Survival and food hoarding.

In times of food rationing food hoarding becomes a crime. No matter that you stocked up in times of plenty and likely advised others to do the same, your food hoard becomes a resource for the community who did not take precautions and they will pass laws and confiscate any “excess” food they find. Neighbors will be encouraged to spy on one another, committees will go door to door asking how much food, fuel and medicine you have. In the UK during WW2 people were prosecuted for giving milk to cats, 2 million pets were culled 750,000 in one week alone because there was not enough food to feed everyone much less pets. I agree that great effort and sacrifice is required in troubled times, a community effort will always produce greater benefits than every man for himself. If my house is on fire I expect help from the community as I would  help others.

However I have no intention of following everyone else as they jump from the edge into the abyss. Let them have what you have in your kitchen, never let them even suspect that you have a secret stash and defend it with your life if you have to.

Emersonreturn, Skara brae residents must have been very spiritual people to have spent so much time erecting their stone circles and burial chambers with such a small workforce. I find it interesting that the first thing a visitor saw as they entered the door was the woman’s stone display cabinet with all her treasure in pride of place.  I wish we knew more.

Mr P, you keep coming up with these interesting tips which I write in my book of things worth writing down, kerosene lamps and a supply of fuel will be on my shopping list, thank you.

About half of the incomers who settle on our island leave within 3 years, many others sold homes in expensive areas, bought cheap here, spent the profits and can no longer afford to go back. Mid winter we barely get 6 hours of sunlight, the wind rattles the roof slates more often than not, we do not get much snow because of the gulf stream, instead we get rain, rain, rain. In the summer we get midges, small biting insects that drive everyone indoors. there is also the plague of RVs, great lumbering beasts with inexperienced drivers who  think letting anyone pass them on our single track roads would diminish their manhood. My wife goes out twice a week for her craft club or lunch with friends the rest of the time we hibernate, not sleeping but self contained. Everything we need to be content is this side of the gate.

At the bottom of the croft there is the ruins of an old German Monastery, much raided by Vikings in the old days, or so the story goes. There are ruined castles, brocks, (stone towers) and ancient deserted villages where the peasants were herded onto ships bound for America or Australia. Their descendants come to see where some great, great grandparent came from and find their roots.

My wife and I both have family connections here and spent long and carefree school holidays swimming in the frigid waters and exploring the rock pools , her father grew up less than a mile from away. Life is good.

Mr P, this old laptop has a deep dent across the keyboard, the base is distorted and wobbles although it still works despite constantly warning me that windows 7 is no longer supported. Childish tantrums are my usual response to technology that does not instantly obey my commands, my wife holds her smartphone to show me stuff lest the screen flip flops and I break it. Hammers, chisels, picks and shovels I understand, technology I leave to intelligent fellows like you, I do wish you lived closer.

Last seasons potato’s were my most successful yet although the cabbages etc were eaten by slugs of which we have a plague. I bought 5 ducks and have 2 left, as you say they are very efficient at pest control. Each evening they lay eggs and eat the food left out but otherwise I never see them, I will get another 5 this year and try to stop them from going feral. Every morning I have duck eggs for breakfast, all attempts at drying chicken eggs into powder have failed so far, my wife gives them to ladies with whom she has lunch. It is May before the ground is warm enough for planting most crops, I have plenty of time to think of chores I should do but won’t.

Your lifestyle sounds like The American Dream, not the commercialized version, the one people have always yearned for, a place to breathe and dream and grow, as you say, to watch the freak show without being sucked into it. Even the motorcycles, bald eagles, deer, bears and lions, Salmon streams and Beaver, open season for hunting, miles of nature reserve, rugged canyons, We read about it in books, watched the movies, listened to the music as we huddled in our over crowed cities, thank you for sharing that. It pleases me to know that there are Americans like yourself who still live the dream, it receives so little attention in the media, all is consumed with the freak show.

For decades farming here was about chasing EU subsidies and trying to follow endless new regulations, the result is appalling, I have not seen a field of grain or a combine harvester for years.There is far more money to be made from a few accommodation pods or a spare bedroom on Air bnb.

Of my few neighbors one went to Poland for her sons wedding another to Russia, both in the last few months and both young couples are back here, one girl is pregnant and the other is trying. A Russian women with 3 kids came here to marry a local boy who died on her a year later. She stayed, learned English, worked minimum wage jobs, slept on a couch and rented out her bedroom to tourists and put the children through university. Last year she bought a house to let out and is planning to buy another, it is her son who married in Russia and who’s wife is pregnant. We have immigrants from Pakistan, Eastern Europe, Asia, all over, they are like a breath of fresh air.

Emersonreturn, if the worst happens young women will be the ones who will give birth to a new reality and young people are just not very wise, as we were unwise at that stage in life. With age comes experience which leads to wisdom of a sort, at least to a few, as I see it you are one of those few. How would you guide those young women who find themselves adrift in a world where all moral and social landmarks have been swept away?

We can assume that survivors have mastered the basics of food and shelter, but then what? Religion, Socialism, Communism, Capitalism, Egalitarianism, Monarchy, think of the possibilities. They will have a clean slate to write a future for their children unburdened by the old order. How will they recognize wisdom if they  themselves have not yet acquired the wisdom of experience?

Do not be in such a hurry to rush out the door, even if they will not listen to the voice of experience as we did not listen at that age. Still there were voices of experience and wisdom who understood and found a way to plant seeds in young minds, that is the proof of wisdom. Those seeds germinated in our minds when we were ready to understand the message, now it is our turn to replant seeds. We can not send a message back to our younger selves but I think we owe it to our  species to leave a trail of breadcrumbs that others may follow. Your best years may yet lay ahead of you.

Survival of our species.

Homo Sapiens have survived for at least 300,000 years or 15,000 generations. The Southern tip of Africa has been continuously occupied for all that time and the Bushman tribes are the last of the “hunter gatherers” in this region. They have a rich oral history of how their ancestors lived although much has been lost or bastardized by missionaries. They would not do well in a Western IQ test, but then again we would not do well in theirs. We imagine they lived short brutish lives but that makes no sense. Children who have short brutish childhoods become emotionally, intellectually and physically stunted adults. How could such people spread to every continent using only stone tools?

The only reason to evolve with a brain capable of producing consciousness, intelligence and the ability to think deeply complex thoughts is if you are conscious, intelligent and thinking deeply complex thoughts. That brain requires 20% of our calories to function, no creature could  invest so much energy in something that was not paying rent. Why have a supercomputer between your ears if you are not using it to solve day to day problems? Every “primitive” tribe we know of has a far greater spiritual life than us, we call it superstition, scientists tell us that the Universe just appeared out of nothing. Archaic people knew of cause and effect, we are an effect for which there must be a cause, they called that cause god or the gods. They speculated endlessly on what the gods wanted from us and why there was something rather than nothing.

Our gut evolved and works best on a diet that is at least 70% plant based, this was the food most readily available to our ancestors. It was also the most easily processed and stored, there are no Homo Sapiens who do not store food for the lean times, it is what we do. Women had inherited a symbiotic relationship with plants from the Hominid’s. The plants attract animals who help spread their seeds, in return the animals get food. The bees pollinate the plants and the plants feed the bees. Herbivores eat young trees, killing them, this spreads the grasslands and the grass feeds the herbivores, it is how nature works. Our intelligence allowed us to take this relationship a step further, we aided our most useful plants by uprooting competing plants or some other cultivation method. Women did not wander around with a basket looking for something to eat, they had a calendar, knew where they were going and what ripe foods they would find there. At least 70% of our food and most of our medicine and cordage was collected by women, this gave them power within the tribe.

Good hunting or fishing territory was far less important than good gathering territory, it was women who decided where, and how, the tribe lived. It was women who controlled and allocated resources, they are the ones who controlled culture. That culture was formed from the important life lessons passed down through countless previous generation. Language, mating, resources, conflict resolution, stories, clothing, rituals, music, dance, everything is culture. We depend on the knowledge passed down because one generation could never learn on their own all the knowledge we need to survive.

The first farmers appeared 12,000 years ago and by 6,000 years ago more than half of us had adopted agriculture, for complex reasons this placed power in the hands of men. The peaceful Matriarchal tribes were pushed to evermore marginal lands by the far more aggressive farmers, a few still cling on but most perished. Our world wide experiment with science is about 15 generations old, we judge that this makes us far more intelligent than hunter gatherers. The future archaeologists, alien or some terrestrial species, who dig up our phones and bones may disagree. They will look at 95 % of our existence when we lived as a part of nature and the 5% when we lived apart from nature and conclude that modern humans are clever, ancient humans were wise.

We have invented most of our existential risks and our best brains work hard at improving their ability to extinct us . I work on a plan B, for any survivors who crawl out of the abyss, it is simple. Back to being a part of nature, leave women in charge, men have better things to do than telling everyone else what to do.

AHH, thank you for giving me a voice, you are a most gracious and tolerant host.

Sudhi, “an owl has taken flight”, was very good.