Joined: Mar 18, 2005 Posts: 2573 Location: Minnesota
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 6:14 am Post subject: Planning for the Masses (your good deed for the day)
I'd like to try a new twist on things.
We've all talked about individual preperations...I'd like ideas on how to help prep for all the people who don't believe anything bad could ever happen.
The usual feeling sems to be "let the idiots starve & freeze" but i'd like to get away from that in this one thread.
Some ideas of mine include:
- planting fruit trees on public land (available to everybody).
- have a stack of printed knowledge tucked away...so you can hand it out to people after TSHTF (things like how to harvest & prepare acorns, cattails, hell even the knowledge that all grasses are eadible could save a life or 2).
- even something as simple as tossing sunflower seeds out the window as you drive (somebody has been doing this as i've seen alot of sunflowers growing along the highways in Minnesota).
- be ready to organize people into neighborhood watch programs or canning kitchens (or just be a calm voice among people who are in a panic).
This idea may be really stupid, but please, humor me...I'd like to see what ideas we could come up with when we really put our heads together.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12028 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 6:22 am Post subject:
I don't think it's stupid. It will be to our advantage to help people - otherwise, they won't like us and will want to take what we've worked so hard to build! I want my neighbors to be my friends, not my enemies. So I'm prepared to try to help them learn to grow food, I'll be saving seeds to share with them, and plan to try to grow extra food for them, planting extra fruit trees on my land, and scoping out the edible native plants in the area so I can show the neighbors what to eat. I think we'll do ok.
Joined: Mar 21, 2005 Posts: 132 Location: BA PA USA
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 12:20 pm Post subject:
Quote:
hell even the knowledge that all grasses are eadible could save a life or 2
Human digestive systems can't break down cellulose, so while grasses are edible, there is very little caloric value available to people in them. Eating hay isn't going to stop you from starving, it'll just give you some nasty shits. A goat or cow on the other hand...
I like the topic though. Trying to run off to a bunker is a sure way to attract people who want what you have. I think stocking up extra seeds and hand tools to loan/give away will be invaluable. The gestures of generousity will go a long way to helping people cope with changing world.
Printed material is a good idea too... acorns, cattails, japanese knotweed (invasive, PO might help us beat it back - though not many calories in this one either), chestnuts.
I'm a big fan of chestnut trees. They can be planted in public places if you can get away with it (they drop very spiky husks. Chestnuts can be very high-yielding, unlike most nuts they bear almost every year, and they have way more carbohydrates than other nuts. I don't recommend pure American Chestnuts at this point even though some nurseries sell them. They blight that wiped out the original chesnut forests lives on in other species of tree (which it doesn't hurt very much). They might grow for 10-20 year and then suddenly they'll die. These guys
TACF are breeding a blight resistant variety, but it won't be ready for another year or two. I recommend hybrids because they are blight resistant, fast growing (first nuts in as little as four years if you fertilize a bit), and high-yielding. Lots of nurseries have hybrids for sale.
Yeah, fruit and nut tree planting is a good idea (hope they don't get whacked for firewood if you live somewhere cold). Oikos Tree Crops sold me some good looking oaks and chestnuts. I'd buy from them again.
Joined: Mar 18, 2005 Posts: 2573 Location: Minnesota
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:11 pm Post subject:
I'll have to double check my sources...I thought it said that all grasses were eadible provided that haven't grown too tall (and turned into straw). Alot of tree seeds would be pretty easy to plant & it's a good time because you can see where the city mows & where it doesn't. (dont want your baby trees getting wacked by the lawnmower).
Another one is all pine nuts are eadible and alot of the parts of certain pine trees are to. i read to take the needles & boil them to make a tea...full of vitamin C (don't want people gettin scurvey now do we)?
or showing people to pile up sticks & leaves & burroughing into it (debris shelter) for a cold night.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12028 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:27 pm Post subject:
"Edible" and "nutritious" are two different things. Grass is edible, in that it isn't poisonous, but for humans, it isn't especially nutritious because hard to digest. So it might fill your stomach but you will still starve. Some plants which are edible and nutritious are still not good to consume in large amounts or for long periods of time, because of various toxins in them.
Joined: Jun 18, 2004 Posts: 1037 Location: 28° N 81° W
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:36 pm Post subject:
Grass is actually full of nutrients. What you do is chew it until you've gotten all the juice out, then spit out the fibrous part. But don't bank on surviving on grass- you can't get any energy out of it, just the nutrients. _________________ American by birth, Muslim by choice, Southern by the grace of God!
Joined: Oct 16, 2004 Posts: 1195 Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:30 am Post subject:
Grass seeds are full of carbs, some protein and fats. Harvest lots, rub off the coating and crush them to powder. Add water and stir till its a stiff paste, flatten into disks and bake. The base of grass stalks often are higher in sugars than the blade itself, and fibres are softer. _________________ Kind regards, Katkinkate
"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops,
but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."
Masanobu Fukuoka
There was a programme about the Great Leap Forward with some woman saying she survived on grass, bark and rats. _________________ Hello, my name is Rax. I live in the Amazon jungle with a bunch of women. We are super eco feminists and our favourite passtimes are dangling men by their ankles and discussing peak oil. - apparently
Joined: Feb 26, 2005 Posts: 107 Location: By the river
Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:29 am Post subject:
I would like to think I'll be able to help out my neighbors. I only have one neighbor I can see, who lives about a quarter of a mile up the road. I know I'm a "hillbilly" having lived in Appalacia most of my life, but these people are what I would call white trash. But a neighbor is a neighbor, and they have 3 kids....so i could see helping set up a garden for them. One other neighbor lives on 200 acres, they don't garden so much anymore (in their 70's) but are the nicest people, I would gladly help them. Another couple lives near them, they have only 1 acre, and don't use it, but the guy (never met his wife) always helps us and the other neighbor, cut and load our wood in exchange for a load. He seems like a hard worker, so I would help him too.
No one else lives close to us, and we live too far from town (if there is NO oil) to have much of an impact there. Also probably 1 out of 7 or 8 families here are farming and have had several generations live here, so there is lots of local knowledge to be shared. I have another neighbor (1.5 miles away) who's farm has been in the family for 4 generations. I would guess he knows this land a little better than me, he will probably be helping me out
Joined: Nov 09, 2004 Posts: 1227 Location: Big Rock Candy Mountain
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:00 pm Post subject:
I've been trying to convince neighbor/friends to grow survival gardens---totally hopeless. "I get food stamps". "I can get potatoes for $0.07/pound" etc, etc. Pathological dependence upon the system is endemic. Try to tell them "That plug can be pulled at any time." Result: "Dude, you're gettin tooooo paranoid."
My crops will be pillaged and my library burned for heat.
I already know the last thing I will utter is "I told you so."
Joined: Mar 14, 2005 Posts: 70 Location: Northern Massachusetts
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:19 pm Post subject:
RonMN
We seem to have a similar view in the desire to embrace even those who don't know to prepare.
I lived in Boston for years and enjoyed the extensive park system. Yet I could not understand why the park designers and the city chose to use ornamental plantings and spend a lot of money maintaining them when I encountered hungry and indigent people every day.
Why don't they plant fruit trees and anything else that could be harvested by those in need of food? Why are plants bred to be simply ornmental when their base stock provided food?
Excessive ornamentation replacing basic provision in the face of blatant lack is a sign of civilization in decline. This frightens me and I seek some way to help to alleviate the pain of the big bang before it starts.
Joined: Mar 14, 2005 Posts: 70 Location: Northern Massachusetts
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:53 pm Post subject:
oowolf,
Our neighbors just arrived for their summer by the sea and it has brought a pestilence to me...ill mannered dogs and an attitude that my yard is their "view". They are nice people; I tend to see a lot of nice in everyone. But, their first question was about my garden.... theirs is pretty with lots of perennial flowers and my first foray was just herbs and a few greens, tomatoes.
I have expanded the garden to fill all available and appropriate space. My neighbors don't like that I am growing veggies as they would prefer ornamentals. Tough luck for them...I'm moving the compost heap to a more convenient place.
I just cannot believe that these part-time neighbors would be so uninformed yet bold enough to comment on my aesthetics and efforts.
When did growing food become a blight on the neighborhood??
Joined: May 17, 2004 Posts: 1969 Location: Democratic People's Republic of Washington
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 1:32 am Post subject:
Hell, the most I ever did for "Public Awareness", (other than posting on the internet), is writing "Google 'Peak Oil'" and " http://www.peakoil.com " on a dollar bill. I thought about getting a PO bumper sticker, but the thought of getting drug out of my vehicle and beaten to a pulp by a recent "informant", both makes me want to carry a 9mm S&W in my vehicle, and not put the sign up, thus eliminating the need for being armed. That's about the most I will do for public awareness. If they are not willing to do the damn search, then they don't deserve to know about it. _________________ Here Lies the United States Of America.
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6375 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 6:16 am Post subject:
I’ve been trying Ron but I must be a selfish B-stard cause I can’t come up with much! Also like Carla thee aren’t many masses around here.
How about starting a Meet Up group in your area? – meetup.com
Of course supporting your local farmers market
I guess the best thing I can think to do is become as energy and economically independent as you can – the less of a burden you are on the community the more help others can get. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
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