling off an 8x8 area, with insulation and a door to a chicken sized run, sealed off so the dust doesn't get into his shop and with a people door into the coop, nest boxes, two windows (opposite corners), and electricity. Well, that will be about $500. The insulation is because it is cold enough here that chickens die in the winter.

With the money left we bought a new Little Giant ladder for Mr. Greenjeans. See him blocking off the downspouts to better direct the water from advancing thunderstorms into our water barrel that is slightly uphill :-(. We also bought a Country Living Grain mill with corn and bean auger and handle, milk strainer for the raw milk, reference books, and buckets with gamma lids.

Sound sexy to you? Well, it pleases me.