Sick and Tired of "IT." Let the whole Freakin' thing Implode....I have a

[KoKo]

"canning pot" from my Grandma...and they knew how to survive... We can do it...! Can't we? Survialists? Tips from your Depression Era Grandparents/Great Grandparents...Aunties and Uncles?

Can we survive this? How?

[Geek_Girl]

1. Survive what?

Another Great Depression? I don't think we have to let anything happen. We should try and stop it. But if it happens it happens and we'll all do the best we can to survive.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. I'm having a wood stove installed.

And I'm buying more shotgun shells.

[KoKo]

3. #1.....Possum is edible....I don't want to eat it ...but they lie dead on

the road. Possum Stew is something I heard about from friends growing up int he South. They are cute little critters but sad with poor eyesite which is why they lie on the road.

Also...snake stew. Anyone know ways we could live? Or, will the "environmental problems" cause the creatures to migrate leaving us with left. I think the vegan's have the better way...but one needs to "supplement." It will be hard for those of us who love all living animals to have to kill them to survive...maybe it won't come to that?
:shrug:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. We don't see a lot of possums in Minnesota.

You see dead ones on the road occasionally, but it's mostly raccoons. I don't know if you can eat raccoons.

[NervousRex]

6. We got plenty of squirrels, you betcha...

and they taste like shit, but in a pinch....

[KoKo]

13. Add lots of onions and "veggie pepper" found in "health food stores"

maybe will spice it up.....GACK! It's the tails and their cut little eyes...but hell if I was hungry enough..I could overcome that. Think of the folks in the Sudan...

[KoKo]

8. Yes....racoons are edible...they ate them in the South during depression

times...if you had 6 or more little kids...you ate what was there...It's not to my taste...that's why I'm eyeing Grandma's canning pot. Grow what you can and put it up and preserve it. If you are a vegan it works..if you need a little meat, then you get what you can...hard and impossible as it is for me...getting "fresh roadkill" from the Hummer's who pass in the night might be the only way I could do it...even then I gag at the thought.

But, if it comes to this, then we need to think about it...to prepare.

If the Bushies have won..then we will become those "who scavenge..and in the night for road kill, possibly. Because we will have to move far out to be away from scrutiny of the "Homeland Security and Intelligence Czar's eyes."

No more trips to "Disney World" with the family...it will be each to his own.

Think this can't happen? Look what the "Mad Chimp" has achieved in just four short years! Think about this time in December 2008. Think about it...we need to prepare.

[seaglass]

10. Well, there is such a thing as potted meat - I don't know exactly

what it is but it seems you could preserve meat.

Jars of preserved possum mught look disgusting though.

[NervousRex]

12. According to the film "Slingblade"

potted meat is "assholes and peckers"... I've never tasted either alone, nor combined.

[KoKo]

14. Have you ever seen jars of preserved Gifilte Fish......ayyyyyyyy...

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. I live in the Deer Capital of Texas...

I also have to fight off at least 1,000 (OK, maybe more like 100)rabbits each year from my veggie garden. Your welcome to all the rabbits you can eat, but I admit I am rather fond of my deer. There's even an old well on my property with a hand pump. You're welcome to help yourself. :)

[KoKo]

9. Rabbits are good "meat" I hear. Taste like Chicken. Easily raised but

clubbing them to death (the way most often used by home growers for meat) leaves me cold... Still, we always had to do this before the Agri-Business took over. Maybe we've become weak and think just because we don't see "how it dies" makes it easier to live with. :shrug:

[KoKo]

11. Well with all the "Development & Mini-Mansions/Office and Apartment

Complexes sprouting up all over, many Towns have been looking at "culling" the deer population. Eating Deer Meat is better than standing out waiting for a possum or racoon to become "fresh" roadkill from a Hummer Death. But, "bow and arrow" rather than "assault weapon?"

One hopes the "bow and arrow" folks will have had training however...An innocent animal staggering off with a misguided arrow in it's body is too horrible to imagine...:-(

[Lone_Star_Dem]

18. As for actually killing an animal, count me out.

I just couldn't do it. I hit a squirrel with my car and cried for two days. I definitely don't have the hunter instinct, it's been bred out of me. I did hit a gopher with a shovel once, however. I dug it up when I was planting a tree and it charged me! I never knew they had tempers.

[Skip Intro]

7. I've thought about looking for a nice cave somewhere

I cannot fathom what our nation will look like, operate like, four years from now if bush retains his grip around the neck of our democracy.

A nice cave, well stocked, growing my own...

at least as an emergency retreat...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. Urban hunter-gatherers.

Living on squirrels, raccoons, rabbits and blue jays. Yum.

[Skip Intro]

17. Well, I'd be vegitarian urban something-gatherer

sounds like a cool livestyle actually

Of course, we'd have some generators for computer power and the hot tub. Suddenly I'm in a James Bond movie...

How would you get internet access in an isolated cave?

[KoKo]

16. BTW...I know this is a "disgusting/serious" thread for Lounge...but we

need to be thinking about how we would prepare. Those folks in the other forums are still thinking there's hope...what about those of us who are "losing it." We need to be thinking about "moving forward, planning, preparing."

It's probably too soon, though. I hope BFEE will be found out...but I'm thinking of how to cope if they aren't.

[politicat]

19. Download the 1918 Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

It has canning advice in the later chapters.

It's available here: http://www.bartleby.com/87/

Meat canning info is here: http://muextension.missouri.edu/xplor/hesguide/foodnut/gh1490.htm

Find a Mormon church and ask if they have a community Cannery. Many do, because the Mormons require their members to do their best to keep a 1 year's supply of consumables on hand. Most of them are nice, if Republican, and as long as you can smile and nod and not give them your real name, phone number, or address, relatively easy to be around. They're usually willing to teach their preservation skills and share what they have in return for your help.

Many frugal living tips pages will be useful for the budding survivalist.

Practically anything you want to know how to do is available from VITA. Their publications are not free, but they are inexpensive.
http://www.vita.org/publications/default.htm

Replace electric tools with hand tools. A good place to do this is through Lehmans.
http://www.lehmans.com/ Use a demilune instead of a food processor, a hand blender instead of an electric one, a human powered drill instead of a battery powered one, and a hammer instead of a nail gun. Things like that.

My stepfather was into this off-grid thing. It's a great idea, but I'm a geek. Keeping my computers fed off grid would be scary.

Pcat

[KoKo]

20. Thanks for the great links....Is "Solar" an option for Computers? What

about "wireless?" Opting off the grid is not so hard if one's computer can be powered. I'm with you on this...and I'm not a Computer Geek...it's the way to stay in touch with the "real news." But Computers are adaptable. Would seem to be the least of our worries?

No?

BTW: I have the Fannie Farmer from the 1950's revision...I think. I collect cookbooks and I think there's alot of Rabbit in there. Also have some old Southern books about possum and coon....UGH...if I have to I have to...but it would be hard.

I know how to "can" other items though...of the veggie nature. My Grandma...

[politicat]

21. Solar is a possibility; we have a friend who has solar at his cabin.

He, like us, runs entirely on laptops, so that makes it more functional. I've got an article I wrote about spending time at his cabin if you're interested. It's a neat thing he's got. Lucky guy, his family's been here forever, so they've got some great land up in the mountains. The only downside, he says, is winter, when the panels get covered for a couple days with snow, and the batteries run down.

We're also locked into a mortgage and haven't been able to sell our house; our HOA does not allow solar panels or a methane farm (which is another off-grid power source if you're able to keep animals.). Going off grid in an urban/suburban area is really difficult.

The 50s version is very good; I have a tattered, crumbling copy of it myself. The older one has some of the older recipes that are dying out.

I dry most of my excess produce since I live in a low humidity climate with hot days, but I remember canning... all summer long, it seemed.

[KoKo]

22. I wonder about "wireless" since the airlines are thinking of using it.

If they can use it in planes thousands of miles up wouldn't it make sense that even in rural areas it's now a possibility? Unless the airline thing was another Bush lie...which is possible.

Is there a link to the article you wrote. I think how folks survive is always interesting. I'm pretty much a weenie about living in a cabin in
the mountains, isolated...but I'm trying to prepare myself in case that has to happen. I thought we needed to be thinking about it even if it's depressing for a "Lounge" post.

We could do more in our suburban lifestyles to make ourselves more self-sufficient...but I understand what you say about restrictions. In my own neighborhood there were houses built in the height of the energy crisis that had solar panels...but, in the last few years a craze of "tear downs" to build "McMansions" has caused the destruction many of these houses which were sprawling ranches with natural cedar (maybe a little in the Frank Loyd Wright style). One elaborate one up on a hill which I always loved, had the new owners painting the grey cedar, white and they took out the solar panels in the re-model. I guess they couldn't afford the McMansion but the house was beautiful as it was. Now it's ugly with the white paint not suiting the style.

There was so much enthusiasm in the 70's with the energy crisis for better more efficient ways of living..and it all has come to a halt in the late Clinton and Chimp years with the cheap imports and obsession with "having it all." I'm no mountain person...and I like things...but the greed atmosphere is boring after awhile and given what may lie ahead, we might want to get in touch with how to survive more efficiently...even if we don't in the end have to resort to eating "roadkill" and clubbing rabbits...which is a real last resort...:-(

[politicat]

23. The publisher does not have the article online, but I can pm it to you.

The article is meant to be somewhat humorous, but the conditions are accurate.

The wireless they're talking about is connectivity, not power, which is a whole 'nother issue. I've had a wireless modem - neat device, I could be online anywhere in the metro area - and we now live in an area that is so saturated with open wireless networks that I pretty much could give up entirely on paying for my cable modem if Mr. Pcat wasn't such an honest guy and such a security hound.

I agree on everything you say about the McMansions and the thoughtless renos. There are a lot of ways to make even the standard suburban house more efficient, like switching to a tankless hot water heater when you have to replace, and insulating whenever possible. I'd give a tooth for the books my parents sent to the VNSA booksale when I was a kid about efficient living; I'm too young to remember just how the family reno'ed my ancestral homestead for efficiency (100+ year old Edwardian farmhouse in rural Indiana.)

Article on its way.

Pcat