No Need To Panic – Pt. II

| June 21, 2022

Self-sufficiency…. That’s a word that should have some real meaning but seems to be fading in this so-called “modern” world.  Everywhere you may think to look, people are far less self-sufficient than their grandparents or great-grandparents and rely almost entirely on “other” to supply their needs. It’s far worse in cities than you can imagine, even when a home with a back yard has enough room for a small veggie garden. Out here in the sticks where I live, same thing. People just don’t garden, unless they have a rather squeamish reaction to the prices of food at the local groceries. In Suburbia, self-sufficiency is next to non-existent…. But then, something happens, the stores shut down because they literally run out of “stuff” and the Suburbanites get “woke” to the notion that maybe there’s a problem.

Do they know how to function? Don’t they have enough sense to plan ahead? Likely not, unless they grew up with it as I did. I still put productive plants in the pots on my front steps and harvest the results, but they’re cooking herbs, not cucumbers, so the benefit that comes from that enhances my kitchen production. Takes the burden of buying thyme and oregano off of me, unless the squirrels get into it… which they sometimes do.

Out of curiosity, I began to pursue what other people are doing to make their lives better, and found that a great many people who are not embedded in city living are doing quite well for themselves by planting vegetable gardens, but they are far enough out of town that it’s a feasible option for them. A few have YouTube channels and have been doing self-sufficiency work for a while now. Others let us know about their cooking skills, but aren’t reviving old recipes that didn’t require modern equipment. And then, there are the videos of that lady whose cooking skills during the Depression are a real treasure.

Remember that Italian woman who showed us how to make bread on the stovetop in a skillet, a little over a year ago? It was the kind of bread with a seriously crunchy crust that makes bread a lot better. When you hear that crunch, you know you’re getting something real instead of a load of flabby stuff that goes stale in a heartbeat and doesn’t hold up well if it isn’t coddled. The crunch when she bit into that crusty pan bread made me sit up and take notice. If she can do that, so can I… and so can you.

And yes, I’ll be doing that this fall and winter. If good, crunchy bread comes out of it, I’ll tell you. You know that.

I do live in a county with literally dozens of groceries that serve a very wide and diverse range of ethnicities, which means that I have access to foodstuffs that I likely wouldn’t find some place else, or would have to order online.  For example, jasmine rice has a sweet and nutty flavor and a distinctive aroma of buttered popcorn and fragrant flowers.  I’m willing to try a bit of that, to find out whether or not I will like it, or if it’s an acquired taste.

And why would stores carry such stuff? Because stores like money. Storekeepers like money. It really is that simple.

Yeah, you can get this stuff online, but if it’s local, why shouldn’t we give it a shot?  The point is that if I still lived in the city, I might have to hunt hard just to find it, because such items are frequently scarce in the city… and if things went sour, it’s likely that such things could vanish from the store shelves.  Hint: this is why you stock up ahead of winter: it’s what squirrels do, too, y’know. They also steal birdfood…. little furry thieves, they are!

 

The point is that 30 years ago, such things were nowhere to be found, so I welcome the opportunity to give them a try.

Now, here’s the catch, which seems to be missed by many, many people, and you should be aware of it: a huge portion of the population thinks that food comes from “the store”.  If you raise a garden, or even simply do pot gardening on the steps of your humble abode, you know what I’m talking about.

I knew someone long ago who refused good butter from a friend’s Brown Swiss cow, because ‘it came from your cow’.  Apparently, that was an “eeewwww” factor. So when this “friend” was asked where she thought butter comes from, her response (in the early 1970s) was “Well, it comes from the store”.  So I took the butter, paid the lady who had churned it, and told her later it was absolutely delicious. (It was also pasteurized.) I doubt that this has changed much. I guess the “gross” factor is hard to deal with, but as I recall, it was really good butter.

It was not so very long ago that people went into a feeding frenzy because we were going into a lockdown.  Remember that? Store shelves were swept bare. Jugs of milk vanished as if they’d never arrived in the coolers. Not one of the people who got into that scavenging frenzy even thought for one second that there might be refills in less than a month, never mind a week. And if it happened once, it can happen again. Count on it. This is why I’m putting this in front of you: keep a weather eye on the gossip, don’t get sucked into it, but be aware of the “gossip” going around. This is why I buy butter in bunches and freeze the cartons.

No, food doesn’t come from the store. It comes from farms and livestock production,  A lot of fresh vegs and fruit come from Mexico Lindo and other places like Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. The source is usually on the wrap or bag. Oh, yeah: if you want to store flour, then five 2-pound bags of flour will stay fresh longer than one 10-lb bag, because you will only open one bag at a time. I know people who can’t make the connection between five 2-pound bags of flour and one 10-pound bag. Simple arithmetic escapes them.

We have, as a population group, become far too dependent on “the store” for everything, and the convenience of weekly shopping (or even daily, for that matter), and convenience foods like microwave meals and instant this or that are a pathetic symbol of lack of independence. These are the people who will pound on your door when their cupboards are bare and ask if you can spare anything. And unfortunately, if you give them dry beans, they will give you a blank look, because they don’t know what to do with them.

Maybe it depends on the cargo and/or the destination, but it’s odd to see so much rail traffic and then have people tell me there’s nothing being delivered anywhere.

And that’s the point: the visual evidence says otherwise.  So what happens when food transportation stops cold and the stores aren’t restocked?

Think it can’t happen? Well, if the trucks stopped rolling, it might. Why would the trucks stop rolling? Because someone somewhere high up said so? That’s the “conspiracy theory” response, but every now and then I find something on a news channel which brings this up.  I take it seriously, because if it’s a rumor, there’s a basis for it.

But that sentence is the kind of paranoid conspiracy stuff I’ve been witnessing from the YouTubers who think there’s some kind of weird conspiracy going on. I know better. If a store in your area runs out of stuff on the shelves because someone has had a panic attack about bread, then learn to make your own bread. It isn’t that hard, as the Italian lady showed us those months ago during that ridiculous lockdown period, and what she created in her skillet is probably healthier than the stuff you’d buy at the store, anyway.

If I want to go to the trouble of watching morning traffic on the news, I can see dozens of semi-trucks rolling into the city, either on their way to the offloading points (e.g., depots and grocery stores), or going elsewhere to serve other cities and towns. If I want to waste some time watching trains roll by, I can watch “railcam live” down at La Plata, MO and count the loaded cars going north and the empties going south to pick up stuff. So where is this “no food supplies” coming from? Not from my part of the planet.

The point is that someone is stirring the pot to scare you and me, just as that ridiculous fakery over infant formula a few months ago was meant to scare the public, and that didn’t work.  It was NOT believable.  The self-sufficiency we are used to is something that someone – some apeshit jackass with a big mouth and a vapid ego – is trying to destroy.

Well, it won’t work, and why not? Because we know better, don’t we?

You know that grain of salt you’re supposed to take, when you doubt something?  Keep it handy.

Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", 2020 Election, America, Economy

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ninja

Welcome Back, Ex!!!!

We Missed You!!!

(Waiting for KoB….) 😉

We thought you may have seen That Movie That Shall Not Be Mentioned Part 2..and went into a Cultural Shock…or our beloved AW1Ed and Mick and our Punster Jeff kidnapped you…

Thank You for the GREAT article!😊

ninja

Yes, Ma’am!!! You as well…!!!

You always nail it for us!!!

Thank You!!!

Dennis - not chevy

Every day I pass by a vacant lot large enough to hold a football field. I wasn’t the only one to notice it; folks living nearby planted gardens in the field. All was well until the land was sold and the gardens were plowed under to make way for construction. Harvest time came and the construction had not started. The folks who could have had fresh vegetables were told it was their tough luck because they had no right to plant their gardens. The next year came and went with no construction.
My point is not the landowners should have been ordered to allow the gardens; I believe it is the owners’ right to use their property as they see fit.
However, I do think the landowners were foolish. When the gardens were tended to there was no risk of fire, or homeless folks setting up one of their campgrounds, or the field becoming the eyesore that it is.
With all of the unused government property that is lying fallow; the Government should be ordered to allow the gardens there.

11B-Mailclerk

My understanding is that if you allow squatters to stay, long enough, they gain rights.

poetrooper

You’re right, Mail, it’s the Doctrine of Adverse Possession. The amount of time required varies from state to state, but it’s usually a minimum of several years.

Good to see you back, Ex… 😛 

rgr769

However, in some states, the adverse possessor must also pay property taxes on the subject property.

Graybeard

We have been missing you, Ex!
Where would we be without our Lioness?

One thing in reference to the garden is the fact that the weather plays such a role in the backyard garden. In the GB Compound AO we are in D1 drought status, and forecast temps for next week are triple digits.
We’ve got the corn and squash in the freezer, but the beans are not doing well. The worms are getting too many of my tomatoes. The peppers are wilted. There are just a half-dozen butternut squash on the vine.
Some of my friends at church who run cattle are thinning their herds already.
And we are in the part of Texas least impacted by the heat and drought.
The outdoor sports guy in the local paper had a piece today on how bad this was gonna be for the deer.
We’ll get through this, but the belt may need to be taken up a notch or two.

26Limabeans

Large potato farms in this area are planting less potato and
more grain this year. Same for seed potato farms.
Not sure what that means but lack of trucking, fuel prices and
food shortages are in there.

jeff LPH 3 63-66

Glad to see you back Ex and like ninja says, we missed you. I hope that the squirrel in the above pic staring at me doesn’t think that I’m nuts.And by the way, the Crows waxed a song called “Miss You” 1954 on the Rama label. Great vocal group harmony.

KoB

Welcome Home, Mi’Lady, you have shorely been missed. Rations ideas have been thin of late. Wasn’t sure if you and the other Adorable Deplorables were laying low, trying to figure out how to share me, or how to make compost out of me. Either way y’all decide, I’m good with.

I’m steady stockpiling long term supplies, including furbaby food, generator fuel, boolits, FIRST Aid Supplies, water, and other sundry items. Trying to keep a minimum of 90 days of all. Weak link in that equation is my BP Meds. Can’t renew that scrip until 7 days before I run out, but my pillpusher is on the Apocolysp/Bug Out Team for Firebase Magnolia, so there is that.

Food GONNA get in short supply. Let them stores not get a delivery everyday and they’ll be empty in 3 days. Let the SHTF and it’ll be 30 minutes. “Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves.” Lot’s of this kinda talk over at BCE. M R ducks and that squirrel may be our only hope.

Anonymous

Progressive left/libtards haven’t helped either– a helpless, dependent citizen is a good, socially-just citizen for ’em.
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Last edited 1 year ago by Anonymous
Anonymous

Off-topic, but… Life at the “Hot”-lanta VA:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/disturbing-video-shows-atlanta-v-190501834.html

President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neande

Right now I’m still working enough that I don’t have a garden that I need to take care of daily – weeding, watering, etc.
But I DO have four mature grape vines (that I trimmed back quite heavily last fall – waiting to see if that hurt or helped). Plus one mature McIntosh apple tree, and a new one just planted this Father’s Day. The new tree won’t bear any fruit for a year or two (or three), but I’m patient.

AW1Ed

These are the same folks who believe electricity magically comes out of a plug in the wall.