Dear Friends,
Cousin Polly turned to the best expert she knows, Aunt Frankie, for help with some of your questions. Keep reading for her response when Cousin Polly asked her on your behalf for advice about weathering any economic downturns or food shortages some are anticipating. Here is her answer. –Cousin Polly
Cousin Polly,
How old were these 5 or 6 people? Were they around for the turn of the century? They don’t know that every 5 or 6 years we get promised that the world as we know it is going to end. No electricity, food shortages, all that stuff?
If they are serious about learning how to be self sufficient they should start with Mother Earth News. They will find all kinds of stuff and referrals in there. The Fox Fire books are good but not really instructional.
One of the things I would like to know is how to process sugar from beets. When there were sugar shortages people used honey. Now with the honey bees disappearing that may not be possible. You can grow wheat for flour or use corn flour and yeast is not essential for bread. It is much better with it however. Anyone that is worried could make some sourdough starter. The yeast will keep growing forever. You use a little of it. Put a little more flour in. Store it and next time you make bread you just keep doing that.
There are so many resources out there. They need to research homesteading. Making how to videos isn’t going to help if they have no electrity. People should learn to spin and weave. How to raise animals. How to use the vegetation around them. The sticks and twigs David says I always want to serve. Have any of those people ever eaten a dandelion? Oh, BTW there are recipes out there for jelly and jam that don’t use pectin (Sure-Jell).
People need to learn how to fish and hunt. How many of those people would be willing to eat a raccoon or an opposum or even a wild rabbit. Pigeons are what they call squab in a cookbook.
People need to have their own sources of energy such as windmills and if they have a water source how about the mills that used water as means to turn a wheel to produce energy.
The real crisis is that even our generation didn’t learn all these things and even what we do know our kids didn’t want to learn and we didn’t teach them.
Probably the only survivors will be those that live in a commune to share the knowledge and work together. Then we can learn enough to get right back to where we are now.
The most important thing to encourage anyone who is interested is to stockpile books. They may think they will never boil a cow hoof to make gelatin but it doesn’t hurt anyone for them to know how.
Whittling would be good to make utensils. Clay for pots.
One of the most important things people should do in my opinion is to eat natural foods now. It is my feeling that if they ever had a fresh egg from a natuarally grown chicken they would think it is spoiled instead of rich and nutritious. I have been saying for years that whoever have been dummying down our taste buds. Cardboard food is mostly what they sell.
Anyway if those people got together and one raised chickens, one rabbits, one grew wheat, etc. Bartering would be a necessity.
The sad thing is that we have turned into a nation of what is the government going to do about it. We didn’t teach our children and they will pay for it.
Enough of that.
Buy guns and goats not gold or stocks.
Yours truly, Aunt Frankie
