Well, you’re right Bozzy. All we need do is look to the Eastern Bloc to see how bad things can get, to know we don’t want to go there. I’d rather go the route Cam suggests and live mindfully and be prepared – to take care of my family and friends, to the extent I am able, even if nothing bad ever happens. The reduction in waste, in that case, would just be gravy.

I was born and raised in Boulder, so am used to being called all sorts of names (nut, commie, tree-hugger, Birkenstock-wearing, wheat-grass -juice drinker). Let me just say that I’ve hunted and fished a bit with my dad, gutted many fish, wrapped many deer, elk, duck and pheasant parts for deep freeze, bit into my share of buckshot, and………..I’m married to Rick. How much of a “veggie burger” could I possibly be?
Namaste.

Bacala sounds like the Italian version of the Norwegian Lutefisk – (we have lots of Swedes and Norwegians here in Colorado – they like the cold and the mountains!). Do you know if the soaking preparation includes lye? The Nordic version certainly does, and requires lots and lots of soaking/rinsing as a result. But, you’re absolutely right, when properly processed, that stuff will last forever, with no refrigeration necessary! Thanks for sharing those memories!

Robert, have some patience, the time is not yet near to purchase real estate with your pms. You will however know when that time arrives.

Thanks Tom.

Glad to hear I didn’t put you to sleep. This topic of Marilyn’s is one that is really very close to my heart.

Don’t count on wild game in a real long lasting crisis TKO. One of the less noted observations coming out of the Great Depression was that the deer population on the Canadian prairies, for example, was almost driven to extinction by the end of the Thirties.

Then as now, people needed meat and most just had no cash available. Farms were still producing of course and some even had a surplus to offer but transportation became so prohibitive that ranchers selling herds for slaughter often got an invoice instead of a paycheque after sending live animals to market.

Hunting became the popular means to put good protein on the table. All the more so for the many in rural areas who simply stopped raising animals for sale.

In the book, “Ten Lost Years” by Barry Broadfoot there is a reference to a family that turned to catching and eating prairie gophers when other meat could not be found or afforded anymore (they are delicious incidentally and very tender).

This then exposes one of the myths that suggests that escaping to the country is the sure-fire way to survive a societal meltdown, even social collapse. Unless you are prepared to eat and live in a very unorthodox manner your chances will be no greater than anyone elses.

They may in fact be worse as only larger cities located on rail lines or major highways will benefit from continuous deliveries of fuel, food and other supplies during a major emergency while those smaller far flung communities will be pretty much left to fend for themselves. This is where true preparation comes into play for those who believe rural life is the better option.

We need to wonder then how severe a currency collapse and the the hyperinflation that follows might actually be. In the Thirties, which was a time of severe deflation, fuel itself became an absolute luxury for many. There were few jobs and very little cash.

It was not uncommon for prairie folk to gut their cars, remove all the windows, seats and the engine in order to lighten them up and convert the vehicle to a horse drawn cart. We called them Bennett Buggies up here.

Of course, that was in a different day and age. There were still horses available for anyone who wanted or needed one and the horse itself had not yet been ruled out as a viable form of transportation. There was still plenty of gear then too for harnessing and hitching a horse to a buggy. Only rodeo guys and cowboys have that kind of gear these days though and it does not come cheap anymore.

Would a hyperinflation that results from a collapse of the dollar bring on similar dire circumstances of poverty and deprive most people of the ability to afford to operate a vehicle? Absolutely. Only it will be much, much worse because this next time around almost none of us is really prepared on any level for the experience of real deprivation and need.

Marilyn has mentioned gardening, food storage, keeping seeds and learning food preparation techniques now while times are good so that you can be prepared if and when economic circumstances change. I wholeheartedly agree and in fact do lead my own life this way.

My great uncle who emmigrated to Canada from Europe brought with him a host of skills and knowledge that is virtually forgotten by most today. I was never able to gather his knowledge first-hand while he lived but have still managed to acquire many of the old world skills over time through my own hard efforts.

He kept bees for example, made his own sausage and cured hams, knew how to salt pork, can fish, make his own vinegar for preserving foods and a whole host of other food crafts that are almost unknown by consumers today.

He made cheese, wine, preserves, tomatoe paste and herb mixtures with confidence. But it was normal then. He was born into a time before modern preservatives were used, before everything we ate came from an aisle in a supermarket.

He grew up in a village in Europe where it was not uncommon for neighbors to have a few goats, chickens and a milking cow on their property. A time when sugar, salt and vinegar were still the primary means of preparing and preserving foods at the end of each gardening season.

Food was a big deal then, it meant survival. Knowing how to properly prepare raw foods straight from the garden to shelf storage is actually an incredibly rewarding pastime and hobby too. My great uncle had a treasure trove of that knowledge that I never appreciated when he was around.

Skills like that are invaluable should we ever enter another protracted period similar to the Depression or be faced with a monetary crisis that is brought on by a currency failure. There will be no time available to start learning, shopping for the books and practising old-world skills once a real crisis actually arrives.

It will be too late then.

Too late to buy the materials, equipment and supplies you need. Too late to take the needed courses to improve your own knowledge and skills and too late to implement your ideas and actually integrate them fully into your day to day life.

You really need to live the lifestyle full time now and make it a part of each day long before being overtaken by unfortunate economic cirumstances.

It seems obvious to me that it is essential to be familiar with a different regimen well before a crisis actually arises if you are to withstand the incredible stresses that will certainly play out on that bad day in the future.

Many for example, will not even be able to afford to heat their homes adequately in such a environment.

Critical energy shortages will result not so much from a lack of supplies but rather from an inability to afford the resource as the buying power of money itself plummets. What will we do then?

This of course reminds us just how vulnerable we really are as a society to a catastrophic currency event. Most won’t have a chance. Not just because they don’t believe it can occur but because they have distanced themselves so far from the knowledge of their grandparents that there is not a hope in a hundred they will adapt in time to avoid being the victims of that kind of crisis.

I do not doubt that many people might actually freeze to death in their own homes for lack of funds. And who would be surprised? Our homes are not designed to preserve life itself anymore. They are too big, do not include cool rooms in basements for serious wintering food storage and have too many windows which leaves them exposed to both too much heat in summer and too much cold in winter.

We have substituted mechanical means for distributing warmth and cooling in place of sensible old world architectural designs. Everything is wrong about how homes are built now.

And we are certainly not equipped with the many alternatives our grandparents had either. Back then there was almost certainly a wood or coal fired stove in the house that could be relied upon to keep you warm and cook your meals. No matter what else transpired in your life, as long as you could swing an axe you could always keep the home fires alive.

Furthermore, homes were small by design back then and built around a central kitchen that kept the whole home evenly warmed through the novel device of good fitting interior doors that could be opened or closed to manage the environment.

There was of course no central heating then, no forced air furnaces and no ducts piping heat throughout homes. More than likely there was merely a large ceiling grate directly above the kitchen stove that allowed excess cooking heat to accumulate in the attic area and thus warmed the family sleeping quarters in the winter.

Basements were naturally adapted as serious food storage areas and places to keep your wood or coal and often had one or two large cisterns that could supply water at a tolerable temperature all winter long.

This, in the days before running water (not that long ago in many places) was just standard practice in most homes and efforts were always made to collect enough roof run-off during the rainy times to keep the cistern filled in time for winter when well water might not be available due to frozen hand pumps.

Few homes are designed or equipped this way anymore. Nobody has a hand pump, a well or a cistern anymore (well almost nobody). Most people, without even knowing it, live at the very mercy of the good times never ending. They do not even have the bare makings of the infrastructure required to survive even a single winter if the gas ever got cut off or if the lights went out.

The Great Depression taught us a lot about our real values. When things got desperate enough on the prairies and even coal became unaffordable for some, then antiques, yard fences, boardwalks, miscellaneous furniture and floorboards all went into the fire to keep homes warm and keep everyone alive. Most people still had wood stoves then though. Not the case anymore.

So this brings me around to one of Marilyns most important points and that is of course, cold storage. A basement pantry (root cellar) and one of the most essential ingredients in the steps one must take to keep garden foods edible and fresh throughout the winter. Without proper cold storage you are not even a contender in the real game of food survival.

My own store-room held pretty constant at about 43 degrees throughout the last winter, rarely falling below that temperature and only occassionally going above it. It was the perfect environment to keep the mountains of root vegetables I had harvested in the fall from turning bad before spring arrived.

It was ideal for curing cheese too which I learned how to make a few years back and for the proper storage of the seeds collected from my own garden and from the neighbors. A cat incidentally is essential for keeping mice at bay. Wherever food is stored there are pests and the last thing you want is contamination of your produce or damage to your seeds.

The topic is just so important that I could not let todays post go by without commenting on it. For most people though, having a cool room would mean doing the near unthinkable.

They would have to tear out the ducting and stop heating their basments. A conversion from the typical basement used as an extended living space (or rumpus room) with televisions and sofas to one that was musty, cool and dry is pretty dramatic stuff.

Too many people use the extra space as a rental suite or for storage of all the trappings of our consumer lives without ever really giving consideration to the real needs they might have in crisis environment.

It is all about priorities though and your confidence in the economy of the future now isn’t it?

(PS: Sorry for blithering so long, it is just my nature)

This beekeeper with a Country Woodstove in a forest near a lake with delicious fish very much appreciates Marilyn and Cam’s practical observations…