Random Thoughts

“I just got through reading One Man’s Wilderness. It is the book version of the movie Alone in the Wilderness.
The book got me thinking about how many people could do what he did. I know I couldn’t have. To build a cabin with simple hand tools is incredible IMO.

This book then got me thinking about how many other skills are slowly dieing out in today’s disposable world.

How many people grow a garden, harvest the food and either can or freeze it. Yes it takes time to do that but today people are so rushed that they have forgotten about the simple pleasures in life. Just watching the flowers or food you planted and cultivated grow is a sense of accomplishment.

Even cooking dinner is slowly going away. You don’t have to do anything anymore but buy your dinner prepackaged. When is the last time someone made a pie or cake from scratch or even bought a cake mix to make one that way. You don’t even have to make mashed potatoes anymore. Just go to the store and by the prepackaged mashed potatoes. Throw them in the microwave and bam its ready.
I admit I am as guilty as the next person for buying some of the products like that but I still haven’t bought the mashed potatoes. Plus I like mine lumpy and I doubt they come that way…lol

Skilled craftsman are another skill that I think is going anyway.
Yes I know we have some on this board who fit that mold but in general it isn’t the same.
To me a skilled craftsman is the person who takes pride in their work.
You have too many who don’t and you wind up with a crappy job unless you know how to do it yourself which sadly most people don’t.

I enjoy reading about you guys who make your own gear. It is something I haven’t done but have started thinking about it. Well I did make my first alcohol stove last night. It worked but not great but I learned from it and the next one hopefully will be better.

I know I didn’t list everything that I could have. Give me your opinions or thoughts on this.”

“I think most people, or at least most people with families, still cook. My wife and kids won't touch those prepackaged mash potatoes. They have to be peeled and boiled to be considered edible.

I don't grow a garden, but most of my friends have ones of varying sizes.”

“I'm trying to get back to the gardening and keeping aspect. My biggest problem is my property is only 50 feet wide by 102 feet long, ang live oaks on a sand dune. I used to do a lot of keeping and preserving when I was a kid; I plan to get some goodies from the farmer's market here and try something with those. By the time I was 12 I was in charge of baby sweet and dill pickle making, jams and preserves of any kind, packaging foods for freezing, things like that. Now all I have is a tiny freezer and not much storage space in the house. Actually, one of my goals is to have enough property that I can have a good sized garden, and a mixed orchard as well. There were walnut trees around an old farming homestead near where I lived as a kid. Those nuts made anything storebought taste really bitter.”

“The thing about preserving food is it's just as cost effective to buy canned goods on sale at the grocery store now. When you factor in the cost of watering your garden the jars, lids etc and the time it takes to peel tomatoes it makes sense to buy them, lol!

There is alot to be said for knowing how to do it. Growing up we made our own jams (Dad's strawberry jam took first place at the MI state fair four years straight) and applesauce and spagetti sauce and tomatoe puree and pickels and frozen veggies. Canned fruit and homemade sauerkraut wasn't a favorite.

I have a huge pressure cooker my gramma passed to me (makes canning so much easier and faster) and the jars, etc. Have done tomatoes and applesauce two years. Tomato crop has been severely lacking the past few years and can't buy windfall apples from the orchards anymore (now it's against the law in MI) so they're too expensive to buy.

The same could be said for hunting and procuring your own meat. How many people could butcher their own animals?

As for making cakes,etc, I think that has more to do with what you enjoy doing that what you are able to do. Reading and following a recipe is simple.

All of the stuff you're talking about takes time and care. We all seem to be short on spare time nowadays and chose to do more "fun" stuff. Gardening and cooking are work to most people. Gardens tie you to your home weekends. If you're not there to water them they die.

Interesting thoughts Eddy.”

“I think you hit the nail on the head with the "cooking and gardening are work to most people" statement, Sass.

When you think about all the manual labor that it took for people to provide for themselves, just a generation or two ago, it makes sense that some people wouldn't want to do things like garden or cook.”

“I really enjoy cooking and baking from scratch and knowing what is going into the food I eat. I slso like to sew and garden but haven't spent much time doing those things lately. Having the time is more like a luxury these days.

Really I think it's about leisure time. Gardening, baking, building, sewing were part of the workday. That's probably why they feel more like work than say golfing or camping. Of course it's more fulfilling and can be therapeutic to can your own tomatoes or make a new blouse. Some of those interests are making a small comeback. But for my part I work so hard all week that by the time it ends, little energy is left in my brain to concentrate on pattern instructions or mechanical problems.

Hey I know, back to my idea of the trailtalk commune. Find a nice log cabin somewhere's and I'll cook, garden and sew along with some chores (not good a vacuuming or mopping) and others can bring their skills. We'll live off the land and sell our wares. Where's that Grizzly Adams, I think he said he'd hunt and fish! JUST GET ME OUT OF THIS OFFICE!

:-D”

“Yep, it used to be part of the regular workday for everyone.

Here's the steps that used to go into making clothing, for a pioneer family:

1. Grow the cotton or flax, or raise sheep and shear them.
2. Spin the fiber into thread. You need a lot.
3. On your homemade loom, make your own cloth.
4. Cut the cloth you made out into a pattern that matches the size of the family member you are making the clothing for.
5. Baste and fit the clothing to the person.
6. Do the final stitching and tailoring.

Of course, this is why patching and hand-me-downs were so common.”

“WOW - random thoughts in sync!”

“I sorta have a goal of doing the above someday, just to say that I did it. But I guess I gotta build a spinning wheel and loom before I do, lol...”

“You do the building, now who knows how to spin and weave. Are you with us?

Who will tend the sheep, I could make a suggestion but it wouldn't be nice.”

“I can see it now, the "Trail Talk Commune"!

They work out great until the men get the still set up.”

“Growing cotton is easier than raising sheep, and then the women don't have to worry about the men taking liberties with them.”

“I'm with ya Ewker.”

“The answer to life is found in The White Album! It's all there man! DIE PIGS DIE! Opps, random thoughts Nigal, not random voices.”

“The cotton, the sheep or the women?”

“Have you ever tried to take liberties with a cotton boll?



Ouch.”

“Cotton boll?”

“LOL
I was 'slave' labor in my parents' garden as a kid.
As long as I can afford to buy food, I will not have a garden.


Maybe a couple of tomato plants, but that's it. LOL”

“I love gardening. There’s nothing like going out with a bowl and cut some lettuce, cut some spinach, grab a cucumber, a tomato, some onion greens and have a salad 30 seconds old. Gardening gives me the same satisfaction of providing for myself as hunting does.

I day dream about living on a small farm where I can provide nearly everything I need for a simple life.”

“If you cant make beer with it, why grow it?”

“Damn yankees.



It looks all nice and soft and fluffy, but the dried husks will cut the hell out of your, um, fingers, yah that's it...”

“I thought ya mispelled ball. So if you were to conect a series of these 'bolls' together in a certain pattern would you be a boll weaver?”

“SS, I am right there with you. The "joy" of gardening for me consisted of pulling weeds.”

“while reading Martha Stewart Living last night (they had a chicken extravaganza going on), i had the thought that i'd really like to have my own chickens! i spend eleventy million dollars buying "free-range" chicken and eggs, and i'm still not even sure that the chickies are happy or get to see the outside for longer than 2 seconds in their lives! i bet i'd only eat eggs, not chickens, if i did have my own, b/c i doubt i'd be able to kill them!

and maybe some sheep or goats or something...i hear they lay pretty good eggs too.”

“There's a lot of work in between growing the cotton and spinning it. Harvesting is a major pain literally, and combing it to get all the seeds out takes time.”

“Damn, damn yankees.

Boll weevil



Of course, in my description above, I left out a lot of steps in the cotton-to-thread process. You have to either pick all the seeds out of the cotton, or have it ginned. Then, combing the cotton to prepare it to be spun is a good idea too.”

“Wow, simultaneous posts!”

“Chickens are the nastiest creatures on the planet.
The term 'chicken s**t' has meaning. LOL”

“Chickens are pretty fowl.”

“*Groan*”

“Actually, having shoveled chicken shyte onto my grandfather's hobby farm, it's really not that bad. Once you get over the smell. Kinda like stinky dirt.

I found a whole chicken and an unbroken egg in some once. Cool.”

“Why do you have to drink gin when weaving thread bit?”

“lol...no, you have the cotton ginned. That is, put through a cotton gin (do they teach you about Eli Whitney in Yankee schools?) to have the seeds removed.

Here's one:


last edited: 3/18/05 10:01:45 AM”

“SS, chickens can be great for gardeners. Chicken guano is one of the very best natural fertilzers.”

“I use to have a garden and loved getting out in it. To pick a tomato off the vine and eat it was worthwhile. I grew tomatoes, bush beans, some type of lettuce, strawberries, cucumbers, watermelons and corn. Where I am at now I don't have anyplace to do that, not even a patio to grow tomatoes in a container. This yr I will hit the farmers market to buy my veggies and fruits.

I enjoy cooking but it is hard to cook for one person. If I do cook a meal I usually freeze the leftovers or eat it the next day at lunch. I use to have all of my mother's receipes but they disappeared. One of my favorites things to make was a pecan pie. Damn that was good.

I wish I had the talent to build some furniture. I have the instructions to build a few items but I never got around to doing it :(

Nigal, I agree with you on having a small farm to live on. Who knows that may happen.

Remember when people were so worried about Y2K. Seems a few folks bought a farm and started producing what they needed. Who knows maybe there were smart in doing that.”

“Makes great gunpowder, too, for the same reason.”

“Get the entire set of Foxfire Books.

They are a treasure of Appalachia crafts.”

“Why the hell did they stuff cotton down in that victrola? You southern people are weird.”

““SS, chickens can be great for gardeners. Chicken guano is one of the very best natural fertilzers.”
treebait
10:03:10 AM
3/18/05

Not when it's between the toes of your bare feet!!!!! ;-)”

“There is a small movement of people back to subsistence farming. There is even a magazine for them, but the name escapes me now. It's basically a movement to get totally off the grid and be completely self-sufficient. There was a book written about it a few years back, called Five Acres And Independence.

That idea has always fascinated me, but I know I'll never get the wife to go for it, lol...”

“bit, most of us on here would like to do something like that. But look at the population as a whole and see how many would. Heck not that many even have a garden.”

““I wish I had the talent to build some furniture.”

My dad is an amazing woodworker. He used to build Shaker reproductions by hand. Beautiful pieces. He has made a leg powered lathe, a shaving horse and uses them a lot. He has gobs of antique hand tools too. Nothing I love more than telling my dad, “Oh man! You should have seen what Norm Abrams made last week on the Yankee Workshop!”. He just rolls his eyes and gets pissed. I call him Joe The Toolman turner. LOL!”

“He probably likes to watch the other show, where the guy is at the other end of the spectrum and makes stuff with antique tools and methods, The Woodwright's Shop”

“Material Nitrogen% Phosphorus% Potassium%
Chicken Manure (fresh) 1.6 1.5 0.9

Actually, manure is a poor fertilizer. It is essentially, triple 1. In addition, unless composted, it will harm most plants.

The organic value is substantial however.”

“That guy is so funny to watch! He's like a mad scientist in his workshop. He can never find things and just rambles on and on. My dad has all his books.”

“Of course he does!

I was at an antique show a few years back at a local mall, and one guy had a bunch of old molding planes. I should have bought them all up.”

“This is how I fertilize my garden...

”

“Makes you real popular with the neighbors I bet...”

“I use to watch Norm Abrams Yankee Workshop and The Woodwrights Shop all the time.

One of my favorite shows was Square Foot Gardening http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

If I had a small area to grow a garden that is how I would do it”

“Funny thing about the WoodWright's Shop is that although what he does interests me, I have a bad tendency to fall asleep during it. I think it comes on at the wrong time during the day.”