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by that measure, so are lipstick and hair dye. Just cause you''d like to have it does not make it an essential, ya know. Why is messing up your head so desirable, eh? Can't stand your natural state of mind, or what?
by that measure, so are lipstick and hair dye. Just cause you''d like to have it does not make it an essential, ya know. Why is messing up your head so desirable, eh? Can't stand your natural state of mind, or what?
Fermented uh, "fruit juice" or grains, has been with mankind for millennia. And while I personally don't drink, I have quite a stash of liquor put aside for others who may be in need, so to speak. I keep it with a generous supply of tobacco products, coffee, tea, and condoms for the "unprepared".
by that measure, so are lipstick and hair dye. Just cause you''d like to have it does not make it an essential, ya know. Why is messing up your head so desirable, eh? Can't stand your natural state of mind, or what?
Some live, some merely survive. The difference is in how we view life. We all have what we need, some of us choose to have more. Living is about the things and events that go beyond mere survival. To survive, we can eat insects and tree bark, bathe in ice cold creeks and rivers, pull our teeth with pliers, and sleep shivering on the ground, if need be. The living comes in the rib-eye dinner, the hot shower, the modern medical care, the warm soft bed with goose down blankets and homemade quilt. We all prepare to survive, some of us do more. A little moonshine, a prettied up gal, good music, these are things that add much to life.
Not all of us are willing to simply survive, toiling along while waiting for the world to collapse into some variation of the Dark Ages. We can do the Dark Ages, if they come and we have to, but until then, we plan to live, in addition to surviving. Few things are more pitiful than a person spending all their resources preparing for some future day, and then dying before that day arrives. I have seen it happen, and their hard-won stocks of canned goods, TP, etc. mostly taken to the dump by those who came after, clicking their tongues and shaking their heads while mourning the "hoarder". We all need to be prepared for hard times, because they are coming. But none of us truly know what they will bring, so we prepare as we see fit, some more than others. Some of us also live a life in addition to our surviving, and a good life it is. You should try it, you might like it.
Survival is meeting basic requirements to keep yourself alive, which can be difficult, but if you're good enough you also start living by producing more than your basic needs, making a better shelter, a better fireplace instead of a campfire, a hammock instead of sleeping on the cold ground, growing your food to produce a surplus instead of just depending on the vagaries of nature to produce enough to see you through the year.
Our paleolithic ancestors learned to grow grains, to domesticate animals, to irrigate, to build homes because they wanted more than just a hunter/gatherer livestyle. They wanted to produce enough food to take care of their family, to have a stable established home reducing the chances of injury or death in traveling, to have a secure fortified structure for protection instead of a brush wikiup or no shelter at all.
Luxury is having a warm safe place to sleep with a full belly, but it does take more work and more tools to get there.
Survival is eating a raw fish under a dripping bush in a rainstorm. You're alive, very happy to have that cold raw fish as the first protein you've eaten in days, you're cold, wet, hungry, but you're suviving.
If you produce enough for yourself and your family, you have a warm strong shelter, then you have time and resources to start enjoying life with a home brewed beer or shot of moonshine. Now you're not just surviving, you're living.
For those who wanted to know how this saw performs, I would give it a thumbs-up! It goes through wood (green wood, I tried it on) like butter. It cuts on the backstroke, and will go through a 7" branch in less than a minute. The only downside is the cost....Amazon has it for $40, and you can get the Corona 14" pruner for $14 less, which does at least as good a job, IMO.
The Corona 14" is not a folder; you can get or make a scabbard for it, if you need one. The Silky Big Boy is a folder. For the money, I'd go with the Corona, but they're about equally as good.
Fermented uh, "fruit juice" or grains, has been with mankind for millennia. And while I personally don't drink, I have quite a stash of liquor put aside for others who may be in need, so to speak. I keep it with a generous supply of tobacco products, coffee, tea, and condoms for the "unprepared".
Green coffee keeps its flavor for years, roasted whole bean for a much shorter period, and ground coffee shorter still. I have a hoard of green Yemen Sanani. It has a distinctive flavor and must be given a lighter roast than other coffees to preserve that wonderful flavor.
I vacationed in Yemen and enjoyed it very much. The soukhs (markets) had all sorts of guns for sale as well as numerous and interesting silve coins dating back over two centuries. The traditional Yemeni daggers are available from a few dollars to many thousands. Western women have no problems visiting or even living there. Only modest dress is requird. We went directly from the airport to the soukh to buy guns. There was at least a few years ago an active collecting community so wares were not limited to Kalashnikovs and other common items.
Are folks familiar with the Maria Thresa Thaler? Maria Theresa was once known as the MIL of Europe because of the marriages of her children. Marie Antoinette was her daughter. Austria never changed the date on the thaler after 1780; they're still minted in Austria. People away from law and order where outlaws abounded (and in many places still do) loved them because silver is so much heavier and more difficult to transport than gold.
Liquor is one of the best currencies to have on hand when TSHTF, supposedly. I never thought to keep tobacco but that seems like a good idea as well.
If there's a collapse I plan to make money distilling alcohol. Ten percent of Americans are alcoholics so there'll be plenty of customers. Even in normal times bootlegging is a good business although the penalties are severe enough to discourage all who do not wish to go to prison. Learn to do it now, then break down the still. It is legal, however, to distill water; that's a good place to start. There would certainly be a market for distilled water; it's critical in medical applications.
When Kentucky was first settled the trails would only allow passage of a horse. A farmer would realize little for the effort of loading a horse with corn to take to a faraway market town. However, if he fermented the corn and distilled the liquor a horse could easily carry several gallons of far more value.
Marshall ''Carbine'' Williams started out as a bootlegger. He was serving a sentence for murder when he designed the forerunner of the M-! Carbine with the cooperation of the prison authorities. He once brought a design for a pistol to Frankfort Arsenal that would later be realized in the Colt Service Ace, the floating chamber to increase recoil to the level of the service weapon. The Army wasn't interested in that, but a .22 conversion for the Browning Model 1919 Machinegun did interest them. They sent him home with a Browning for his experiments. Those were the days when a man was allowed to rise above his past. There's a movie about him starring Jimmy Stewart. Sorry, I can't remember its name.
I don't know much about tobacco, but I do know this: if a tomato plant is grafted to the root of a tobacco plant it will produce tomatoes that contain nicotine. That's something to consider. Nicotine reduces the risk of Alzheimer's and prostate cancer by 50%.
I've learned so much as a survivalist that it's enriched my life to an extraordinary degree. I love to learn new things. Being a survivalist dovetails perfectly with my collecting interests.
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