A Mouthful for Self Sufficiency

[Bossroo]

Quote:
He doesn't live in a desert. He lives in the Central San Joaquin Valley where I spent some 30 odd years of my life. It is some of the most productive farm land in the country, where people ship their vegies and a good deal of their fruit from during off seasons.

Yup , and Yup!!! When we moved here 15 years ago. It was open rolling range land that is very arrid climate,and high desert soils at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It took 13 years to clear off the tumble weeds and Jensen weeds. I am still whacking them here and there. Star thistle and bull thistle as well as a few other weeds are still being faught daily. Predators of many kinds are here to stay. Yes indeed, this valley is the breadbasket for the US. All one needs is hundreds to thausands of level acres and plenty of irrigation water as we have 2-3 vegatable crop cycles per year, 5-7 cycles for alfalfa. only one for strawberries , orchard crops, grapes and cotton. Dairies are king in Tulare county, just south of us. The average dairy milks 10,000 cows ( the largest has 44,000 ) and produce more milk and cheese than the State of Wisconsin. There are poultry farms that produce eggs by the million, and meat chickens and turkeys by the hundred thausand. Also one needs a very friendly Banker, a lawyer or two, production contracts with processors, canneries, truckers, custom harvestors and distributors, farm machinery that can be over $100,000 +++ each, tons of pesticides and herbicides and crop dusters to apply them and a few hundred migrant workers to harvest your crops and one can make a dollar or two. My next door neighbor's son-in-law baught 5 harvestors for $500,000 each a couple years ago. He custom harvests with them 18 hours a day and 8 hours in maintenance and transportation to the next field for 5 months out of the year, does maintenance work on them for a month and then R&R the rest of the year. His work force is 12 drivers and 2 mechanics. Not too bad. My neighbor on the other side just sold ( and retired) his trucking business with 12 trucks with trailers and employs 25 drivers, 2 mechanics, and a dispatcher. He hauls tomatoes nonstop to canneries starting at the Mexican border and ending up at Chico in N Cal. for 9 months of the year. However in my little corner of the valley , only one other neighbor has a small family garden, and NO ONE ,other than me, has even ONE chicken in at least a 10 mile radious. Just not cost effective as we can buy everthing so much cheaper than what we can hope to produce for ourselves. What a contrast a few miles make!

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

Play nice kids, it's Christmas.

As always, location is everything. It is interesting how different 2oo yards will make vertically. The neighbor at the bottom of the hill ends her garden year on average a week earlier than I do because the cold frost pools in her hollow, flowing down from our hilltop garden. So frustrating for her to see everyone else in the immediate vicinity starting earlier and ending later...

It must be frustrating Boss. Very understanding of you to still wish others in a better situation the best of luck. If you are in a factory farm area, it seems reasonable to take advantage of that. It's living and dining locally. Makes much more sense than shipping all those dairy products to Wisconsin- ours are better any way, don't need to spend the money irrigating

Good luck to all and have a Happy Holiday!

 

[CheerfulHeart2]

Quote:
He doesn't live in a desert. He lives in the Central San Joaquin Valley where I spent some 30 odd years of my life. It is some of the most productive farm land in the country, where people ship their vegies and a good deal of their fruit from during off seasons.

Yup , and Yup!!! When we moved here 15 years ago. It was open rolling range land that is very arrid climate,and high desert soils at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It took 13 years to clear off the tumble weeds and Jensen weeds. I am still whacking them here and there. Star thistle and bull thistle as well as a few other weeds are still being faught daily. Predators of many kinds are here to stay. Yes indeed, this valley is the breadbasket for the US. All one needs is hundreds to thausands of level acres and plenty of irrigation water as we have 2-3 vegatable crop cycles per year, 5-7 cycles for alfalfa. only one for strawberries , orchard crops, grapes and cotton. Dairies are king in Tulare county, just south of us. The average dairy milks 10,000 cows ( the largest has 44,000 ) and produce more milk and cheese than the State of Wisconsin. There are poultry farms that produce eggs by the million, and meat chickens and turkeys by the hundred thausand. Also one needs a very friendly Banker, a lawyer or two, production contracts with processors, canneries, truckers, custom harvestors and distributors, farm machinery that can be over $100,000 +++ each, tons of pesticides and herbicides and crop dusters to apply them and a few hundred migrant workers to harvest your crops and one can make a dollar or two. My next door neighbor's son-in-law baught 5 harvestors for $500,000 each a couple years ago. He custom harvests with them 18 hours a day and 8 hours in maintenance and transportation to the next field for 5 months out of the year, does maintenance work on them for a month and then R&R the rest of the year. His work force is 12 drivers and 2 mechanics. Not too bad. My neighbor on the other side just sold ( and retired) his trucking business with 12 trucks with trailers and employs 25 drivers, 2 mechanics, and a dispatcher. He hauls tomatoes nonstop to canneries starting at the Mexican border and ending up at Chico in N Cal. for 9 months of the year. However in my little corner of the valley , only one other neighbor has a small family garden, and NO ONE ,other than me, has even ONE chicken in at least a 10 mile radious. Just not cost effective as we can buy everthing so much cheaper than what we can hope to produce for ourselves. What a contrast a few miles make!

Thank you for sharing. It is interesting to see things from a very different view. I live in the dry hot desert. I feel successful if I can grow some lettuce in my square foot garden that I bought the dirt for. In my perfect desert world I would put gutters around the roof and catch the rain in a rain barrel. It only rains a few times a year, but if I could catch all the rain the roof gathers, I would be a little closer to self sufficient. I plant citrus trees and am excited to pick my own fruit and eat it. I especially like that I can leave the fruit on the trees for months and it is still good, I don't have to can it right way. The sun is my fuel here, I can even use it to cook in my sun oven. I have chickens and figure if I got really desperate I could find a way into the sewer (ick!) to get roaches for them. Like you said, I am a long ways from truly self sufficient, but I find joy in doing a few little things. I remember someone saying that they reenacted a Pioneer trek once and found that one peanut could supply an amazing amount of energy in desperate times.

That said, you can see why I find your story so interesting, you look at things from a completely different place. Thank you for sharing your view.

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Always a reason you can't do something, right, Boss?

Get a couple of good dogs for predator control and raise some birds and goats (both do well even in the "arid" conditions of the lush foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range) and grow your vegetables in an intensive manner in order to cut down on work and lessen water usage.

Or, if you don't want to, just don't.

But don't tell me you can't. I know better. Because I was born in your neighborhood.

 

[Whispering Winds]

Quote:
Or more likely die from it.

My DH just told me the other day that we are better off using Lard than these fancy smancy trans fat type oils. It's the preservatives that are getting us.

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Or more likely die from it.

My DH just told me the other day that we are better off using Lard than these fancy smancy trans fat type oils.

Absolutely true to an extent, in most cases. But not 100 pounds of it in a single year for a family of five.

Dietary allowances and nutrition sciences have changed considerably since 1947, which I'm sure the big ag trade journal article Boss got his information from neglected to mention (like he sits around in his central California home reading antiquated books on the agriculture of the southern US? I don't think so). We don't need nearly that much fat in our diet.

But my comment was mostly in jest. I just can't picture eating 25 to 30 pounds of lard (assuming the adults' portion of the equation) in a year.

At least not willingly.

 

[dancingbear]

I'm thinking the 100 lbs. of lard is allowing for enough to make soap, salves, and other fat based products, in addition to cooking. People also sometimes used lard-dipped pinecones or sticks for easy fire kindling in the wood stoves and fireplaces.

 

[Recon]

Quote:
But don't tell me you can't. I know better. Because I was born in your neighborhood.

Been there lately?

Maybe you should see what it looks like there now....

Dead and Dying–California’s Central Valley Dust Bowl

 

[Brunty_Farms]

That's just sad.....

However, that just means that more of that type of produce should be grown where there isn't water shortages that drastic.

Live with nature... don't fight it.

 

[tragic59]

It's not Mother Nature's water shortage. It's man-made.

Granted there isn't enough precipitation to grow the crops, but there are plenty of irrigation canals that carry snow melt from the mountains to the crops. And plenty of snow melt to water with.

But the environmental lobby is worried about Smelt dying in the pumps.

It's all bogus. The real danger to the Smelt is the pollution entering the delta from the Bay Area sewage dumps.