Ready for Self-Sufficient Gardening?
- Thread starter digitS'
- Start date
baymule
Garden Master
We buy from the store. We don’t grow enough to meet all our needs. I can knock a hole in the grocery bill, but I can’t cover it all.
seedcorn
Garden Master
You raise a decent amount of meat so you understand the amount of grain it takes to feed them plus grow your own vegetables. Not to mention oats, flour, etc for cooking. I’d be poorer for it if I had to give up my tea/coffee. Plus while I’m on reduced sugar/salt intake, I’d miss those as well. Not sure people understand what all we take for granted.
Sorry @canesisters I’d be hard pressed to milk 2X a day for rest of my life and make cheese/butter like my g’parents did.
baymule
Garden Master
There is a salt mine not too far from here, less than 20 miles in Grand Saline. So I guess we could hitch up the wagon and go get a bag of it. LOL LOL
I am not dedicated enough to keep a milking animal. But if SHTF and that was the only way to have milk and cheese, I suppose I’d have to figure something out. Neighbor hood share cow? LOL
I am not dedicated enough to keep a milking animal. But if SHTF and that was the only way to have milk and cheese, I suppose I’d have to figure something out. Neighbor hood share cow? LOL
seedcorn
Garden Master
Luckily my neighbor is afflicted with dairy fever so I just have to hike about 3/4 mile and then figure out what to trade him for..... I’ve already cut out ice cream, so maybe cheese and milk will have to away-definitely would before I milk a cow again. Never was any good at hand milking.... 200# hog will need about 600# of feed so I would have to grow about 20 bushel of corn-with old technologies, that would be 1/2 acre.....I’d better get started digging..... wait, do Imdig the garden spot first or corn field, oat field, wheat field first? My head hurts..... 
Beekissed
Garden Master
Saw a cute thing....
"They ran to the groceries,
they filled up their carts,
They emptied the Tops and
Price Chopper and Walmart,
They panicked and fought and
then panicked some more,
Then they rushed to their homes
and they locked all the doors.
The food will be gone!
The milk eggs and cheese!
The yogurt! The apples!
The green beans and peas!
The stores have run out, now what will we do?
They’ll be starving and looting
and nothing to do!
Then they paused, and they listened
a moment or two.
And they did hear a sound, rising over the fear,
It started out far, then began to grow near.
But this sound wasn’t sad, nor was it new,
The farms were still doing
what farms always do.
The food was still coming,
though they’d emptied the shelves,
The farms kept it coming,
though they struggled themselves,
Though the cities had forgotten
from where their food came,
The farms made them food every day,
just the same.
Through weather and critics
and markets that fall,
The farms kept on farming in spite of it all.
They farmed without thank yous.
They farmed without praise.
They farmed on the hottest and coldest of days.
They’d bought all the food,
yet the next day came more,
And the people thought of something they hadn’t before.
Maybe food, they thought,
doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe farmers, perhaps, mean a little bit more."
-Anna
"They ran to the groceries,
they filled up their carts,
They emptied the Tops and
Price Chopper and Walmart,
They panicked and fought and
then panicked some more,
Then they rushed to their homes
and they locked all the doors.
The food will be gone!
The milk eggs and cheese!
The yogurt! The apples!
The green beans and peas!
The stores have run out, now what will we do?
They’ll be starving and looting
and nothing to do!
Then they paused, and they listened
a moment or two.
And they did hear a sound, rising over the fear,
It started out far, then began to grow near.
But this sound wasn’t sad, nor was it new,
The farms were still doing
what farms always do.
The food was still coming,
though they’d emptied the shelves,
The farms kept it coming,
though they struggled themselves,
Though the cities had forgotten
from where their food came,
The farms made them food every day,
just the same.
Through weather and critics
and markets that fall,
The farms kept on farming in spite of it all.
They farmed without thank yous.
They farmed without praise.
They farmed on the hottest and coldest of days.
They’d bought all the food,
yet the next day came more,
And the people thought of something they hadn’t before.
Maybe food, they thought,
doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe farmers, perhaps, mean a little bit more."
-Anna
- Thread starter
- #47
digitS'
Garden Master
Putting your head against the flank of a cow would help with that headache, @seedcorn . Besides that, it's the hands that do the milking 
.
I liked cows. Dad put in a compressor but it was like the cream separator - he wasn't happy with it. (Some animal loving mechanic, eh?) I never was out of the milking loop except those weeks before calfing. Bro and I each had a cow except he claimed that his hands were too big for his Jersey. So, I got her and Bro began to play hookie in every meaning of that word. Several years before that, when we were still new to the game, Dad and Bro had a chance to go on a hunting trip. I was stuck with only 3 cows at that point in time. I'm never going to forget. I could not have been over 9, probably 8. Mom wouldn't help, having promised her own mother that. She did carry my buckets. Like I said, I'll never forget ... 😏.
Seems like I once figured that it would take about a half acre for a family of four and a nearly vegetarian diet with a few chickens. I could go back and try to do the math but, you know, that is with little margin of error and doesn't account for other necessities.
In my reading, it's interesting that the Irishman, wanting to gain public relief work, had to give up his land to the LandLord if he had claim to more than 1/4 acre. Landless, they began to flee the famine.
Steve
.I liked cows. Dad put in a compressor but it was like the cream separator - he wasn't happy with it. (Some animal loving mechanic, eh
?) I never was out of the milking loop except those weeks before calfing. Bro and I each had a cow except he claimed that his hands were too big for his Jersey. So, I got her and Bro began to play hookie in every meaning of that word. Several years before that, when we were still new to the game, Dad and Bro had a chance to go on a hunting trip. I was stuck with only 3 cows at that point in time. I'm never going to forget. I could not have been over 9, probably 8. Mom wouldn't help, having promised her own mother that. She did carry my buckets. Like I said, I'll never forget ... 😏.Seems like I once figured that it would take about a half acre for a family of four and a nearly vegetarian diet with a few chickens. I could go back and try to do the math but, you know, that is with little margin of error and doesn't account for other necessities.
In my reading, it's interesting that the Irishman, wanting to gain public relief work, had to give up his land to the LandLord if he had claim to more than 1/4 acre. Landless, they began to flee the famine.
Steve
seedcorn
Garden Master
Maybe our family of 3 were huge eaters but 1/2 acre garden fed us 3, not counting meat as we hunted, fished, raised rabbits and chickens. Mom still bought bread, eggs in winter, dairy products, spices, etc... No way would it have fed us by itself. Some of us are old enough to remember the 50’s and the struggles.
@Beekissed Great poem-& I don’t like poetry.
@Beekissed Great poem-& I don’t like poetry.
Beekissed
Garden Master
I didn't write it, though it does have a nice rhythm, doesn't it? The Grinch, I do believe. Stole it off a farming group on FB.
seedcorn
Garden Master
I worry about anyone who likes milking 2X a day for the rest of their life. I call it dairy addiction worse than drug addiction. I tell my dairymen friends that I will visit them in jail for child abuse when they addict their children...Putting your head against the flank of a cow would help with that headache, @seedcorn . Besides that, it's the hands that do the milking
I liked cows. Dad put in a compressor but it was like the cream separator - he wasn't happy with it. (Some animal loving mechanic, eh
Seems like I once figured that it would take about a half acre for a family of four and a nearly vegetarian diet with a few chickens. I could go back and try to do the math but, you know, that is with little margin of error and doesn't account for other necessities.
In my reading, it's interesting that the Irishman, wanting to gain public relief work, had to give up his land to the LandLord if he had claim to more than 1/4 acre. Landless, they began to flee the famine.
Steve
