Posted on 02/09/2009 12:36:11 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny
Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases along to the consumer. A recent stroll through the camping section of Wal-Mart did give me pause - what kinds of things are prudent to have on hand in the event of a worldwide shortage of food and/or fuel? Survivalist in Training
I’ve been interested in survival stories since I was a kid, which is funny considering I grew up in a city. Maybe that’s why the idea of living off the land appealed to me. My grandfather and I frequently took camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and around the Smoky Mountains. Looking back, some of the best times we had were when we stayed at campgrounds without electricity hookups, because it forced us to use what we had to get by. My grandfather was well-prepared with a camp stove and lanterns (which ran off propane), and when the sun went to bed we usually did along with it. We played cards for entertainment, and in the absence of televisions, games, etc. we shared many great conversations. Survivalist in the Neighborhood
Thanks. I have been following all the garden threads too. I grew up on a family farm in central Texas during the 50s. I know hard times well, and remember picking cotton, corn, shoveling milo, thrashing peanuts, herding cattle, sheep, raising hog, etc.
We had a huge garden and even ground our own flour and cornmeal. I would really like to move back there and start my own big garden again. I only have a small backyard plot, but all the fresh veggies we had for dinner last night were grown in it.
I kept latex surgical gloves around for years in my shop for when I'm working on greasy stuff, like my tractors, and in the kitchen for "less than pleasant" tasks that come up from time to time. However, last time I went to my local Sams, they didn't have latex anymore. I bought a couple of boxes of nitrile gloves and have found that they are considerably tougher than latex and they fit better than the vinyl gloves. They are about the same cost as latex.
You are correct, they do have wonderful things for survival and living in good ways.
I don’t have a swiss army knife, but do have a wind up radio.
There is enough stuff in this place to make do and survive with.
I hope.
Thank you for adding to the thread, your links are going to help several people.
I am glad that you are here.
I have those nitrile gloves as well.
I use them when I fill my bird feeders and I usually put them on under my gardening gloves. That way when my gardening gloves let go, my hands stay relatively clean.
Another use I have for gardening gloves, is I keep a pair in my car or van for pumping gas. In the winter the handles are too cold and I don’t want to ruin my good gloves. Plus, gas pump handles are another one of those germ carrying surfaces that I’d rather not deal with.
What a great idea for city dwellers.
It reminds me of the kids who planted marijuana seeds in the flower bed in front of the police station. Where was that? New Rochelle? Somewhere in Westchester County.
My new greenhouse that I got for Christmas is just fine. My makeshift stick and plastic thing that I was using on the back porch before I got my new greenhouse is pretty sad looking. I am *very* happy that I had the new one!
Trouble is, even when I got the new one I had so many plants that I continued to use the make-shift thing just to have room. I did remove all the plants in the old one that are very tender.
My rain gauge came loose in the wind but I happened to have 4 empty jars out on the porch. It appears that we got about 3/4 inch of rain. Did you get any? The radio says we've got a 60% chance of a little more today.
Got some tomatoes stewing to can up today. Wish you were here. ;-)
Yes, it does. Most of what I'm growing is self pollinating, except for the tomatoes which are "indeterminate" and need a little help. A good shake of the entire plant every day usually does the trick, or some people use old electric toothbrushes to vibrate the blossoms. Yesterday was near 70F here and I opened the door of the greenhouse for a few hours. Later in the day when I went to close it up, I noticed quite a few honeybees inside working their magic. I hadn't checked my hives in a while for activity since it's been so cold here this winter. That's now on today's agenda.
.... and do your best to keep the deadbeat neighbors from knowing what you're doing. Make 'em think you got nothin' and no work ethic just like them.
I haven’t read through the entire thread yet, so this might already been suggested:
Regarding #27 on your list - Stockpile seeds. When buying seeds or plants, remember to buy NON-hybrid. After growing the plants, the seeds harvested from hybrids will not germinate.
Something I learned during my Y2K days. I might have looked silly when nothing happened, but I learned a lot from those days, and we didn’t have to do much grocery shopping for many months afterwards! It was great! Mr sneakers (who humored me through the whole thing, bless his soul!), really liked having a lot of supplies on hand!
On thread one, some place are recipes for making Gatorade from scratch.
LOL, your change makes me think of Grandpa Ira, when his kids came, it was cause they needed money, so he had two wallets, one in his bib overalls and the other, inside in his jeans.
The bib overalls held $2.00, that was all he would have to give the kids, these were grown ones, who did not want to take care of him, but wanted his money.
We let him come to live at our place, he slept in his camp trailer and kept his hog and cow with ours.
And I learned from him, all that I could.
Yes, on teaching kids to use guns, but not all kids, for some do not have gun sense and I have a daughter in that class, she simply is not the one to hand a gun to.
Whistles, maybe, but Bill and I worked out a different manner of danger alert, I don’t use my first name and he didn’t use his middle, so that is what we called out, if we wanted the other here and now, a snake or some other reason.
We have had strangers come into our camp, while out prospecting, and that is not always safe.
Glad you found us, haven’t had time for pings as yet.
Yes, gloves would be an excellent idea.
Great thread granny
I’m rather new here and have run across your previous thread from time to time. Very interesting topics that really interest me. I am going to bookmark this thread but I don’t always look at my bookmarks...out of sight, out of mind.
Do you have a ping list? I would love to be added to it if possible.
I do have a question. I’ve tried growing a garden.(We live in the Phoenix metro area.) Unfortunately, we are inundated with prairie dogs. (I call them gophers!) Broke my heart to see my little eggplants all eaten one morning. They climb over, under and through the fence. Just dug it up and there it sits. Any ideas what to do? There’s nothing like a home grown tomato!
Thanks, granny! Looking forward to reading more.
Like Obama, Holder is a gun-control zealot —typical of the loony, anti-freedom wing of the Democratic Party. <<<
Yes, they will cause gun sales to rise.
I think they are afraid the gun owners might put firepower behind the talk.
I watched Clinton take down the militia groups and they were not all evil people, some that I knew only wanted to be safe and left alone.
But then, yes, there were far too many of the other kind to suit me.
Laughing, as I say “careful now, don’t bad mouth my bread machine”, for without it, I could no longer even bake bread.
Yes, it is better made by hand.
Hope you have a good day at work and stay warm.
Granted I do not live in Arizona, but it seems to me you would do well to learn from the indians and learn about what they used to eat like some forms of cactus, etc.!
I have found in an emergency situation that a layer of newspaper between layers of clothing does wonders at keeping in heat as well. On motorcycle road trips when we’d be out too late and get chilly or an unexpected norther would hit before getting home we would stop at a convenience store and pick up a Thrifty Nickel and place half the paper under the back and half the paper under the front of our outter layer of clothing. Good warming stuff. Even riding at 70MPH.
Thanks for the ping, Gabz! Am bookmarking it!
I only have a small backyard plot, but all the fresh veggies we had for dinner last night were grown in it.<<<
That is wonderful, I am so glad you were able to grow them.
I will have to watch for the blogs that have information on the multi level gardens.
LOL, you might say nail a bunch of pots on a support post.
Maybe used pallets, on blocks would give you 2 or 3 levels for pots, at least for the low growing plants.
Yes, I have picked cotton, and rubbed milo off the stalk on a rub board also used to do the laundry on, that milo is dirty stuff when it comes out of the field.
So was shucking the dry corn and taking it off the cobs.
My dad stayed in San Diego during the war, worked as a mechanic, which he was good at, but after the war, he went back to Seminole Texas and sharecropping.
Old farmers, are always farmers.
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