It’s been a while and much has transpired.
The food situation is going to get critical next Winter, the Supply Chain disruptions are about to get worse, the FOOLS in power keep poking China in the face with this Taiwan bullshit, they are getting their proxy asses kicked in the Ukraine but won’t admit it, Monkey Pox is the next PANIC button, voting is still ALL FUCKED UP and on and on and on.
What’s on your mind?
Found an American company, Efield, that has PEX parts via ‘zon. Going on 10 days, no parts incoming. Ordered some Moog parts for the F150. Got one bushing, 1 still out there, and 2 kits out there. No doubt the supply lines are thin.
Been seeing a lot about beef going to market like mad here in Texas. We haven’t had three inches of rain this month. forage is dead. Found a neighbor that has a heifer for sale. When it cools off a little, I’ve got some work to do.
Got some apples Friday that were smaller than youth league baseballs. And no russet potatoes at all.
Times are changing. If you need to develop a skill set, get after it.
I’m thinking pretty quick people are going to start remembering guys like us who can fix shit.
It took a long time but I did finally learn how to tell people no.
Now that I have gained Ancient Geezer status it’s a lot easier to say too.
Nope, sorry, my back can’t take that shit anymore.
Find ya someone younger.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Good Luck with that.
You know Phil you are right on point! Kinda funny everyone makes fun of the boomers. The deplorables, the aged, the gone by’s. The thing of it is We, boomers, know how to build, operate, and fix ALL of the things that the boomers built to keep the power on, water flowing, sewerage taken care of after you flush the toilet. All the basic things everyone one needs each and every hour of the day without giving it a thought about how your convenience is provided. The BOOMERS have ALL the tribal knowledge that makes the world go round. This tribal knowledge has not been past on to future generations. The old ways that were tried and true was traded for wokeness and AA. All of our tribal knowledge dies with with US.
Vermillion
If you haven’t already started your preps, you haven’t been paying attention for far too long. If you can afford it, buy more stuff than you need… barter is going to be the future currency.
Stay safe and keep your powder dry.
When the big hammer drops on America it will be like nothing ever seen . Three mentions of it in the Book of Revelation . We’re getting real close now .
Rev. 18:10 & 17&19 . In one hour . What other nation has a statue of a woman standing upon the waters ? Has plied her craft of homosex and sin across the world . It will indeed be an amazing sight to see the most powerful country in the world taken down in one hour . How many of us will survive ? In the beginning of the Book of Revelation it promises a blessing to all that read it . If you have the stones .Americas downfall will be televised across the world . Many will cheer .
On my mind? What’s gonna happen to this country when the current crop of HS dumbshits get old enough to hold public office, or go to work for some gov bureau somewhere. It’s already bad enough now.
Stock up? Damn. I wish I had the income. But I sure ain’t Rawles. “Hope is not a method”, but I feel as if I have little else right now. How many .22LR cartridges for a loaf of bread? Will it come to that?
I was born and raised in the Portland area – I remember Tom McCall. But I sure as heck wouldn’t move back there. Used to think I’d like to. Haven’t been to the Pacific coast in a long time. CederQ, I hope that works out OK for you. Small town; maybe it isn’t too screwed up with SJW bullshit yet. I think the only time I’ve been through Roseburg was on the way to Diamond Lake. Wish I’d seen more of the state while I was there.
This new “Inflation Reduction Act” is nothing more than another way for the select beneficiaries to get some more largess from the gov, taken from those of us who are just getting by and still paying taxes.
“How many .22LR cartridges for a loaf of bread?”
One round of .22LR can get you EVERYTHING a man has (or will ever have), IF you are willing to take the risk/pay the price.
Why don’t Somalian Warlords not just shoot anybody they want to get their stuff? A mostly unarmed population aside from Warlord troops.
Cheaper than trade or taxation, right?
Because the survivors talk and if they have anything they hide it or flee, leaving the Warlord without farmers and makers to feed them and their troops.
If I am trading anything be assured, I trust the folks I am trading with and even then, have one or more overwatch shooters to keep everything honest.
The logic of a negro.
“Logic of a negro”? Really??
Actually, if you’ve studied history much, you’d find the same situations as far back as the Pharoh and the tribes of the Hebrews. Same sort of thing was used by Hitler to acquire valuables for his war effort taking over small countries while Britian’s Chamberlan wrote pretty words about “Peace in our time”.
Brute force *might* be successful for the moment and under current USA “Laws” that protect the felon a longer term “employment”.
Under normal times victims fight back or flee the situation and the wannabe Warlord finds himself unable to feed and supply his troops. Not a stable nor healthy situation.
I have fears that our focus on non-US folks will blind us from the threats of well-armed and little food “Allies”. Der Werewolves.
I was not commenting on your post.
Mike_C
Word will be passed about the asshole that is killing their neighbors for what they have and not trading fairly.
You will be fed to the pigs for murdering Aunt Edith for her canned green beans. And if you’re lucky, you will be dead first.
mike got it in one.
I’m not saying that *I personally* think “werewolf prepping” (robbing/murdering other people for supplies) is a good idea, much less moral. I was saying, ironically, that there ARE people out there who think that way.
I would only add that there is a crucial distinction between looting and scavenging. If there is any possibility of the rightful owner returning, then it’s looting. If not, then scavenging is a survival skill.
I first contemplated the subject in 1966 in Andre Norton’s book Daybreak 2250AD. The lead character makes an expedition into the dead city for whatever is useful, and one of his prize finds are….pencils.
And the classic gatepost sign: Looters will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Greg, “And the classic gatepost sign: Looters will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.” My favorite and go to sign says, Looters and trespassers will be shot, if you survive, will be violated then shot again… I have this sign and was posted on my farm in Alabama
Understood. Just pointing out how they look at the world.
We have three freezers filled. One with blueberries, cherries, strawberries, applesauce and tomatoes. Two with meat and chicken. We dehydrate kale and grind it up. Good in soup. We have cupboards filled with dried fruit sealed in mason jars. Lots of boxed pasta, potatoes, rice and beans. We grind our own wheat and have 100 lbs of wheat berries. 100 lbs of organic oatmeal. Gallons of our own maple syrup and gallons of honey from our own hives. If the shit hit the fan tomorrow I could keep the freezers going for maybe a couple weeks. My water is easily pumped from our well. I have thousands of rounds of ammo for every gun I own. We own precious metals. I can heat my home in the winter with wood if I need to. We have Jesus.
I’m not sure what else to do. I live in northern Michigan so our garden, which is in full swing right now, isn’t a very long process. Winter is the longest season.
Who knows whats going to happen. I feel for my children and grandchildren. If it came down to it, I’d give all of the above to help feed them. I never thought I would see what’s happening now, in my lifetime. Down right depressing if you dwell on it.
It is possible to grow certain veggies all winter in an unheated greenhouse if you have a system of mini tunnels over the beds within the greenhouse itself. See: “The Winter Harvest Handbook” by Eliot Coleman
I took the money I had saved up to rebuild a classic corvette motor and bought a freeze drier 2 years ago. I have been running it 24/7 except a few really hot days. I believe this WILL be a downfall of biblical proportions.
Inflation……
Had to replace a misplaced tube of 3M Super Weatherstrip Adhesive. Last tube I bought was 5 or 6 bucks. FOURTEEN DOLLARS for a new tube.
Pematex RTV gasket maker is now $13 a tube. Damn replacement light bulbs for taillights and things are $10 for a two-pack.
And the wife is screaming how much things have gone up at the grocery. I’m thankful she has a “Cadillac Plan” for healthcare, or I’d be paying over $300/month for my meds, and they’re nothing fancy…
I can see hitting junk yards for simple parts like light bulbs, tires if you get a year out of them. Old/abandoned cars will be stripped for parts and utter carcasses will be left.
that is one problem with oil. a whole lot of stuff we use every day is made from it. just one more item the green clowns don’t understand YET.
it will get worse as they keep printing their way out of the mess they in. hint. it did not work out too well for the Germans back in the 1920 to early 1930’s. weird and sad to see history repeating itself here and now.
add the oil problem with the soon to be worthless money and you will begin to see how bad it will get here. and then you figured in the planned food shortages, the cities will burn like never before
when the people can’t get enough to eat. and just for fun, think of all the EBT cardholders going nuts because they can’t get what they want, right now. yup, I am very glad I moved far away for any big city. anyone looking like they are well fed will be a target for them. you will need to be on guard and have someone to watch your back too. things will get right sporty when the music stops and a whole lot of people will be left without a chair.
wish you all luck, stay safe as you can in the coming madness
most homes keep less than a week worth of food in the house.
that might have changed a bit, just not enough to matter for most.
as for the state game lands, there not enough there to feed the mass of people who will be starving. they look for farms next to get food. as most stores only have what on the shelf and not much else in back these days. warehouses have maybe a week worth ?
it doesn’t look good for most of the country, the cities are fucked.
too many people, not enough anything.
and you can not eat gold or silver,,, but you might find someone willing to trade a cup of soup for a gold or silver coin ?
“you can not eat gold or silver,,, but you might find someone willing to trade a cup of soup for a gold or silver coin ?”
Anyone smart enough to convert paper fiat cash to gold and silver coins will likely have also looked after the other basic necessities of life. PM’s are the farmer’s currency, particularly silver. Gold is more high end. Even if there is a full nuclear exchange and there are no governments to speak of in existence, people will be carrying on and commerce will return. If the collapse is more economic and political, then private enterprise and commercial activity along the lines of how it was done in the 19th century countryside will be the norm. If the zombies come out to raid for food and loot, it will indeed get kinetic. But then what? They cannot sustain that for very long. They will lose people in the taking of every house they raid, and most farms are gonna be tough nuts to crack if they have any situational awareness at all. The zombies will die out en masse regardless of how successful they may be in the early days. If you have nothing laid back for life after the fighting, you will probably have to trade some of your brass and lead for what you need. The market price for those metals is much higher right now then the deflated PM markets.
If you’re not in a big hurry consider buying stuff like Permatex, etc, on eBay. I needed a primer bulb for my Stihl weed eater and TSC had them. $8 for a big one and a little one, which I can’t use. I bought 100 big ones on eBay for $13. Now I’m set for life, or until gas powered weed eaters are no longer legal. And that day’s a-comin’.
Already illegal in Kommiefornia.
Permatex is illegal in cuntfornia?
No. Gas-powered garden tools are.
And probably a smaller tube.
No idea if previous history will repeat but when rationing happened previously in YS and up here in Canada you had to report your stores of certain staples. If you did you were penalized on your ration card and if you didnt a neighbour could rat you out for extra rations.
But and again no idea if the next time will be the same but home processed food was exempt as they didnt consider it safe to redistribute. So home canned meats safe from seizure but store bought meats in a freezer counted.
There is a couple of stories of people canning down honemade sugar syrup instead of storibg sugar so it didnt count.
I like that way of thinking.
Feeding my 3 fat Labradors has gotten pretty expensive. 35 pound bag of Purina Pro Plan was 45 bucks forever at TSC, went over 60 for a while, back to 58 the last bag I bought. Need to fill my heating oil tanks, probably 300 gallons needed between the 2 of them, fortunately it is my secondary heat. 30+ year old Alaska rice coal stove actually heats the place pretty well considering it’s a church built in the 1880s that was converted to a house in the 60s, blown insulation in the walls and 16 foot ceilings
You can stack a lot of preps under 16 foot ceilings…
LOL!
The watchword if today is not, “prepare”, rather it is “get it while you can because the music will stop rather suddenly!”
Haven’t *started* preparing -> doomed
Trying hard to learn to prep -> doomed
Have some items on hand -> may last a while
Have 2+ years of storage -> will last for quite some time
Have storage and a means to keep/defend it -> You’ve done all you can. Keep the grasshoppers at bay and push through the madness
Not a comprehensive analysis, just my personal opinion for what it’s worth YMMV
Cost of most everything continues to increase. And WTAF is up with the price increase of oatmeal?! The half and half I buy nearly doubled in price, I’ll have to learn to drink my coffee black. Gas and diesel prices have gone down. Just installed a deep well hand pump on the existing well. Read that you can’t drink the water you collect from the roof due to contaminates, any input on that? Been prepping for years, but I continue to find holes in the plan. Oh well, doing the best I can.
You can save the water off a roof (most places, the rest illegal but ways around that) for your garden and bushes/flowers
Out here in the sticks we can pretty much do as we wish. Fuck the rules and regulations. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission…
I’m pretty sure that you can use the rain water off your roof. It would require a few steps to make it safe.
I just looked at the information from a startpage.com search and by following some precautions I would use it if needed. The hand pump was a great plan. There are also some devices that you can just drop down the well casing and pull water out. Some good diy builds are also on the internet for pretty cheap.
Thank you Deathray, I’ll do more research into the matter. We have two 330 gallon caged IBC totes tied into the gutter down spouts to collect rain water, so I want to be able to drink it if necessary.
Sandy – looking to scrounge a tote or two myself.
I’ve been filtering rainwater from a metal roof with a Sawyer Mini water filter. You can get them at WM or Academy sports. I use the filtered rainwater to make coffee and water the dog. A friend of mine boils his filtered rainwater then chills it in the fridge. His wife says it’s better than bottled or tap water.
https://www.walmart.com/search?q=sawyer%20water%20filter&typeahead=sawyer
There’s also a setup for five gallon buckets.
Thanks for the link Chuck, I’ll check that out. Found my IBC totes on Craigslist, $150 for both of them.
most if not all farm machines run on diesel. it cost more to get the crops in. is the main reason why. that and transport-diesel
look at build it solar, I remember there was a type of diverter used to
flush the first couple of gallons from a roof collection system, after that it is just a matter of filtering the water. had a rain water system back in the city. it worked very well at keeping the garden watered
plan on doing the same here, but the worthless HOA is a pain in the ass about everything. that will change here soon though when times get worse. the problem is people do not realize how bad things are going to get until it smacks them in the face.
like heating your house/home. around here people either use propane or heating oil. and last year they got 2 or more refills.
heating oil is still over 5 bucks here. and propane has gone up as well. there are NO woodstoves for sale around here at all.
even pellet stoves are in short supply.
pellet stoves NEED electric power to run, and you have to buy pellets. I went with 2 wood stoves and never looked back.
every summer, they come out to be cleaned out and checked.
stove pipe is cleaned out every summer as well.
prepping is a constant thing you have to be doing. the bad weather with the price of everything going up will bad for a bad winter/spring coming our way.
look at this way, you are way ahead of most of the people in this country. most are still having fun wasting time and money on things
they will wish they didn’t in a couple of months
get as far away form the cities as you can while you still can.
it looks like a lot of homes and cars will be foreclosed in the coming year- not a good sign.
A man can not prep for his continued existence and that of his progeny. At some point he (and they) will have to fall back on knowledge, skills and resources. Yes, prep as you can but don’t forget the breadth of knowledge it takes to live day to day in a subsistence lifestyle.
Too many days with triple digit temps has left us thankful for past years harvest in storage because this year is looking to only be about 60% of normal. This is across the board out of the garden. We won’t go hungry by any means but some of the margin is gone.
Let me tell you, long range shooting is a perishable skill. Due to the potential of long term component unavailability we had greatly curtailed our range time even though we are well stocked for normal conditions. Today number one son said we needed some “Recoil Therapy” as BCE puts it. We stretched it out to 1K and while a hostile most likely wouldn’t have walked away it wasn’t pretty for me. I was all over the B27 target. Engaging at 1200~1700yds forget about it. We’ll have to fix this even at current component prices.
People are acting weird. Though there is a LOT of normalcy bias and true believers out there, heck we still have folks driving around by themselves wearing a mask, human interactions are definitely getting strange. Are they realizing the clot shot is a death sentence or maybe they feel on some level the total shit show coming our way and that is affecting their behavior? I don’t know, maybe it’s me but things are not normal.
On the personal front this has been a year of injuries for us. Nothing serious but just enough to take our efficiency down. Collectively we are probably only operating around 80%. Makes me wish I had paid more attention to the sawbones back in ’79 when he operated on bone cancer in my leg. At the time he expressed I had a bald tire and it was good for a couple of years or a few miles. Well I’ve driven it like I stole it for forty plus years and that has really taken a toll. Makes it hard to keep going can see to can’t see seven days a week. I have to admit, even with it hitting 110 at the pit it was a relief to get some range time in today and express to hell with everything else.
Well I’m starting to read like a pity party to good fortune to you all and see you on the other side.
wes
wtdb
I was just wondering how you were doing earlier today.
You and I aren’t the only ones seeing weird things and behavior.
My very late Tomato plants are finally starting to blossom.
I am amazed they got this far. I only hope the weather holds long enough for them to grow and ripen.
I saw a forum post yesterday from a 40+ year gardener saying his and several other long time gardener’s plants aren’t doing for shit this year. He was wondering if it was bad seed or something.
Late sprouting, if they sprouted at all, sickly looking plants even though watered and fertilized.
He also estimated a big drop in productivity this year. Said he had never seen anything like it before and neither had his circle of friends. The Walking Onions and the tomato seeds you gave me are going gangbusters. Everything else I tried I have had a very hard time getting to do anything and it’s not pest or water related.
I dunno, I have always kind of had a Green Thumb in the past. It’s troubling.
Only one Cuke survived, 2 of the Bean plants and I am having to really babysit the few Mustard seeds I finally got to sprout.
Even the Dill I sprouted didn’t want to take off and I am down to one of those.
Like I said, weird. I don’t use ANY chemicals either.
I’m down in Alabama and can’t get tomatoes to grow in my garden at all. Corn grew weird as well. Beans grew pretty good, but poor performance overall on a variety of plants. 1st year garden on this property, previous owner sprayed for weeds so I think it is residual herbicides in the soil-but interesting comment on the tomatoes. My garden isn’t going to do anything to help me this year.. The lack of rain ain’t helpin either.
The only things growing worth a damn up here are what I planted in Earth Boxes.
Spuds all failed, onions and carrots failed, A couple volunteer radishes bolted so I’ll have fresh seed.
Put a lean-to on my garage this weekend built out of balsam and spruce poles, only thing left is to tin it. Finally was a workable temp with no thunderstorms.
Garden Report – Poor
I have been blaming the temps but maybe it is something else.
I could maybe get behind the bad seed idea except for us, all the seed I planted this year was from my own collecting which has in years past performed very well. All the seed I sent you was from that same seed bank.
Pole beans for example, in past years a person almost wouldn’t be able move between the rows on the trellis. This year the plants are very sparse and the beans, which normally take a long time to go to seed and become woody, well that is already happening.
Our onions just aren’t putting on any size, they just seem to sit there week after week. They taste ok, they’re just real small.
Tomato plants are huge, just not setting fruit. We usually attribute that to blossom drop from temps above 96°f. Even foliar feeding calcium hasn’t helped this year. If I could eat the plants I would be in great shape, but tomato harvest is going to be small.
Potato vines fell over and dried up like it was late fall. I’ve never had them die this early. Potatoes are ok, just much smaller than normal. Total yield will be way down. No evidence of disease or pests either.
I didn’t expect much out of the spring raspberries. Due to factors beyond my control (lost access to 16,000 sq ft of space) I cut down and tilled under over 700 lineal feet of established cane berries and planted a new patch. These are only second year canes. Fall raspberry plants, not really fall, just a primocane fruiting variety, pruned for fall production are growing well but exhibiting low nitrogen and iron symptoms yet soil tests indicate those levels are ok, have to wait and see what happens through september.
Blueberry harvest is down and new cane growth is not happening. I may as well not even have Marionberries, and primocane growth is a fraction of a normal year. Spring harvest of strawberries was down and I’m not sure how fall harvest is going to go, I don’t see many blossoms in the patch right now.
Our apple harvest is going to be real small this year. I even had one tree I went to check on because it looked like it was doing poorly and leaning and found almost all the roots had rotted off just below ground level. Cause, unknown, adjacent apple trees doing ok except for the low fruit set.
Spinach and most lettuce bolted real early this year. Corn that is normally 7~9 feet tall is tasseling at only 4 feet tall, don’t know about ear formation yet.
Beets are doing ok while carrots are a non starter this year. All our peppers, sweet and chili are failing to set much fruit. Even plant growth is retarded. Last year plants from this same seed produced so much fruit I was hauling 30 gallon trash cans of peppers to the compost pile at the end of the season. Go figure right?
Winter squash, cukes, and summer squash plants are very small. Normally this time of year we would be throwing wheelbarrow loads of zucchini on the compost pile. Not this year. Even the zucchini plants are small where normally they overtake anything nearby.
Broccoli failed completely and cauliflower was almost a write off. Almost all our herbs are falling far short of normal.
Ditto on several other crops, like I expressed if I hit 60% total yield this year I’ll be surprised.
The only thing in the garden doing real well, and they’re not really a garden item is the honeybees and they are requiring constant attention this year where most years they pretty much take care of themselves. It does appear we will have a decent honey harvest.
I just glad we have a lot from previous years put up because this year just isn’t cutting it and I can’t seem to find any root causes for what is going on. Last year and years before that, plants from this same seed bank produced so much extra that we used to sell it to locals or put it in the compost piles.
Well I’ve got to get going, been just sitting around this morning since before sunrise, looking out the front window and watching the day start.
Later
wes
wtdb
guy I know in upstate NY (finger lakes area) has a couple of acres of blueberry. Almost ZERO berries this year. They guess might have been an unnoticed late killer frost that zapped the blossoms.
Beans, squash, cukes and others all killed off by borers. They never saw it like this in all the years that came before.
Something wicked this way comes, methinks.
They garden is doing well over all, although I do see some of the same problems you report. So far, much of that could be due to putting potatoes in the same plot as last year, drought, or even 2 year old seeds. Many of the starter seedlings did not germinate this year, and that particular issue is much more likely to be related to seed quality. I have noticed in driving around ( I call it mounted patrolling), that many people are letting their gardens go due to the drought this year. It does take effort to weed and such when it is hot out, and watering even on a private well can lower the water table during a severe drought. There are no shortages at the farm stands and stores around here yet, so that could explain it. A bad trend going into an expected famine though
They missed the boat on monkey pox. I think they might take another swing with Covid 2.0 though…
1. Funny thing about Pelosi’s visit to the Republic of China is that Peking has watched others visit and said little or nothing. Why this time?
2. Ukraine is not a proxy war, and while they have taken some serious hits, they have been giving better than they have gotten recently. Putin is tying himself in knots trying to figure out what he can do to get the war going again. So far, all he has come up with is scrapping the dregs from prisons to put them in uniform and isn’t having much luck at that.
There was a report the the Russians are going to import 100K North Korean soldiers as organized mercenaries and in return will provide fuel and other stocks to the DPRK government. That is a serious development for many reasons. I don’t particularly care what happens to the Ukrainians. I suspect they will succumb to the artillery overmatch and negative attrition. Large numbers of NK cannon fodder could tip the scales against them. If the Norks profit from this adventure, we could start seeing NK troops showing up all over the place as mercenary legions.
First it was Cubans, now Norks.
Interesting…
Didn’t hear about the Cubans. They have a track record of that though even though they are a small country. There seemed to be an effort to put together a Syrian legion as well, but not sure if that actually happened. Disposable infantrymen seems like something NK would have plenty off.
It I think is a La Nina year but the global weather idiots are calling it climate change. Every 11 years or so El Nino and her swap places. Remember the drought in 2011, add 11 years. Nothing new.
Just like then forage is thin lots of cattle going to the sale barn, wonder if we will see the price cut? Probably not, the middle men in all commodities screw the producer and have been for years.
My garden struggling as well probably due to the heat. Cantaloupe doing well again this year. Tomato’s are thin squash doing okay.
Couple days ago I read an article about the massive quantity of water vapor shot up into the stratosphere from the Jan eruption of that Tongan volcano. Yep, there’s a greenhouse effect from that. Could be 5-10 years for all that vapor to dissipate.
Hawaii just proudly announced that it received its last shipment of coal for its baseload power plant on Oahu in its efforts to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030. Did they not get a hint from Sri Lanka’s experiment with 100% organic farming? marrons.
At least Pearl Harbor Navel Base will be able to hook up a submarine to keep their base operational.
Here in the summer AO of north central NJ, things are more or less “normal”. Prices for everything going up (I had to pay $10 for a tiny can of contact cement not long ago). More borderline road rage is noticeable, in particular on the highways. Was in a deli yesterday and they had ABC news on at mid day. Other guy was waiting next to me for quite some time as the owner HAD NO HELP, just him as a one armed paper hanger trying to run the grill, make sammiches, run the cash register. Nice guy. The other customer and I looked at each other when the ABC talking head babe started blabbing about the build back worser inflation increase act, we both rolled our eyes and started talking. He’s as fed up as I am with the insanity coming out of DC and “TPTB”.
Local supermarket shelves OK, but there is always one or two sections bare or almost bare. A couple of weeks ago there was about zero chicken, more recently the paper goods aisle had been ravaged. And no baby formula to speak of for a couple of months (funny how that info dropped out of the news cycle).
Some basic preps here but the southern AO is in a lot better shape, headed back there soon for the expected winter of discontent.
Will the effbee eye raid on M-A-L kick anything off? Probably not, except for the lunatic fringe of the disorganized.
Late to this thread as I’ve been mostly off grid for the last couple weeks with only intermittent access.
Do appreciate all the commiseration on gardening. I don’t feel quite as alone out here in the Oregon Outback ™. We had frosty nights clear through June, so the tender plants are late to start. Snow peas have done great; they just hunker down through frost and wait for it to pass, and now they’ve all come on at once.
When our season ends, we bring in all the green tomatoes and spread them out on trays in the garage. As soon as they show any hint of color they come inside to the kitchen window, and in years past we’ve had ripening tomatoes into January. A nephew recently noted that the yellow jackets are getting feisty early this year, portending an early end to summer.
As Commander Zero recently noted, we are not alone and we are not a minority. Although I’m pretty careful about OPSEC, it’s not hard to carefully open a conversation with a stranger about the wierdness all around us and since “prepping” can just as well be called “getting ahead of inflation” I’ve found more and more people very much on board with defensive prepping.