what are y'all saving from the wild to deal with coming crisis?

[perchie.girl]

I apologize to the OP for getting drawn into the "discussion"

My plans arent so dramatic... I do have a thread about surviving Social Security... With limited funds I believe I have enough to handle feeding my horse, chickens and goats.. This will be my personal chrisis. At sixty four my SS income will be pretty low. But I have calculated that I will need:

Ten bales of Bermuda a month... No pasture here
Four bales of Alfalfa a month
Three twenty five pound bags of Flock raiser.
Salt licks one for goats one for horse Horse goes through one fifty pounder about every two months... Goats Salt lick has lick holes in it but ffity pounds last more than a year... four goats at the time.
Chickens get salt in their feed.

I hope to can dog food for the dogs and or feed them raw food.... Canned food will have a few veggies like rice and carrots. I hope to have a Terrier of some sort to handle the mouse population in and around the house. As well as a livestock Guardian dog for the Goats and Chickens... Horse can protect herself with her size five hooves i have seen her punch a hoof shaped hole in plywood....

I also want a dog that will be my companion so I probably will go for a Texas Cattle dog. Smart and wily good with livestock too... Good at herding and general knowledge of human language..

So three dogs at least one of each size... All will be allowed in the house as long as they are good citizens.

So even if I cant can food I probably will go through fifty pounds of dog foood per month Maybe 100 pounds.

prices here: per month
Bermuda 13-16 a bale. ten bales 160
Alfalfa 16 a bale four bales 64
flock raiser 13 a bag four bags 55
dog food 30 a Bag two bags 60
salt licks ten ea 40/12 3.3
total 342.3

One quarter of my income

deb

 

[trumpeting_angel]

Yikes!

@perchie.girl

That’s going to take some fancy footwork and comparison shopping!

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

I hope to have a Terrier of some sort to handle the mouse population in and around the house.

Are Terriers better than cats at catching mice?

 

[ocap]

Are Terriers better than cats at catching mice?

We had a terrier crossed with a dachshund and crossed again with a poodle that was a rodent killer as well as snakes. She went into a dark barn one night and came out with a rat. She went fishing with us and pulled a water moccasin out of its hiding place. I can't imagine a cat that would be more skilled or passionate about keeping the world "clean".

 

[yaldnif]

We've been having a bit of a prep discussion at home. DH is of the mind that if everything goes south, what's the point? He figures if he has enough beer, he'll last long enough to say goodbye to it all!

But he is a very prepared person by nature, so I ignore most of that. My concern is electricity, because of (1) our well pump and . . . well, everything else is secondary to that. We do have access to a spring, up the hill. Can you add a hand pump to an existing well? We will have a wood stove this fall and have enough land for wood. We have a gun but would have to get ammo, and probably another gun that's not a sniper rifle! DH is a good shot and would hunt if he had to, but we wonder how long the deer and turkeys, which are plentiful, would last.

What I don't feel ready for is feed for chickens over the winter, food (that's not meat or eggs) for us over the winter, and staying safe. DH's family has a big place where all would gather in the event of a disaster, about 4 miles from us. There is no garden there, but the water is a gravity-fed spring, and there are woodstoves. There is huge pasture and several Guys with Guns. But although it's on a dirt road, it's very much out in the open, no hidden space whatsoever, whereas our place is on a short dead-end road.

He will have to figure out how to brew! That's a project I can get him interested in.

There is something called a simple pump that can be added to a well but I'm not sure how deep it can pump from. It's not cheap but if the power goes out you would still have access to your well water.

 

[biophiliac]

I also want a dog that will be my companion s

Terriers make very nice companion dogs. Two in one there?

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Where in ky are you from. I am from ky

 

[ocap]

Many people lost their farms to taxes in the USA in the 1930's
I often wondered what event is my life would lead to that type of poverty.
I can easily foresee the day when that type of heavy taxation of the poor can happen again.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

I've been trying to keep up with technology and new ideas too. I designed a cabin that I had hoped to begin this Summer, but it looks like it'll be put off till next year now. One of these would reduce my own carbon footprint considerably - not that I'm so concerned that the sky is falling, but I would love to cut my ties to the grid just the same, especially the tie in which they send me a bill. Besides, I still live in a state where power, gas, sewer, and water lines only reach a small portion of the awesome home sites that are out there, and raw land without these amenities is still relatively affordable. As a mason, my idea for a cabin is different than most.

I like how you have the solar panels mounted - hanging off the eave rather than on the roof itself. IMO putting solar panels on a roof is a tremendously dumb idea because it devalues the house, creates horrible problems if there's a roof leak and creates a hazard for firefighters if there's ever a fire.

 

[ocap]

Have you ever heard the song "Poke Salad Annie"?

http://nadiasyard.com/our-native-plants/american-pokeweed/

Pokeweed, American (Phytolacca americana): The Jekyll and Hyde Plant
If a nice-looking plant could attract scads of birds, make a great mess of greens, treat cancer, AIDS, herpes, bad breath and more, and revolutionize the solar energy industry on the side, wouldn’t you want it in your backyard?

All of these claims and more have been made for the American Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), an imposing perennial common in disturbed, fallow and edge areas, routinely growing taller than 6-8 feet, with large, oblong leaves and reddish stems at maturity. It’s also known as poke root, poke salad (or poke sallet), poke berry, poke, inkberry, cancer root, American nightshade, pigeon berry and other names. The starring feature of Pokeweed is the flower cluster, which can host flowers, immature green berries and mature, shiny red berries all on the same clump, and there are many clumps per plant, flowering from May on into the fall. It dies back to its very large taproot each winter and re-emerges each spring. It is very insistent about that.
With all this going for it, what’s not to like?

Well, for one thing, it’s poisonous. For another, it’s persistent and somewhat aggressive and difficult to eradicate.

Pokeweed has its passionate defenders, implacable enemies, and some in between, who might wish it wasn’t there, but have no qualms about using it for its good qualities. We have several healthy specimens in our yard, mostly around the edges in the fence or up against the house, and we appreciate it because birds find it irresistible. We never planted it. It showed up on its own, probably from the hard little seeds passing through a bird and being deposited with a handy little packet of fertilizer. It seems to generate a couple more plants each year, and we will soon have to control its spread. We pull it or chop it in places where we don’t want it, but this might be only semi-effective, since it will try to come back from the root each spring. There are chemical treatments, if you’re really desperate, including glyphosate. At least one online gardeners’ forum has had a lively debate on the merits of this plant in gardens and its control.

Pokeweed is one of the signature edible native plants of America, with a strong role in Native-American, African-American and Southern cultures and cuisines. The key is caution. Young leaves and stems in the spring, before any red has crept into them, are harvested by legions of foragers and boiled in at least two changes of water, discarding the water afterwards. Some, in Southern style, saute the greens with bacon drippings and crumbles, alone or mixed with other wild greens. Some also cook the young stems like asparagus, to which their flavor is compared, or cut them into rounds, like okra, coating them with cornmeal and frying them. Some just saute them in butter, with salt and pepper. They are sometimes used in making pickles. Just remember to blanch them in water first! Twice!

Never eat the roots! Never. Too bad, too, because they’re big and juicy.