Reading the Blogs and thinking

I have been lazy today. Yesterday I moved an antique cabinet radio in order to get in behind it and clean. I can't get it back in place. Its spot is very tight and my arm just won't lift it well enough. I tried to rock it back and forth, but the darn thing just won't go. I'll think of something before this day is over, 'though.

I have to quit eating sweet potatoes, but they are so good. They are also sooo much starch, even if they are loaded with minerals and vitamins.

I have learned that if you cut cabbage in the center and above the main root the plant will produce another cabbage from the center. They are smaller because the season is late, but good just the same.

I have been reading Bison's blog and wonder about his veracity. He says he and his companion only use 2 gallons of water per day. I wonder what they flush with and how they wash cloths. He says he rides a bike to and from work which is OK if you can do it. What about when the snow and ice arrives? Or maybe he lives where there is "climate control." The One Acre Homestead guy says he gave away his bender-didn't need it. All these survival guys seem to hang on to their computers and Internet connections. The only blogger that seems to really live what he preaches is M D Creekmore at the Survivalist Blog.

I, for one, do not want to live to survive or survive to live as they did in the Dark Ages. I want electricity and heat, transportation and a working phone. I think in a true collapse of society and the economy, survival would become pretty primitive, not at all as heroic and romantic as the bloggers make it seem.

The weight of the world, home and hearth, would fall on the shoulders of woman, just as it did in the pioneer days and the opening of this country. Men often married several times as their women wore down and out. Child bed fever was a scourge as was any of the illnesses and injuries leading to premature death. Just take a walk in the older sections of any cemetery and calculate the ages of the many woman deceased. They died young; so many of them. Even into the early part of the 20th century people were exposed, deposed and carted off to the grave to repose...as there were no antibiotics or penicillin, good sanitary knowledge or habits. Penicillin didn't come into use until just before the second World War.

Those bloggers and armchair survivalist better hope their predictions and scenarios never occur. You can never prepare enough or be ready with the body bags for such a catastrophic human demise as some advocate. You can prepare for the short term as I have done, to stave off winter storms and inconveniences, but you can never have enough. Relie on your good sense and good faith and carry on.

So much for whatever comes down the Pike. Get your flue shots, a pneumonia shot and practice living.

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