Will Your Thanksgiving be Depletion or Abundance?

I love all of the news reports about shortages this holiday season.  And by love, what I mean to say is that I find it amusing, but also worrisome, because the general flavor of the reporting falls firmly into that fearmongering that has been so much a part of the narrative for too long.  

The message is "Be worried!"  "You're going to be deprived!"  "Your family is going to starve!" 

Really? 

I mean, is it the worst thing, ever, to NOT have a turkey at Thanksgiving?  

There have been many Thanksgivings here at Chez Brown at which a turkey was not only NOT featured as part of our Harvest meal, but we didn't even have turkey on the table.  One year we had rabbit, because we raise rabbits, and they are, actually, a part of our harvest.  One year we had lobster, because we live in Maine and lobster is local, to us.  One year everything we had was local, and some of it was even foraged. We made an "acorn pie" using a pecan pie recipe and subbing acorns for pecans and our own maple syrup for the corn syrup the recipe called for.

Recently, I saw a report that stuffing is going to be in short supply.  What?  The fact is that "stuffing" is super easy to make, right at home, with ingredients most people already have in their kitchens.  Bread (mine's gluten free, and any bread item will do.  I've made it with hotdog buns cut into cubes).  Broth or water.  Sage and other herbs.  Butter.  Onions.  I use celery salt rather than actual celery.  Stuffing does NOT have to be something that we don't get at Thanksgiving, because there aren't enough boxes of the premade stuff to go around.  Just sayin'.

I read these reports ... well, mostly just the headlines, and I just shake my head.  

And I wonder what the end game is for the people who are doing the reporting, or for the people who are asking that the story be told.  What do they want US to do?

At the beginning of 2020, when there were reports of this pandemic happening in other parts of the world, and then, when it became clear that it was happening here, too, the grocery store shelves were stripped of all sorts of (to me) very strange items.  Nearly anything in a can or a box was snatched up.  There was no pasta or pasta sauce.  The cereal aisle was pretty empty.  In fact, most things in the center of the store - the premade stuff - was gone.  

But there were plenty of eggs and flour for making pasta, and the produce aisle was as well-stocked as always.  I even found tomatoes for $0.25/lb.  Yes, that was 25 CENTS! per pound.  

The problem was that those people who believed the headlines and ran out to the stores to get prepared were then criticized and called "hoarders."  During that time, I actually saw a commentary by the food banks about how people should not be "hoarding" food, because then, the food banks won't get any of it, and they won't have anything to give their clients.  Say, what?  

I think the biggest problem is that too many folks just don't know how or don't have the time or energy to cook for themselves, and they depend on boxed and prepared foods.  As prices continue to rise, this fact will make getting good food harder for the people who depend on convenience.

My daughter is in the kitchen right now.  She's making lunch for herself and her boyfriend.  Lunch is a bagel with sausage, egg, and cheese, hashbrows (grated potato and onion, fried in butter), and sauteed broccoli with crumbled feta.  It smells as yummy as it sounds.  

And not. one. thing. in that meal came in a box.  The sausage is from our pig share.  The eggs are from our chickens.  The broccoli is from my garden.  The potatoes and onion are from the farmstand.  The butter and cheese are both from local creameries.  The bagels are a local bakery.  

I don't think my daughter is too worried about shortages this Thanksgiving.  I think she's pretty confident that whatever we have, it will be good, and she won't be hungry.

The point, for me, is to be grateful and "give thanks" for the bounty of the harvest.  Getting fixated on the need to include very specific food items is not a part of the day for my family.

Our "harvest meal" this year will be something like:

Ham (part of our pig share) or smoked chicken

GF sourdough bread 

potatoes, probably boiled and whipped

Brussels sprouts or Kale, or both

Baked brie with a blueberry topping

Pumpkin pie or custard, if we have enough eggs. 

If we believe we are being deprived, then we will feel deprived.  I choose not to feel deprived, and to be bit more resilient than those who are listening to the news and worrying that they won't have everything they need to make Thanksgiving a feast.  We'll have a feast, or at very least, just a nice meal.

The next day, I'll slice up some potatoes, make a cheese sauce, add the leftover ham, top with the leftover stuffing or cubed sourdough bread, and bake for a cheesy potato casserole.  Sounds yummy, and even without boxed stuffing and a turkey, I'm pretty sure our bellies will be full. 

And that's what matters, right?

Throwback Thursday - 21 Days Until Collapse

In September 2008, I participated in a thought exercise that ultimately led to the writing of Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs: the Thrivalist's Guide to Life Without Oil.

The challenge, launched by G4s (Backyard) Homestead, was to imagine that we knew in 21 days something catastrophic was going to happen that would change the world as we knew it.  It was the imminent TEOTWAWKI.  

What's funny is that, today, here in our world, 13 years later, the end of the world as we know it has happened.  We had a pandemic.  Our economy is in shambles.  We are experiencing massive shortages of everything from dog food to automobiles.  Everyone is (finally) admitting that Climate Change is a reality we are going to have to learn to live with as the weather gets weirder and more severe.

What's disturbing is that I haven't really seen any significant changes in people's behaviors.  

Or maybe I have.

I met a woman at work the other day who has moved here from away to set up an off-grid homestead.  she had a LOT of questions.  I haven't met anyone, in person or online, in a very long time who was a "back-to-the-lander."  I almost gave her a copy of my book to check out.  If she comes back, I will. 

But most people seem to be just hanging on to what they have, with no thought to what they will do as that life they knew pre-2020 doesn't return.  Like twigs in a flood - being tossed by the turbulent water with no control and no idea where they will end up. 

The temperature (finally) dropped below freezing last night.  It was our first frost of the year.  It's November.  That's unusual.

In response to the warmer weather we've had, I planted peas in late September.  They never flowered (to become peas), but the stalks are lovely.  We can eat the leaves, and if not us, I can feed them to my rabbits.  It's something.

Today's post is from back in 2008, when I was participating in the exercise inspired  by G4s.

Enjoy!  

And let me know what you're doing in response to what's happening in the world. 

================================  

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Collapse: T-Minus Eighteen Days ... and Counting

I have it on good authority that collapse is imminent. We have eighteen days.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Yesterday, I read the book Christmas After All: The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift from the Dear America Series. For the past two or three years (since I first heard about Peak Oil), I've been obsessed with 1930's literature and stories about the Great Depression. I finally read Ironweed by William Kennedy. The book is lauded as one of the 100 Top 20th Century Books written in English. I was expecting The Grapes of Wrath, but unlike the Joads, most of Francis Phelan's hardships were directly related to his choices and actions. In short, had he done things differently, it's more likely than not that he wouldn't have been forced to live in a shanty-town or visit the soup kitchens. It was because he spent the bulk of his money on alcohol and because when he drank he was violent.

In the 1930's era story, Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, one of the main characters similarly experiences financial ruin that is directly attributable to his choices. He seems to want to be a sympathetic character, as does Francis Phelan in Ironweed, and maybe I missed something, but I was unable to feel any empathy for either character. In Dreiser's book, the guy became enamored of Carrie, left his wife and stole from the company where he worked so that he could run away with her. And then, when he found he needed to get a job, he wouldn't accept something that was beneath him until it was too late to be anything but a scab. He made a lot of very bad, very selfish choices. In short, I felt he got what he deserved.

I guess the point is that we're not twigs caught up in a stream, at least most of us aren't, and barring environmental catastrophe (which is what happened in the "dust bowl" areas of Oklahoma, Kansas and the Texas panhandle), most of us, while we may experience some financial hiccups in the coming days, will have chances to adjust our lives as the market fluctuates up and down.

At the moment, there is still time. At the moment.

We have choices. We have opportunities. And if we heed these early "warnings" and use this time to make some changes in our lives, instead of trying to hang onto the sinking ship that is our "modern life", the coming storm will be little more than an inconvenience.

In all of the Great Depression literature the common denominator is always food security. A person can tolerate a lot of hardship with a full belly ... or at least the guarantee of a regular meal once a day.

Food will be the most important part of our preparations, and personally, I feel ill-prepared in this area.

I harvested most of my garden yesterday. I still have some carrots in the ground and a few tomato plants I'll let go until a killing frost. The broccoli plants that never gave a full head have some "off-shoots" on them (which is all they ever did this season). One has flowered, and I'm thinking I will let it go to seed and try my hand at seed-saving.

For most things, it's too late for me to save the seeds, but there's no guarantee that I will find seeds in the spring, or that if they are available, I will be able to pay for them. So while I was out yesterday, I stopped at the hardware store. They still had a few packets, though not much selection. I picked up about $4 worth (at 4 pkts/$1). If one isn't looking for "specific" seeds, now is a good time to stock up, as seeds can keep for years, if stored properly, and $0.25 per packet is a little better than the $1 to $2 per pack in the spring.

I'll be planting the lettuce and spinach in the cold frame the beginning of October, and see how long they go. I've already planted peas, broccoli, spinach and beets for the fall, and the peas and beets are REALLY loving the weather.

My potato harvest was disappointing. I remember my grandma's potato bin. It was 96 cubic feet and was full after the last summer harvest. They ate potatoes every day, usually fried. If we only have the potatoes I harvested for the entire winter ... well, hopefully, Deus Ex Machina will get a deer ... and we still have $20 to spend at the CSA. Maybe I'll use it all for potatoes ... and carrots.

Deus Ex Machina is picking apples with the two little ones today, and I guess I'll be saucing into the night to get all of those apples preserved.

Whether one believes in imminent collapse or not, winter IS coming, and for those of us in the northeast and other colder climates, it means if food supplies become disrupted, for_any_reason, if we don't have a supply on hand, we'll have it pretty tough.

If we do nothing else to prepare, it would be to our advantage to have something to eat stored up somewhere.

I hear those packets of Taco Bell salsa can make a tasty soup. 

 

Staying Fit - For Free!

Rule #1 in the movie Zombieland, for fighting/protecting oneself against zombies is cardio.  That is, if you can't beat them, you will join them.  Fitness is the key.

The likelihood that any of us will be fighting zombies is pretty slim, actually, but being fit is probably a good idea, regardless of whether we're fighting zombies.  What's more likely than zombies is a lifestyle that is a lot more physical.  That is, the way things are going right now, it looks a good deal like we will need to be relying on our own muscle-power to get things done.  

The problem will be for those of us who aren't accustomed to doing things by hand.  Going from zero to sixty is great in a Mustang.  Not so great when it's your body.

The other day I walked to work.  It's not terribly far, although, when some of my colleagues found out that I walked - from my house - they were surprised, because it's far.  It's about two miles, and it takes me just over a half hour, which I think is a slow pace.  

At the top of the one, very slow, long hill I have to walk up was a guy on a zero-turn riding lawn mower.  Not some spectacular sight, for sure.  Except that the lawn mower was nearly as long and as wide as the yard he was  mowing.  

I haven't owned a lawnmower in a lot of years.  When I started turning my yard into raised beds, and forgot to plan the beds ... 

I was going to add "taking into account the width of my lawnmower," but the fact is that I forgot to plan the bed placement.  I think I was just so excited to be getting the frames installed at the end of one of our winters, I just plopped them down and went to work getting seeds or plants in the ground.

We bought a weedwhacker to keep the parts of the yard that aren't "garden" in check.  The area that I have to "mow" is equal to, or perhaps a bit larger, than the area that this fellow was mowing with riding lawn mower.  

I had thoughts.  

I was definitely making judgemental comments in my head.  

To be honest, I have no idea what that fellow's overall physical condition was.  He might be the most physically fit person in my community.

But there are a lot of people in my community who aren't physically fit.  Who think that walking two miles is a monumental task. 

Which is very sad and could be tragic.  See above:  if you can't beat 'em ....

The problem is that when people start thinking about ways to get fit, we too often see in our head, things like a gym membership or costly personal fitness equipment.

In fact, last spring, in March, as the snow started to recede, I decided that I wanted to take up running.  I used to be a good runner.  I could run a mile in around seven minutes, if I pushed hard.  I was clocked at running two miles in fifteen minutes and forty-five seconds.  That second mile was a bit slower than the first, which is how it usually goes.  Five miles would take a bit over 45 minutes, if I could keep a steady pace.

That was a few years ... decades ... ago, and in the time between my runner days and today, I have spent much of it as a stay-at-home/work-at-home Mom, dividing my time between my desk job and my taxi-mom duties.  In short, I've spent a lot of time sitting and the only "running" I can honestly say I've done is running errands.  

But I was determined.  I was going to run.  The only hitch in my plan was that I did not have any shoes that I could run in.  I have sandals.  I have clogs.  I have boots.

So, my ever supportive and amazing husband and I took a trip to a local shoe store, where I purchased a pair of running shoes for myself, and he picked up another pair of cross-trainers (because his were developing holes, and it was time for a new pair).  

And the next morning, I donned a pair of sweatpants, pulled my new shoes on my tender little feet, and set out.

I ran.  

For about a third of a mile, and I thought, "This is not fun!  I'm pretty sure I never liked running." 

I did some sort of walking, running, walking thing for another third of a mile, and then turned around and headed back home.  I think I was gone about twenty minutes or so.  

If you're keeping score, it took me twelve minutes to go one mile.  Twelve minutes.  I can walk a mile in 18 minutes, and I don't feel like I want to vomit afterward.  

One expensive pair of shoes, I probably won't ever wear, and a huge lesson later, and here we are. 

The message I learned from that experience is that getting fit doesn't have to cost a thing.

I stopped running after four days, but I didn't stop doing.  

Over the past seven months, I have lost two digits of pounds and four inches from my torso (bust to butt), and I'm down a pants' size, which is both exhilerating and also annoying, because now I have to buy new pants.  

So, how did I love 20 pounds and four inches, for FREE?

Yoga 

Deus Ex Machina downloaded a free app that gives us three, five-minute yoga sessions per day, for free.  Two of the videos are the same every day, but the third changes.  One of the free videos is a chair yoga session, which I don't like, and we don't do, but the other two videos are great.  We've been doing 10 minutes of yoga five days a week since April.  

The app is free, and while we do have Yoga mats, they aren't required, and if you have carpeted floors, aren't even necessary.  I will occasionally do one of the videos a second time during the day in the room with carpet instead of moving furniture and unrolling the mat.  

The Yoga may have contributed to my weight loss, but the better result has been an overall strengthening in my core (abs), back, and arms.  I am thrilled with my increased upper body strength and the toned look of my upper arms.  You know that "turkey wing" phenomenon that older women experience?  Mine is mostly gone.  

The free app is called Asana Rebel.  

Hiking/Walking

We are very fortunate to live in a place where there are dozens of beautiful hiking and walking trails.  In fact, we have a biking/walking trail right near our house.  

While it was still cold out, we were taking our dogs out on the trail every Sunday for a two mile walk, until it got too hot for our big boy chow, who had Lyme disease as a pup, sustained long-term systemic damage, and has a hard time walking for any distance in the heat.  

When the dog gave up on walking with us, we started looking for more challenging hikes and discovered a huge number of moderate hikes within a reasonable driving distance.

So, yeah, it's not "free" exactly, since we drive to the mountain we're planning to hike, but we aren't buying any special equipment, either.  In fact, we have a long-running joke about the hikes we're doing.  We decide how challenging it is based on whether or not I can comfortably "hike" the trail in my Birkenstock sandals.  So far, the only mountain I have not hiked in my Birks is Mt. Katahdin.  I didn't even try on that one.

We hike or walk two to five miles every weekend, when we aren't working wood.  

And that's it.  

I didn't change what I ate or when or how.

I didn't count calories.

I didn't pay a personal trainer. 

I didn't buy anything special.

When I started working at the beginning of October, I added another two mile walk, twice a week, to what Deus Ex Machina and I were doing, and also, in the middle of September, we added some Adult Ed classes (Qigong and Country Line Dancing), which aren't free, but also, which are very low cost, and just a lot of fun. 

Both of those activities could be free, however.  

The Tush Push is my favorite country line dance, and here's a video of how to do it.  My favorite song for this dance is John Deere Green by the late Joe Diffy.

This dance style can be done to many different songs, and if you only learn one, the Tush Push is a good choice.   The other good choice for a dance that can be done to many different songs is the Cowboy Hustle.

Both dances are fun.

Both are great exercise, and if you get a fast enough song, it's a really good aerobic exercise.

A couple of the forms our Qigong teacher have been published on YouTube.  Here he is doing the Meridian Wash.  We try to do this form at least once a week. 

I know what a challenge it is to find the energy and time to improve one's fitness level.  Believe me, I KNOW!  But what I've discovered over the past eight months, is that even just a little - a very little - five to ten minutes a day - can have a profound and noticable effect over the long term. 

All it takes is consistency and commitment.  

And those are free, too.