SAME OLD STUFF

I just got through looking at the market results for the day and it is the same old story. No one knows what to do about a damn thing. So be it! I am tired of watching the dumb bunnies in their struggle to fight the inevitable.

Maybery and somne others are making great strides in their prepping routines. I am enjoying their works. These guys have a crack at surviving the coming bad times.

I am still going for beans and corn from my garden. I am admonishing others to do the same or something close to it.

I do see a lot of money being spent on pistols that I would never buy. If I have to go out and the area is not secure I will go with a shotgun. I can go get my mail with a shotgun in my hands. I can go with a lookout also. I ain't paying $700 for a pistol to handle the job.

A couple guys are doing the camping trailer thing. Dragon is doing a Yurt. People are using their imaginations and their personal talents to handle their need for shelter in case of hard times.

The real good news is that people are prepping. And they are doing a prety good job of it. There are people who are helping other people and you don't find that at the bank or at Walmart. Help from people is a great step down the road of survival. The way things look right now I am going to keep going along with my prediction of food riots this Summer.

Not only do I have the inside track on the weather, courtesy of Dragon, but I now have the knowledge of floods in the corn belt. The floods are going to raise hell with our food production this year and the USA doesn't produce much of anything anymore BUT food. If we can't produce food then we are sunk. Face it.

Our landmark buildings in Nu Yawk Sity are being sold. So long, America. The Chrysler Building and the Flatiron Building have been sold. "Good morning America, how are ya'? Don't you know that I'm your native son. I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans and I'll be gone 500 miles when the day is done." Man. This country really used to be something. But we had progress, you see. And our country has been sold out from under us. And I am saddened by that. We were the country with broad shoulders. We had the steel from our mills and the steel of our souls. I hate to see some of it go. But, it's a new class and the blackboard has to be completely cleaned. Let's see know...the East and West coast will be sold off piece meal. That leaves the middle where I live. I'll hold out as long as God allows. And I think he will allow.

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HERE'S A POST FROM WOLVERINE
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One Cheap Dinner





This story starts back a couple months. My youngest son had taken a load of scrap down to the yard for a little extra cash. While he was at the non-ferrous yard a guy comes in trying to scrap out a pair of case iron frying pans. The man is told those go across the road to the ferrous yard and he says screw it, he will toss them in the dumpster if that is ok. My son, being that same quiet, shy, type that his father is, asks the guy if he can have them. Number Two son tosses the nine inch fry pans into his truck and brings them home. We put them out in the barn in the barter stuff.

Ok, today I get home from work and find Number One son here. He came up to use my computer and print out some stuff and to get some food. After we chat for a while he decides to go to a neighboring town and do some dumpster diving. He has always had good luck there for some reason and figures, WTF, he had the time. I ride along for moral support and to act as a lookout I guess.

We pull around back of the store and the dumpsters a brimming with stuff. We find sweet corn, potatoes, blueberries, raspberries, bananas, melons, tomatoes, mushrooms, bread, donuts and a load of meat. Some stuff is cool to the touch and some is the temps as the 80 degree ambient air. We are selective and gather the stuff that we feel is still safe to eat. We both lamented the fact that the meat was hot to the touch. We also left the tomatoes since there is a national recall because of the salmonella outbreak. They are probably fine, but why…..

Number One grabs some chicken out of the freezer from an earlier raid on the same dumpster and we start dinner. Number One likes to cook, is good at it, and can make a great meal out of almost nothing. He makes a Lebanese sauce for the chicken and starts grilling them. I dice up a couple potatoes and toss them in the only frying pan in the house. I then cut up a package of mushrooms and realize that we only brought one frying pan with us when we moved back to the farm. I ran out to the barn and spotted the two barter pans. I took them over to a sand pile and scrubbed them out, washed them up in the sink and set them on the store to warm. A coating of oil and they were ready to go. (Yes, I know I needed to bake them and all that but I didn’t have the time. Besides, you would be surprised what you can sometimes do and it still works.) The mushrooms went in a pan and those were cooking away.

Number One son come back in from the grill and puts a handful of backpacking French onion soup in the spuds. He adds some spices and juices to the mushrooms and spuds and then we wash the fruit and make up three fruit bowls to go with dinner. The wife comes home from work just as we are setting the last of the food on the table.

Dinner was grilled Lebanese chicken, browned potatoes with French onion soup sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and three fruit salad in a bowl. Pumpernickel bread and butter were served as well, but no one ate that. Every single item on the table except the butter came out of a dumpster. Our only cost was the spices and ingredients that we used for the cooking. Even one of the fry pans came out of a dumpster as it were. More meals or at least parts of meals will come from the items we still haven’t used up yet.

One cheap meal a week and how much money could you save? I know we saved a fair amount on the grocery bill today. These times call for some non-traditional thinking. My wife laughed when we told her where her dinner came from, but we still can’t tell her until after she has eaten or she won’t eat. Still she has come a long way. If my wife can learn to laugh at a dumpster dinner then there is hope for all your spouses. As for Number One son and I; we are always on the lookout for one cheap dinner.

Wolverine
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HERE IS A REPLY FROM RANGERMAN
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. . interesting.

My father runs the transfer station for a small town. I don't know how much stuff I've scored through him, but it's a lot. I have a nice Echo weed wacker that I've been using for 5 years that came from the transfer station. A woman was throwing it out, my father was helping her, he set the weed wacker to the side, she left, he tried it, and it fired right up. I've had no problems with it for 5 years, and I still use it.

We recently replaced our small, old television with a larger, old television from the transfer - works great. Lumber, I've scored tons of lumber from the transfer station, salvaged concrete blocks, etc. I've even received a soldier's kevlar helmet and nice camo netting that a game warden was throwing out. This doesn't count the numerous old Nintendo game systems, and misc. other tons of stuff that he's given me to place on eBay where I've sold stuff for big money. I sold an old cast iron kids John Deere tractor for $200+ on eBay - from the transfer station. An old set of brass horse stirrups for $150+. I sold an older marine Garmin GPS from the transfer station for $100. The list goes on. I split the eBay profits with him.

Talk about scrap metal, he and his co-worker salvage all of the gas grill covers, copper, electrical wire, etc. until they have a pickup load, and they usually score about $700 - each! It takes 8-10 months to get that much, but still. People throw out old doors all the time, and he has a guy that makes signs, gives my father $5 for each old door. There was a cedar swingset maker that would throw out 4x4 and 4x6 scrap pieces of cedar up to 4' long. I use them for container gardening. I use salvaged metal fence posts to hold up the fencing that keeps the deer out.

You'll particularly like this one. This one woman came to the transfer station a few years ago, my father was helping her unload her trash, he tossed one bag into the compactor and heard an abnormal *ting* sound. She left and he went to investigate, opened up the trash bag and found - I'm not kidding - a 9mm Astra handgun. The barrel was removed and sawed in half with a hacksaw, and the recoil spring was toast. My father, having retired from the law enforcement field years ago, had a past co-worker of his run the serial number - no problems. This was just their way of getting rid of it. He gave it to me, and I called all over God's creation before I finally found a replacement barrel and recoil spring for 90-some bucks.

I presently have a variety of items including an old stereo sound mixer, another Nintendo, and a really old electric massage . . thingy . . that I'm waiting to list on eBay, probably in November as people gear up for the holidays.

I've yet to eat any of the food, though . . .

- RM
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Stay alive!

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net