(09-27-2023, 07:17 PM)Ninurta Wrote:(09-27-2023, 06:12 PM)Snarl Wrote:(09-26-2023, 09:38 PM)Infolurker Wrote: Not looking good on the survival food front. Something is up.
Feels like that moment just before a stampede. The rational mind knows better. Just can't compete with the primitive mind once it has control. It'll pass in good time.
Glad to see people on this board realize food stocks ain't gonna last ... no matter how much you put away before the storm.
Yup. Folks panic when they see hard times on the horizon, and often hoard too much. Remember the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020? I think you can reach a point where you have too much set back, and it will either A) go bad before you can eat it, or B) be nothing more than Raider Bait.
I have a friend that lives a couple hours east of here who has enough stuff set back for several years. I don't know what sort of rotation plan he has, but I can see a lot of that going bad before he can use it regardless of the rotation - you can only eat so much stuff in a day, and there are only so many days in a year. That guy also produces 95% of his own electricity via solar panels, but they are a pain in the ass to keep cleaned enough to produce. Everything has it's trade-offs, I reckon.
As Grace mentioned, we don't have a huge stock - about 20 pounds each of rice and beans, and about 10 pounds of lentils. I had a few pounds of corned beef stored up, but have now eaten it all and haven't replaced it. I've held off on hunting right around the house, so the woods are full of critters now that think it's a refuge from hunters, and tell their friends. That's my "hard times" plan Last week I looked out the kitchen window and saw there were a couple more cayenne peppers ready to harvest, so I went out to get them. It turned out that Mamma Bear (about 400 or 500 pounds of bear) was 20 feet or so on the other side of my perimeter fence, and she's still hanging on to two of this years cubs, about 150 pounds or so each at this stage. She had 3 this year, but one has already gone his own way, apparently.
The deer are so bold that they jump my fence and graze in the yard. Had an 8-point buck grazing just under the bedroom window last fall. Add in the squirrels, wild turkeys, and rabbits (not many groundhogs around here - the environment ain't right for them, not enough open fields), and my "larder" is mostly on the hoof, and think I'm a "friendly".
we've got 200 pounds of "ice melt" salt that you'd best believe in a pinch would get pressed into service for curing meat. We've also got a few pounds of potassium nitrate that will serve for curing as well, but it's main intent is to make black powder with. Gotta knock that game down somehow!
Walnuts, hickory, and oaks look like they're going to throw a good crop this year. Not only will that draw in more game, but that crap keeps forever. I've discovered several thousand dollars worth of ginseng within 100 feet of the house - back in the day, ginseng and hides was as good as money around here for trade, and probably will be again before it's over. Got some 'sang berries out of the woods last week that I plan on planting in shady places in the yard, to protect it better from poachers, but it'll take 5 or 10 years for it to get big enough to amount to anything.
My plan to become Vice Lord of the area isn't really going to plan. I didn't get enough corn this year to make an ounce of 'shine, and my weed isn't bushing out like it oughtta, so not producing very well, either. In Hard Times, trade in Vice Supplies booms - that's how my family got into moonshining to begin with, during the Depression. Can't have it all, I reckon.
My whole point is that storing up food is a good thing, but can become too much of a good thing. More than a year or two of canned and dried goods is too much - you should be producing before that much runs out, else you'll be falling behind. Stored stuff is just a buffer in my opinion, to provide breathing space to get production underway. Your main plan should be production, either of food items or of trade items to GET the food items you'll need later.
.Back in the day, everyone around here kept about a year or two's worth of canned goods, dried goods, and root crops in a cellar, which was constantly rotated out with new crops going in as the old was eaten out. That's the plan, if you've got enough ground to do it, and remember, you can always make raised beds and such in a yard to supplement what you have, even if it's not enough to live on altogether.
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Corned beef, oh yes. I could live off corned beef. I make a mean corned beef hash, I could eat that every day, no problem. Grow some potatoes, bell peppers, onions, get some chickens for the eggs to go with it, and I'd be happy until the end of time
