Most Americans would starve standing next to a cow in a field of ripe wheat.

[zeezee]

Good article.

Rural Revolution: Farm chic

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[spectra]

I often think how blessed this worlkd would be to transform back two hundred years for 1 year, getting rid of all modern conveineces except medical (vaccines and drugs) that is, I think is one of the only good things that has come out of modern conveniences.

I think the same thing. What would kids do without there cell phones ans video games I am not one to talk but things today are just not right:huh: Not just the kids there are plenty of adults who need help also.

 

[darkminstrel]

Damn skippy. Added her to my RSS feeds.

 

[Kurly]

When the chit happens, It's a great way to thin the herd (so to speak)

 

[deadeye]

Even though I dont raise livestock unless you count the deer that come around for the apples I still would be OK if SHTF going around butchering for those wannabe ranchers. I laugh at the guys who take their deer to a butcher/game processor instead of doing it theirselves and making their own hamburger, sausage and steaks. If it werent for the mobile butchers, roofing companies, plumbers, electricians, framers, veteranarians, mechanics both car/truck and tractor these people would sell their places in a heartbeat.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

I tell my wife she would starve in a house full of food because she just doesn't have the scrounger's mentality

Comes from a lifetime of 3 squares and easy living. I have her fasting regularly now and that really helps build the "killer instinct" after several days of water and fruit/V8 juice

 

[Raven]

It is actually amazing how many people feel that they wouldn't be able to survive without meat. Dont get me wrong, you wanna kill it and eat it - more power to you! I'll keep it living for the milk instead ;-)


But I am in complete agreement - I grew up on a small farm (only 25 acres) but we learned to fix everything ourselves. The only thing we had the vet do, was bring the meds that the local feed store didn't carry. I learned from the very beginning, if you can break it - you can fix it - so learn....

 

[sandman1212]

I have had my kids eating wild game (Deer, Elk, rabbit, Raccoon...) since they were young and gardening is just a fun pasttime that they have enjoyed. Gotta be self sufficient at any cost.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

I can survive without meat but nothing satisfies and strengthens like red meat when you have a lot of muscle to support

 

[Sasquatchvnv]

Whadaya mean - I can't just pick a can off the spaghettio's tree? No Ho-Ho's bushes? Oh my!!!

 

[MA Duce]

Excellent article and scary in its accuracy. One of my earliest memories is tying chicken legs together and looping them over a length of old broomstick before dunking the birds in a huge old cast iron cauldron of boiling water to ease the chore of plucking. That was my job at a young age when it was time to kill the chickens, keeping the fire going and scalding the chickens. I knew where eggs milk and butter came from because I helped gather the eggs, could milk at an early age and knew how to clean a cream separator and load the churn. Somehow it seems odd that we have moved so far away from our food sources, and more than a little sad.

 

[Bazooka Joe]

Back in the mid-'80s, my father was a professor at a small town college in the midwest in the middle of farm country. Lots of farmers were losing their farms; it was the time of the first Farm Aid benefits. Some of the faculty was standing around discussing the problem of so many farms closing when one of the professors piped up, "I don't understand what the big deal is. Let them all close down." Other professors looked at her in disbelief and someone asked her, "Where will people get food if all of the farms close." Her response was, "Why, at the supermarket!" So, yes, even presumably well-educated people can be/are ignorant of where food comes from.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Bazooka, thats funny, i was in a college 8 yrs ago and we were discussing the Endangered Species Act, and lady sitting next to me said whats the big deal, after all we will always plenty of these animals in the Zoo's won't we, as if to say that the critters in the woods and came form the Zoo's. If I had not heard it for myself I would not have believed it.

What's even scarier is that these people get to vote and determine OUR future

 

[Father of four]

So, yes, even presumably well-educated people can be/are ignorant...

 

[speelyei]

I am fortunate we live in a spot where we can have horses, chickens, a huge garden, and a degree of self sufficiency. Fortunate.

I am also fortunate to have had an upbringing where I was shown that things could be done, how to use tools, and given a strong work ethic.

I am fortunate that I have a job that allows me to buy t-posts, bags of grain, lbs of nails, table saw blades, fishing line, rifles, gasoline, hardware mesh, etc, etc.
You can't run a farm, even a "gentleman's farm" without dollars, that's for sure.

We give up a lot to live this way, but we gain a lot, too.

I guess you could say most Americans could stand on the beach and starve too. I was also fortunate to live at the coast and clam, crab, fish, hunt, and forage for all sorts of stuff in the woods and shore.

I don't feel superior to people who don't have these opportunities. I have seen stories of inner-city rooftop gardens, an inner-city horse rescue, and I am sure there are people who pride themselves on being able to forage everything from dumpsters to pigeons. Good on them for learning their way around their world.

I am fortunate to live in a time and place where I have any access to public land, and that I live in a time when it's still possible for a blue collar worker to rent or buy a piece of land on which to live. Most people will never have the option.

 

[Silver Fox]

Now more than ever I feel blessed for having the childhood that I had. Four years in the FFA, raised sheep, butchered steers, chickens, sheep, goats, rabbits and horticulture and harvesting crops. Spent many long nights butchering elk and deer, canning, splitting firewood etc...

If it was just us who were thinking this prepping was necessary, I'd say we were crazy, but it's not. I find more people everyday who are prepping.

SF-

 

[MikeE]

Good article. I have to say that now that I live in the big city, I see many more folks with real food gardens than I did in all those years living out in the Oregon hills. By the time we had to move, only one or two of our neighbors had gardens. Most of the really local folks used their land to park busted down motor equipment of various kinds.

 

[gunslinger1911]

Too funny.

Not to get serious on you, but really I have pointed out things like wild onion or carrot to people and looked at like I was an Alien or some crap.

Most people cannot figure what they look like in a garden give picture and a map, uh scratch that because I forgot they can't read map, they need a talking gps to tell them when to turn left or right. The ability to one direction by instinct is now looked upon as ESP.

no doubt...im like: heres a chantrelle, some miners lettuce and plantain...huckle berries, twisted stalk, and bunch berry...and they think im crazy...whatever

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Good article. I have to say that now that I live in the big city, I see many more folks with real food gardens than I did in all those years living out in the Oregon hills. By the time we had to move, only one or two of our neighbors had gardens. Most of the really local folks used their land to park busted down motor equipment of various kinds.

Yeah, but a lot of them are doing it to be "green" and will never survive a real collapse

 

[Bunny]

True. I'm one of those people who has no idea what to do with wheat or cows. But I'm figuring it out.