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TheWildMan
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# Posted: 10 Dec 2013 02:20pm
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Rossman, internet is available to me only on some days or seasonally. I don't have it at home, but I can use it, there is a truck stop with free internet access for customers only a 2 hour walk away (about 7 miles from home). I check the forum when online. in days with nothing else going on I walk to the truck stop.
I saw those doomsday preppers and mountainmen shows off the internet. laptop computers with wifi technology have been around since the late 90s. a cheap, obsolete laptop can be found in the trash (where I got mine), if plugged into the outlet at the truckstop I use their internet and power and sit there all day with headphones. costs about $10 worth of chips and soda to be a legit customer for the day.
I'm accessing the internet on my lunch break right now (conservation office, forestry technician), I work seasonally (got my degree in applied science of forestry).
I have internet access sometimes, but I have to go out to it. its useful for sharing ideas (that's why I was drawn to this forum). I was using rainwater and a wash tub for baths, but after reading someone else' idea to use a cheap hand pump herbicide sprayer for a shower I was able to reduce my need for wash water to a fraction of what it was (takes a gallon of water to shower with one of those, 5-6 gallons for the tub, a 55 gallon drum full of rain water is good for 55 showers instead of 9 baths). internet access is worth the effort to go to where I can use it.
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MJW
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# Posted: 10 Dec 2013 03:34pm
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Quoting: Sustainusfarm Rossman, that is great! But, it still requires power...
That is where the solar comes in...
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hattie
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# Posted: 10 Dec 2013 03:50pm
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Quoting: Sustainusfarm ....I have made bread, canned produce etc. but what about remembering how to make bread or the canning times of all those different items?? A lot of us have all these links saved to our computers so we can go back and learn when we have time...however, should the power go down that would be all lost!
I have typed up all my favourite recipes into my computer and then print every one of them off. I have a MASSIVE binder of tried and true recipes that has been decades in the making. I don't trust really important things to the internet. Give me pen and paper any day for the important things. I might have stuff saved to my laptop, but if it is crucial, I also have it printed out on paper.
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silverwaterlady
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# Posted: 10 Dec 2013 06:15pm
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What Hattie said. I have done the same. I also have a extensive survivalist library both at the city house and the cabin.
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rockies
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# Posted: 10 Dec 2013 06:27pm
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I think what I find amusing about the modern green movement is that it has split into two opposing camps. The first group is filled with people who are "more environmental than thou", and who reduce everything to the ultimate basic minimum needed to survive and sneer at anyone who owns anything that was bought, manufactured or made "non-organicaly".
The second group is the direct opposite. They feel that by using more and more technology you can regulate nature down to 1/10th of a second, with motorized window blinds and high tech solar tracking systems that take 300 readings per seconds in order to optimize the angle of the panels to the sun, and super efficient ground source heat pumps from Germany and more computers and pumps and blah blah blah.
Nobody seems to want to take courses in how to can food, or use kerosine lamps, or grow heirloom seeds, or any other basic skills that most people had just 150 years ago. Everyone assumes that if civilization collapses (either from climate change or lack of oil) we will soon be chanting around bonfires high in the hills and shooting strangers that try to steal our water.
Why couldn't we revert to a society like in the 1880's? Sure, some of it would be like the wild west again, but there was an awful lot of development in the east too. That's why watching shows like "Victorian Farm" is so fascinating to me. What they could accomplish without oil and engines was amazing, and the skills needed for that are almost lost to us now.
Maybe in 2014 we should all make a resolution to learn one new skill. For my resolution, I'd love to learn how to preserve food.
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silverwaterlady
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2013 12:54am - Edited by: silverwaterlady
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Not everybody wants to spend their time at a remote cabin off grid. They could care less about learning the old ways of survival. They like staying at the Hilton and ordering room service.
I know people that will never visit me at my cabin ever again because it is to rustic. This is explained to them before the visit. For some reason using a outhouse repels them to no end. I say good stay away because I don't want to hear one more time how there is "nothing to do around here",(People that rely on the media,internet or online games to entertain them and don't know how to do it on their own).
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TheWildMan
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2013 08:46am
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rockies, its a nice dream to want to live like the 1890s but it can't work. first off the world population is 10 times what it was back then, most of the naturally productive farmland has been subdivided and turned into housing around eastern cities. poor practices over the last century have made a lot of it toxic (arsnic based insecticides in the 50s created huge problems for towns in Pennsylvania). out west is where most of the US food supply comes from, where the naturally flat and open landscape can be farmed on a massive industrial scale, but without technology and oil, water pipelines and massive infrastructure the region would not be productive. eastern farms gave up as industrial farming took up the bulk of US food production. simply put, if we tried to live like the 1890s the planet could not support the current human population. we depend on oil for our civilization, if it ever runs out we will see something similar to the collapse of easter islands population.
fancy technology may keep us going after oil, biodiesel, and alt energy based technology may be able to replace oil infrastructure. going back to 1890s way of doing things would require a huge population collapse. collapses have happened many times, cultures or civilizations grow prosperous by exploiting a key resource, when it runs out they must either exploit a new one or collapse. oil has let us be more prosperous than ever before but may result in the worst collapse.
kerosene lamps replaced whale oil, before whaling for oil people used candles made from livestock tallow/fat. they were not very bright but better than a camp fire. refined whale oil was an improvement on liquid oil candles (soapstone or Arabian lamps). cities were lit up with whale oil and a massive industry flourished to supply lighting needs. when the whales ran out the industry collaspsed but there was still a strong demand for oil lamps (and whale species were either extinct or close to it). refined petroleum (crude oil) could result in kerosene, diesel, gasoline and other products refined and filtered from the same source. kerosene was the replacement source of oil for whale fat. modern store bought kerosene, lamp oil and candles are all byproducts of petroleum, the old fashion natural stuff is available but expensive since only a few people want it.
what I forsee happening when we start running out of oil is new technology or energy taking its place to meet human demand, if it can't be replaced there will be a collapse.
that said, when I couldn't do anything else I read a lot and research things on the internet (when I can get to it). on my off grid cabin/farm I have a blacksmithing shop, and make my own charcoal to run the forge. I churn out shingle froes, hoes, axes, etc from scrap metal. the skills of a blacksmith will never be in demand like they once were, but since I can't afford to buy fancy tools I can make the basic ones I need for free. I can meet my own needs with knowing about older skills but I doubt they will be in high demand again.
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silverwaterlady
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2013 01:38pm
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My hubby's Great Grandfather was the blacksmith for the town where our cabin is. He was in high demand. My husband can remember watching him at his forge making horseshoes and fixing wagon wheels. I wish I had taken some photos of the shop before it burned to the ground. We found some of his iron work while sifting through the remains and have his work displayed in our cabin.
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TheCabinCalls
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2013 03:35pm
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Be careful not to make your own bed...dig your own grave. Spending so much of your mental thought on prepping and going down that isolated rabbit hole might just create the world you prep for.
I think we should desire to have these skills and put them to use now and be passionate about them in an effort to stay positive, to help neighbors and our community...not to isolate or look out for self.
We need to remain positive and engaged in our communities so we don't let it all fade away. Things have never been perfect and people have been predicting the world's end for centuries. No body wants to die and have the world continue like we didn't exist. But we do exist and have a chance for change big and small while we are here. Be prepared, learn skills, but don't cut yourself off. Our neighbors and communities need us to step up. Teach a kid how to turn off the technology and chop wood and build a fire.
The real catastrophe is letting technology replace hard work, common sense and ability to live without convenience. Letting technology create our food and pollute the air while doing it...we rely on it and then hate on it. The skills you ask about are for us to use now...not just in case.
We lost our power 4 times in the last few years for a week and longer. We realized how much we relied on technology and conveniences. We also realized that living without was no big deal. Basic life skills; finding food, heat, water and being resourceful.
Find passion in learning the skills and teaching them to others you care about. Don't let it become a passion for fear driven prepping.
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rockies
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2013 05:52pm
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I'm not advocating that we should have to (or need to) return to the 1880's way of life in order to survive, but I am curious as to why with so many goods and services available to us today that most people abandon older skills and replace them with....nothing. They'd rather turn to stores and restaurants, utilities and governments for their basic needs and wants and hope that the "supply chain" is around long enough to make sure that their item is in stock. Few people know anymore how to tend a garden, preserve food, use a wood stove, harvest a crop, prepare an animal for eating, etc. I confess that I certainly don't know how to do these things.
Aside from "home craft" people who sell their products at farmers markets, hardly anyone would go out of their way to make their own soap, candles, clothes or furniture anymore, and yet we used to. It's strange, especially now that the internet offers us access to all the "how-to" information we need and is constantly available to all. Yet every week on TV I see people who live in earthquake and tornado and wildfire zones get their entire lives destroyed and they never have any supplies, no food and bottled water (enough for 3 days minimum), no first aid kits, no battery operated radios, etc". They always say "I never thought it could happen to me".
It's great to have a cabin in the country, close to fresh water and unpolluted land, but most people bring all their supplies out from the city with them. Why not plan for a bad time and add to your knowledge and resources while it's relatively cheap and easy to do so? You may never need it, but it could be fun sitting in your place and enjoying it by the light of a flickering candle, eating food you grew yourself in safety and peace. At least if you tried you'd know you could do it if you needed to.
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silverwaterlady
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2013 07:58pm - Edited by: silverwaterlady
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The best meal I ever had was at my BIL/SIL'S camp. They have a huge garden,hunt and fish. Everything that was served they got off the land. It was food that tasted the way nature intended.
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BoatMan
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# Posted: 21 Dec 2013 04:42pm
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"...Do you have any skills?..."
My boss asks me this all the time....
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TheWildMan
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# Posted: 23 Dec 2013 12:11pm
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Rockies, the simple answer to why is "because they can" those markets are making a few rich people richer by exploiting laziness and convenience.
I did a cost analysis for home canning, if I were to buy ears of corn at the cheapest farm stand I know of, and can them it would cost me roughly 55 cents per can (cost of jar lids, a percentage of the jars purchase cost, etc) if I go down to Aldi's (discount grocery store) I can buy a similar size can of corn for 50 cents. when I can at home I either have to cut the fuel myself a year in advanced or buy a 20 LB LP tank for a camp stove, wood is cheap but takes time, gas costs money but is almost instant in availability and requires no work. also corn is a crop that demands a lot of soil nutrients and a lot of space compared to other crops. without more tools than a hoe and shovel it would be a lot of work to grow instead of a more space productive crop. I can grow it but given the work and soil required it is better to buy it and grow a more productive crop in my garden. anyway, when I looked at it, it was more cost effective to buy canned corn than it was to can it myself. if you do the work yourself the costs in money go down but require more time and effort, while buying requires no time or effort but requires money. the basic concept of making money is that someone is paying for your time or compensating you so that rather than spend all your time growing and canning corn, you work at something else for someone else and buy the corn. if someone makes enough to buy what they need they don't have to know how to do it themselves anymore, but instead focus their attention to getting more money. after a generation or two people learn to associate money as the need to live and are trained to think in terms of stores and such as the source of their needs, if they can't make enough they borrow or hope government will give it to them.
the cabin calls, prepping is not about an end of the world collapse (zombie movies and aliens are just movies and ideas). 100 years ago, before overnight shipping and on demand grocery store inventory, people stocked a winters worth of food at home because there was no way to get it otherwise, prepping wasn't an esoteric or extremist idea it was a fact of life, you worked the summer and stored food for winter in a root cellar and ate all winter. people anticipated their needs for food, fuel, and housing months in advance and made sure they had it ready, rather than rely on an instant grocery store trip to buy dinner.
that system of delivery requires a massive infrastructure to deliver and obscene amounts of resources, if its interrupted in any way the system breaks down and people are in chaos such as disasters like hurricane katrena, or that tsunami last year that caused a Japanese power plant meltdown. when something like that happens the food delivery system stops and its a disaster. a "prepper" would be someone who simply has enough food at home so they can be sure they can wait until the system starts up again. most people would rather count on the idea that the system cant fail ever for any amount of time and spend their money on the newest I-phone or whatever than buy a weeks worth of shelf stable cans and boxed food and bottled water. the "doomsday prepper" show is about the most extreme cases they can find and sensationalize about like a circus for people to gawk at for entertainment.
I live off grid at my cabin year round but am over 20 miles from the nearest grocery store (besides a truck stop with wifi access, but all they carry is chips, beer, and milk at inflated convinience prices). I usually don't own a vehicle, and may only get to a grocery store once every 2 months by riding with a friend. in that case I will buy as much as I can to last until the next chance I get to go into town. without access to on demand convenience "prepping" is just a part of life.
I also know that I will need to see at night, so rather than depend on the solar panels and battery I will buy extra lamp oil, and extra wicks rather than the latest cds. I can put the lamp oil and wicks aside and if the panels have a problem in the middle of the night I have a back up light source. since I usually have all my needs taken care of well in advance I have the luxury of spending an entire paycheck throwing parties for my friends or buying gifts and helping them out.
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TheCabinCalls
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# Posted: 23 Dec 2013 03:22pm
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I agree it doesn't have to mean end of the world worry prepping, but a lot of people prep in fear. If it is part of your everyday life than you shouldn't be lumped in with preppers. I am just trying to make a distinction between those that store things away in a fearsome fashion and those that are developing skills to become their own supplier for living no matter what happens.
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