Letters To The Editor

June 28th, 2010

Dear Editor,

I completely agree with you article, “Saving as a Prepper Skill.” That having been said, I have been thinking about spending like crazy. I mean our whole check every week. Please let me explain. Our house has been paid off for some time, cars paid, and we are almost at zero on our bills. I have a pretty good job that has a better outlook than most (I work in the oil fields, inland). We have a year supply of food for our family, good on most other things. But, there are still things that need to be done. I have a 1000 gallon fuel tank that I got at a good deal that I want to get into the air (build a stand for it) and get it filled with diesel.

The reasons for having free spending habits is that I just don’t think our ecnomy is going to hold together for that much longer. Inflation has really just started to heat up and taxes this next year are going to clobber us. The way that I see things is that I going to have a lot less money this next year that will buy even less. I have given gold some thought, but given a choice I would rather have a two-year supply of food, weapons, and other stuff, though silver is pretty attractive (cheaper). I was just wondering if anyone else saw things this way.

That’s my two cents, Kerry

Editor reply: Sounds like you’ve done a great job so far, but I must ask you about the diesel tank. “What will you do when the fuel runs out?” Whether you’ve got a 50-gallon tank or 1,000-gallon tank, storing diesel largely misses the point if the infrastructure is permanently disrupted and you can’t replenish supplies. While it will help out in almost any temporary situation, our preference is to focus on long-term (and permanent, where possible), alternative energies.

Dear Editor,

You have several good articles on gardening tips and stuff for urban food production. I’d like to see some more on rural food hunter/gatherer skills. I have been interested in natural wild edible/medicinal plants and have hunted, fished and trapped most of my life. I have several source books on gathering and processing plants into food and medicine. Perhaps others have different resources or opinions on the quality of some sources.

As far as meat, almost anything that walks, swims, crawls, runs or flies is edible. Once you learn how to process and prepare/ preserve them, some of these critters might surprise you in how good they taste, like beaver for example. They are found all over where there is water, are very easy to identify and the relaxed trapping pressure in the last few decades has made them much less cautious around traps. There are many ways of procuring wild meat, some legal and some strictly for survival purposes only (usually more effective but not always). Trapping is a good hobby to get into. It doesn’t pay much for fur nowadays, but it teaches you how to procure natural resources for meat, clothing (fur is very warm), fat, sinew, bones, bait for other animals and you can learn to tan your own hides for fur or leather. There is a saying that every animal has enough brains to tan its own hid,e and brain tanning is centuries old and produces a very nicely tanned hide.

Keep up the good work, Turtle

If you would like to mail the editor, please email [email protected] , or login to the new online site to view the archives.