[MD]

I remember:
Watching Grandma cook on the woodburning kitchen stove a delicious blend of home canned vegetables, potatoes, and recently cut ham.
She did the laundry on the back porch, in a hand cranked "automatic" washer wringer.
I would follow her out to the chicken yard, to gather eggs and feed the chickens.
The outhouse was cold in winter, but we had chamber pots under the bed for that midnight need.
When you were cold, you moved closer to the kitchen or to the stove in the parlor.
If you were too hot, you moved away.
Great Grandma rocked in her chair by the kitchen stove...always...
The garden was almost two acres every year. Harvest season was busy.
The cider barrels in the cellar came in "hard", and "sweet" variety. Grandpa was always ready to offer a taste of the "hard" when I happened to follow him into the cellar.

That was real, my real grandparents farm, now long dead in the past. Life was hard, but very fulfilling, stable, and purposeful.

So as you go about you day with with the plastic McWorld seeming to take on a sense of the surreal, while all about you the ants scurry along in their clueless pursuits of "happiness and a bigger mortgage", think forward to the return to a simpler time. There is no certainty that the crash will decend to the stone age. We could really be ok, in places, and in times. Have cheer, have hope.

[RonMN]

I agree with you & i HOPE for a life like that in my future...but how many will resist it? How many will wish to die without their cell phones & video games?

We will eventually get to that place you speak of...but there will be alot of uglieness before we get there

[NeoPeasant]

That kind of reminded me of a quote used in the introduction of Richard Heinburg's POWERDOWN

When I was a boy in the countryside — fifty years ago
and more — people [gardened] for self-sufficiency, for
it would not have occurred to them to do otherwise.
People were self-reliant because they had to be: it was a
way of life. They were doing what generations had done
before them; simply carrying on a traditional way of life.
Money was a rare commodity: far too valuable to be
spent on things you could grow or make yourself.
It was spent on tools or fabric for clothes or luxury foods
like tea or coffee. They would have laughed at a diet
of store-bought foods. . . .
—John Seymour, The Self-Sufficient Gardener (1979)

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RonMN', 'I') agree with you & i HOPE for a life like that in my future...but how many will resist it? How many will wish to die without their cell phones & video games?

We will eventually get to that place you speak of...but there will be alot of uglieness before we get there

[Pops]

When this board first started I was one of the original doomers. I spent lots of time posting so that enough folks would find the site important enough to start thinking of ways to lessen their reliance on oil and post their plans.

I sure see lots of big picture discussions and arguments about why there is either absolutely no hope, or nothing whatsoever to worry about and most invoke the us, we, they, them but rarely the “I”. And while I applaud all the frequent contributors to the planning forum for sharing their experiences, it sure seems folks would rather post their fantasies than their plans.


My folks on my mom’s side homesteaded in the 1880’s, were cattlemen at the turn of the century, were oilmen in the ‘20s and “defense plant okies” in the 40’s. My grandmother was born in the Indian nations and pretty well saw the entire upslope of the oil curve. I spent some time with her in an 8 x 16 foot trailer in an old farm labor camp in the ‘60s when I was about 7. No power or running water, dirt roads blah blah. Not the idyllic farm life but still one of my favorite childhood memories is eating wilted mustard greens cooked on a little sheet metal stove with bacon grease and bread.

Since this is the Psychology forum (and it’s kind of on topic, lol) I have to ask, how does a person’s upbringing affect their response to PO?

And maybe more focused on PO.com members. This is definitely a generalization but it seems that most people here have 2 things in common, free time and computer literacy. Also, I don’t know what the current makeup is but not long ago a majority were certainly under 35 or so and probably think Pac Man is ancient history - perhaps one reason for so little response to this thread.

I’m not indicting anyone’s generational designation (or whatever the 4T people cal it) so don’t get your mouse cords in a knot. The point of my question is simply this; since to many, a hard life is no cable, Twinkies or Internet, the reality of living a life such as MD described – which seems quite pleasant compared to my grandmother’s – that life is so foreign as to be a mere fantasy.

The consequence is, at least here, a red/blue divide of either doom or dream but always in the extreme depending on one’s ‘party’ – doom or dream as religion, either free energy from Pluto or eating bugs as a lifestyle choice. Rare is the post that combines worry with solution or possible solution with concern.

[vegasmade]

I'd like to say that I fully support a simpiler life. Something about..."mo money, mo problems." Unfortunately, I don't see Americans embracing the freedom from materialism and luxury. We are so consumed by our debt and irrelevant need, a smooth transition seems nieve. How can a smooth transititon be undertaken when the country is over-run with suburban sprawl and an unsustainable population level? How can our inported food be evenly distributed with one side willing to throw greenbacks at their survival, and the rest willing to throw bullets?
I can't even find the point in starting a garden or doing any other thing to prepare. When my lights go out, the water spicket goes off. Explain a smooth transition to all us fools living in the desert. Or Manhattan. I'm 24, and was less than a year away from the joys of home ownership. What's the point? Picking up and moving now will prevent me from getting financed, and why would I want the debt. What do I do? How do I stay optomistic?

[MD]

Increased age does seem to bring increased acceptance. Having been raised in a pre-media environment also makes the return much easier to accept.

I grew up thinking we were going to conquer space and by now have self-sufficient colonies on the moon and perhaps even Mars. Those ideals, always far-fetched, are now clearly out of reach. Opportunities wasted on relentless consumerism and consumption.

Those disappointments are much easier to handle than those of the younger generation, who have only known one world and must live through its decline.

Those of us with experience in a simpler life should encourage those who have none.

[Madpaddy]

MD,

I hear you. 2 years ago I used to watch Star Trek and think "when ?". Now I see sci fi like that and say "What!!!". I'm trying to figure out a usefull use for the field of nettles behind my house and I found it in John Seymour's book - Nettle Wine, can't wait to make some this weekend. Does anybody know a good reference for edible weeds because the area around my property is weed nirvana.

[MD]

I also have discovered that I enjoy ice cream and premium coffee much more deliberately now.

[bart]

Madpaddy, by "nettles" do you mean stinging nettles? That's the new wonder food here in California! There was an article on it a few months ago in the SF Chronicle:$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') brush with a stalk of springtime nettles feels like an attack of angry army ants. They sting, and can make you want to to run away.

For an increasing number of cooks, however, the bite of formic acid from the hairy leaves of stinging nettles is not something to shun, but to collect. Nettles are greens with amazing culinary and medicinal properties.

That's not something most folks would say about ants, even though ants also impart formic acid (and some people do eat them). Nettles, however, are worth putting on gloves for.

"I consider it a superfood," says Suzanne Elliott, herbalist, cooking teacher and founder of Woodsorrel herbal products in El Granada (San Mateo County).

Like spirulina, wheat grass and other nutrient-dense greens, nettles (urtica dioica) sport an impressive profile, heavy on protein and fiber. But that's not the only reason they're beloved by those in the know. "I'm just wild for them," says Elizabeth Prueitt, owner of Tartine bakery in San Francisco's Mission District.

On Bay Area menus, you can find nettles in pizza, breads, quiches, pastas, sauces and soups, and as a green -- sauteed or creamed, for example. At Manka's in Inverness, it is turned into a creamed soup.
...
Nettles' micronutrient profile blasts other greens out of the soil. They are high in calcium, iron, vitamins and "contain more chlorophyll than almost any other plant in existence," according to the editors of Organic Gardening and Farming in "Unusual Vegetables" (Rodale Press, 1978). No wonder Elliott recommends them to students and clients "if they're feeling anemic and tired. It's a very vitalizing type of herb," she says.
...
Annabelle Lenderink of Star Route Farms sells nettles regularly to a client who swats her face with the raw leaves and stems to freshen her complexion and "she looks amazing." Demand for those who are onto it isn't about to subside. "The people who buy nettles are frenetic if we're out. They're really upset,"says Lenderink, who says she sells about 70 pounds of the green a week. The uses for nettles don't end.

But the shock does. "People are always pretty shocked at first when I say stinging nettles," says Elliott. "They're amazed that once you cook it or dry it, the formic acid disperses. It has become a favorite in families after my students take home recipes for soups and spanakopita. Kids love it."

That for a vegetable that you used to run from.
...
[url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/16/FD270263.DTL&type=food]Stinging nettles: a green that can bite you back
But the benefits are worth the risk (link)[/url]

[Madpaddy]

Thanks for that bart,
Yes, I mean stinging nettles.
Seriously, since we moved to our new homestead and began gardening 3 months ago, I seem to be pulling weeds and nettles every other day. Surely some of these weeds have nutritional value, how did cultivated crops like wheat etc. begin, they must have been weeds at some stage too. Stings from nettles is also supposed to improve blood circulation!!!Also there are over 1,000,000 earthworms per acre of ground. They can be left overnight in water to purge soil from their system and eaten either raw or as a stirfry. Desperate measures admittedly but survival is survival.

Ah, here we go from amazon "Handbook of Edible Wild Plants and Weeds Vol 1 Handbook"
Fern J. Ritchie

Jesus it's over$100. That's a lot of weeds and you probably have to buy volume 2 as well for another $100.

[BlisteredWhippet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', '
')Those disappointments are much easier to handle than those of the younger generation, who have only known one world and must live through its decline.

Those of us with experience in a simpler life should encourage those who have none.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', '
')Those disappointments are much easier to handle than those of the younger generation, who have only known one world and must live through its decline.

Those of us with experience in a simpler life should encourage those who have none.