What we should of learned from our parents and grandparents

acman

Four Pointer
We grow and can A lot of our own food . A few years ago we found some cans of green beans that we had canned in 1999 . still looked good wife cooks them in the pressure cooker so we knew that thew would be safe to eat. They tasted just like the ones we canned the year before .
 

Bailey Boat

Twelve Pointer
I'm thinking ya'll are worrying about not much. First off the population will be reduced by 1/2 'cause everyone under 30 will just roll over and die 'cause they can barely wipe their own butts, let alone do anything constructive. And of those that are left 1/4 of them are Dems and they'll cry themselves to death 'cause there aren't any groups giving them money or doing their stupid bidding.
Those few of us that are left will do just fine, just like we have for the past generations..... Keep the faith!!
 

Hunterreed

Twelve Pointer
I have green coffee beans in the freezer that are still as good as when I bought them a few years ago. I would imagine they would keep better than roasted coffee if you sealed them up in a jar out of the freezer. I have kept rice,beans,flour in gallon jars for a long time in the pantry to keep bugs and weevils out. My y2k stash lasted a half a decade that way until it all got eat. The captains coffee website in kernersville is the place for green coffee reasonably priced. I remember a thread a while back on how long we would last after shtf and posted a little about my prep situation. I live on my grandparents old farm that was started in the late 1800s with a lot of well preserved tools and resources like a root cellar, dug wells, smoke house,corn crib etc. With just a little warning to stock up on basics like flour, sugar,coffee beans I'm already set up. Got chickens, cattle, seeds just would really need a pair of breeding hogs for sure probably the most important farm animal to have. Medical supplies as far as antibiotics would be very valuable to have but the way doctors are you would have to just stock up on animal versions to have any bulk supply. I do have black willow growing on the creek, some bees would be nice for honey. Grow grain and fruit for alcohol, not rocket science there at all. My grandmother used kerosene for antiseptic and I swear if you put some on a cut before it stopped bleeding it wouldn't be sore later. I have a fuel oil tank with about 50 gallons of the old yellow kero from when the bedroom was heated by a free standing vented heater,still got the heater sitting out in a barn. I get nervous about having less than twenty gallons of gasoline or diesel and go get more when I'm able. Just brainstorming it a medium sized pond with deep water stocked with catfish would be a winner, you can feed a lot of tame rabbits on nothing more than grass,hay and a little salt now and then. Keep falling back to the antibiotics and hogs as a real gamechanger, vinegar with mother would be helpful but not sure if there's a way to home engineer your own penicillin. And the fat and grease products from a pig would be hard to do without longterm. I believe wild game would be gone after a few years if we all was doing without
 

xtp308

Four Pointer
Be sure you have decent tools (shovels, axes, hoes, etc…); this Chinese stuff won’t last long if you had to use it everyday. Don’t forget nails as well.
 

Lastfling

Six Pointer
We grow and can A lot of our own food . A few years ago we found some cans of green beans that we had canned in 1999 . still looked good wife cooks them in the pressure cooker so we knew that thew would be safe to eat. They tasted just like the ones we canned the year before .

I had some vintage sphagetti sauce I canned in 2006, earlier this week. Good stuff and I’m still kickin so must have done it right!
 

Mike Noles aka conman

Administrator
Staff member
Contributor
We're not really preppers, either, but there's a lot to be said about being raised by parents and grandparents that survived through the Depression and who made a life without the convenience of being able to go or afford to go to "town". I have no fear of going hungry. We can and store everything from meat and eggs to vegetables and fruits. We maintain a flock of chickens and there's enough wildlife and fish available at all times for harvest. There's plenty of edible wild plants and fruits if you study them. Dandelions, polk and fern are some that come to mind quickly. I have my coffee blocks of Jamaican blue mountain that I bring back in bulk each time I travel there. I've had foil wrapped bricks that I have opened as much as 8 years after purchase that was still good. My lesson for most is to have barrel type storage of salt and other preservatives. If you have a sweet tooth, honey is the go to for storage. I don't know about most of you, but I starved before getting fat, so I'm sure that I can scrounge out a living. And Lord help anyone that thinks about invading to take stuff. I've got enough protection to add to the meat pile;).
 

YanceyGreenhorn

Still Not a Moderator
In rural areas, desperate city folks wont always be the biggest threat. Be willing to bet there’s a lot of folks around here considered “country” that ain’t done a bit of preparing. If they know the back roads, ridge tops, and logging roads, they might be inclined to come see if you’ve got what they need. I’ve seen and heard my fair share of it just from guys getting tools and equipment stolen. Factor in some of the thieving folks that hunt around here and there’s a good amount of people that would stick the proverbial knife in friends and family’s back. Or literal too lol. I think about how grimy some folks were before all these shortages and economy issues. If things get real ugly, some folks will have to worry about neighbors and coworkers as much as strangers . Outside my close circle, I don’t entertain conversations about what I have and don’t have regarding preparedness
 

LR308

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
Sounds like coffee, honey, salt, and ammo will be the new currency. I have myself covered, but might want to have a little extra for trading.
 

timekiller13

Old Mossy Horns
I'm thinking ya'll are worrying about not much. First off the population will be reduced by 1/2 'cause everyone under 30 will just roll over and die 'cause they can barely wipe their own butts, let alone do anything constructive. And of those that are left 1/4 of them are Dems and they'll cry themselves to death 'cause there aren't any groups giving them money or doing their stupid bidding.
Those few of us that are left will do just fine, just like we have for the past generations..... Keep the faith!!
Just statically speaking, without access to modern medicine and healthcare, the majority of the population greater than 65 will die in 6-12 months.

People under 30 will survive because of robust immune systems and the simple fact that they are young and can withstand more. Minor injuries young people overcome from quickly, whereas older people it cascades. Even exposure to a simple virus like the flu would eliminate a large majority of those over 65, while the young ones would just feel like crap and then recover.
 

Mack in N.C.

Old Mossy Horns
ok here is one tip.......plant turnips this fall. Turnips will grow all winter here and you can just pull and eat em.....gonna need some meet but turnips may help you survive if it gets that bad....plus if you have chickens and feed is short chickens will eat the crap out of turnips. add radishs to that, they will grow all winter here just pull and eat and radishes and they have a lot of Vitaman C
 
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wRick

Four Pointer
Regarding coffee, Yaupon Holly is the highest caffeine content plant in N. America. It's not far behind coffee beans in caffeine content. You use the Leeves and twigs to make a tea. If you've ever had Yerba Mate from Argentina, it's similar to that. (If you've never had Yerba Mate, think dried leaves and twigs steeped in hot water and you get the idea. It ain't Folgers!)



Antibiotics, you can easily grow penicillium mold, but I'm allergic to penicillin so I don't know the details. Aquarium antibiotics (tetracycline and others) are available to keep on hand, but I wouldn't recommend consuming diy penicillin or aquarium antibiotics except in a true SHTF scenario.



Someone briefly mentioned willow, I think they were talking about aspirin from the bark, but maybe that was a gun powder reference. Anyway, a bed of oriental poppies is pretty and if you ever needed it, can provide pain relief.



I used to keep a medicinal garden of plants that are actually used to manufacture pharmaceuticals but it was just a nerdy gardening thing, most of them would probably kill you before they cured you, so I'll just stop here.
 

YanceyGreenhorn

Still Not a Moderator
My parents didn't hunt or preserve food, everything came from the grocery store. I have resorted to books and youtube to learn the things I know about those subjects.
Sometimes it’s easy for me to think I’m the only one on here with that experience. Once you start doing things for yourself, it becomes more odd that your family (and mine obviously) did things the way they did. Dad is one of those guys that can do anything. But once he started a career that demanded 80 hours a week for over 20 years, all the other stuff fell by the wayside. They always raised a garden when he was growing up and we did too when I was real young but every year it got to be less and less. But I’m glad I at least inherited some of his brains to figure stuff out. I will say I’ve fed them a lot of wild game and they’ve appreciated why I like to hunt, fish and trap. Cheers man
 

beard&bow

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
My parents didn't hunt or preserve food, everything came from the grocery store.

Mine didn't either. Dad grew up doing it on a farm, but was a truck driver by trade.

Mom's parents grew up doing it, but my mom and aunt weren't interested in learning it.

Felt good to put meat on the table (starting at 15) and have both Grandparents on the phone, after a hunt, to tell them all about it.
 

Justin

Old Mossy Horns
I sure wish Grandma was still around, the questions I would ask her today. My parents didn't hunt or preserve food, everything came from the grocery store. I have resorted to books and youtube to learn the things I know about those subjects. I do however remember everyone had a basement or root cellar growing up in Ohio. I thought about that a lot last fall. What was I to do with all the potatoes and carrots we harvested. Doesn't seem to be many cellars around the sandhills. Is it the water table or the sandy soil. I thought about building one, but don't know where to start past digging a hole in the ground.

Youtube isn’t a terrible resource. I grew up with a traditional garden, which by most of what I can tell, is simply done the way it is because it’s scaled down row cropping where long linear crops are easier for mechanized harvesting.

That said, I’ve got a shade over 2 acres, mostly wooded. Not suitable for a traditional garden (like the majority of Americans). YouTube has been an incredible resource to see how to turn small, often shaded patch works into functional, edible space. People out there are thinking outside the box, and planing outside the lines so to speak, and growing incredible amounts of food in small spaces.
 

nccatfisher

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Youtube isn’t a terrible resource. I grew up with a traditional garden, which by most of what I can tell, is simply done the way it is because it’s scaled down row cropping where long linear crops are easier for mechanized harvesting.

That said, I’ve got a shade over 2 acres, mostly wooded. Not suitable for a traditional garden (like the majority of Americans). YouTube has been an incredible resource to see how to turn small, often shaded patch works into functional, edible space. People out there are thinking outside the box, and planing outside the lines so to speak, and growing incredible amounts of food in small spaces.
I know why you like Ewwwwwww tube, and it don't have a damn thing to do with gardening. :ROFLMAO:
 
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