Thursday, March 19, 2015

Adapt or Die





It's a rainy day here today. Turned cold yesterday and stayed cold, well cold enough. Not like freezing cold but I did fire the wood furnace back up again kinda cold.

Rain almost always dampens my spirit and motivation and keeps me inside, especially cold rain. So today I got down another jar of Small-Hold beans and started simmering me a big pot. Actually I got em down last night and soaked them over night in anticipation of today being just the way it turned out.

This is the kinda food I like. Either grown completely here or with minimum outside additions all produced locally. Thrown together in a familiar manner that requires no recipe or thought, just minimal preparation and then the smell of it cooking all day. Hmmm I wonder what lamb would be like with these beans rather than ham? I might have to try that.

Little things like the smell of my own beans simmering that I have carefully crossbred and adapted to my own soil with years of planting and saving seeds would be enough to make me a life long prepper regardless of the world around me. Not that I do a whole lot of what is termed prepping anymore honestly. As I have mentioned before I seem to have moved beyond simple prepping and into sustaining. I mean how many pails of rice, 1000's of rounds of ammo or rooms full of canned goods with a 5 or 10 year shelf life can one person really keep? Eventually it becomes it's own money pit just rotating the stuff which is why I moved to production over simple hording.

You can keep 1 year, 3 years or 5 years worth of supplies but eventually you have to ask yourself why? What happens when it's all gone? If I have enough hope to plan for a future collapse why stop there? Why spend money on 6 months worth of food in  number 10 cans when that same expenditure of resources could give you the tools to produce food for a lifetime?

The answer for me anyway is that the prepping part is just the backup not the lifestyle. It took me a while to understand that. Dreams of remote cabins with wooded hillsides that couldn't grow a tomato plant in a hanging basket but would look good trying, had to be dashed. Stored food is a must of course but stored with a plan to replace it with your own produce is the only plan that has a future. Otherwise the clock is ticking on one disaster for you the very second the one your prepping against happens.

To prep there must be hope and it seems only natural that hope extends far into the future and includes more souls than I could possibly just prep for. Many of which I may never even meet in person. A future requires more than just stored goods. It requires community, stability, knowledge, trust and security along with cooperation and many other things as well. To help provide those things in the future one must often look to the past and then add another aspect. Preserving those skills you find there.

The collapse is happening. It may not be hitting each of us the same. Indeed many have yet to feel it's effects to any significant degree but it is slowly grinding our current way of life down. The big picture shows that even if some pieces don't. If nothing else the last few years of stagnant decline should prove that a collapse this slow will be enough to grind any simple preps into dust which leaves us only one option. Adapt to a sustainable lifestyle or be ground up in this slow decline.

In a sense to me adapting to a homesteading lifestyle is the only natural progression of prepping under today's circumstances. A fast collapse, one where the powers that be didn't push the pain as far down the road as they can, would make simple hording and storing viable. That type of crash would happen and the recovery would begin but that it not the path our politicians or their bankers have chosen for us. Every day they keep kicking that can the worse the collapse will be and the longer the recovery. Five years ago I would have believed three years of stored food would get a family through what's coming these days I believe that will fall far short of what's needed.

We are now prepping for generations not a few years.

So keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!


17 comments:

  1. When I fix beans like that, I have to have a pan of cornbread to go with it. Of course to get that you will need hard corn to grind and some wheat flour, both require a hand mill and some baking powder or something to make it rise. Just a simple meal has become complicated once you get past just beans. This goes to what you are saying, some items are better stored like salt and baking powder but if you can grow basic food, the whole long term picture looks brighter. I almost put pepper but we can grow red pepper in the place of black.

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    1. Sf - I am not a huge fan of cornbread but the wife is. I figure if she has to have some with the beans she can make it herself :)

      Still your point is spot on. We will need to store what we can't get easily and will last forever and produce everything else. Otherwise we are just eating our own seed in a way.

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  2. PP, I totally agree with you & am heading in that direction myself. Although I won't have a garden this year (complicated circumstances)I have spent the last few years learning how to start my own plants from seeds saved from the year before & have taken up canning both water bath & pressure. It was so satisfying the first time I boild down those saved bones & made broth to can instead of freeze! I've still got a ways to go & will have to experiment with what will do good at the country house but my mindset is looking in the right direction.

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    1. DFW - It just seems like the natural progression to me personally anyway. The more I prepared the more I thought "wait a minute how sustainable is this really"?

      It's also a matter of scale at work here. My scale is in many ways much greater than some. I hope to be able to have sustainable production for not only my family but the critters as well. OK NOT the horses they are a write off except maybe one if he or she can pull their weight. Not everybody can get to the point they are thinking about sustainable living yet anyway. I would not discourage prepping because ultimately I think that is the first on ramp to the road of sustainable homesteading.

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  3. Yeah, I been waiting for your to change your handle to:

    Pioneer...Ihatemyolddonkey...Sustainer

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    1. You got it all wrong. I don't hate the donkey it hates me.

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  4. Well reasoned and thought out Preppy. I like where your thoughts are leading you.

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  5. PP I am so glad I woke up and started to get my house in order. I may not be on the same level as you, harry, vicki, and some others, but I know I am way ahead of most folks.

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    1. Rob - It's never too late either. Get out there and get your garden going. You have one very important asset in that your children still live with you. That will be very important for trading skills and labor later on I think. Yep you are way ahead of most.

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  6. PP,

    You're right! And many of your blogger friends are there, or heading in that direction.
    Do you serve anything with your beans?
    SunnyBrook Farms mentions creating his own red pepper with growing peppers. Have you stored home grown herbs yourself for long term?
    I have a stash of red pepper, green chiles, and tomato roasted, dehydrated,and crushed into powder form in long term storage. This growing season I'm trying to get a lot more herbs grown and dehydrated for long term storage. Will see how that goes, darn birds long targeting the herbs.

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    1. Sandy - Well the truth is there are only two seasonings I need. Onions and Salt :)

      The Mrs. has her herbs she grows and saves like Basil and all the rest that I never pay any attention to. I like the basil cause the bees like the blooms. She uses it but not me. I am a pretty plain jane when it comes to seasonings for myself.

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  7. How do you get the next generations involved? My kids grew up with a big garden and milking goats. Now they have a tomatoe plant on their back porch and take pictures when I show the two year old how to milk a goat when they come to visit.

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    1. Spinnersaw - It is my belief that we do not have to get them involved the decline will do that for us eventually. Oh sure some will fit through the cracks and hold out to the bitter end but in general the slide is forcing a return much like it did and still is doing in Greece.

      Eventually your kids and Grandchildren will know what you have done and appreciate for much more than a funny facebook picture. They will remember your sacrifice for generations to come.

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  8. PP - you know that we are on the same page as you in regards to being able to live a sustainable lifestyle. i have said this before but i'll repeat - if it came down to a full collapse and we couldn't barter or trade for a few chickens or for eggs - then i guess we'll do without once we run out of freeze-dried. however, we are getting pretty comfortable with our garden and being able to can/freeze/dehydrate what we grow for use in winter and we always have the ocean and our river for our protein and that's not including what we can hunt.

    i was just commenting on another blog that instead of putting any more effort into storing processed food (like beans and pork), we are making our own and then canning pints and quarts. we use dried beans and bought pork but are hoping to get to a point where we are growing enough beans to be able to make all of our own stuff - that is sustainable. if there is no pork then it's beans and tomatoe sauce or beans and whatever combination of sauce and spices i come up with. but again, it is the idea of moving away from processed food and storing our own. great post buddy!

    your friend,
    kymber

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    1. Kymber - Thanks!!! Yes it is the process. Eventually we are all going to have to make that jump and isn't getting ahead of the curve the main reason for prepping?

      The problem as you point out is most of us cannot do it all at once so we have to do it in steps.

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  9. How did I miss this post! This is just how I feel about it and I'm a little obsessed with making sure that my children grow up with the skills they'll need. I haven't got much stored but I know I can and do grow a lot. I'd like to be in a position where I had enough food to get things up and running if I had to but I'm not there yet, need more space really but that's a poor excuse! I completely agree that just storing food will only last you so long, having the skills to grow it is far more important and that's what I spend my entire life thinking about!

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