Off-Grid Living for Agrarians, Part 9: Preserving the Crop 1

This section, which is still a part of the discussion on homestead food, will be about preserving and keeping the harvest or crop. It will likely take several parts to discuss this topic fully. This series is really not very cleverly organized or laid out - but it has been a bit difficult to maintain the balance that is necessary for folks who are really new to this concept. As I've said several times, the concept of moving from a colonized urban or suburban worldly life to an off-grid agrarian life can be very overwhelming - even debilitating. I can tell you that there always seems to be more to do and more to know, and sometimes (certainly when you first start) it can seem like too much. So in writing this series, I am trying to balance some good philosophy in order to help people start out and avoid some really bad ideas out there, and I am also trying to be an encouragement that this is really something that you can and ought to do. Basically this series is about a right and good philosophy, though it is sprinkled with some very general ideas and suggestions.

I am going to review a little here. Remember that there are several different (and many very wrong) ideas about how to move into a life of off-grid agrarian living. Usually the first concept that is visualized when someone hears "off-grid" is that of alternative energy. In other words the idea here is to live basically in the same manner (with some lifestyle changes) and with the same "conveniences", but without being connected to the grid. So in this view, you would move into some alternative energy like solar, wind, or a combination of the two - and with that you would provide electricity for lights, freezers, refrigerators, and maybe even TV's and game consoles. Ok, so this is NOT what I am talking about in this series. It is so difficult for the average person to conceive of a life without these things, that this type of thinking is usually prominent at the beginning. Add the overwhelming cost of doing this type of thing to the idea of buying land, building a house, gardens, fields, tractors, etc. and you can see why most people convince themselves that this is either not doable, or at the least it will take several generations to get it done. Basically, without trying to offend anyone, this philosophy is the idea of moving to the Promised Land while taking Egypt with me. The first questions we normally get from folks run along these lines:

How will I power my power tools?
How do you keep food frozen?
How do you run lights and fans?
What about air-conditioning?
What about keeping milk, eggs, and drinks cold?

If you will remember back to the first part of this series, I mentioned that not one of these things would have even been a question in the minds of our great-grandparents. Prior to the ready availability of cheap and easy grid power, none of these things were a problem or a concern. People lived generation after generation without even considering that it might be a good idea to freeze meat for years on end, or that you might want to drop the temperature 30 degrees during the day, or that somehow ketchup and mustard need to be kept a degree or two above freezing. Add this to the fact that the average modernized suburbanite is weighted down with hundreds upon hundreds of modern time and space saving devices, each neatly fitted with a cord that plugs into a tiny receptacle in the wall - which connects all such labor and time saving devices into an enormous world-wide electrical beast - which soothes and eases each man and woman throughout their day so that they are never disquieted, unnerved, or uncomfortable, and so that they slide peacefully, easily and nonchalantly into the pit.

That is all to say that our philosophy ought always to be to simplify, downsize, and eliminate. We want to learn the old ways, not just because they are old, or because they are historical, but because they work and because they are sustainable. I do not mean "sustainable" in quite the way the modern eco-friendly folks do, though there is something to that as well; I mean "sustainable" in its literal meaning - we learn these ways because we will be able to continue in them even if the grid beast collapses and dies. We can continue in these ways without undue intercourse with a corrupt and dying world, and without being stained or harmed by too much dependence on worldly necessities. There really is no reason that you cannot grind your own coffee and wheat. There really is no reason why you need your pickle relish to be maintained at 35 degrees. There really is no valid reason to keep food frozen to 0 degrees for long periods of time. Your great-grandma didn't need a 48 inch fan or TV screen, and neither do you. Your great-granddaddy didn't need a perpetual 72 degrees in every room he entered and every minute of his life, and neither do you. The point is that we ought to get past that thinking, and when you do so, you will find that MOST of the costs and energy of moving off-grid is eliminated along with the myths and bulwarks in the mind of the colonized. If you realize that you can do the things you want to do with hard work and your own labor without paying $24,000 for an off-grid solar power system, then you just saved $24,000 and all you have to do now is learn to replace STUFF with SKILL and KNOW-HOW.

Ok, when it comes to the biggest bulwarks in the mind - I would say that freezers and refrigerators are way up there, and since we have been talking here in the last few parts about food production, the question arises - how do you store the food you produce? Well first, I'll tell you how the old-timers did it - the folks who first settled this land...

Root crops (some of the first planted and harvested) were kept in a root cellar. The root cellar was usually the first project started and completed on the land, and for good reason. When folks first came into this area of Texas they were facing a sometimes harsh climate (during the heat of summer), and though there were oaks and other trees for building, the days could get downright HOT during the 104 degree sweltering summer days while the house was being built. So the first construction was a hand-dug root cellar. There is one, probably originally built in the 30's or 40's, still existent up at the front of our property. The first excavations were basically trenches, and the width depended on how it was to be used. If a young couple or young family planned on living in it while they were building a house, the trench may be as big as 4-5 feet wide. Sometimes the original hole was dug only 5 or 6 feet deep. So you can see it didn't take long to build. The earliest "dug-outs" were really just rock-lined trenches that were covered with heavy branches and beams, then some of them would have been covered with 6-12 inches of dirt or sod. That was it. The family would live in there for awhile while the homestead was being started. Usually the next thing to go in would be the gardens and animal pens, then, when food production was up and running, the barn would be built, and finally, after that, the house building would begin. The "dug-out" would get a door and would become the first cool storage or root cellar. When the barns and the house were built, sometimes they would have a small root cellar dug up underneath them, and here is where your quick foods and condiments would be stored. Remember, ketchup and things like that were not foods that were originally designed to make french fries taste better. Ketchup (or really Catsup) was a way of storing tomatoes from the harvest. It is already designed to maintain food quality at moderate temperatures, so the idea that you need to store condiments in a refrigerator is really a very new myth. While it is true that you don't want to let Mayonnaise get really hot, it is a myth that it must stay refrigerated at 35 degrees in order to stay good. Mayonnaise was a product made from eggs and oil in order to store the egg crop. Mayonnaise is perfectly fine at root cellar temperatures. If you took everything out of the average refrigerator that doesn't need to be kept in there, you would be left with this strange and bizarre ephiphany... most Amerikans keep and feed a money sucking refrigerator for a single primary purpose - in order to have cold drinks and in order not to have to walk a few feet (or lift up a hatch door) to a root cellar to get condiments. I saw a $2100 refrigerator the other day in a store, and I bet it costs every bit of $300 a year to power that monster. Which means that in its lifetime, if interest (nobody has $2100 cash to plop down on a refrigerator, these things are usually built into a house or bought on credit) is included and all other things are taken into the equation, the owner of that refrigerator will likely pay close to $10,000 for cold drinks and cool mayonnaise. And they might even write me and tell me that separation and moving off-grid "takes time and money", etc., and "maybe we'll do it next year". My whole cabin AND root cellar cost less than $10,000. The point is that the cost of doing things the way you are already doing them is WAY more than you can afford, and it is all because of some mythology in thinking and because of colonization in the mind. So a root cellar, even a very simple one, is a much better idea. Some of the folks here in our community started with a small hole in the ground, maybe 3' x 2'; condiments and things would be put into coolers and dropped into the hole in the ground then covered with a board and some hay bales, etc. If ice is bought in bags from town, these coolers would keep milk cold for a week or more. One young couple here on the land used this method to keep milk cold for a baby and a toddler, and as far as I know they are still doing it. It works great. I read a story about a family that dug a small root cellar (maybe 5' x 5') right under their kitchen. They put a trap door on it and they put some thin shelves on the wall and a ladder down into it. They were able to keep all their condiments and almost everything else they used to keep in their refrigerator in there and it worked fine. So, in short, you do not need a refrigerator. Now, there is no problem with having one as an intermediate step, or so long as you know that when you move off-grid you will have to power it somehow; and so long as you know that if the world "system" is interrupted, your refrigerator will likely be one of the first casualties. If you are not dependent on it, and it doesn't stop you or slow you down, then there is no problem with having one. But you do not need it.

What about freezers?

This is a question I got when I was at Homestead Heritage. Agrarians like to store and preserve food, and freezing food is an easy way to preserve it, so how do you run or replace a freezer as an off-grid agrarian? Well, I confess, freezers are nice. If you read the top agrarian or homesteading writers in the magazines, you would think that freezers were actually absolutely necessary and a fact of life. I like to use the freezers mainly for meat storage, since I do not yet have a cold-smoker or an ice-house. But a freezer is really just an intermediate step, and ought not to be relied upon for anything long-term. Really, when you talk about bulwarks or road-blocks in the mind, here is where I have to face facts just like everyone else. I LIKE STEAK... and PORK CHOPS... I don't eat them very often, but I really, really like them. I really can't imagine giving up medium-rare steaks every once in awhile, especially when I have a bunch of cattle on the hoof, and a nice ribeye only costs me less than $2.00 a lb. Ok, back to work here, my mouth was starting to water. So what about freezers? Are they necessary? Well... no, they are not. Like I said, as an intermediate step, they are nice. We have three freezers of different sizes, and right now two of them are not plugged in at all. One is basically a dry storage and we use it to store gallon jugs of purified water. The other is only used when we butcher an animal or when we buy a boatload of some type of meat on sale at the store. We stick stuff in the freezer while we are processing it and canning it. Now, in the old days butchering was done in the winter for this very reason, so planning our butchering can eliminate our need for a freezer. Most butchering ought to be done between November and February (probably December and January here in Central Texas).

Canned meat can be stored in the root cellar, and when a cold-smokehouse is built, meat can be smoked and cured for long-term storage. Meat can also be "potted" - where it is cooked and stacked in a large crock. Each layer is then covered with its own grease or lard until the whole crock is full. Meat preserved this way, and kept fairly cool, could last for months and months. Meat can also be dried and then re-hydrated. Some of the old folks would cut beef or venison into strips and dry-smoke it, then hang it until it was bone dry. It could then be dry stored until it was needed. The night before it was to be used, it would be soaked in water until it had totally re-hydrated, then it could be cooked and used like normal fresh meat.

I want to stop here and make a comment about canned meat. I will engage in a longer conversation about the sustainability of canning in the next part, but for right now I want to deal with the issue of canned meat. I have heard many ignorant persons (people who have never tried it) make sarcastic and negative comments about canned meat. I can tell you from my own experience (and as a meat lover) as someone who eats canned meat several times a weak, that canned meat is very, very good. If you like beef stews with big huge chunks of steak in it, then canned meat is for you. If you like beef stroganof, or pork and rice, etc., then you will really like canned meat. The first canned meat I ever had that didn't come from a store was when I stayed with some friends and they made some venison stew. It tasted EXACTLY like beef stew. It was tender and delicious. Last night for supper Danielle made beef stew from beef we canned a year ago when we bought some roasts on sale. The meat was cubed in about 1 1/2 inch squares and canned. Danielle made stew from our homegrown canned green beans, some veggies left over from earlier in the week, some rice, canned tomatoes, etc. It was really very good. My favorite regular meal right now is pork and rice from our canned pork, and it is a good thing because if there are two things we have a lot of, it is pork and rice. So there is no problem at all with canning meat. It is easy and it preserves very well. As time goes by, more and more of the bulk of our butchered animal is being canned - even hamburger and ground sausage, sausage patties, and bacon. Most mornings we have fried bacon from bacon that we canned, with fresh eggs, fried potatoes, and tortillas or biscuits.

We intend to move towards more curing, cold-smoking, drying, and potting - but for now we are canning most of our meat.

Another long-term solution will be for us to build a springhouse and an icehouse. An icehouse is a very well insulated building, built either below ground, above ground, or in some combination of the two, and designed to store ice for long periods of time. A springhouse is, ideally, a rock or concrete building where cold water from a natural spring or creek is diverted for the purpose of keeping food cold. In the average springhouse, a trough of stone or wood was built into the sides of the walls and the cold moving water would fill the trough. The jars of food, milk, butter, etc. could be placed in the water to stay cold. In our area, a springhouse could be built in conjunction with an icehouse so that the melt runoff from the icehouse could be diverted into the springhouse troughs to keep food and beverages cold.

So, for your notes - smokehouse, springhouse, icehouse. All these were very widely included in many homesteads only a century ago.

Ok, more on food preservation in the next part.

God Bless,

Michael Bunker