I find it hard to write about our motivations for taking on this challenge. When I was a child, people who built and stocked bomb shelters were a source of humor for sitcoms. After Jonestown I learned that religious groups have been predicting Armageddon throughout the ages, and believers have gathered on the fateful day, only to be disappointed. As I grew older, bomb shelters and religious nuts gave way to survivalists, holed up in Waco or Ruby Ridge with guns and ammunition stockpiled behind barbed wire fences. After that came Y2K, when people stockpiled supplies to prepare for a global technological meltdown. Peak Oil, the current going concern, is only the latest in a long series of focal points for a recurring fear of disaster.
After watching all these concerns come and go over the years, it's hard to shake the feeling that people who prepare for disaster are a bunch of kooks and nut cases. So I feel a bit like I'm coming out as a nut case myself, when I admit that preparedness is a concern of mine. But at the same time, I firmly believe that our exponential growth rate is unsustainable, and our situation is growing rapidly more precarious as we approach and overshoot global limits to growth in food production, cheap fuel, climate stability, and availability of fresh water (among other things.) Sooner or later, something's going to give. The only real questions are when and how.
Greg believes we might see a sudden global crash -- sixty to zero in 3.6 seconds -- whereas I think we're more likely to experience a sequence of local and regional disasters, each with a different impact on the world's economy, political stability, production capacity and supply chains. In either case, food security could become an issue, so we've agreed to create a food buffer in our pantry to protect against price spikes and supply disruptions. We've been working on this off & on for several years, and it seemed like a good time to give it a test run.
After watching all these concerns come and go over the years, it's hard to shake the feeling that people who prepare for disaster are a bunch of kooks and nut cases. So I feel a bit like I'm coming out as a nut case myself, when I admit that preparedness is a concern of mine. But at the same time, I firmly believe that our exponential growth rate is unsustainable, and our situation is growing rapidly more precarious as we approach and overshoot global limits to growth in food production, cheap fuel, climate stability, and availability of fresh water (among other things.) Sooner or later, something's going to give. The only real questions are when and how.
Greg believes we might see a sudden global crash -- sixty to zero in 3.6 seconds -- whereas I think we're more likely to experience a sequence of local and regional disasters, each with a different impact on the world's economy, political stability, production capacity and supply chains. In either case, food security could become an issue, so we've agreed to create a food buffer in our pantry to protect against price spikes and supply disruptions. We've been working on this off & on for several years, and it seemed like a good time to give it a test run.
Regardless of whether or not some disaster comes, learning to store your own food is a good thing to do. Fun, saves money, healthier food all year, etc. We'd love to have more workshops on food preservation, if you guys are thinking about hosting anything... ;^)
ReplyDeleteUp here on the hill, we closed in a greenhouse lean-to on the cabin porch in late January. Though this much blue sky is rare around Ithaca, today is simply a gift. It is 29 outside and 71 in the greenhouse/porch. I made an opening in the floor about 10' x 6' with good drainage. We started Siberian Kale in Jan and it is looking so happy just now. From Eliot Coleman's latest book, we got the idea of an "inner" green house and this humble make-do hoop house seems to have kept the soil a bit warmer. Next week I pile on the horse poo and turn it into the rest of the bed to receive spinach that is now 3" seedlings in an indoor germinating tent. It will be next year before I can offer a salad in Feb. or March to prove this all works but I am hopeful.
ReplyDeleteThe last of our red beets went to the chickens last month, too dried up for our liking. A proper root cellar seems vital to complete a well prepared pantry.
Side benefit of your plan to make no shopping trips for a month: I use one tank of gas for each 4 trips from the farm at 1800' to Ithaca shops and back. While a bit vague to us now, that looming great disruption could, probably will, creep on imperceptibly until it first shocks people in the form of a gas shortage...for that there is precedent.
I agree there is great value and surely some education in doing this exercise. But don't most decline scenarios, be they crash or "bumpy landing" go on for more than a month, a lot more, before any recovery to normal economic activity?
Our mache is self-sowing at this point, and still looking good thru the winter, albeit with an occasional frost-damaged leaf tip. The claytonia seems a bit more recalcitrant; there's very little of it by comparison. Granted this hasn't been a proper winter -- if it had gone below zero by more than a degree or two we might have lost it...
ReplyDeleteThe value of a one-month trial is it helps to evaluate the system and identify weak spots, without drawing down the stocks too much.