George Shirley wrote:
....
> My folks were born in 1905(Mother) and 1911 (Father), grandparents were
> born from 1862 to 1880 and 1890. They used all the methods we have
> talked about. My father's family were share croppers in Central
> Louisiana, mother's family were Cherokee and were migrant farm workers,
> stoop labor. Mostly in the area where Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and
> Arkansas meet. Dad's family would make pork sausage patties, pour a
> layer of lard in a five or ten gallon crock, put down a layer of
> sausage, another layer of lard, and continue on until the crock was
> full. The crock was then stored in the spring house. Hams, bacon, link
> sausages, etc. were moved to the "cool" area of the large smokehouse
> once fully smoked and were kept in the light smoke until eaten. There
> are many ways you can preserve food in the old styles but you have to
> keep an eye on that food as it can spoil rapidly if the surroundings change.

yeah, and that method also requires a large
amount of lard.


> I remember my aunts and mom going through last years canning jars and
> tossing out those that went bad and then boiling the jars and rings to
> "clean" them. With modern canning technology we are much better off with
> both we and our food surviving longer.

somewhat, but in my readings of history it is
not food preservation that has extended life for
most of us, it is basic medical knowledge,
antibiotics, etc. when those become limited we'll
be losing more people to diseases and traumas again.


> In addition, having a smoke house
> going all the time in survival condition just means the bad guys can
> follow their noses to your place.

yep. or they just come and steal your animals
before you can make them into sausage...

one reason i much prefer gardening and also
learning how to garden in wilder ways (off in
different areas, less obviously gardens, putting
in plants that most people don't know as food
plants, etc.). the ideas of food forests and
gorrilla gardening are interesting, along with
the other general ideas of increasing diversity
in various ways. like now i'm adding more
veggies to some of my wilder patches. i may
not ever need them for emergency food sources
or such, but i do like the idea of having them
out there just in case. that the animals will
likely eat most of them doesn't bother me, many
serve the nice double function of also helping
to improve the soil over the long term if they
will open pollinate and reseed themselves.

next year i'm hoping to add a bunch more
squash plants out back to see what happens. it
should be interesting... we just finished
cooking up the last three tonight and they
were still in reasonably good condition. these
ones did not have viable seeds in them, but i
have plenty of seeds from the previous squash.
we didn't lose any of them to spoilage or bugs,
not a one. but we did have a few with a bit of
rot that i had to cut out before cooking.
nothing major. overall it was a great crop for
zero cost and very little time spent other
than planting and harvesting and a bit of
watering when it was dry. i think we had about
30 squash in the tub.


> If the economy tanks, always a
> possibility nowadays I will stand my ground and do my best to look after
> family and friends but I don't think I will ever go into the
> "survivalist" mode.

me either, i would hope to work with the neighbors
to turn the surrounding fields into workable gardens
for everyone and try to make a community of it. i am
not interested in living if all i have to do is fight
and kill. that's too much like what is already going
on in the world in too many places. but then again,
that would be if it were only me. if i still have to
protect Ma then that becomes a bit different, but
that just might mean banding together with one of
the neighboring families that do have weapons and
sharing watch duties and going from there until things
get sorted out.


> Have friends who are and I think they're off about
> half a bubble. They spend more time figuring out how to kill someone
> than they do figuring out how to grow and save food.

i'm trying really hard to not make this a gun
or politics kind of thread...


songbird