MEANDERING

It's really nice this morning. Sorta overcast with a nice cool breeze to make you comfortable. There are spots of blue and they are very pretty. I recall those photographs taken of the Earth from outer space back in the day. The beautiful blue planet. So special, floating around on it's orbit. So clean looking and sorta hopeful. One wonders how it will look over the next few years. Will it be clouded up with ugly dirty clouds full of ashes? Will it become so polluted that men sicken of it's air on occasion? Will the Gulf of Mexico look black and oily? One begins to wonder. I know that a lot of humanity goes to bed at night hungry and thirsty. We have not had to do much of that here in America. But a lot of folks go to bed with hunger unspeakable. Not too much of that here in the good ol' USA but across the globe it is an everyday occurrence. Humanity either learns to deal with it or die. But a lot of them still die. And that could be coming our way in a month or two. Almost a big joke ain't it? Nothing like that can happen to America. The major fault with that thinking is that it is wrong. It can happen here and most likely it WILL happen here. Right here in America the beautiful, the place of spacious skies and amber waves of grain, people will starve to death. I look out my window at the hills covered with green and it is not likely possible, at least while it is like this. The wife and Brother-in-Law are down at the garden weeding as I type this. Food in abundance. But can I guarantee it will stay that way? No. I cannot. We are finding out more and more, day by day, just how fragile man's existence really is on this planet. A busted oil rig in the Gulf can set us back a decade on some of our food. And you will find out just how much we depend on that Gulf. I am afraid it is a lot. And if some hurricane comes on an sucks up a lot of oil and dumps it on our cropland we have had the meat throwed to us. Very unfortunate. And remember that Hurricane Katrina got all the way in to Ohio after trashing New Orleans and surrounding areas. I reckon that since they used the chemical dispersant on the oil plumes that the oil will be a lot easier to pick up and take somewhere else.





Dan the Man from Ohio said they were getting rained out up by Toledo. Plumb soaked through and through up there. And a big rainstorm coming in even as I type. A few inches are forecast. This could raise havoc with their crops and gardens this season. I reckon they have pretty good dirt up there since it used to be a swamp. Only problem is, it would seem to be heading back to being a swamp and this does not speak well for preppers. I like it here in the uplands of southern Indiana. You have plenty of bottom ground that can grow you a hell of a crop if it don't flood out and you have higher ground to grow food. Food you don't want to lose. And in the days ahead we don't want to lose any food. A couple, maybe three, years ago I bought the Handmaiden a one gallon old-fashioned canning jar. It has a glass lid and a wire restraint on it and it is a thing out of our past. Cost me a good part of a $10 bill to get it. But she keeps the darn thing on her kitchen shelves and stores Cranberry beans in it. She can glance at the jar and tell when it is time to go to the stash to get some more beans. And that can happen more frequently than you might imagine. We can eat the hell out of those beans. Regular beans, soup beans, chili with beans, and all of them with cornbread of course. I found a recipe for old fashioned Spoon Bread the other day and she has fixed it twice since then. It has been over 50 years since I ate spoon bread and it sure is good. She tossed a can of hominy in it for the first try and it was delicious. Mixing a little grated cheese in the batter don't hurt it a damn bit either. It is pretty simple food but it is so good and it has the stuff you can live on. The corn is your grain and the beans are your legume and that adds up to a complete protein. The Handmaiden just came in and told me that we no longer have access to a tiller for our garden crops. Looks like it is back to the hoe and pulling the weeds. And that is a method that works. But it is work and maybe you don't feel like doing that all the time but you have to or you may lose your garden to the weeds. But that is life and we aim to live so here we go. Wish us luck.



So whatever happens we will keep plugging along. Getting some extra food here and there. Getting some more ammo and medicine. Buying good sturdy clothing that won't wear out too quick. Prepping never ends and don't ever think it does. It is just something that is in the back of your mind constantly, without even thinking about it. You know, I can get into the seed business on about 10 acres of land easily. If you are just growing for seed, 10 acres will produce a lot of the stuff. And it will be a good business. You might figure out if you can do it yourself and get in on the next big thing. Eating never seems to go out of style. Stay alive.



Michael



mboone@rtccom.net