Homegrown Harvest

   It's autumn which means it's harvest time for lots of plants and animals on the farm, I spent some time at my parents place this week helping out, so that's what this week's post will be about. I'll hopefully have a new post up next week on the custom still lid project.

A few of the delicious carrots that came from the garden

   One of the most important parts of prepping is building up food stores. You can simply go about this by purchasing all your stock from the supermarket, or you can get involved in the actual production of your food. Knowing how to grow, raise, hunt, and forage the ingredients for your meals is a far better insurance policy than buying large stocks of canned and dried goods. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with buying shelf-stable food for the long term, but if you can raise and process your own food you will be much better off.
   A prepper skill that I've mentioned before (actually wrote a post about it: Garden Variety Prepping) that was invaluable was being able to grow a garden. If you've read the article you know I grow a small backyard garden, this is the best I can do with the time and space I have to work with. My parents, on the other hand, having ample amount of space, are able to grow a beautiful large garden and maintain a very productive greenhouse. With the output of vegetables from these they are able to not just have fresh vegetables, but also process and preserve items and ingredients through canning, pickling, dehydration, and natural cold storage for long periods of time. Through these methods, they have available all year round, access to wholesome organic food that cost not much more than the time put in to making it. The time put in is long and hard, but in the end you have an investment in natural nutrition and have honed your skills in both growing and processing your own vegetables.

After scrapping and washing,
we're ready for gutting

   Autumn also brings livestock to harvest. Since I certainly don't have space to raise chickens and pigs in the city, my parents raise some animals for us on their land. If you've ever purchased animal protein from the supermarket you know how expensive even a small amount is - if you've ever been to a farmer's market you know the price is even higher for good quality meats - which is a good enough reason in it's self to raise your own. But aside from the price, when raising your own animals you know exactly what's going into your food. Another plus for raising livestock comes during the butchery process. If you're butchering it yourself (or paying someone to do it for you) you can choose exactly what cuts to get out of it. There's obviously more dirty work involved in raising your own animals, but that's the point where you will find the disconnection between people and their food. If you are going to eat something on a regular basis you should know how it made it's way to your plate.
    Having so much food - grown with the philosophy of "I'm going to eat this and I want it to be good for me" - ready for consumption or processing, that you have had some part (beyond handing a cashier your debit card) in producing is very rewarding. I'm not knocking buying your food at a grocery store, we all do it, what I'm advocating is knowing where your food comes from and how to produce it. This is one of the keys to prepping: food acquisition and stockpiling.

Some pickled green onions

   The knowledge you gain from doing any of these things will only make you stronger when the time comes that you may need to rely on them. As a species, in relation to our lives, we've settled down long ago. We went from hunter-gatherer to domestication, and started mass production, so long ago that most of us have no idea how to survive without a grocery store. To truly be prepared the skills to grow and prepare food need to be re-learned. You don't need to run out and buy a farm right now, but try to grow a small garden. Buy some jars and a few pounds of cucumbers, learn how to make pickles. Buy a pork belly, learn how to cure and smoke it for bacon. These are basic preservation techniques that have been around for thousands of years, that we still use today, that add to our preparedness. If it worked for our species to thrive and spread long before the industrial age, we should use them to prepare us for any troubles we encounter in the future.
   I hope you enjoyed reading this and understand the importance of learning these important skills. As always, until next time. Be Prepared.  Be Safe. Have Fun.

Some pork belly going into the cure for bacon