New Martenson Report: Oil - The Coming Supply Crunch (Part II)

Hello Chris:

As usual another awesome read. Thank you.

We purchased 3/4 of a cow with 2 friends. It it a sizable investment "your meat weighted 595 at $1.50 pd. That comes to $892.50." that I'd hate to see spoil. I do have a generator but it runs on fuel. I recall reading somewhere that most of our electricity comes from oil and coal.

I also recall reading on the blogs that you have a solar array.

Do you have any photos of it? Any details of it? Any dumbed down electrical explanations of it? We can heat with wood, and we do, and we can draw well water with the generator and we can collect rain water and we have 500 gallons (topped off) of propane. I'd just need to run 1 freezer and one freezer/frig (assuming I don't have to buy a second freezer for my dead cow.

Thanks in advance 

Chris thank you. This is the most thorough set of recommendations for adjusting to the next step in the descent that I've seen yet.

For anyone out there who hasn't subscribed yet, do it now, even if just for a month, and read this report (and the two previous, if you think anyone close to you needs additional convincing).

Off to get DH to read this, so we can talk about our future...

 

Good report - most people don't see it coming and we certainly want to stay ahead of the stampede on this!  It'll be like a herd of elephants all trying to get out the elevator at the same time.

We've been constantly updating our zero energy living just for all the reasons you outlined in this report and more. We figured there would be an energy shortage and a "mini-ice-age" sometime in our future. We were going for high food out-put with low energy input. Though we started our journey to energy independance over 2 years ago, we have only made a dent in our energy use because even our own food production is so energy intense!

Travel to family functions, doctor appointments and school/work are still our highest energy use, heating came next and electrical demands are soon to be met with home made wind turbines and few sets of solar pannels.

Canning, freezing and drying food all takes huge amounts of energy. We finally settled on a solar food dryer with wood backup heat. Our goal is to put away 2 years of dried food a year incase we become ill, the weather doesn't cooperate or money got tight.  We'll be converting an old wet cellar into a root cellar sometime soon too. Raising feed for our animals is also on our list this year as we plan to keep chickens year-round and our dairy goats have multiplied so growing enough feed & hay will be worth all the eggs, milk, yougurt and cheese.

For our woodlot we are planting hybred poplars which are ready to cut in 3-4 years to the right diameter that means we no longer need a wood splitter.  They re-grow after cutting so they won't need to be re-planted. The wood lot is also for sheltering the young orchard so it is doing double duty. Once those are in we are doing a permaculture of strawberries understorying the trees and of course, no mow grass for pathways. I'm looking forward to strolling through the orchards an picking a fresh apple. . . by then I'll have forgotten about al the hard work it was to plant it!

Warm Regards-

EGP

Hello EGP:

I'd be interested in hearing more about chicken food. We have about 30 hens and 2 roosters. I'm going through about 50#'s every 3-5 days depending on how many table scraps go to them and what makes it to compost.

I only have 3 acres to play with. About 1 is wooded and 1.5 will have sheep soon. Garden, greenhouse and mini lean to barn take up the rest.

Thanks in advance 

When I drove up to Montague back in early March for Chris's seminar, I can remember seeing several houses with solar panels just outside or close to Montague. The first thing that came to my mind was Chris was behind it! I knew I was getting close at that point.

Thanks for another great report Chris. After quite a bit of thought, last week I put my condo on the market. I had come to the conclusion that it doesn't meet a lot of what Chris mentioned in the latest report; water, food, land, rural area, community, etc. I can't believe how hard it was to go actually go through the motions of calling my realtor, but I did it! I wonder what people will think when they see my cabinets and closests full of canned goods and toilet paper?

I'm looking at either land or a rural home with some land that is close to the remaining farms here in CT. One other thing that I've thought long and hard about is being closer to my family. Being of Italian descent, Italians are fantastic gardeners and are very resourceful. I plan to spend as much time as I can this spring/summer around my family's gardens to soak in as much knowledge as I can. While I will be farther away from work once I move(I can still carpool and/or use the train), I think the short term pain will be more than made up for in the long run with a more sustainable as well as enjoyable lifestyle. Hopefully my actions and first steps may inspire someone else here who is on the fence on where to live.

Joe

Hello,

I'm a big fan of the SimpsonsCool In this cartoon there are two very good characters: Homer (a bad boy) and Flanders (a good one). They - neighbors. Homer is a pretty stupid guy, thinking only about beer and beef. Flanders is a clever man who always cares about future. Flanders is always well prepared for emergency. Homer - never. But as emergency comes, Homer always goes to Flanders and "Flanders, I have no food! I know, you have. So give me your food!!!". What I want to say? It's not enough to be prepared for a crunch by yourself, if your neighbors aren't prepared at all. Why? Coz they simply will force you to give all or at best part of your goods saved for bad times. So if you have electricity but others don’t, in tough times, to my mind, it's too naive to think that others will not claim that you from you.

Davos,

Can you smoke part of it? You might not want it all smoked but even some would cut down your freezer load. I don't consider smoking to be the healthiest way of preserving stuff but several sharp pharmacist folks (Graedons) used to say that if you took a couple of vitamin c while eating smoked stuff, you acidified your stomach even more and prevented nitrosamine (carcinogenic chemical) formation. That's what I do on the occasions when I eat smoked food.

 

GLTA.

 

SG

Davos,

As well as the smoking the meat, you might also consider canning a portion.  Major pain in the arse, but another option.

Hello SG and Worker Bee:

I haven't built a smoker yet, have a good book about it and a client showed me how to make a small one as well. We can extra stuff from the garden.

We have been down the store bought canned food and tried dried food and MRE's. I like to eat so what can I say. As bad as red meat is I like it.

As a precaution I'm going to read up on solar. I have some books on it. Not to knock the authors but I think there has got to be an easier way to explain this. Take care 

Davos,

Real quick, dumb question from a chicken newbie (two in-city hens are all we have):

When you want the chickens to breed, do you put the roosters and a few hens together for a bit and then separate out those eggs and then separate the hens and roosters again or what?  I guess what I'm wondering is how you get a new crop of chicks without worring that you'll crack open an egg for breakfast and find a chick inside.  Yuk!  I suppose I could read a book or check out a chicken website (but then I wouldn't get to make a post!)

- LYS