Thursday, June 24, 2010

Is this "IT"?



"Post Collapse Food" apple pie, lentil, brown rice, summer squash dish, garden salad.... could be worse.

freeacre & ras

Ras has graciously put together a post for us regarding making food preparations for shortages that are affordable and do-able in a short amount of time. In fact, we may not have much time left to make preparations. Matt Savinar, in his comments today on LATOC, warns that this is, indeed, “IT”. Gather with your loved ones, turn away from your computer screen, go outside and enjoy the little time you have left. He thinks that the possibility of a huge methane explosion in the gulf may cascade into millions of lives being snuffed out by poisonous and flammable gasses that could blow at any minute. You probably have already traced the links that he provides. We have been talking amongst ourselves about this for weeks.

Additionally, there are the dire predictions of the sunspot cycle and the solar flares and coronal mass ejections that are speeding up. The cycle is anticipated to culminate in December of 2012, when the Earth and Hanab Ku (the Mayan term for the center of the galaxy and its transformative energy). At that point, an angry Sun could blow off the protective magnetosphere of the earth, and fry us. A shifting of the poles of the earth, the stop and then reversal of the rotation of the planet, and subsequent global tsunami, would destroy most living things. Or not. After all, pole shifts have happened regularly and things got rough. Ice Ages have happened. Weather changed dramatically. But, the human race survived. In fact, enough anomalous artifacts have been found that simply do not fit within our assorted histories that make it seem likely that destruction of Life As We Know It may have occurred repeatedly – maybe for millions of years.

Almost seeming tame in comparison is the possibility of the death of the dollar, the breakup of the European Union, war with Iran (less likely if oil shortages become acute soon), and hurricanes destroying property and spreading contamination that would lead to mass evacuations and the deaths of millions once again. Oh, yeah, then there is the bankruptcy of many of the states in the union and possible riots and revolution as people become more and more desperate and have less and less to lose. Let’s say a hurricane in the Gulf picks up mass quantities of oil and toxic chemicals from the sea and deposits them over thousands of homes, lakes, streams, cities, townships, and farms. How viable are those places going to be then? What about all those mortgages that are already upside down anyway? Would it surprise anyone if survivors just packed up, left their keys on the table and headed for Michigan or Ohio where the real estate is dirt cheap?

That would, of course, leave the banksters and the state and local governments holding the bag. The banks would fail, the derivatives would go up in flames, pensions and municipal bonds and just about every financial instrument you can think of would tank. Property taxes could not be collected to pay for municipal services. I mean, I am no financial wizard to be sure. But, it seems to me that alone would be enough to ascertain that we’d go from a “slow crash” scenario to a “fast crash.”

So, I don’t know. Prepare to survive or live each day as if it is your last? Good question. Lately, I find myself listening to favorite recording artists, re-watching my ten best movies, looking through my photo albums, remembering my best times, and being grateful for everything. But, maybe that’s because we’ve already been preparing for five years. I’d rather spend my last days visiting Crater Lake than trekking to Costco for additional gallons of olive oil.

On the other hand, I’d sure hate to check out like those delusional Hale Bot Comet numbskulls did in L.A. and maybe miss something amazing. Something wonderful might pop up like the three morel mushrooms that appeared in our backyard last week. So, let’s go with the preparation scenario. I’ll shut up now and let ras take over….


The Emergency Food Storage Plan That Could Save Your Ass If Things Go Really Wrong

Please note: The information in this article is for informational purposes only. I am NOT responsible for anything you do or do not do with it. Also please note that the elderly, the very young, and those with sensitive stomachs do not adjust well to a sudden, drastic change in diet. Also, this is not a substitute for a ‘store what you eat, eat what you store’ plan. This should be used in addition to that plan for a couple of reason. 1.) In a short-term situation, you should use those stores instead, and 2.) Even in a long term situation, you will want to shift your diet as gradually as possible.

Things are going wrong in a major way. All over the world, the excrement is hitting the fan. What happens if things get so bad that supply chains are interrupted and the grocery store shelves are bare? What if there’s a real famine? What will you do and will you and yours be okay? These once distant possibilities are becoming more real everyday and, if you’re like me, you’re increasingly worried. It’s grim out there, folks, and getting grimmer. The only way to insure your food security is by having enough food stored to get yourself through no matter what happens.
Food storage is an insurance policy. Let me repeat that: having food stored is insurance. Insurance against famine, insurance against natural disaster, insurance against civil unrest. You may never use your car insurance or your homeowners insurance, but you have it anyway. You should have food storage for the same reasons.
How much do you need? A few days, a month, three months, six months, a year? That is up to you, but I would say a month is the bare minimum and I would not be comfortable with less than six months. A year is not too much. Hell, these days two years is not too much. But storing this much food raises its own issues: spoilage, expense, and storage space. I am going to detail a simple, inexpensive way to cover your ass in the event the fan gets clogged from all the crap that’s flying at it. Whether you choose to use it or not is up to you; you may think it’s too extreme or use any number of other options. But at least you’ll have the information.
How much food do you need for 1 person for a year? There are several ways to calculate this. I like this one: http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm The Mormons have a church law that requires them to keep a year’s worth of food on hand at all times, so as you might expect, they’ve gotten pretty good at this.
Here are the totals for one person:
Grains -300 lb
Legumes -60 lb
Fats and oils -13 lb
Sugars -60 lb
Milk and dairy -75 lb
Baking Powder and Baking Soda -1 lb each
Yeast -0.5 a pound
Salt -5 lbs
Vinegar -0.5 a gallon

Notice there’s no meat here. Beans plus whole grains (not white rice) equals a complete protein so you don’t need meat.
That’s a lot of food, and a lot of money. A years worth of grains and legumes for one person from most emergency supply stores, pre-packaged, is well north of $600, plus shipping. A family of two would pay in excess of $1200 just for rice and beans. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of money for someone like me. How can you reduce the expense?
Do it yourself. You can get the food and package it on your own. Beans are available in any supermarket. Grains can be bought in bulk from health food stores or online. Or you can go to the nearest feed store and buy untreated feed grain. Yes, you read that right. If you store it right it isn’t going to go bad and you can give it to a farming friend when you rotate it. If you have to eat it, you really aren’t going to care. It’s the same thing they use for humans anyway. Fifty pounds of wheat, corn, or oats from a feed store is about $10. That means it would take you sixty bucks to get enough grain to last a year for one person. Not bad. (Don’t tell them you’re going to eat it. They won’t sell it to you.) You can also get fifty pound bags of white rice for $15, but will need to supplement the rice with more protein sources. Do NOT get more than half of your grains in wheat. A lot of people are sensitive to wheat and don’t know it until they try to eat a heavily wheat dependent diet. You don’t want to do this, have to depend on it, and then discover that you or your seven year old has a wheat allergy.
Legumes –most beans are a dollar a pound or less at the store. Split peas are $0.79 a pound. Get mostly dried and a few cans. Be sure to get multiple varieties. Each kind of bean tastes different. Sixty pounds = sixty bucks. Now we’re up to $120 for one person for a year. Still not bad.
Fat and salt –both of these are absolutely required for health. The problem with most modern diets is that we get too much of both of these for the amount of physical activity we get. Fats tend to go rancid within a year, so you’ll have to rotate these constantly. You can buy a years worth of whatever you normally use and work through it with your ‘store what you eat, eat what you store’ plan. The only exceptions to this are peanut butter and lard. Unopened peanut butter lasts for years, is cheap, and is also a really good source of protein. Lard is cheap and will last for years, but it’s also incredibly bad for you. Salt is going to be the cheapest part; you can buy 10 pounds of salt for two dollars. Put up as much as you possibly can –it is required for life, it’s a good food preservative, a good seasoning, and a trade good. So, $25 for both fat and salt brings us to $145 per person. Call it $150.
Sugar –sugar is a good sweetener and good preservative. Fifty pounds will set you back less than $25 bucks. Milk and dairy are up to you. A lot of people don’t use dairy. Add in the miscelleanous items and you’re up to $200 a person. For a year of food. Not bad for insurance. Fill in as you can afford with vegetables and so forth, but this will take care of your bulk caloric requirements. There are three other items not on the calculator that are absolutely necessary. The first is a good multivitamin. In good times or bad times you need a vitamin, but especially in the bad times. This will ensure that you’re getting all your nutritional requirements. The second is a store of seeds so that you can grow more food. The third –as many spices and seasonings as you can get your hands on.
Now for storage. You need something to put all of this food in. Go down to Home Depot and buy yourself a bunch of their orange buckets with the air tight gasket lids. These cost about $2.50 each, with tax. You can also buy brand new empty paint cans; the only requirement is that they have air tight lids. Don’t just pour the food inside; plastic imparts strange odors to food, so you need a liner. You can use a mylar bag, a paper bag, or anything else that will work. Now you need to remove the oxygen from the environment so that the food can’t degrade. You can buy oxygen absorbers online. They cost about $15.00 for a hundred of them. Or, you know those hand warming packets? They have the same chemicals in them. Activate a couple, throw them in each bucket, and put a lid on right away. Or, don’t fill the bucket quite all the way, put a tealight on top of the food, light it, and put the lid on. The candle will go out once it burns up the oxygen. You will have to look up ways to use this food if you should ever need it –cooking it is a little more complex than opening a can. If you want to be able to make flour, you’ll need to find a grain mill or something similar.
Rotation guidelines: Grains and legumes –once every ten years. Sugar –once every five. Yeast, baking soda, baking powder –use these and replace as needed. Fat –once a year. Salt –never.
All told you’re looking at about $300 a person for an insurance plan that could literally save your life. That to me is not a bad investment.
Where do you store this stuff? In closets, under the bed (in case of the paint cans), in corners, anywhere you can find. Just don’t put the food in the garage or an outbuilding –unprotected buildings cause food to degrade faster, and leave it more open to pests.
A note about pets: don’t forget them. You have to store food for them as well. Dogs are omnivores, and like humans, can eat a vegetarian diet if it’s planned right. But cats are carnivores and absolutely MUST have meat. So throw a few cases of canned cat food under your bed for your feline friend. She’ll also help feed herself on the moles and mice that will inevitably attack your garden or get into your house.

Well, that's "food for thought" for now. Next, maybe we'll list some handy gadgets and other non-edibles that are handy things to have.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8

Haven't read the new post yet, but intend to now. I just saw this and thought it should be passed along.

-rp

Burnie said...

Thanks for the info, and the friendship.

freeacre said...

Some days, I swear, it's not worth getting up in the morning. First off, I slept in because I was up till four listening to the latest interview with Clif High on the Rense site. So, then I was late to my neighbor across the street's garage sale where they had a Kitchen Aide. Somebody had just bought it. Rats! Then is woman calls me to ask about the Grange. She's making a list of community resources. How many members do we have, etc. Then she asks, "Didn't the Grange have a Farmer's Mkt. at one time? Is it still going on?"
"Yes," says I. It's been going on every Saturday for the last 18 months.
"oh... well do you have any produce?"
"Well, it's been pretty cold lately, and it's early in the season. Next month we'll have more. I do sell eggs regularly. The Grange is trying to support the localization of food movement."
"Oh, yes!" she says. Sustainability. I'm all for sustainability.
"Well, maybe you've been reading my columns on gardening in the local paper..."
"Uh, no..."
"I've been writing a column on local gardening, sustainability, and the Grange for three years now."
"Oh...." And, she's a librarian in town.
Doggone it! It makes me wonder why I even bother with these dumbass people.
Archdruid has a post up that speaks to this same issue of the inability of mass movements to garner much mass for the Greater Good, or enlightenment. "Those who have ears to hear" and all that, I guess. Fuck me, I'm tired.
Thank heaven for Burnie showing up.

nina said...

Yes, Burnie, I thank Ras, too, for the information and the straightforward, no nonsense essay. She brings back some incredible jungle memories I'd put on hold while all hell breaks loose around us. But indeed, even pondering FA's comfort foods, it comes back now as what-people-do-to-survive when they don't live in 24/hr Disneyland. Mostly I remember I'd never had such a good time. No one forgot others, when we cooked, we always cooked big pots of bush-spice flavored lentils and brown rice and took plates of food to those who we knew would not have a meal coming that day. And when the plates were brought back, it was time to sit on the porch wall with some homemade wine and talk about God, the sea, the animals, souls, play board games and dominoes, make drums, sing, crochet something useful for the new baby down the lane. My dear friend Nya and I took parts playing drug barons in Monopoly (which happens to be a great way to learn the absurdity of money.) It was all lots of fun. There is so much more to do in this life than suffocate in paranoia.

I don't want to be the one to say, "This is it." All reports indicate it is, but important journeys lie ahead just as beautiful memories take up the past. Nothing, then, is ever truly "it". What we perceive as an ending is only another phase of existence. The leaf decomposes into the compost pile only to then nurture new growth which contains the leaf, once a bud, once summer shade, once a snowcatcher, falls to the Earth and joins his brethren to recycle again, its all one big perfect work in progress. There is no end.
BP is not God.

freeacre said...

Right on, Nina. It is time for sharing and community. What is to be over, should be over. I picked up a hitchhiker today and gave him a dozen eggs to bring home. When I dropped him off at his house he introduced me to his lady and they gave me a bunch of egg cartons. We all thanked each other and now we are neighbors. Keep your eyes open for the good. Make it happen.

stoney13 said...

53 today! MUUUWWWWWAAAAAAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA! Oh it is time for reckless lifestyle choices to be made, and I will make these choices with the sort of people do!

We are going to take wheeled vehicles into a place that wheeled vehicles are not meant to go! When there we will eat, drink, and smoke all that we're not supposed to!

Next year, same time, same place, same people!

Anonymous said...

Stoney; You sound like a devious criminal, to me. Have you no respect for 'the law?' Man, what's this site comin' to?

-rp

freeacre said...

Have a Happy Birthday celebration, Stoney! Wish we were able to share in the festivities! You and yours are very dear to our hearts.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

Hi guys back again but only for a short while - off again giving a helping hand.

Haven't read the post yet.

This is interesting

http://www.henrymakow.com/cabalist_bankers_1903_novella.html

nina said...

Happy Birthday Stoney!

Anonymous said...

Stoney you ole dog, 53, humm thats the age i got busted for growing flowers and sentenced to four years in a federal penitentiary, anyway will toke a fat one surrounded with sage and pretty girls for the occasion and in your honor of 53 trips around the sun and still rockin hard.
aho
montana freeman

Anonymous said...

RAS, good advice on the survival, i freaked our the other day and gave away all my stored stuff to the food bank, a pickup load. don't know why except i've traveled the path with out much most of my life and if i ever got hungry i don't remember it, also where i live the deer are like grasshoppers, and if it comes down to it the valley is full of black angus cows for the pickin along with buffalo, course i wouldn't pick without asking and if times were tough i'm thinking a rancher wouldn't mind trading a little meat for a helping hand on the ranch,if not, well we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. anyway ras, if the shit hits the fan you can always come to montana,its friendly folks and much opportunity i think, to look at the boom going on in missoula and kalispell you'd never think depression. at least thats the way it appears to me.
and according to history i was told hot springs enjoyed a fairly prosperous time during the last great depression.
hmmm might be the water.
any thanks for the info little sister.
montana freeman

Hotspringswizard said...

Important advice there RAS on the Food Prep Plan! As always appreciate your thoughts too Freeacre :-) Here are some more great musings from Bageant in his most recent post:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/06/live-from-planet-norte.html

Live from Planet Norte

America's totalitarian democracy and the politics of plunder, or, life is a titty tuck and a Dodge truck

.....Does common sense and experience tell you that all six billion of us are suddenly going to come to Jesus and save the planet? Suddenly be seized by the spirit of universal cooperation and pagan love for Gaia? Are those billions going to quit doing what our species has done for 15,000 years -- attacking nature first with the stone axe, then the plow, and later with atomic energy?......

I too do not see any of that kind of thing happening either. And like Greer discussed in his most recent entry, I have never thought either than any of the discussion and various attempted organizing by individuals and groups of people will ever rise to the level of actually changing the dire trajectory towards scary and seriously dismal times we are heading for.

And regarding this thought from Bageant, " This theme of engorgement and spectacle endures, thrives really, year after year, despite even the slowly unfolding world economic collapse ", which expresses an idea akin to Kunstler's idea of what lies ahead as being, " The Long Emergency ", I think in the years just ahead the potential still remains that the inevitable transition downward will unfold in the form of a longer range decline, with major step-downs along the way of course ( the GOM Gusher as one example ), rather than occuring in a breif period of worldwide cataclysmic failure of the world's various societies, especially the industrialized affluent ones.

Its like back around winter 2006 ( aprox ) I remember a post from Ruppert ( before his Ashland office got trashed ) where he was predicting that the US economy was going to be " unrecognizable " by spring because of the skyrocketing natural gas prices, and yet here we are 4 years later with gas prices dramatically down from that period and the US still somehow stumbling foward like a drunken zombie. I know alot of us wonder how the whole thing has not crashed and burned already.

So this thing may very well not go down like the scene from the Titanic Movie where Rose and Jack hang precariously on the stern of the doomed ship, and Jack says, " This is it ", and the deed is done in one fell swoop. I get the sense that whats coming for us will turn out to be a much more complicated and drawn out affair than the most dire thinking of us might be expecting just now. If it turns out to be a " This is it " type scenario, I don't think any preps will mean much of anything in that type of reality.

On another subject, I see that BP is moving forward on a new " extended reach " well drilling project which will be accessing oil in the Artic, off of a man-made island built just so they can avoid the complications and regulation of off-shore drilling. Its all new and exciting new technology that will give them the ability to get to this oil and of course we should all be very thrilled about this brand new BP oil adventure! We have learned nothing from the Gusher :-(

And the US court says, Hell No you won't stop the drilling in the GOM. Homo Sapiens have been doomed from the start, and that is becoming even more abundantly clear each day that passes!

Hotspringswizard said...

Oh, I forgot, Happy Birthday Stoney! I'm right behind you at 52 :-)

Hotspringswizard said...

This article discusses the concerns about the condition of the riser and BOP at the gushing GOM well.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/bps-blowout-preventer-is-leaning-and.html

BP's Blowout Preventer is Leaning and Might Fall Over

As I have previously noted, it is now clear that there is damage to BP's well beneath the sea floor....

it also says this:

....Bea said reports that BP is using an inclinometer is significant news. "It tells me that they are also concerned,"....

And tonight I was watching the Weather Channel and they showed what I assume was a live feed of the well head and containment cap. The thing was that the view of the cap was un-obstructed by any gushing oil ( you could see the cap completely ). A rather small amount of oil could be seen coming out from behind it. In all of the live feeds I have seen so far there is alway significant oil gushing around the bottom of the cap from any angle. So where's the missing oil flow? I can't imagine that they are sucking that much up through the cap riser so makes me wonder if things are deteriorating futher down in the riser, with oil leaking out elsewhere causing not as much flow at the cap now.

Bp supposedly has a deadline of this Friday to provide more detailed information on what is happening with the BOP and riser. We shall see what new lies they come up with, and thats even if they provide the information at all.

Hotspringswizard said...

More confirmation that Afganistan is in the process of being targeted for corporation plundering. Looks like despite what Obama the Liar in Chief says, the troops and bases will be in Afganistan for a long time to come, that is unless the developing worldwide economic armegedon somehow changes their plans.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/afghans-draft-in-pwc-to-open-up-3trn-mineral-reserves-2011325.html

Afghans draft in PwC to open up $3trn mineral reserves

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has been called in by the Afghanistan government to develop its $3trn mining and minerals industry......

Anonymous said...

Stoney Happy Anniversary of your birth! You're just a wee bebee at 53 years young! Hope your par-T was a good one! mrs p

murph said...

Some interesting data on oil problems in the GOM. http://www.oilspill.labucketbrigade.org/

Update the map, what the link goes to is older data. It is a report on where people are finding tar balls or oil slicks. Kinda scary don't ya think? Whew!

Anonymous said...

Matt Simmons is interviewed on a radio show, I believe it was taped June 28.

http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/10_Cosmic/100629.trunews62810.mp3

-rp

Anonymous said...

And, this is David Icke's take on the GOM gusher/catastrophe, as only David Icke can do it.

BTW, he'll be on Rense radio tonight.

http://www.rense.com/general91/blood.htm

wv= gobsess

i wub my gobsess

-rp

RAS said...

Happy Belated Birthday, Stoney!
I hope it was a good one. 53 is nothing -you've got a lot of good years left.

Thanks for all the comments everyone.

The husband of a friend of mine is leaving for the Gulf this week. He's going down to work on the spill. He doesn't give a rat's ass about cleaning up the oil -just about making $1000 bucks a week.
Sigh.

Anonymous said...

goddam it , i just loved the smell of Benzene on a hot day,

http://www.rense.com/general91/dulf.htm

AND THIS!
http://www.mcsrr.org/resources/articles/S3.htmlaho
that one is really an illusion destroyer

the two leggeds have contaminated everything that can be contaminated, right? ha!!

is it just because of the white skin? naw, thats to easy,
i saw an indian the other day driving his nuclear powered horse.

hey p what's happening in your neck of the woods?

theres a deer eating the garden so now its time to go shopping for a new freezer , damn its always something.

same with baz, i think of you everytime we barbeque pokchops, the ones i hunted down with my debit card, hey it can get dangerous at walmart.
jeesh, to much coffee, or not enough,

back in the day the giant assed wallyworld in missoula had a huge tank full of lobsters with blue rubber bands around their claws and i would go there just to watch them and wonder how much jail time i would get if i snatched them out of their transparent prison pulled off their rubber bands and let them go shopping their own selfs.
i could just imagine the screams coming from the brave souls that worship those holy isles.
well summer has finally arrived and the swollen flathead river from all the rains is mighty appealing for washing the dust of superior thinking planet busters off and laying in the sun with fellow conspirators.
no we won't eat the fish since their scales all fell off from not taking their vitamins like mommy told um.
fuck it the slow burn is really catching on i got to go.

have good day brothers and sisters, it really seems like its going fast.but hell who really knows,
o before pass the stick one more thing,
remember the globes that have been coming over hot springs,? well, saw another one two nights ago, same ball of milky sorta translucence look and sailing slowly across the sky, not to high, flying sw to ne same as the other FIVE (individual not all together) that were observed before, its so fucking weird, no sound, no trail i could see and its always in late evening, early morning dark nights.
glad i had a friend on hand when the two came over together, hummm whoa, whats that all about..? (two of them,two of us? one each?)
fuckin two-leggeds dug up our forgotten spaceships?
aho
mf

Anonymous said...

Great thought goes on here but I feel that this has definitly led to a great anxiety. If you wish to understand, know that a sudden comprehension comes when the mind has been purged of all the clutter of conceptual and discriminatory thought-activity.

Non Action is the way to begin. We are never going to change anything. When you stop paying attention to the society we belong to we begin to see the world as a reflection of ourselves.It's important to approach this time of life not as a crisis but as a time for transformation and opportunity. This is a chance for us to follow the needs of our minds, body and spirit equally. Life goes on and then we are die.
Death leads to eternal life. What better reward could we ask for.

Scrap Wood

Hotspringswizard said...

Off shore waters are being drilled more and more because any significant onshore reserves have been found and capatilized on in previous decades to the extent that now these fields are for the most part entering the depletion phase of their production curves. The US is depending increasingly more and more on offshore oil.

Consider this article:

http://energybulletin.net/node/53292

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Real Gulf Crisis

....independent observers say it is looking like our new deepwater oil wells are only going to be producing some 10 or 20 percent of initial estimates.....

This points to the reality that the gargantuan sums of money that are being poured into offshore oil projects will in the end be producing vastly less oil than these oil wells were expected to. The development cost of this oil will be rising dramatically because of this, and because of issue related to the GOM Gusher too.

And there is the potential huge repercussions of the issues that indicate that the OPEC oil producing nations have dramatically overestimated the amounts of oil reserves they actually have, nations that hold around 60-65 percent of the world's remaining oil.

Just because new feilds are found offshore does not mean they will be economically viable to produce. Oil companies won't produce oil that is just too expensive for the end product to be afforded by the people and the societies that use them. There is no way out but increasing austerity that will have to be imposed on our complex societies to try and cope with the reality of the now imminent decline of affordable and abundant oil supplies. Natural gas has decreased dramatically in price in recent years but it to is soon to experience the same fate ( and fraking won't alter this reality ). World coal supplies look likely to peak in a decade or two.

The GOM Gusher is a sure sign of our unfolding troubled energy future.

Pawta said...

Amen, Scrap Wood.

Pawta said...

PS- It's also still nice, tho, to have updates on what's in store on the pedestrian level as the situation we're experiencing rolls along, especially when the word comes from reporters like Tom Whipple down at Falls Church News-Press. Thanks, HSW.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

Home for the day but I mightn’t touch base for another week. Great post Ras and truly useful advice. I always assumed that rice and beans was a pseudonym for a protein bang but apparently not as good as it could be. I have about 50kg together of Gluttonous; Jasmine; Risotto and Basmati rice on hand and was intending to buy another 10kg of Basmati but I think I will change this to 10kg bulgar and 10kg red lentils. It makes more sense, at least to me, thanks for that. That tea light trick is brilliant (no pun intended) I have sometimes wondered how to get the oxygen out of storage containers and without a source of dry ice I didn’t know how to do it. The thing I would not like to live without is the fairly modern invention of toilet paper so I have decided to stock up on that too. Washing powder is also a good thing to have in.

On the darker side, the Pentagon as asked Congress to approve a proposal to put 400,000 troops on the streets should the situation demand it. Natural disasters are how it is being played but Emergencies, which is anything the pres decides it is, is included in the small print. The chess pieces are being arranged for the mate. Don’t forget that this 400,000 troops is in addition to the Gladio forces which nobody mentions and we are not supposed to know about.

http://seeker401.wordpress.com/

Anonymous said...

Belgium; Thanks for that link. On that page, I found another link to Jane Burgermeister's page, on which is an interesting, though chilling, story of serious press censorship by rather unorthodox means. We should all be aware of what extraordinary powers the State possesses, and may use at its whim.

http://www.theflucase.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3718%3Aaustrian-judge-caught-in-wrong-doing-moves-to-silence-whistleblower-jane-burgermeister-by-putting-her-under-court-supervision&catid=41%3Ahighlighted-news&Itemid=105&lang=en

Oldensoul and I have been steadily storing purchased canned goods, wheat, flour, rice, salt, sugar, etc. for the past three years. We have 55 ga. drums full, (3), plus plastic lockers filled with large bags of dried goods. Plus, we can and freeze a big garden annually.

Last fall we made our first real batch of sauerkraut, and we ate on it all winter. We bought a crock from a firm in Germany that is specially made for fermenting kraut. It has a water moat built into the top lip of the crock that acts as an airtight seal, with the lid in place. It lets gas bubble out, but doesn't allow oxygen back in. Works great. Mid-sized crock makes all the kraut we two use in a winter.

We've been better at squirreling away than we have been at changing stuff out. My guess is that we need to pay more attention to cycling things out of storage.

Virginia City took it in the shorts yesterday from 1 1/4 inch hail storms. Our garden was okay, but friends in VC lost their corrugated plastic hoop house. Completely destroyed. The plastic shards and heavy hailstones decimated the crops thriving inside. We had this happen to our garden two summers ago, so we know what a psychological shock this is.

More hailstorms slated for today in our region. Otherwise, the gardens have been doing well. despite a slow, cold start. We have 16 inch scapes on the garlics, and peas are starting to produce.

-rockpicker

freeacre said...

Ditto, Pawta, on Scrap Wood. Nice to be reminded of cultivating a calm center, despite appearances.

Welcome back, Belgium. I like lentils, too. Got to have some variety, if nothing else. Also, they cook much faster, as does rice. Many quick, nutritious dishes made with rice and veggies.

Anonymous said...

scrap wood, i''m really surprised p did not jump in here at your comment,there are a couple of things that do not seem clear, the first is how is a mind to ''purge'' itself?, this is the teachings of the so called enlightened ones, and
they have game plans for this too but as one who has walked that path the shortfalls become obvious after awhile when one finds they do not work.
o we can sit bowlegged till hell freezes over and the mind becomes paralyzed with the fog of self-induced nirvana but that is an illusion.
the real game in my estimation is not to stop paying attention to socity because you are society,now how you gonna do that, drugs religion, belief, go off and sit on a mountain?, these are all escapes and go nowhere in the evolution of the mind, if there even is such a thing and i think there is.
but like p says, it is not to deny that which you are but to understand it. and this requires an enormous amount of energy, which is wasted in being sucked in by society (yourself) sucked in by yourself, see? there is no other suck/.?
the wave is no different then that which makes the wave, right?
there is no such thing as non-action, the mind, the brain is a whirlwind of activity as you well know, and the used-car approach to dealing with this mess just will not work.
so what is a mother fucker to do? if everything we have tried leads to illusion, how to find god, creator, whatever, this is a big problem and there are not many that even consider how enormous it actually is.
its fucking huge and we will not find it in some fucking book, period.
so can the mind actually drop the clutter? the eternal inner dialog? this is, (was)? the only thing that should concern the two leggeds other then putting food on the table perhaps and you can do that with your left foot, is to find and face to face with creator,
the biggest obstacle like p says is the fact that we live a life of almost complete denial, denial of who and what we actually are composed of. this is a big problem.
in as much as we are immersed up to our eyeballs in all the diversions that a human can conjure up and it seems infinite as near as i can tell. what can a mother fucker do.?
what exactly is god? it damn sure ain't the bullshit spewed in religion,so now what.
the possibility of this. what must be an enormous discovery
hangs over us like a sacred
guillotine ready to be dropped if one is ready.
you are right about the fact that this a grand opportunity for transformation because of the pressure of the two-leggeds folly and success in destroying mother earth, however the statement death leads to eternal life is a bit misleading don't cha think? and reward,? like a good field-hand?
anyway glad to see ya at the campfire brother,these discussions are good to open up the possibilities of clarity with shared visions.
aho
mf