On 11/29/2012 8:40 PM, Joe wrote:
Hope you saw it last night, both the moon and Jupiter
The moon just rose above the ridge a little while ago, behind the bare
branches of the trees; very dramatic, with a strong halo ... pink outer
ring and an inner white to faintly golden ring almost as wide as the
moon's diameter. One of the all-time great ones.
> What else should I stock-pile? <
I dunno ... I'm not 'that kind' of a stock-pile survivalist. I am just
working toward as much self-sufficency as is practical: kinda like the
old-timers around here lived in the late 1800s, with orchards, gardens,
vineyards, berry patches, etc..., and I am not expecting things to get
suddenly savage, but just to spiral downward in a continuation of
current trends. For instance, I am maintaining heirloom seed lines in
our garden crops, and have scrounged up old fruit-tree cultivars that
will live without spraying. I found varieties of cherry and plum trees
that the Amerinds grew, which can be propagated by root-shoots, so they
don't need to be grafted, and they don't need spraying though, of
course, they don't make commercial quality fruits or yield heavily.
Eighty + years ago people were living all over these mountains, which
are now part of the national forests, and there are still apple trees
growing out in those forests where there were small farms. The trees now
growing there are either root sprouts or seedlings from those old trees,
that have survived without care for all these decades. I went out, some
years ago, and gathered half a pick-up load of apples from the better
trees with nice fruit. I planted all the seeds, and got hundreds of
seedlings, and gave them very little care for a couple of years. For the
last couple of years I have been planting the most vigorous survivors
wherever I can find a good site, and I gave a lot away to people who
appreciated the idea of saving these old cultivars. Last year I found
fox-crap full of wild persimmon seeds, so I planted them. I dug up some
really antique grape vines where an old house was being bulldozed, so I
do things like that rather than just 'stock-piling' stuff, though the
day will come when buying vast amounts of consumer goods that wont spoil
(aluminum foil and canning jar lids come to mind) might be a great
investment.
RAF
