Rumblings in the distance

It's said you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. You also don't need a crystal ball to see there's some potentially nasty stuff coming down the pike.

When the President and Vice President both meet with the Federal Reserve, something might be in the air. Even the questionable statistics from the government has been trending downward. While 2% economic growth was predicted, the number has been revised downward to almost nothing. Banks in Europe are in trouble.

It doesn't take much digging to find a multitude of troubling economic indicators.

The economy is not supposed to implode during an election year. Whoever is in charge at the time does everything possible to keep at least the appearance of a robust economy. If your party wins you have a few years to weather the storm before facing another election. If your party loses economic problems can be blamed on the other party.

Even more disturbing to me are the rumors of war. Historically, economic turmoil leads to military conflict. There are plenty to choose from right now. Things are heating up from the Middle East to Africa to parts of Asia. One bad move an any of those trouble areas could turn hot -WWIII hot.

As I see it, at the very least we are looking at some financial bubbles bursting. Look at the the connections between banks and a weakening fossil fuels sector. They could take each other down. That could be extremely disruptive.

Of course, I'm not a big fan of the banks or the fossil fuels industries. They won't be missed -in the long run. In the short run, however, expect to see some turmoil. Radical change always produces winners and loses. Let's do what we can to avoid being on the losing side.

Might be a good time to check out your preps. My lovely wife has been on my case to improve our food growing capability so that's one thing I'm doing to prepare. There are other things I'd like to improve but money and time are issues. Of course, I've been living at my bug out location for years.

With a high chance that things are about to get real, how's your situation?


-Sixbears

Survival Food in the Cold North

This is the starving time of the year here in the Great North Woods. Picture life hundreds of years ago before food was easily transported around the globe. To survive a northern winter food grown in the summer would have to last until things started growing again. Sometimes harvests were poor and not enough was stored. There's not a lot of wild foods available in the early spring.

One readily available food is rock tripe. Rock_tripe Lichens that grow on rock don't sound very appetizing. To be honest, the best thing that can be said about the flavor is that they don't taste terrible. Kinda reminds me of eating dead leaves.

So what's the attraction? It's readily available and actually quite nutritions. There are records of arctic expeditions surviving on nothing else for months at a time. Beats starving to death.

Many years ago I did an experiment about this time of year in the western mountains of Maine. I tried to live off the land in the mountains. For three days my diet consisted of rock tripe, a little bit of edible moss, and spruce tea. The spruce tea was the high point flavor wise. It's also one of the few good sources of vitamin C in the winter time.

The rock tripe was collected from the rocks, cleaned, and double boiled. The first batch of water was poured off as rock tripe contains acids that help them eat rock. (sounds more appetizing all the time, doesn't it?)

Actually if it was finely chopped and added to a hearty soup you wouldn't mind the flavor at all. All by itself for days at a time it gets pretty boring. However, not nearly as boring as starving to death.

-Sixbears