Monday, August 2, 2010

“All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow." - Grant Wood, American artist

I grew (or raised) every thing in tonight's dinner with exception of the mushrooms in the spinach. That was my first garden sweet potato.



I love "going out for milk & eggs". Its my own form of protest. I paid no "sales taxes" on the food or the gasoline to get to the store. As one of our commentators once said about my post Its a Cold, Cruel World "It a Help's me keep in touch with my inner John Galt" (I used the first person).

(Today's milk and egg haul)


Once you have the chickens and the cow, nature provides most of the rest. I have 21 laying hens that are over 1 year old, and they are still giving me an average of 16 eggs per day. I have another hundred or so birds at various stages of growth, all of them free rangin' and doin' it. Yea, the layers are headed for the soup pot soon... but they had it really good while they had it... and there is no such thing as hospice for livestock. Better to go quick.

Especially for a good cause... and to a "Better Place"... my freezer.

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OK, so I feel pretty good about this self-reliance thing... well, sort of. The fact is that while am not at all reliant on food distribution, I am totally and utterly dependent on our coffin freezer t0 preserve our meats. Fresh milk and eggs show up daily, no refrigeration required... potatoes and corn meal and flour keep for months... tomatoes lend themselves to easy canning... but 600 lbs of pork and beef is whole other story.

Anybody have any ideas for a backup plan or other methods of preserving? I am all ears. I guess I could salt the pork and smoke hams... but I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it...

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The U.S. equity market appears to be completely unafraid of December's crude Oil deliver price of nearly $83. Maybe they are right. I wouldn't bet on it with my hard earned money. If you are a trader, that's different... the "trend is your friend", but you gotta know how close 'em out.

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I pray that both those who opposed the government's recent foray into the U.S. healthcare system AND those who supported it will read this article AND the link to the flow chart - though I doubt people that supported it will read it or bother to understand it. They just wanted "something". They got "something". What they got is going to make the "War on Drugs" look productive, fair, and rational.






22 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can my meat and vegetables so that loss of power is not an issue. The meat is very tender and precooked. It's so much more fun to look at rows of canned jars than to stare at a freezer.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

How do you prepare the meat for canning? Do you can beef and pork? Anything more you can share? Do you add an acid to the canning (lemon juice) or have a higher pressure canner?

Stephen B. said...

Wow, that's some chart Rep. Brady has there.

Unrepentantcowboy said...

To can meat cut it in small chunks after trimming off fat and gristle. Put in in jars, making sure to pack it tight and remove air pockets. Add a teaspoon of salt to a quart and can in a pressure canner.

In the old days, people used to "pot" pork. You can make sausage or fry pork and then pour it into a sterilized crock. You should have enough lard to cover the meat. As you remove meat for cooking pour hot lard back into the crock to seal it again.

Jerky is another option. It can be eaten as jerky or reconstituted for stews.

bureaucrat said...

While totally unwelcome :), I will post the top things that those awful taxes are spent on ...

Federal (80% of money is spent on):

Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
Interest on the debt accumulated for the last 234 years of Federal overspending
Defense

State (90% of money is spent on):

Education
Human Services (helping less able and disabled people)
Health Services (the states' side of Medicaid)
Pensions for non-Federal workers, including teachers

That is 50-60%% of all government spending right there.

You all seem to think all these services appear out of thin air. They have to be funded. Evading taxes is NOT an honorable thing. BUY eggs, and pay some taxes. :)

K said...

Greg,

Supposedly, the meat, along with other ingredients, can be made into pemmican. Pemmican is reported to be easy to make and can last for many months if stored right. source- http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/how-to-make-pemmican/

PioneerPreppy said...

Any Ideas I would have had has been covered and then one.... Potting pork I must look into that.

So I will just add I love LOVE my freezer.

Anonymous said...

Bur,

It is perfectly obvious that these rats don't care a single bit whether you live or die. But, they get aroused at the thought of deciding who lives and who dies. What they care about is power. State=God. Worship whom you will.

Avoiding taxes is the most honorable thing you can do. Why give it to the state when you can keep it for your family?

Regards,

Coal Guy

Dan said...

I was considering building an ammonia absorption freezer with a boatload of insulation. However, it is a really old design and people back then stilled preferred to can, dry, smoke and cure- smoothing tells me it wasn’t because they were ignorant. On the other hand, someone at Oxford is working on improving Einstein’s design which is an improvement of prior designs itself, so who knows.

kathy said...

Hi Greg,

I am doing a canning workshop at the Mother Earth News Sustainable Living Fair in PA in September. I can a lot of meat. The directions are in the Ball Blue Book. There are few things I do differently than the book suggests. I wipe the jar rims with vinegar rather than water as it cuts any greese left on the rim which would prevent a good seal. I precook all meat too. We can a lot of meat although we do have a HUGE freezer for the two pigs and for fruits and vegetables that don't can well. I do not bother with jerky. I want my food in a form that is familiar and appealing to my family. I am visiting a mormon church next weekend to talk about the use of their cannery as I want to explore the benefits of cans over glass. I have also just ordered some new, reusable lids for my canning jars. I have stockpiled a couple of thousand lids but I can 70+ jars of tomato sauce, an equal amount of applesauce, 50 jars of jams, 50 pounds of honey for home use, a lot of condiments, 70+ jars of pickles, lots of stews and soups and a lot of chicken and beef so I could go through the non-reusable lids in a hurry. I might reuse the lids for jams or pickles but would not consider it for meat. The most important issues in canning anything are cleanliness and excellent equipment. Do not use granny's old canner and those dear, antique jars with rubber rings. Spend the money for the best canner on the market and get good jars. I also think one should always work with an axperienced canner before pressure canning. Books are good but no match for seeing what they mean by venting steam freely.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Kathy:

Thanks for that. We have been canning for a couple of years... but only jams, tomatoes sauces and fruits, never meats.

I did not think about canning stews and soups. I think that that is a splendid idea, although I will stick with live chickens for soup as they are small stock and can be kept alive until the cook pot.

Cowboy: I will can but I don't think I will pot any pork. Thanks for commenting.

K: As Kathy pointed out, folks with kids have to keep their food stuffs in an appealing form. But Pemican would work in a survival situation.

Prep: I LOVE MY FREEZER. I think the thing to do is work up a solar/wind/battery backup ONLY for the freezer.

Bur: I don't do marches, riots, sit ins... I milk cows and keep chickens. Somehow I think that on a large scale (think million man march turned million man homesteading) my protest would be more effective and a better example set for our kids.

Coal Guy: As always.

I am going to read that and I am sure I will have some questions.

Dextred1 said...

Bur,

You have now left earth and are heading for the great unknown. But I am assuming you have no kids, because if you did I would think you would understand the idea of giving them your wealth and not the state.

I understand those programs cost most of the money, but they are all ponzi schemes based on a growing economy, population and oil. All three of these factor that had supported these programs are now reversing trend. Not to mention that they are blantantly unconstutional. Not until FDR court packing manever in 37-38 and eventually retirement of constitutional judges and appointment of socialists were these allowed. They had to change the constitution just to implement a income tax. The best part of this was that the income tax was never suppose to go over 10% according to the democrats that supported it. I have no moral responsibility to pay for anything I find against my very nature.

All laws, rules and practices which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.
Marbury v. Madison 1803

"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censored, checked, valued, enrolled, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so." -

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

tweell said...

Modern freezers have efficient heat transfer, but the insulation is minimal to save on space. If you plan on having solar/wind/battery power for your freezer, I would recommend insulating it. Just glue 2" of foam around the sides and top, leave the coils and such free. You can glue veneer onto the outside of the foam to protect it and make it look better.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Dex:

I used that quote on my Facebook page.

Thanks.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Tweel:

Thanks for that! You know, I was considering insulating the thing just for.... well, just because... but you are correct. If am going to use solar/wind/battery backup I really gotta get it very efficient.

bureaucrat said...

Dex and Carbon,

While I understand the Internet to be a wonderland for people who don't think they would ever need government help (till they do), the programs I have listed are WILDLY popular with the public, constitutionality and Ponzi-like be damned. :)

And as far as giving wealth to your kids ... based on what? You Libertarians are going to give your wealth to a bunch of humans that haven't gone out and earned it? How contradictory is that?? :) Not to mention most family lines of wealth usually end up having the kids spend it all not long after their parents/grandparents will it to them. Many kids of wealthy parents are often lazy and undereducated (their lives were too soft), and they squander their wealth within 1-2 generations.

Government spending is predominately for the wealthy (who owns the defense contractors), the old, the sick, and the disabled. Since the smug "fair-weather" Christians aren't willing to or cannot take care of such groups, the government is forced to. And that requires money.

Paying taxes is the Patriotic thing to do!

(However, I do grow my own tax-exempt potatoes. :))

tweell said...

Just because a government program is wildly popular does not mean that it is right. Our government puts most of its resources into taking care of the elderly, sick and disabled, but this transfer of wealth is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution.
Family, churches and charities handled troubles of these folks before Roosevelt did his power grab. They can't do it now largely because the resources previously allocated by the people plus more (government employees cost money and need infrastructure, after all) have been taken by the government.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Bur:

I do not wish to bring unpleasant acrimonious BS to the thread... but I don't know what to say to you because I feel like I am talking to a teenager.

Lot's of things are popular with certain segments of a population - that does not make them good, righteous, healthy, positive... what does popularity have to do with mathematics?

Stephen B. said...

"I don't do marches, riots, sit ins... I milk cows and keep chickens. Somehow I think that on a large scale (think million man march turned million man homesteading) my protest would be more effective and a better example set for our kids."

Amen

By the way, It's been said that planting a garden is the one of the most subversive things you can do.

bureaucrat said...

I'm just another guy talking opinion from another direction.

Oh, and by the way, most familes can't afford a $100,000+ bill for an older relative who ends up having a BIG health care problem.

So far U.S. government units continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars for services people really need. All you peakists have to show us is swelling reserves of oil, which have been at least at this level for 60 years. Who is kidding who? :)

Anonymous said...

Double check before you insulate the tops and sides of your freezer.

We live off-the-grid and are always looking for ways to save power but someone told us that in modern "chest style" freezers the tops and sides dissipate the heat so no additional insulation could be added. You'd just be trapping the heat in because the coils are under the exterior panels.

On the other hand, we had a DC fridge with coils on the back. We removed the coils, insulated the fridge, reinstalled the coils and cut the power consumption by half.

Currently for refrigeration, we use a new Servel propane frige and LOVE it.

Only uses 5 gallons of propane every 3-4 weeks.

Idaho Homesteader

Joseph said...

Greg, unless a solar/whatever system is what floats your boat why not talk with the Amish you've purchased goods from about how the Amish do ice houses?

An older family member was discussing the old days using a basement ice house insulted with hay. We got distracted with some other stuff but I'm going to ask him for some more pointers when I see him next.