I'm quite excited! My daughter and I canned some pickles and some jalepeno peppers this afternoon! They look pretty good, if I do say so myself! I had not been happy with recipes on the internet and cookbooks that I borrowed. So I took out my old Betty Crocker (about 25 years old) cookbook, and looked up pickle, and there was the recipe...water, vinegar, Kosher salt, and dill (and garlic if you like). just like my (late) Grandma used to make! Anyone know how long they should sit before they are ready to eat? Thanks! Just had to share! This is actually kind of fun...learning these new (old)skills!
Nik- I really like the "cozy Coup" idea...I've been trying to think how I would transport things on my bike after PO, and that is such a great idea! I don't have any babies anymore, but I will continue to need to transport stuff! Thanks!
I wanted to add another thing about this whole preparation process. It's been interesting to me to notice and learn about my own community. Where I live is a bedroom community of Cleveland Ohio USA and we actually have quite a bit of productive farmland all around our town of 22,000. There are U-picks all overthe place...one needs only to know when to go picking. Also,for years, I've been cursing the trains that run through our town in the middle of the night. Then one night after reading about PO and transportation issues, I was happy that we still have a train running through our backyard! The Amish areas start just a few miles south of here, and that's been an influence all my life. And the small town that I live in was started by a candle maker, and the factory in town still makes candles. In their factory outlet store, the sell 40 lb blocks of leftover wax for $8.00....my daughter was so excited! So, along with the garden, a forest in my backyard (for foraging), and hopefully when I plan t my fruit trees in the spring, within a few years, my family and I'll be able to survive, even in Suberbia. So, if you look around to see what is in your area with a new eye, things might not seem so bad.
So, if you look around to see what is in your area with a new eye, things might not seem so bad.
What a great outlook even in the face of a difficult topic. I think the preparation for PO has caused me to change my outlook, not only on energy use and gardening, but on the little pleasures of life that I had easily missed. We have been fooled to believe we should be happy with our 9 to 5 rat race and a big screen TV. Not anymore.
So, if you look around to see what is in your area with a new eye, things might not seem so bad.
mommy22,
In another thread, debating the merits vs. drawbacks of small rural communities, I mentioned that I had done pretty much exactly what you suggest. The same small community that I despised as a teenager - nothing to do, no excitement, "old fogies," you name it... I now see as a wonderful place to be - PO or not. The nothing-to-do and no-excitement, have given me the experience of timing my days by the sunrise and sunset, sun and rain, and seasons, rather than by someone else's schedule. The lifestyle is slower. People take time to do a job well. There isn't as much hustle and bustle, rushing to and fro. Sometimes you just have to go slow - shelling peas can't be done fast by hand. Those "old fogies" are a wealth of knowledge - from whom I am trying to learn many things, and are a living history of the area.
Oh, and before I forget, congratulations on your pickles . I remember my first foray into canning - I was a nervous wreck. I've been canning for a few years now, and I still love to hear those jars "plink" sealed as much as with that first batch.
Quote:
I think the preparation for PO has caused me to change my outlook, not only on energy use and gardening, but on the little pleasures of life that I had easily missed. We have been fooled to believe we should be happy with our 9 to 5 rat race and a big screen TV. Not anymore.
Ghog,
Those are the little pleasures I was referring to above - sunrises and sunsets, spending time with my sister, neices and nephews, and my parents. Taking the time to talk and listen to what my parents have to say. And sometimes, just silence . Standing out on my back porch early in the morning, and all I hear is my chickens clucking, my ducks quacking, my rabbits scratching and gnawing on their nestboxes , the goats munching grass behind the house... and occasionally my dogs barking . In the evenings, that same spot will allow me to hear crickets, frogs, whipporwhills, an occasional coyote, dogs barking in the distance, and all those bugs that are eating my garden . Those are rare simple pleasures that those caught up in the quest for "more" cannot imagine.
But the greatest pleasure is my time. Time is a great luxury. Once it's gone, it's not coming back. Enjoy those little pleasures. They are what make life worth living.
Kathy
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12559 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:56 am Post subject:
Received shipment of two solar panels and a 12volt surface water pump, part of a system for capturing and storing surface water that I'm setting up in anticipation of the next rainy season.
Received "One Circle" a detailed book about growing a complete vegan diet in 1000 square feet or less.
Received seed of two varieties of hulless oats, a winter wheat variety, and some other seeds.
Transplanted 100 seedlings of O'odham 60 day corn. _________________ No original ideas are contained in this post.
I finally gave in and decided I needed to make an investment in my brain. To my existing library I added the following books. Some of the titles may seem redundant, but I find I need to read from a variety of viewpoints before the information really sinks in and becomes my own.
"Putting Food By"
Janet Greene
"Root Cellaring : Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables"
Mike Bubel
"How to Grow More Vegetables: And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine"
John Jeavons
"Carrots Love Tomatoes : Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening"
Louise Riotte
"The Good Life"
Scott Nearing
"Primitive Wilderness Living & Survival Skills: Naked into the Wilderness"
John McPherson
"The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming"
Masanobu Fukuoka
"The Rodale Book of Composting : Easy Methods for Every Gardener"
Grace Gershuny
"Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills"
Readers Digest
"Crisis Preparedness Handbook: A Complete Guide to Home Storage and Physical Survival"
Jack A. Spigarelli
"Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long"
Eliot Coleman
"Where There Is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook"
David Werner
"Create an Oasis With Greywater: Your Complete Guide to Choosing, Building and Using Greywater Systems"
Art Ludwig
Today they delivered my next two rainbarrels, and water from these I will use to experiment with purifying for drinking. So if I don't make any more posts here, you can probably guess why . I'll go and get downspouts, etc., tomorrow from the hardware store.
Saturday is washing day at my house, and since conditions were so perfect (hot & windy) I did a mountain of the stuff today. Got the whole lot dry; also made bread, then baked a casserole, all in my solar oven. Got a lot done today - and I think I may have overdone things in the heat. That's the problem with trying to live a split-personality life; during the week I commute many miles in my car and live in an atmosphere of office politics, etc. and general blindness to Peak Oil, then on the weekend I try to live a sort of suburban homesteading life, and end up wearing my self down! Oh well, it's the price I'm paying for trying to be prepared for great changes in a timely manner.
Even though I don't feel good physically at the moment, I still have a feeling of achievement at getting so much accomplished in one sunny day!
My 9 year old son and I had a stake out last night and killed a big old coon that had killed 10 of my 11 laying hens over 3 days. It was too big to crawl into the live coon traps. Bloody affair, and he killed two of the last 3 hens before I was able to put him down. Have his tail now.
Laurasia,
congrats on the new rainbarrels. That is something I really need to get going on myself.... one more thing on the to-do list. I know what you mean about feeling like you've accomplished something. I've had those days - and paid for them the next - many times. As my granmother always said, "Its a good tired."
seahorse,
So sorry about your hens!! That's just terrible. Glad you got the coon, though. There'd be no sense replacing lost hens if you didn't.
Speaking of replacing - you're in Arkansas, correct? - if so, come on up, and I'll give you some replacer hens. I've got 62 laying hens at the moment. It won't hurt me a bit to thin a few out.
message me if you're interested, and I'll tell you how to get here.
Kathy
Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 2196 Location: Arkansas
Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:30 pm Post subject:
Grimnir,
I have a couple of those shakelights - one for the house and one for the car. They are good for an emergency, but they aren't nearly as bright as a normal flashlight - no comparison. The light from the shakelights is blue as opposed to white, and really only puts out enough light to see something in a cabinet, a shelf, under a car hood. You have to be fairly close.
However, in my house, I can't depend on a battery operated flashlight in an emergency, bc my kids play with them all the time and run the batteries down. So, I keep two for true emergencies.
Joined: Jul 15, 2004 Posts: 43 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:05 pm Post subject:
Today I got a phone call from our local radio station to do an interview about the 'Bask to Basics Winter School' which starts this weekend in Karamea NZ.
Before the interview I explained to Lisa, who was interviewing me, that the underlying motivation was the rising oil prices and the need for ordinary people to take charge of their own lives and prepare for a future which is much more localised and self-sufficient. Lisa was very interested and supportive of the philosophy, which was GREAT!!!! because I wasn't sure if the radio station was ready to hear that or not, so I also talked about it during the interview and it all went down really well ,and I'll hear it tomorrow morning on the radio.
Our winter school has about 14 workshops planned, on 'Back to Basics' themes as well as some 'new knowledge' themes like biodiesel production.
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I think the preparation for PO has caused me to change my outlook, not only on energy use and gardening, but on the little pleasures of life that I had easily missed. We have been fooled to believe we should be happy with our 9 to 5 rat race and a big screen TV. Not anymore.
. I'll go and get downspouts, etc., tomorrow from the hardware store.
Glad you got the coon, though. There'd be no sense replacing lost hens if you didn't.
