Scattershooting in the end of April

4/29/08 - 3rd Day - Late Afternoon. This is the second post today, so make sure to read the other'n first. I hope you were able to watch the butchering slide show. If you watch it again, and you will click on the first picture, it will add a "commentary" with titles and descriptions of all the pictures.

The Revolution will NOT be Pasteurized... a must read article. For those in our group here, I really mean that it is a must read, as in... you must read it because I am assigning it. After reading it, check out another great article from the same writer: Swine of the Times.

"In short, we're facing a crunch in just about every natural resource you can name"...
Which is fine, so long as no one starts hoarding food.

Herrick Kimball is a Wheat Hoarder... and so am I.

From ShelfReliance.com:

Rotation Suggestions for Properly Packaged Dry-pack Foods

(when stored in a cool, dry place under ideal conditions)

Baking Soda 25+ years
Beans (dried) 6-8 years
Carrots (dried) 8-10 years
Cocoa up to 20 years
Cornmeal up to 5 years
Eggs (dried) 3-5 years
5 years
Freeze Dried Fruits and Vegetables up to 8 years
Fruit (dried) up to 5 years
Milk (nonfat dry) up to 20 years
Pasta (Spaghetti/ Macaroni) 6-8 years
Potatoes (instant) up to 30 years
Pudding 5 years
Rice up to 8 years
Rolled Oats up to 30 years
Salt 2indefinite (best within 5 years)
Soup Mix 4-5 years
Sugar indefinite (best within 2 years)
Sugar (powdered) indefinite (best with in 12-18 months)
Sugar (brown) indefinite (best with in 6 months)
TVP up to 10 years
Wheat up to 30 years

Rotation Suggestions for Wet-pack foods

(when stored in a cool, dry place under ideal conditions)

Canned Fruit/Vegetables 2-3 years
Canned Soups 2-3 years
Chili/ pork & beans 2-3 years
Honey 1-2 years
Jam/jelly/preserves 1-2 years
Syrup/molasses 12 months
Mayo 6-9 months
Peanut butter 6-9 months
Salad dressing 9-12 months
Vinegar 2-3 years
Ketchup 1-2 years
Canned Meat 1-2 years
Canned Fruit Juices 2-3 years
Tuna Fish 2-3 years
Shortening 3-4 years
Oil 1 year

Storage Suggestions

Store dry-pack items in a cool, dry location away from sunlight. Store them on shelves or on a raised platform rather than directly in contact with concrete floors or walls. Also, make sure to rotate water yearly.

Now, I am a food storage advocate and I have been for a very long time, but I must say that storing purchased food is not a permanent (or even a very good) answer to the fears and concerns Herrick mentions in his blog. The long term answer is for us to produce and store food that we have grown ourselves, or that we have purchased, bartered, or traded from a neighbor, or a fellow Christian brother. The permanent answer is to return to a lifestyle that does not require us to buy food from stores or industrial suppliers. For supper last night I had pork (from our pigs) and rice (from storage), but the rice could just as easily have been potatoes or sweet potatoes that we grow here. For breakfast I had goat sausage (we made) and Malt-o-Meal, but the Malt-o-Meal will one day be oats or wheat we grow here. For dinner (noon meal) today I had a great salad from our garden. For supper we will be having cooked greens with pork. Once we are able to butcher a few beeves, we will be able to mix up our meat offerings a bit. If the Lord wills, we will be butchering a steer this fall. Anyway, the point is that God intended us to be producers and not consumers. This manipulative vulnerability to swings in the availability and prices of food "commodities" ought not affect us.

What is Time to a Pig?

Tempus porco nihil est.” -— Time to a pig means zilch. (Boynton 5)

We think of time as a concern to people, rather than farm animals. But “while pigs are not people, they are part of history, and indeed may be occupying it far more fruitfully” (Burstein 121–122) than a certain similar tasting mammal.

Pigs, in fact, do think of time, but metaphysically, and in so doing they doubt that it properly exists. They only know the present is as indefinite as what's for dinner, the future has no reality other than as a present hope of the next pleasurable indulgence, and the past has no reality other than as a present memory of the last succulent scent or morsel.

So for now, those time framers who ask such questions can watch ontology beating up on epistemology, as their considerations about time are mocked by time meaning nothing. But for the rest of us who appreciate the time difference, the fact that “to a pig time means nothing is… a position to be envied” (Burstein 122).

This all comes from a pretty nice website devoted to Pigs: Welcome to Porkopolis, and the Pig Timeline

It is interesting that hogs were once raised primarily for lard - for lighting, cooking, food storage, etc., and tasty meat was really just an added bonus. People wanted really fat and happy pigs. But after 1859 when Edwin Drake struck oil in Pennsylvania, demand for hog lard, and thus for pigs, declined. Now, people raise pigs for meat, and they really don't want or need the lard. This is why so-called pig "experts" will tell you to butcher a hog at 200-250 pounds. They will say, "after 250 lbs., the pig puts on more fat per pound of feed, and thus is less efficient. Well, first of all we ought to be feeding our pigs what they naturally eat (free range and slops) and not grain by the pound. Second, if we will wean ourselves from petroleum products and grid electricity, we will find that the pigs we raise provide plenty of oil for lighting and other needs.

A necessary lecture on free market economics (as it relates to food shortages) from The Moscow Times of all places.

All of this is making me hungry, and all I had was a salad for dinner.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker