[Schneider]

More infos on pemmican :

I found a website where it warn that the digestive system of people of today will need some time to adapt to the high fat content of pemmican..

When the Numis Polar Challenge team arrive at their start point, our bodies will not be as 'in tune' with the environment as Scott's party were, also the needs of our bodies will also be different and it will take some time for Scott's high fat diet to be acceptable to our digestive systems without us physically rejecting it.

It is planned therefore that for the first 10 days or so the food intake will be a mix of modern and old. The Huntley & Palmer biscuits will be eaten, as will processed cheese (something Scott also used) as well as lots of sugar and coco. The main meal however will be modern freeze dried food such as Chilli con Carne or chicken stew.

After that period when the body is more needy and likely to accept the high fat content, the plan is to switch to the old style food of butter, pemmican, coco and sugar. We may need to have some cookery lessons!!!!

I also found that a..well..small book for kids, on polar explorers, might show how to make pemmican !

[URL=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556525001/ref=sib_err_dp/103-1452347-6073437?%5Fencoding=UTF8&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&no=283155&st=books&n=283155]Polar Explorers for Kids : Historic Expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic with 21 Activities
[/URL]
Making a Viking compass
Building a model igloo
Using a cross-staff to measure latitude
Creating a barometer and forecasting the weather
Making pemmican, an Inuit snack
Publishing a newspaper like William Parry's Winter Chronicle

Dunno what to think about this one..it's a book for kids after all ...

Another website i've found :

http://www.physicalmind.com/pemmican.htm

It actually show in details and with pictures how to make pemmican with materials found at home,without expensive dehydrator..you only need your oven and a grinder !

My only concern is about the autor saying he did also used bacon fat,witch you don't want to use if you want to conserve for a while...


Schneider
French-Canadian

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gt1370a', 'M')y point is, don't just randomly do "survival stuff" without an overall strategy.

[Schneider]

Could not agree more Pops !

No problems to split the subjects,i was worried earlier about that..

In fact,i'm actually wondering if i would not make a thread or a complete post on the making of Pemmican !

But first,i'll copy the informations we gathered here inside the Storage - Drying thread in the "Planning For The Future" forum ..

Schneider
French-Canadian

[crapattack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n fact,i'm actually wondering if i would not make a thread or a complete post on the making of Pemmican Smile !

But first,i'll copy the informations we gathered here inside the Storage - Drying thread in the "Planning For The Future" forum Wink

[gt1370a]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', '
')I'm leaning quite heavily toward finding some land as well. I may have to morgage, but I am thinking of other options too... I suppose it would be possible to take over some abandoned land and squat, but I would only want to try this as a last resort as there is always the risk of being booted off.

[crapattack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'h')ink about it before you take on debt. If you have a great farm in a remote, sustainable place, but can't pay your mortgage and the bank forecloses, it doesn't do you any good.

[Wrencher]

Here is a link that gave me a feeling about what the future might hold.

http://energybulletin.net/4273.html

It might not be nearly so upbeat and positive as this link shows, or nearly so horrible as some of the die-off sceniros that I have read. The bottom line for me is that I really didn't know how my life would turn out before I heard about Peak Oil - we only like to think that we do. But I like fact better than fiction, and it gives me some comfort and a lot of instruction to prepare, and to experiment.

We lived in a rural setting early in our marriage and have always tried to have some food put away. Nothing will instruct you as to the adaquacy of your preparations as will a week or so of living only on those preparations. We experimented for a week and found out early on that we did NOT like textured vegetable protein (TVP) and that we didn' t have very adaquate cooking arrangements. We chucked the TVP to the pigs and discovered dutch oven cooking.

We have a food dryer, and have learned to both hot water bath process fruits, and to pressure can meat and vegetables. My wife is not interested in discussing PO in any detail, so I have been running quiet experiments on the amount of heat that we can get from our fireplace (not enough) and ordered a fireplace insert recently. In a frenzy of worry earlier this fall, I put by about 1-1/2 cords of wood, and a little over a ton of coal. This is not so much a worry about petroleum and NG as it is about the fragility of our economic system, and what a 10-15% tempoarary shortage might do.

My wife will be visiting her mother in another state after Christmas, and I intend to see how my emergency preparations work without causing a domestic crisis.

Try things out. You might want to change your plan or recipe. Have an emergency kit that you think will get you through for a couple of days? Walk out the door with it and try eating and sleeping with it as your sole source. At least you can come home in the middle of the first night and make a pizza and some new plans.

The more people that have made the mental adjustment, and have made some preparations, the softer the landing will be. The sad thing is that we have a couple of generations of people that are much better at video games than they are at carpentry or gardening, - much better at sending text messages than they are at cooking, canning or sewing. You can't prepare for everything, but doing something helps quiet the mind and still the fears.

Best to all,

Wrencher

[crapattack]

Wrencher, very good points and well taken. I actually haven't had time to do much and I'm feeling a bit panicky about my preparations. I'm seeing some very ominous signs in the markets. I am worried we might just have 'til spring and I'm so thoroughly depressed I can barely make dinner. It doesn't help I picked up a walloping great cold.

Christmas is upon us and my parents are staying who have no idea of PO. I feel very weird and disconnected from the world. Almost like I can see the abandoned buildings, crumbling signs and empty stores and yet I have to pick up gifts for relatives and pretend I live in the world - that world. I'm split, at night I see dark streets and empty houses, I have an eerie feeling, like I am a ghost. I smile and laugh so they don't think I've completely flipped my lid, but really I'm looking at their faces wondering where we'll all be in 5 years... if we survive at all. They keep dreaming their dreams and spinning their plans as if the world will be the same as ever, talking about shoes. I feel like screaming. Pass the Jack Daniels please. I care about these people and it's Christmas and there should be laughter and joy and I'm sitting there not wanting to buy a damn thing, kill a bird or drive to the mall. Scenes from the Great Depression run through my head, starving folks in rags walking, chipping at the earth with pick axes, will that be me? My friends? I just want to go to my comfy bed and stay there while the heat is still on.

All the preparation just seems like alot right now, I admire Wrencher and others here who are raising chickens and goats and have land. There's so much I don't know, never bothered to learn - how stupid was I!!!!. I know I just have the blues. I really am trying to savour these last few days/weeks/years of lights and heat and cheap gas. I just have the blues. I'll learn how to knit, raise chickens, goats and make cheese. I'll learn how to garden, pressure can amazing jams, and light a fire with my bare hands. I'll make bread and train horses, build a cob house, become and excellent marksman, plant gardens fertized with my own crap, and...if I manage to escape this place...stay alive in my extra comfy sleeping bag with my jar of peanut butter. I've definitely been reading too much PO!

[Doly]

I've just realised that I have to thank my dysfunctional family for having no problems with coping with peak oil. When you have been having hell at home and pretending to the outside that everything is OK, coping with peak oil doesn't look like such a great deal. And I tell you something, going hungry doesn't look that bad compared with living with people you can't stand. Why do you think there are runaway children? I was almost one.

In short, if you can be among people that help you and appreciate you, everything else will be all right. Don't worry.

[Wrencher]

Oh, CA, you are having a bad time of it. Being an old geezer has it's perks - and it's liabilities. My kids are raised and married, but now I worry about them and my grandkids. And feel really bad that my generation used up so many resources so heedlessly.

I have had fair luck at alerting my brother and parents to PO. Blogs and websites would strike them as extreme fringe stuff, but they took a link to a couple of National Geographic articles and read them.... then they were able to go to some of less frightening sites.... and they are coming along. My dad is 82 and lived through the Great Depression. As a kid, he said that he didn't know that they were poor. I am sure the adults were well aware of it, as we are of this. When I alluded to the coming difficult times, he surprised me by looking at me somewhat sadly, and saying that he knew that this would effect my kids, and grand kids, and maybe me too, and that it wouldn't be too long before we all looked back and wished that we had conserved. It was all very knowing, and a little sad, but good because when even one friend or relative comes to realize that we are not on a constant growth trip, you have a friend and a confidant. Then you don't have to carrry the whole burden in your head.

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/ ... ltext.html
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature5/

Also, concering aquiring all the homespun skills that we will need, and that aren't taught at schools anymore..... We had a subscription to 'The Mother Earth News' for years in the 70's and 80's. We dropped it when they are sold to a more mainstream publisher and lost their 'edge' and sort of became a back woods 'Better Homes and Gardens' but found out recently that they have all the old issues on CD's for about $20. I am in trouble with my wife as I in advertantly opened an envelope that contained my Christmas present CD. You can actually read most of the articles online.

http://www.motherearthshopping.com/Moth ... ctCode=ACD

They also have ton's of books and plans available to keep you from re-inventing the wheel. The more you learn and share, the better it will be.

We moved off of our farm, so that only land we have is the lot that our house is on. I have been tempted to buy some land but have not done so yet. I look at my yard (total lot size is almost 0.25 acres) and realize that there is a lot I can do to make it more productive. Trim our trees to let in more sun and provide more firewood. Manure, manure, manure, raised beds, small solar green house, fruit trees, learn to graft fruit, plant strawberrys, solar heat and hotwater collectors. There is a lot to do - and will be for all of us. But there are a lot of resources, both local and online and we are not alone, and although the time is not great, all that we ever really have is today.

Best to all,

Wrencher

[crapattack]

Thanks so much Wrencher! *Gulp* Your words and links are most helpful, and I am planning on telling my family after the holidays are over. I don't want to ruin their enjoyment of the holidays. Whomever I tell about this I feel like I'm dropping a bomb on them - it's heart wrenching, but I also want all my loved ones to know. I really appreciate the National Geo links as my parents are older and they will really take notice and respect it if it's in that publication. I plan on showing them end of Suburbia as well.

Meanwhile for me, I need to get some sleep and like to say, people did live during the GD. It was hard but people survived. Even if I'm not one of them I will feel good knowing that there are super resourceful people out there who will survive and hopefully build a better world.

[pedalling_faster]

nobody mentioned the Tarp Mahal - an elaborately constructed edifice in NorCal constructed of heavy plastic film. works good.

[Kfish]

One - don't panic.

Two - work up gradually. You don't have to be able to support yourself from your garden and fast for two weeks tomorrow.

Three - learn some old skills - canning, pickling, jam making, growing food. Plant a choko this year, it'll fruit next. Plant fruit trees in your yard if you own them; if not, put them in big pots (seriously, I have a fruiting orange tree in a pot here!).

Four - get out and meet a bunch of people with an interest in acquiring the same skills. They hide in odd places - try medieval / historical societies. These people, particularly the purists, can do things with low-level techology that you wouldn't believe. I know a lady who learnt to spin sewing thread with a disc and spindle (used before the spinning wheel) because the spinning wheel only came along in the 1700s!

Most of all - have fun. You won't make permanent changes in your life because you're scared of the apocalypse, you'll do it because it's interesting, and fun, and rewarding, and way more interesting than TV.

Kfish.