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#121
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
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#122
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
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#123
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
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#125
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
(dstvns) wrote:
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 04:26:33 GMT, (Richard Lewis) wrote: You have looked at the calorie levels of that garlic and those tomatoes, right? What you grew on 400 square feet will do nothing but slow your starvation by a slight bit. Oh I forgot...15 pounds of potatoes on an extra 30 square feet, plus just as many Jerusalem artichokes in the same amount of space on the other side of the yard. Hows 30 pounds of starch in an extra 60 square feet? You really want to know? On a 3,000-4,000cal diet, you'll need to eat approximately 12 pounds of potatoes per day just to maintain your body weight. Add in the artichokes, if they're of a comparable cal level as the taters, and you got just over two days of food before you start starving. If that sounds easy to you, go to your local commissary and buy a ten pound bag of spuds and *try* to finish it in one day. ral Dan |
#126
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
"Tallgrass" wrote in message
"Fran" wrote in message At harvest I shove a hand into the decomposing mass and wriggle out what I need for eating over the next few days and the rest I leave till I need to get rid of them to make use of the newly made potato compost. hehe.....the ground must not freeze solid where you are! No thank God! Heavy frosts only and that is bad enough. I'd migrate rather than live with frozen groudn or live in a place where fishing isn't possible all year round :-)) |
#127
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
"paghat" wrote in message
(Edgar S.) wrote: (snip) Growing your own food makes more or less sense, depending on the economy. (snip) If one can meet most of their needs without using dollars, they're better off. Of course, this presupposes they can raise the food efficiently. Even just a dozen tire stacks with home raised potatoes would be nice to have and takes little effort. You almost convinced me but then you created this image of the sort of trashoids who have worn out tires stacked up in their yards as planters -- no doubt lined up in front of the rusting vehicles up on blocks with those very tires removed, in front of a doublewide that's settling at an odd angle with a roof that goes BANG! on hot days. Boy, I don't think I've ever seen anyone drop so quickly into stereotyping about such a simple thing. I've grown spuds in tyres and I live in a house that friends who live in the city think is quite posh. (Possibly the sauna impresses them but the only thing I find it useful for is to house the mushroom growing kit). Spuds don't care where they grow and if you have a problem with a few car tyres then what about an upturned plastic garbage bin with the bottom cut out of it? Same principle but does that offend you so much? Recycling can be done with both taste and effectiveness. You of all people should know that given your own site (which, BTW, is quite impressive [especially the crataegus which I love]: but where are the veggies????). Putting a stack of car tyres behind a big healthy rhubarb plant isn't going to cause any real offence and if the plants are growing vigorously then most people will see the lushness and productiveness and not have your "eyesore" reaction. One likes to fantasize living an aesthetic & ascetic life in concert with nature, bathing in pure-water streams or a beaver pond, gathering pine-nuts & wild blueberries, gathering douglas-sugar from the tips of firs or tapping a maple tree, a veggy garden out behind a two-bedroom log cabin very expertly put together like a giant Lincoln Log set. The rudest thing ever done would be perhaps killing an occasional blackbear if you're not a vegetarian & can make good use of every part of the animal. Might have a sun-panel to run the PC off of, or to read past sundown. With such an existence one would simply not to be so polluting & dollar-dependent in order to live in a pleasing manner, while every hour of every day learning first-hand about woodlore, herblore, & natural history of one's extremely immediate environment. O!, how lovely that would be to just be a good little Girl Scout or Boy Scout right up to the age of 93, friend to birds & squirrels, then die smiling & buried out back under a favorite madronna. Sadly what one encounters instead is crackers squatting on public lands or with some unperkable cheaply obtained property that could not be legally built on nailing "do not trespass!" & death's-head warnings to every tree, a growing pile of beer bottles in front of a tar paper shack housing paranoids ready to shoot park rangers or, if even slightly legally ensconsed, shoot at tax assessors & housing inspectors, on guard against the police who might find out about the lab some Hell's Angels buddies dashed together in that broken-down old postal truck -- & ultimately no closer to nature than is that row of ugly-ass tires with dried up potato vines poking out. So how often do you encounter this sort of thing? Or more to the point, why do you live in an area with such slummy places or go to such slummy places? It's true, though, an unbathed paranoid with diptheria living in a shanty, even with his open sess-hole just out the back door, is polluting the world a lot less than those of us with our hot showers & a dumbass lawnmowers, microwaving Hungry Man dinners three or five times a day, & driving two miles & back just for a twenty-ounce latte. It would perhaps be better for the earth overall if more of us just stopped bathing & went out on the fringes of the forest & tried to get some of our sustenance from shedded fir needles & owl scat. I find your comments extremely odd. ALL of the ngs that are given as receiving this post, will have regular readers who understand that one doesn't need to live like any of your stereotypes in order to lead productive and useful lives or to even have a garden which produces at least some, if not a lot, of a household's food and that such a garden can incorporate a huge amount of low impact or recycling principles and practices and still be extremely beautiful, bountiful and restful places. But it's a bit like hoping to save the earth with some new strain of TB that properly takes out most of our own harmful species, & from then on surivalism will mean going without elevators while gleaning the emptied skyscrapers for useful stuff & warring against other survivors for possession of the biggest piles of rusted cans of peaches or pork & beans in the ruins of Safeway or the A&P. Phew! That sounds like some of the more loopy misc.survivalism fringe dwellers. Get out of there before it's too late! -paghat the ratgirl -- "Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher. "Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature. -from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers" See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/ |
#128
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 10:11:46 +1100, "Fran"
wrote: What I am objecting to is that both you and George are putting forward information that was NOT in the original post (and Lord knows how off beam into realms of pure fantasy this thread has moved from the simple question originally asked!) My observation that the "slant towards isolation is a bit worrying" comes from this: "This would involve one person living alone, in decent physical condition, willing to do hard work and learn whatever is needed." You have put in what YOU think he will (or should perhaps) do BUT not what he specifically said. As far as telling him what to do I didn't. I don't have the info. I just opined that it shouldn't take much land or time to be self sufficient in food. Where I did go off into my own subjective world is when I assumed his motivations for doing it were similar to others I've known who've tried comparable things. Some suceeded, some failed. But all were motivated by a dissatisfaction with the way life is normally led in the "West". Perhaps his motives are different. He did not mention that he would be doing the building. He may or he may not but it cannot be read into what he wrote. It is not unusual for people in both NZ or Aus to have even a fairly traditional builder come in and build an off grid house that includes items like slow combustion cooking stoves (which also heat the hot water), composting toilets, water collection from roofs etc etc. Even if one is not off grid, it is still quite common in rural areas to have electricity but to still use solid fuel for cooking water heating (for at least part of the year) and tank (cistern) water for the whole of the year. I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin that was just that way. With the exception of using ground water for tank water and outdoor privies for composting toilet (eventually replaced by a home septic system). g.c. |
#129
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
"Fran" wrote in message u... "Tallgrass" wrote in message "Fran" wrote in message At harvest I shove a hand into the decomposing mass and wriggle out what I need for eating over the next few days and the rest I leave till I need to get rid of them to make use of the newly made potato compost. hehe.....the ground must not freeze solid where you are! No thank God! Heavy frosts only and that is bad enough. I'd migrate rather than live with frozen groudn or live in a place where fishing isn't possible all year round :-)) We live in the frozen north and fishing is possible all yr round - just have to cut through the ice to get there!! |
#130
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
In article , "Fran"
wrote: "paghat" wrote in message (Edgar S.) wrote: (snip) Growing your own food makes more or less sense, depending on the economy. (snip) If one can meet most of their needs without using dollars, they're better off. Of course, this presupposes they can raise the food efficiently. Even just a dozen tire stacks with home raised potatoes would be nice to have and takes little effort. You almost convinced me but then you created this image of the sort of trashoids who have worn out tires stacked up in their yards as planters -- no doubt lined up in front of the rusting vehicles up on blocks with those very tires removed, in front of a doublewide that's settling at an odd angle with a roof that goes BANG! on hot days. Boy, I don't think I've ever seen anyone drop so quickly into stereotyping about such a simple thing. I've grown spuds in tyres and I live in a house that friends who live in the city think is quite posh. So how often do you encounter this sort of thing? Or more to the point, why do you live in an area with such slummy places or go to such slummy places? Hey, YOU'RE the one who lives where it's "posh" to stack used tires in your front yard. Spuds don't care where they grow The garbage dump wouldn't mind a few spuds either, or even some toxic waste for that matter! -paggers -- "Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher. "Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature. -from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers" See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/ |
#131
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
"Tina Gibson" wrote in message news:ZHZCb.704796$9l5.280683@pd7tw2no...
"Fran" wrote in message u... "Tallgrass" wrote in message "Fran" wrote in message At harvest I shove a hand into the decomposing mass and wriggle out what I need for eating over the next few days and the rest I leave till I need to get rid of them to make use of the newly made potato compost. hehe.....the ground must not freeze solid where you are! No thank God! Heavy frosts only and that is bad enough. I'd migrate rather than live with frozen groudn or live in a place where fishing isn't possible all year round :-)) We live in the frozen north and fishing is possible all yr round - just have to cut through the ice to get there!! You just have to have enough Ethanol Warmer in your veins to stay warm!! In Madison WI, the multiple lakes freeze solid and the fishermen build their fishing shanties on the ice. Several bets are placed as to when the first shanty will fall thru the ice in the spring!! Linda H., disliking the snow and cold more and more |
#132
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
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#133
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
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#134
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
"dstvns" wrote in message ... On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 01:42:22 GMT, (Richard A. Lewis) wrote: On a 3,000-4,000cal diet, you'll need to eat approximately 12 pounds of potatoes per day just to maintain your body weight. Add in the artichokes, if they're of a comparable cal level as the taters, and you got just over two days of food before you start starving. Who the hell eats 4 thousand calories a day? ======================= Obviously not the lard butt that sits on the computer all day. There are, however, many occupations/activities that will burn off far more than 2000 calories in a days work or a few hours a day workouts. That you are too lazy to actually work/exercise doesn't mean that others are. A thanksgiving dinner is 2000. Are you going on personal experience with calorie intake? I would hate to have you as a dependent. By the way, thanks for being a regular ray of sunshine, I didn't know there was gonna be a pop quiz on this. As I said in my first post, I DONT KNOW how many acres require self-sufficiency. Dan |
#135
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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
Edgar S. wrote:
(bob peterson) wrote in message . com... If you translate this to a real life situation where you have 10 hours a day worth of other work to do just to survive, its clear that this type of arrangement is only for desperation mode, Nope... Not really. Growing your own food makes more or less sense, depending on the economy. Our dollar is getting weaker. We are having both inflation and deflation at the same time. Money is harder to get (deflation) but worth less and less over time (inflation). No. You prove your abject economic ignorance. Inflation and deflation are opposites. Inflation is a rising price level; deflation is a falling price level. If one can meet most of their needs without using dollars, they're better off. Of course, this presupposes they can raise the food efficiently. Even just a dozen tire stacks with home raised potatoes would be nice to have and takes little effort. and even then you probably cannot do it alone. That's the catch: raise something that is useful to anyone. Eggs, butter, meat. Supplement it with garden produce. Then trade for things other raise or make. |
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