The Farm and the Falling Sky

Don’t’cha know you’re supposed to be in a panic? Well you are – world markets are going to crash, banks are taking a holiday, and there are going to be food riots in the U.S. Oh yeah, and immigration and healthcare are going to be problems, too. It’s going to happen today, or maybe on November 30th, and definitely by 2012. The Fed’s going to do a little quantitative easing over the next 8 months and according to some that’s the beginning of the end. Might be this time, anyway. Or maybe the next time they try it. For sure at some point the Fed is going to ruin the country…maybe.

So what you need to do is stock up on duct tape and plastic. Er, wait… okay, that happened already.

I received an email from an acquaintance of a good friend of mine that outlined a list of D-day items to have on hand at your home for today – or for November 30th, or maybe for sometime in the future, she wasn’t sure. Things like 150 gallons of water, 3 different types of painkillers, gallons and gallons of honey, and vodka. The email gave a short spiel on what to do for your bathroom area and how to set up a propane stove in your garage (ignoring the possible complication of DEATH from a propane stove used in a closed garage…). We’re also supposed to get earplugs because sirens will inexplicably be going off day and night.

I wondered…what’s going to happen that I won’t be able to get to my bathroom? Or get water? What’s happening to my kitchen? Are the sirens stupid alerts, or just apathy barometers?

And then I was directed to a website where it looked like trends forecaster Gerald Celente was trying to tell people that if they didn’t shore up home base, doom was certain for their families. I’m not that familiar with Gerald Celente; I know he’s been on various talk shows and radio programs, he has books and has made some pretty credible observations in the past. He might be a good guy, or maybe he isn’t so great, I don’t know. What I do know is that the focus of the email was totally on the wrong thing: stocking up and shoring up.

Regardless of the state of our economy, we should be making our own way, supporting ourselves, innovating within our own communities. Never in history has there been a time like now when we are supported by the government, the school system, the grocery store, the television. Many of us out there could actually live without modern conveniences – but most of us wouldn’t know how to grow a salad, or where to find the primary ingredient for a hamburger.

I looked a little more at Celente, and then found this quote attributed to him, “Smaller communities, the smaller groups, the smaller states, the more self-sustaining communities, will ‘weather the crisis in style’ as big cities and hypertrophic suburbias descend into misery and conflict…”

I don’t know what the mass conflict is going to be, but I definitely agree that the smaller we are, the better we are governed, the better our units work, and the better we survive. Learn to cook with your neighbors, support community gardens, rip up the grass in your yards and grow your own vegetables and herbs, learn how to feed your animals without running to the pet store for a bag of this or that. And if you have more space, your responsibility grows: plant enough for yourself and one or two other families, learn to can food, raise chickens, hunt and raise your meat, learn how to pump and clean your own water, develop an energy plan that does not rely on the grid.

I don’t believe that the sky is going to fall tomorrow, I believe that keeping ourselves is what we need to be doing. Human Husbandry. Our country wasn’t built because we sat around and waited for the Crown to give us our food, we weren’t looking for the next Trader Joe’s to open up, and we certainly didn’t allow the State to tell our children what to think and what to learn. We built America into a bad ass economic giant with hard work and uncompromising principles. Then we went on vacation and let a bunch of lawyers with good connections at the best bars and brothels in DC start steering.

Take care of yourselves, take care of your families, and take care of your neighbors. If everyone does just this, the world will take care of itself.