Prepping gets Personal

I've been depressed and unmotivated lately.  It has caused me to examine my lifestyle and motivations again, and to do some tweaking.  Things that work for me, that add something to our quality of life, or at least don't take much away from it, made the cut.  Some things that I was doing purely out of guilt or fear, or based on someone else's priorities, were set aside for now.  Life is too short to live by someone else's priorities.  Am I the only one who does that?  I tend to get on a certain intellectual and lifestyle track that I find appealing, read a certain type of blogs telling me how to live, and proceed to shove my square life into that round hole.  For the past couple of years, it's been the homesteading/DIY/prepper/declinist/peak oil community.

But my situation is unique, as is everyone else's.  I've been mostly trying to adapt to a future of food and energy shortages, climate change, economic collapse, and other universal, generic, and somewhat abstract concerns, the kind that are commonly discussed in the "blogosphere".  I've largely ignored the factors that are most likely to affect me and my family in the short to medium term, and the things that give us the most bang for our buck. 


For example, getting my husband's green card this year is a more important investment for us than, say, solar panels or a wood cook stove.  After that is done (because I can't move before it's done), deciding whether or not to move to Mexico by myself with my son should be my highest priority.  My inertia in regard to that decision has been bothering me for a long time, and I need to give it more attention.  While I don't make decisions based on pros-and-cons lists, I think they can help to organize my thoughts.  So I made some lists: pros of staying here, pros of moving to Mexico, concerns about staying here, and concerns about moving to Mexico. 

I found that the things on my list "concerns: moving to Mexico" were things I've already given a lot of thought to, like: being alone, far from family and friends; separating my son from his father; having to start from zero in finding a place to live; homeschooling without access to good libraries; depending on my husband to send money; and having to transport or replace all our stuff.  But the things on the "concerns: staying here" list are things I have been reluctant to think about, such as how we're going to get by on one income when my unemployment runs out; what we're going to do if the car dies before we can afford to replace it; my son not having kids his age to play with here; the probability of eventually needing medical care and not being able to afford it; and the possibility of losing the house we live in and becoming homeless (for example, if something happened to my mother, who owns it).  The list of pros for staying here is quite small so far - the principal one being that our homestead is fairly well established.  The list of pros for moving to Mexico include the fact that it is a more resilient society and much better adapted to living in poverty; a more pleasant climate (I despise our humid summers); being able to escape from my unhappy marriage; and my husband being free to take a traveling job (installing roofing, with some relatives) where he would require neither a car nor a home.  

Making decisions based on incomplete information and educated guesses about the future is hard.  It sure would be nice if there was someone writing a blog about my specific concerns, whose advice would be really helpful.  Of course, I'm on my own on this one. 

Canning Shad

Shad is my favorite fish, and my favorite springtime food.  An ocean fish that spawns in rivers, like salmon, it is a seasonal delicacy.  Its main drawback is that it is a very bony fish, so bony that it is difficult to debone even a small piece to feed to a small child.  The other day I had an inspiration: why not try canning it?  Of course, the internet provided a recipe.  It involved simply brining pieces of fish for one hour in a solution of one cup salt to one gallon water, then raw packing with the skin-side towards the glass, and pressure canning pints or half-pints (with one inch headspace) for one hour and 40 minutes. 

I had one jar fail to seal, so we had shad cakes for breakfast the next day.  My son loved the "fish burgers".  I expected it to be like canned salmon, with bones that are not dangerous but still present.  We could not find a single bone in the whole pint, and I assure you there were a lot of them in there!  They completely dissolved.  Of course I used the liquid from the jar so no nutrients were lost.  I also cooked the fins and backbones and fed those to my chickens, who left no trace behind!  (If I didn't have chickens, I could have buried them under a vegetable plant.)  So other than the scales and the head, which were cut off before I bought them, nothing of those fish went in the garbage.  And, we benefited from all the calcium in their bones.  Both high-quality protein and calcium sources are a weakness in my long-term food storage, so I will be canning another batch this week.  This time I won't bother to remove the backbone.

I purchased 3 fish and ended up with 8 and a half pints.  It cost me $13.43 at the locally-owned seafood store across the street from my house (for the fish, not counting 15 cents or so for salt, and not counting the electricity to run the pressure canner for nearly 2 hours).  If shad is a local food in your area, I encourage you to try canning some!

Why I'm Not a Survivalist (A Rant)

I recently joined a "prepper" group here in Richmond.  I was looking to broaden my social network and went browsing on Meetup, and this was the most active of several groups I joined.  Since my son was born, my main social interactions have been with through a local "crunchy mama" group, but it's not as good a fit as it used to be.  The prepper group has some very good classes, and they seem to be nice enough people.  Urban homesteading, which is my defining interest and activity these days, overlaps in many ways with survivalist "prepping".  Does this make me a survivalist?  I have a lot in common with many survivalists, but I do not consider myself one.  In fact, I often find hard-core survivalists really irritating.  For example, I keep hearing how great this guy is that writes the "Surviving in Argentina" blog.  Supposedly his experience surviving the economic collapse in Argentina makes him an authority.  But all he seems to write about is guns, self-defense, bugging out, and similar topics.  Although he lives in Argentina and has a Spanish name, his writings betray no interest in, participation in, understanding of, or respect for, the culture of that country.  He could just as easily be writing in Texas or Montana, and I'm sure that's why he's so popular. Admittedly, I haven't read very much of what the guy writes, because I get overwhelmed with disgust when I try.  

I have not experienced an economic collapse.  But, I have lived through personal crisis and extreme poverty in Mexico City, and if I were to write about that, it would look very different.  I would tell you about how I adapted to a very difficult situation, and how different it was in reality from what I expected, and how much courage I discovered in myself, and how the experience changed me.  I would tell you about the interesting people I got to know and the subculture my street-musician boyfriend introduced me to.  I would tell you about having only two changes of clothes, and going as long as 10 days without a shower.  I would tell you about taking care of my boyfriend, who was diagnosed with AIDS and tuberculosis after we had been together for a year, and who I alone supported.  I would tell you about the first time I got on a city bus to sell chocolate bars, because I could make as much in a few hours doing that as working an office job all day, and I couldn't leave my boyfriend alone all day when he was sick, and about how long I sat at the bus stop trying to get up the courage to do it.  I would tell you that in Mexico City, it's hard to starve to death, because there's always someone who will lend you a meal if you know how to ask.  I would tell you how we maintained friendships in a city of 30 million without knowing anyone's address, phone number, or email.  I would tell you about the homeless shelters and rat holes we slept in.  I would tell you about the wonderful food we ate, and the culinary revelation that is Mexico.  I would tell you about how I lost my fear, and even the police couldn't intimidate me.  I would tell you how I managed to live in the city that even most Mexicans are afraid to visit, and walk down its streets in the middle of the night alone, without being afraid.  I would tell you what things "preppers" worry about that are silly, and what I think they should worry more about.  I would tell you why it broke my heart to leave Mexico, and why I still want to go back. 

I do want to hear stories of economic collapse in other countries, just not the kind of stories this guy is writing.