Without Food, You Are Dead

Everyone needs to read the opening dialogue from Ol' Remus at the Woodpile Report this week. He's right. Food is a Weapon that can, has been and will be used against you. There is a reason Bison Prepper is always writing about food first, wheat, calories, wheat, wheat, wheat. Without food, you are dead. End of story. Not to mention the disease and debilitation that comes from malnutrition and starvation. 

I've been thinking about sharing our fall/winter growing plans for a while and the thoughts from Ol' Remus decided for me that today, I had better get with it. We are working on putting most of the garden to bed for the winter. We're in the process of taking down the tomato/pepper/green bean trellises. After they are out of the way Frank will brush hog all of

the plants, including the okra forest, into a type of organic mulch.

Then we'll clean out the chicken house and barn and add that to the garden and till everything in for the winter. If the weather isn't too cold by that time, it usually isn't in our latitude, we will broadcast some winter peas for an edible cover crop. It's good for man and beast.

 
This is the plan for most of the garden anyway. The two ends, east and west are planted with a few more food crops. Not to mention these volunteer squash plants that came up in the yard close to the compost pile. We're enjoying a few last meals of squash. The first frost we had, we covered these plants with a frost cloth which prevented death, but did not keep the plants damage free. We'll be covering them again this weekend to see if we can get a few more meals before winter takes it's toll.

We have a small patch of turnips planted for greens. These are seeds we saved this spring from the turnips we planted last fall. It seems to be a good cycle to get into. We were also able eat fresh greens well into winter, again in the spring and even canned a few jars in June. Our permanent turnip bed idea didn't work out, so maybe this cycle is a better alternative.

On the other end of the garden we have planted some beets for canning, if they make it that far. 

Some carrots for winter eating.  
 

And some cabbage. We still have some frozen, shredded cabbage we grew in the spring of 2018 that we are using in soup. It's a great addition. If these cabbages make, I'm hoping we won't have insect problems this time of year, we'll eat some fresh and freeze the rest to continue our soup making routine.

 

This small bed on the east side of the house is the only place I have successfully grown spinach. We have had our first salad with miniature spinach and lettuce leaves. I was too impatient to let them grow any bigger before we had our first taste.

In the greenhouse we have started our winter salad collection.

We have two kinds of lettuce. Romaine

Black Seeded Simpson

Russian Kale

Pak Choy from seeds we saved this spring.

Cress









I have also planted a tub of amaranth since it is supposed to be good in salads and we know it's packed with nutrition.

Even though I don't expect success, I planted some of the tomato seeds we saved this summer. I wanted to make sure they were viable and wanted to try one more time for winter greenhouse tomatoes.

On a whim back in the spring I bought a six pack of sweet potato plants, put them in some rather rocky ground under a trellis, and pretty much ignored them. They made a few potatoes, more than I expected. We'll try one for supper tonight with some of those turnip greens we canned in June.

I tried keeping the vines when we dug the potatoes and planted them in a pot in the greenhouse to see if we can use this for our plants in the spring. I don't know if they will make it when the weather gets cold. We'll find out.

This is the first year we have had anything close to an apple harvest from the two trees we planted about eight years ago. The apples are good, not too sweet, but homegrown which means a lot to us. We have one with lunch almost everyday. 

 

So, food. What do you have? Is it enough for everyone you need to feed? For a while? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? Can you replenish the supply on your own without any outside assistance? 


Food has always been used to control people. Always. Think of Joseph in Egypt. His father and brothers had to come and beg for food. They had the money to pay for it, but that didn't mean they would receive any. It's no different today. Look around the world. Look at how interdependent everyone is. Some countries have oil. Some have water. Some have the type of land and soil that will grow food, some don't. If any one thing goes wrong, one spoke of the wheel breaks, all systems fail. No water, no food. No oil, no fertilizer, no commercial farming apparatus, no food. No transportation, food rots in the field. No workers, no food. 

Food can and will be used against you as a means of enforcing your compliance to any and all demands. Moral, immoral, just and unjust. Be ready. Provide for yourself and those you love. Otherwise....... 

Without food, you, and everyone you love, are dead.

Until next time - Fern
 

Got Food? For How Long?

If you don't know how to provide food for yourself and anyone else that is depending on you by now, it may be too late to learn. You may just starve. Cheery thought, isn't it?

What will millions of people do when the just-in-time deliveries of food stop? Stop as in never to be seen again? Seriously, what will happen? Right now there are so many trigger points leading to a collapse, the slightest wind could cause them to fall, and where they will land is anybody's guess. The destruction that will be left in the wake of that landing will change the face of the world, permanently.

Let's say you are preparing for disaster/collapse/anarchy/chaos and have a lot of food stored. That's great. What are you going to do when it's gone? We ask ourselves that. Regularly. So, what are you going to do when it's gone? Turn into one of those starving zombie people that will do anything to take the food that belongs to someone else? Go to any lengths to stay alive? Is that your plan? I truly hope not.

Do you have plans for replenishing your food supply as you eat it? How will you do that? What if the stores are all closed and there are no more seeds? What if the electricity is off forever? What if there is no gasoline or diesel for all of the gardening equipment you currently depend on? Do you have canning jars, lids, rings, canners and a way to use them minus electricity, propane or natural gas? Do you have a root cellar? A solar dehydrator? Think ways to produce and preserve food and add those to the list.

Now think of how many people you plan to feed. Can these people help with the work that will have to be done to replenish your food supply? Will they be productive members of the group? 

Do you have livestock or access to a meat supply? This is assuming you have been able to protect these animals from other folks that need food as well. Hunting by now will probably be out of the question. The sheer number of hungry people will have seen to that not long after the collapse. Remember, any food you cook, especially meat will draw people like flies if they are within smelling distance. Just how good did that Thanksgiving meal smell while it was cooking today? Makes your stomach growl, doesn't it? What if you and yours were starving and you smelled a meal cooking? The draw to that food would be irresistible, just like it would to others if you were the cook. Always remember that.

There will be many articles posted today about ways to use leftovers from Thanksgiving meals. Some of them will talk about making turkey broth from the carcass or other ways to extend the food supply from existing 'leftovers'. Read them, ponder them, then try to apply them to a collapse situation. How many more meals can you get from the things you cook besides the original? Now think about the ingredients. Do you have plenty? Can you replenish those ingredients? How? How long will it take to grow that stalk of celery you want to put in your turkey soup? You want carrots, too? Do you have a place to grow them in abundance? Can you store them, can them, dehydrate them or preserve them in a ready made soup? What else to you need to provide adequate nutrition to live and work in a collapsed society? 

Lately I have been pondering how to provide food for the men that will be out hunting or patrolling for protection and security. What is an efficient, reusable, durable means of sending food? What kind of food? How much? Who will provide it? What about water? We used to put maple syrup in our coffee. What does that have to do with this conversation? Well, I kept the little jugs the syrup came in because they are very sturdy. They are big enough to hold a small meal of soup or dehydrated food and water. These jugs would be relatively easy to transport, clean up and reuse. 

Where would the water come from? That's another thing to think about, a source of water that is easily accessible and potable. Are you going to need to filter your water? If so, can you for the long haul? 

I know that regardless of how much thought and preparation we put into being able to produce a food supply that is independently sustainable, there are things we will not be prepared for. There just will be. There will be times when we want to kick ourselves for not thinking of something that would make that work more manageable and productive. We have some friends that have had to face forced evacuation from wildfires and extended power outages this year. They took it in stride and learned from the experiences and the opportunity to practice and test their preparedness. It's a great time to learn when failure is still an option.

As we give thanks for our many blessings, we continue to study what is approaching over the horizon. We enjoy this time in the sunshine, but can see the approaching darkness, thick with evil intent. The difficulty is in not knowing what shape or form it will take when it arrives at our door. This evil is a changeling and will manifest itself differently at different locations, for what will work in the country will not work in the cities and suburbs, and vice versa. Study, ponder, pray and pay attention. Do everything you can to be ready, for keeper of the gate has welcomed the invasion of those that will help take your freedoms, which is another topic in itself.

Until next time - Fern

The Ant and the Grasshopper

This old fable is very timely right now, considering the condition of our world. Please review it with an eye to your own preparations. Are you ready? Do you have the skills and knowledge you need for a long winter? Are your family and friends ready?

Aesop's Fables  - The Ant and the Grasshopper  

In a field one summer's day a grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. A group of ants walked by, grunting as they struggled to carry plump kernels of corn. "Where are you going with those heavy things?" asked the grasshopper. Without stopping, the first 

ant replied, "To our ant hill. This is the third kernel I've delivered today." "Why not come and sing with me," teased the grasshopper, "instead of working so hard?" "We are helping to store food for the winter," said the ant, "and think you should do the same." "Winter is far away and it is a glorious day to play," sang the grasshopper. But the ants went on their way and continued their hard work. 

The weather soon turned cold. All the food lying in the field was covered with a thick white blanket of snow that even the grasshopper could not dig through. Soon the

grasshopper found itself dying of hunger. He staggered to the ants' hill and saw them handing out corn from the stores they had collected in the summer. He begged them for something to eat. "What!" cried the ants in surprise, "haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?"

"I didn't have time to store any food," complained the grasshopper; "I was so busy playing music that before I knew it the summer was gone." The ants shook their heads in disgust, turned their backs on the grasshopper and went on with their work. 
Don't forget -- there is a time for work and a time for play!

The time for work is now. Please do all you can.

Blessings to you all,

Frank and Fern