All theses people who have to have new cars, big houses and a bunch of fancy shit are going to have a very rude awakening in their near future.
Same same with MLLIONS of Snowflakes who have come of age never having known true hardship in their lives.
The days of Instant Gratification are coming to an end and the double whammy of twenty second memory spans so many people have is going to effectively double the intensity of the pain that is coming their way.
Basic freaking necessities are going to be front and center for everyone’s attention.
Lessons learned and long forgotten from The Great Depression are about to be relearned anew by generations who have absolutely no idea of what is coming.
Food Security is going to be a high priority for people who have never been hungry a day in their life and have no idea where what they eat even comes from.
Gardening is going to be HUGE, just like it was during World War II and the Victory Garden program.
Look for shortages of seeds and especially fertilizer to be in the news here real shortly.
Thanks to Wes, I am covered for seeds and then some.
God Bless You for that.
I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
He spent a lot of time gathering, drying, sorting, packaging and labeling up a big box of seeds for me.
More than I could possibly plant in the space I have available.
I already shared a few with a daughter who gardens, I don’t want them to go to waste.
Canning and Preserving are going to be hot topics soon also.
Ain’t nobody going to be able to afford extra running around anyway the way the prices of fuel are going.
Might as well start learning some skills people.
I’m thinking about starting some open threads, so those of you who already have those skills can maybe share some of that knowledge with the rest of us.
It is going to supremely important.
Hard times are here now, most people just don’t realize it yet.
They will soon enough.
We are going to be seeing things that haven’t been seen in this country in ninety years.
They have a steep learning curve ahead of them and very little time to catch up.
When they do wake up, every possible thing you can imagine food growing, storage and preservation wise is going to be unobtanium shortly afterward.
Think Morons and Toilet Paper.
Us “Boomers” that have toiled in gardens, have butchered a hog or a deer, have fished and gutted and clean it. Have repaired things, built things and still have that skill and the tools to do it with are going to be sought after and will be kings in a sense. You want to be smart to me kid, you are going to starve as I am going to be highly selective in who I teach. Ain’t no talking or bullshit in class no more, won’t put up with it. Pop quizzes come up years after the fact, better know your subjects.
My grandpa was born in 1905, so he lived it. 400 men lined up at a company with 7 job openings, food riots that didn’t make the news, never enough of anything. He was a welder, so he had work, and he learned very early on in the depression to be careful who he talked to. And much more. I was fortunate to spend time with him before it was his time to go.
Now? as you said, Phil, hard times are here. And this is just the beginning. In 4 or 5 months, when the crunch really starts, then it will get sporty. No going to subway or dominos for weekend lunch, very few gas stations or grocery stores open. Peter at BRM gave details this morning, and he has lived it. Denninger also expounded this morning on the economic aspect of the long term.
I feel bad for those that will be culled by what is coming. BUT I have told everyone I talk to to get ready. I sure hope some have listened.
Most of what I was going to say here I’ve already said in the Mercy Buckets article above.
Current prices of the basics described in Mercy Buckets are still easy gotten and almost the same price. I’d RUN, not walk to Wally World and get busy if I had any doubt I have 1+ years storage foods.
I already set up an extra Mercy Bucket part 1+2 this week.
In the comments section I described the Chaos Kit for those stupid things that happen when bad times and weird people happen like Broken Windows. It’s just a suggested start to get you THINKING about emergency repairs and how to recover from getting burned out of your home AND ALL those Preps in there.
HD rolls of construction plastic sheeting is amazing stuff, once things REALLY get Frisky I bet that Lowes and HD will be out of stock of a LOT of stuff, just saying.
Culling happens even to the prepared, you can get zapped walking out your door heading to check out the critters. Not everybody out there is stupid and going to run up screaming their rage-robbery intent at you.
Even if your 200+ miles from everybody and maxed out supplies a simple stupid error with an Axe chopping the coffee firewood can have you down and crippled and so on.
Thus a most important prep is TRUSTED FRIENDS. Lone wolves are soon dead wolves. True in nature, true in life.
A good relationship with God is also a good idea as we will ALL die and face Him.
I had good luck with raised bed for food production. got a lot of old coffee grounds
from the local 7-11 coffee shop/ like a 5 gallon bucket every day. worked that into poor soil to make it better, horse manure is good as well- you have to shovel it yourself at most places, get the older stuff, not fresh ! old stuff has worms in it.
if you don’t have one yet, set up a rain water catch barrels and a sand filter
clean drinking water is a must ! I also have a big berkley water filter. worth every dime, get extra filters now while you still can. wood stoves are better than pellet stoves, pellets you have to buy, wood you can get almost anywhere.
learn how to trap game takes less time than trying to hunt game.
fish the same way, trap them or run a bait line. time is going to be short and you will be know hunger. taters are easy as hell to grow, learn how now.
those who can have chickens, better get going on it. wirecutter has some really good lessons on his web site about it.
expect everything to cost 3 times or more what it used to, if not more.
barter can help out a lot with the right people (farmers and the like)
now would be a good time to download plans for a wood gasifier and gather the parts needed to make a few of them- again swap with farmers.
simple engines run the best on them or easer to set up and run with one.
as far as protecting your stuff, maybe ask big country about any ideas he might have. one thing you must realize right off the bat. no one can stand alone in this
we need to help each other, fuck the outsiders unless they have something we lack. so, think, plan and rethink what you going to do, this is not something you want to wing .
another thing is location, stay away from crowds, cities whatever. stay away from main roads, or rail lines. power lines anything that is easy to travel on.
that is where the mob will come from, up hill is even better, people are lazy and no one likes to walk uphill.
I do miss my dad on this, he figured it was going to happen again and it was something we talked about for years. one of the big reasons why I retired to here. way off the beaten path so to speak. yet there are a few farmers around and plenty of game as well.. ample rainfall every year and the soil not bad either
talked about what people will do when gas hit 8 bucks or more per gallon, well.
it will not be pretty to see. and add a food shortage in as well ?
here a thought, what are the powers to be going to do when the people have nothing to eat ? they do not have enough cops. troops or whatever to keep the lid on when the people are starving and demanding food. remember when the food stamp cards went down ? the cities will burn, if you anywhere close and have the means, get out now. as this only going to get worse in time.
best be making some plans here soon as time is getting short before it all comes down like the house of cards it is. .
I agree and share your concerns about what is going to happen dave in pa. One caveat. use cow manure or goat/sheep manure. Horses don’t completely break down seeds of weeds and invasive plants, where as cows, sheep, goats are ruminants and have the stomachs to digest hard to crack seeds. Use rotted manure with hopefully full of worms and other bugs that contribute to fertile soil. Use of chicken/turkey/duck manure has to be aged, the nitrogen levels are too high and will burn the plants if used after pooping. Good luck where ya are dave!
one trick learned was to cover compost with a black plastic tarp in the sun to help it break down faster’
another thing, back in the 1980’s the state dept. gave like half a million to some school to come up with some way for 3rd world shit holes to improve the soil/crops. what they found out was that wood ash mixed with urine works as well as the green grow stuff, that I can’t think of (??)
based on the idea that most if not all 3rd world farming is done with slash and burn methods, granted it does work. for a while, but after the second year, crops do not grow as well. one more thing about dealing with manure, wear a mask when dealing with bird manure, there are a lot of nasty bugs you do not want to breath in with bird manure
my grandmother used to let chickens run thru her garden for pest/bug control. she also kept them away from any plants with red fruit . for some reason, they would peck them to death (?)
beans will either make or break ya. the poor man’s meat/protein source. bush or pole beans, best to grow both.
I more worried about the golden horde that will be looking for food that will be coming out of what left of the cities.
than be able to grow food.
we will need trusted friends then big time. no one can stand alone in this coming storm.
having a few “extra” firearms will come very handy when you have to arm friends, bolt actions are better than semi autos in this case. people tend to empty the magazine when faced with a threat . waste of ammo.
just a few ideas I had over the years,
I like the idea of the open threads, I’m certain a lot of your readers have invaluable knowledge they can share with us.
Prepared for the worst and hoping I’ve done enough. Been buying seeds the past couple of weeks, time to get the garden started.
What do you like to grow? Anything special?
I grow all the usual suspects. But I highly recommend growing winter squash for over winter storage. Still eating butternut squash and spaghetti squash I harvested in the fall. Throw them into a cool, dry, dark space. Eliminates the need to can them. YMMV
I like spaghetti squash, with butter… yummy!
I find that rosellas are productive and easy to propagate, high in vitamins. No, I’m not talking of the parrots, but a type of fruiting hibiscus. You trim the mature set away from the seed pods and use the jam recipe of your preference. After picking out the seeds for the next crop, boil the pods to release natural pectin to set the jam (jelly to Yanks). Rosella jam, butter and fresh crusty bread rolls: a king can’t eat better!
Just to get the party started, here’s a link to the Ball Canning Book .pdf from several sources: https://archive.org/details/ballcanningbook
When I was a kid we had gardens every year. Several kinds of beans, summer and winter squash, tomatoes, cukes, lettuce, garlic, onions. We didn’t grow potatoes as they were cheap and plentiful from farmers who grew them in the area. From mid-July to end of Sept. my mother canned every couple of days. We raised rabbits for manure and meat although the manure had to be supplemented with regular fertilizer. My grandparents, both sides, had huge gardens. I remember going into my Dad’s parents cellar and seeing the walls lined with canned vegetables. They raised chickens and pigeons for meat.
Dad sent me out to Grandma’s chicken coup with her one time to watch her kill, gut and pluck a couple of chickens for Sunday dinner. I think I was about ten at the time.
One of the things I learned was how to generate electricity. Can you build a primitive battery system for storage? What about all those devices that depend on batteries to work? How can you store batteries long-term? How can you generate 110 VAC or 220 VAC or even polyphase?
Do you have an adequate store of LED lights? How about solar cells?
Electricity is extremely useful, learn how to generate and store it.
Learn basic “meatball” surgery and medicine, you’re gonna need it. How about natural childbirth? Sterile environments? Bandages, splints, telling what blood type you and others have? (Cederq and I understand Romulous clumping (a very primitive method of determining blood compatibility and type), but even some medical professionals don’t!)
Get books on how to do stuff without using high technology – no electronic format unless you can generate electrical power! Lots of how-to books out there – for now. Assume the grid WILL go down, which means no telephone, Internet, or broadcast radio or TV.
Assume(!) the worst – you won’t be disappointed. Have some useful basic skills and that can be your meal ticket.
Lots more than I can type here, but things are about to get frosty… so be an old-time Scout: Be Prepared!
Be prepared! The Boy Scout motto writ large in the coming days.
A week or so ago I was telling one of my brothers about buying fire bricks to line my steel fireplace insert. He asked me why, after living at the same address for almost thirty years, I was just now doing this. I told him that I might have to use it as a source of heat in the future for an extended period, as bad a heat source as that may be. The firebricks are to prevent the bottom, back and side steel plates from burning through and burning down my place. His response was “Oh you’ll never have to use that for heat.” I reminded him of the grid being down for a week after the Oct 2011 snow storm in the NorthEast and that I was just “being prepared” for another such eventuality, but longer term. He snickered “Be Prepared”.
Idunno if you can still get them, but back in the 70’s you could get “heat tube” grates for the fireplace. The fire would heat the tubes and cause convectional heating, with hot air being ejected from the tops of the tubes and into the room. Fireplaces do a really good job of pumping the air they heat right up the these things mitigated that.
My fireplace actually has built-in “heatilators” for this purpose, and produce WAY more heat than gets sucked up the flue. Again, these were the rage in the 70’s during the LAST round of fuel clusterf*cks. I don’t know why these fell out of favor. They’re FANTASTIC heat sources!
Since my house was built in ’55, the Living Room *does* have the “heatlator” function in it, and I put a 150 degree F thermostat on the firebox that turns on four AC box fans on the intakes on each side to force air through! Sure works good with that, but is satisfactory if no fans, too!
I’d say good luck on the canning materials. They were/have been hard to find since COVID, when every Tom, Dick and Mary decided they wanted to start canning and preserving food. They’re almost unobtainium now.
That kind of stuff is making its way back to the shelves out here in the Wild, Wild West. I’ve seen canning supplies at several outlets lately. Grab ’em while you can! …Can… I can’t believe I just said that…
At Walmart a few days ago they had an entire aisle overstocked with canning jars and supplies.
I’m not worried. My preps helped me ride out the Y2K computer apocalypse unscathed. When the black guy was elected and the race wars started, I hunkered down with my larder and came out the other side just fine. Before the 2012 Mayan apocalypse I added hot sauce to my preps and had a tasty armageddon experience. Bring it on!
At this point I do not see it becoming that there because so many people have been preparing for so long it will be difficult not impossible. The easy life and some have enjoyed at the expense of others will end just as the Roaring Twenties crash, this time we will survive and many will thrive the common denominator work. And once those that have not worked find out that it’s work to work he will come up with easier ways to make the work, yes I had fun with that last sentence. Now the preparations of many will be lessons for the day.