10:20 – We finished watching Amanda Foreman’s The Ascent of Woman last night. After it ended, I commented to Barbara that I thought the whole series could be summed up as, “A few women spoke out; almost no one listened to them; they died a horrible death; and nothing much changed.” I do agree with Foreman that one important metric by which a society should be judged is how it treats its women. On that basis, I think English-speaking and western European countries set the standard. Despite what progs claim, women in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Europe have full equality. These women are better off than women anywhere or anywhen in the history of the world.
Barbara is out preparing for a mulch delivery. She planted bushes in front of the porch on the driveway side. She’s also going to make a bed on the other side of the stairs in which we’ll plant herbs. The guy at the nursery confirmed that our last freeze date up here is typically mid-May, so we’ll keep our baby herb plants in pots on the deck until then. If it’s to be very cold, we can just bring them inside.
When I took Colin out at 0645 this morning, he pulled me down around the side of the house, went into his alert stance, and started stalking the dozen or so gigantic squirrels he’d spotted right along our back fence. I explained to him that those were Black Angus squirrels, and that they’d stomp the shit out of him, given half a chance. He reluctantly abandoned stalking them and came back up into the front yard to do what he’s supposed to do.
When Barbara read my page yesterday, she said, “No more flour.” I hope to convince her that every guy has to have a hobby and mine is collecting bulk staples. It’s a pretty inexpensive hobby, after all.
Obviously what you need to do is start a pointless, annoying, and above all expensive hobby. When your wife can’t take it any more, offer to go back to collecting bulk staples.
SteveF has a brilliant strategy as always. However given that you haven’t sold the old house yet, I think the time has not come for that strategy yet. I think it’s time to switch from flour to corn meal.
If you decide to go with Steve’s idea, may I suggest that you need a decent amateur radio like the ICOM IC-7851. Once you have that, as long as you aren’t within 20,000 feet of an airport runway, then you need a 200 foot tower to hold the antenna.
We have 25 or 30 pounds of cornmeal in our pantry already. I’ll probably add another 100 pounds over the coming months.
“… then you need a 200 foot tower to hold the antenna.”
And you’ll need several of those. Also the tuners for them, not to be confused with the fish.
Given your much larger stock of flour, I’m going to assume that if ever SHTF you’re going to grow so tired of wheat bread and noodles, that you’ll be thinking I’d really like some cornbread for a change after you’ve run out of corn meal. Unless of course, you really, really don’t like cornbread.
Glad you clarified “tuners” for me @OFD.
BTW, I do not recall any discussion of a hand powered grain mill being in the prepper’s toolkit. Whole grains store for a lot longer than milled grains.
The majority of my stored flour and corn meal is actually whole grain. I have no secret formula for milled to whole grain, I have 3-months of milled grains and the rest is whole. BTW, I do use what I store here so as I use milled grain I replace it with newly milled grain from my whole grain supply and then replace whole grain.
Yeah, I mention a hand-powered grain mill in the draft manuscript. The problems are (a) a good-quality mill costs $400 or thereabouts, and (b) it takes a lot of time and effort to grind grains, particularly if you’re taking it down to fine flour.
The first and only time I ground grain manually, I cranked and cranked for what seemed like hours. I figured I should have gotten about a 50-pound bag worth of flour for that amount of effort, but what I ended up with was about 1.5 cups. Geez.
Then there’s the fact that what you end up with is whole-grain flour. Hawk, spit.
We store reasonable amounts of various grains/carbohydrates, including white flour, sugar, rice, oatmeal, spaghetti, macaroni and other pastas, egg noodles, corn meal, etc. etc.
At about $25/100 pounds at Costco, white flour is so cheap that I don’t really care that its shelf life is shorter than wheat berries. Repackaged properly, it’s good for at least 10 years. Even if I discarded it after 10 years, which I wouldn’t, it’d still cost me only $500–a buck a week–to keep literally a ton of flour on hand. At one pound per day per person, that ton would suffice to feed one person for about 5.5 years (although it doesn’t provide complete nutrition or sufficient calories, of course). Add 330 pounds of beans, and that would provide enough calories, protein, and everything else other than salt and lipids for 5.5 person-years.
Incidentally, I’ve actually eaten bread that was made from flour that had been packed in mason jars 40 years before. It had a bit of “off” flavor, but it still made pretty decent bread. I’ve eaten worse that was fresh.
WRT hand cranked grain mills: mine is relatively old and purchased at a Bosch store that used to run by some LDS folks. I have no recollection what I paid for it 37-years ago, but I am sure it was less than $100.00. However, with inflation being what it is it might just be over $400.00 today. Granted it is slow, but I fill a mason jar in just a few minutes. The ones I see on Amazon today look like POS. Ask at the LDS warehouse.
Edit:
Went over to the Lehman’s web site, my mill is a lot like this one:
https://www.lehmans.com/p-2844-lehmans-own-hand-cranked-grain-mill.aspx
Lehman’s used to have a lot more products. Looks to me like if you plan on prepping for a time with no power you should be concentrating on getting non-power tools/equipment and learning how to use it ASAP.
The Country Living manual mill runs about $400, and is what I’d buy if I wanted a mill.
Definitely with a flywheel option so it could be hooked up to a bicycle or treadmill or something.
Even with that, or maybe especially with that, I’d have serious doubts about the one at Lehman’s for any kind of serious use. It looked too light to stand up to grinding the grain to feed a family, and the attachment to the table looked especially flimsy.
“The first and only time I ground grain manually, I cranked and cranked for what seemed like hours. I figured I should have gotten about a 50-pound bag worth of flour for that amount of effort, but what I ended up with was about 1.5 cups. Geez.”
How did they do it in the Middle Ages? Sounds like more energy is consumed than is worth it.
Water- or ox-driven millstone.
In the Middle Ages and for a long time thereafter, peeps brought their grain to the miller, who had a big-ass stone config at his mill, usually driven by wotta power.
There Is No Escape Department:
Back page headline from our local rag today: “Celebrating diversity at St. Albans City School”
The article continues with the sort of PC claptrap and rubbish that you’d expect, plus they brought in a couple of exotic foreign types to jazz the kids up with how groovy and colorful life can be, etc., etc.
What we find hilarious, though, is that the kids, mirroring their local AO here, are about 98% Cock-A-Soid, sad though that is, and actual diversity is when a couple of them might be French or Italian Cock-A-Soids.
We devoutly hope and pray that the next “Spirit Week” celebrating the Goddess Diversity will include NORK-style self-criticism sessions and a good examination and beat-down of their white privilege.
Hey Dr. Bob,
Any update on The Prepping Book That Never Ends publishing date?
“Ashen Winter (Ashfall Trilogy)” by Mike Mullin
http://www.amazon.com/Ashen-Winter-Ashfall-Trilogy-Mullin/dp/1933718986
Book number two of a three book series. Young adult post apocalyptic series about the Yellowstone super volcano erupting. This particular book is set six months after the eruption. The book format is trade paperback, my favorite. This is not a POD book.
There is 2 to 3 ft of volcanic ash in Iowa and Illinois. Now after six months of forced volcanic winter, there is another 2 to 4 ft of ice and snow on top of the ash. Everyone is now starving and the cannibals are everywhere. So, our hero and his girl take off looking for his parents who took off looking for him.
One should prepare in a very general nature for this and other types of events. History tells us that non-interesting times are limited in scope and tend to change quickly and violently. A very minimum set of things to do is:
1. three months of water storage for each person in the house
2. three months of food storage for each person in the house
3. some sort of protection against crazy people, I prefer guns and ammo
4. there are many other things that you can do to prepare for natural disasters, traumatic life events, national wars, civil wars, etc
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (191 reviews)
Apropos the discussion here a couple of days ago in re spelling and grammar, I give you:
Angry Brit: Correcting Grammar Is Racist, Classist, and Censorious
From the article:
Apparently having good grammar or correcting someone else’s grammar means you are a racist and experiencing yet another form of “white privilege.” At least that’s what The Guardian’s data editor, Mona Chalabi believes. Chalabi also thinks grammar rules were created by wealthy white people and can be ignored by minorities without facing any criticism:
Dunno about the rest of you, but I find this incredibly liberating. Think of it: No longer is it necessary for us to exert ourselves creating new and exotic ways of committing micro- and macro-aggressions; we can PO the SJWs merely by practicing what we learned in grade school.
Whoot!
“…we can PO the SJWs merely by practicing what we learned in grade school.”
+1,000
“Whoot!”
+1,000,000
““We should spend more time listening to what others have to say and less focusing on the grammar what they say it with,””
Bullshit! You brainless friggin’ hosebag! Why should we listen to peeps who can’t even be bothered to learn and use the Master Language of the Universe correctly? Why must we stoop to their idiotic and moronic levels of trashy discourse? Kiss my mostly English ass, you dizzy dollymop!
““We should spend more time listening to what others have to say and less focusing on the grammar what they say it with,””
Out of the mouth of, well, not a babe by any stretch of the imagination.
(I can’t believe I missed that “what” the first time around; I’m definitely slipping …. 🙁 )
Haven’t heard dollymop in ages… sounds good.
I wonder if the next time this gormless dollymop is in public, we can grunt and hoot at her. Bet she’d see that as racist? Yet, it’s her ancestral communication….so that should be ok, nothing white cismale heteronormative patriarchal involved there….
nick
“… white cismale heteronormative patriarchal…”
Yes, the terrible curse under which I labor and suffer…O the horror…the agony…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJSRfztl_tc
Lead guitar by the great Mick Jones, formerly of Spooky Tooth, and prior to that, working with Johnny Hallyday in La Belle France. Lou Gramm had a killer voice but hard living and a cruel disease whacked him badly.
“… white cismale heteronormative patriarchal…”
NTTAWWT! 🙂
(Dating myself, I know …)
-shrug- Look at her name, or look at her picture if you don’t recognize Chalabi as an Arabic name. I don’t know if she was born in England or was an immigrant, but it hardly matters. Islamorrhoids are very poorly integrated into British society, preferring to remain festering sores.
Furthermore, look at darling Mona’s resume. You will not see much to suggest a hard-headed attachment to objective facts.
-shrug- She works at The Wanker. You don’t expect any better, do you?
OFD recognized her immediately as one of the Annointed Ones, except that she’s clearly in contravention of musloid strictures on several levels. I would not be shocked if a fatwa was issued against her.
When the Great Pushback gets going good, peeps like her will be cowering in their cellars until hauled out for the ritual tar-and-feathering and being ridden outta town on a rail. Mouthy SJW wallyhogs will either have to STFU or be consigned to the BBQ pits at inner-city slag-heap intersections.
They don’t seem to have a clue as to how much ordinary people are sick and tired of listening to their rants and watching them.