I am 81 years old. I remember a good bit from 1946, before my Dad got home from the Navy. Mom and I lived with her parents in a town that is now part of Nashville, TN. The ice man would come down the alley twice a week and put a 25 lb block of ice in the top of my Grandmother's old oak icebox. In summer, all us little kids would follow the iceman around the neighborhood to get the little chips of ice that landed on the flat bed of his truck when he ice picked off the chunks of ice. There was a grocery, tiny by today's standards, that served our community. Everyone walked to the store and hand-carried home their purchases. Everyone lived within about 1/8 mile of the store and thought nothing of this. In season, a produce truck came through the neighborhood a couple of times a week. The Jewel Tea truck, with about anything needed for kitchen (except food) and bath, came around a couple of times a month. Then there was the Watkins man and the Fuller Brush man. We got by very well.
I live in Ireland and suggest wwofr Ireland. Wwoofers are the name given to people who register to work on organic farms to learn how to farm in return for their labour or sweat equity, bed and board are provided by the host. You can stay from 2 weeks to even a year. You get to choose what type of farm you go to and the skills involved. You can visit places worldwide and learn by doing. Website explains how it works. Love the content of your conversations and applaud you for stepping g out of the modern norm to live your dreams. Wwoof stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms
l'm 86....grew up in SoCalif....so much more freedom than kids have today....Wartime shortage came soon after Depression shortages, so ''making do'' was a way of life.
I heard last week they are going to ban all organic foods. But they are making clued fake foods they now label kosher. Nothing makes sense… on purpose.
Hey guys Jon here from CRAZYDAYSHOMESTEAD. My grandfather was 93 when he died. He said when he was a boy his meal for the day was a Lard sandwich. 2 pieces of bread with lard in the middle. Salt is the only way to truly cure meat for long term without electricity. Freeze drying would probably be the next. St. Croix sheep are naturally parasite resistant. Great job guys keep it up
I don’t see Ben a market gardener with the list of things he can do. Welder, knife smith, butcher, carpenter and I’m sure there is much more that I’m not remembering😊…
Al could do a lot. Hes had so many jobs, even cop. All three will need to be "market underground gardeners" for local people, and "builders". If the internet goes down, society will be totally broken, so just switching to antoher trade that likely wont exist isnt going to work. Take care of yourselves and share by trade.
My granny was born in 1898. They had gardens, did alot of canning. Had chickens and a cow. And hunted as needed. Lots of meals with bread gravy and one dish meals
Ben makes a very good point. Ask not what you'd want to do instead, ask what skills you have that you can trade or sell. Way back 100 plus years ago, people only needed hard cash money to pay taxes and the general store. The Dr could be paid in chickens, the hardware store in well made knives or baskets or fishing nets. Trust me, people have thrived for millions of years without the internet, some still do. Its not the end of the world, just another unexpected happening on the farm.
Ben made such a good point about being in a grid down situation and how people scope out who they can go to in that emergency, instead of preparing for themselves. I'm preparing for my family, not for my neighbors, my extended family, anyone that wants to show up at my door. I just can not be that person, and I should never be expected to be that person. Hopefully people continue to wake up and see the importance of what that security means. Understanding that what i have done wasn't just done overnight, either. It's taken me two years to get six months of food stored up. Little bits at a time, and growing a decent garden in the city. I can't grow my own meat, so rely on other sources, which is costly for me. Preservation is a separate cost, buying enough canning supplies to get it all shelf safe. So much goes into the idea.
My ancestors were farmers for over 100 years, root cellars, canning, smoke houses, snow and ice. Before electricity, you put food in the stream and ice plants were everywhere. Everyone had a garden and families and relatives shared food. There are farmers that have the knowledge from their ancestors in America. I grew up without the internet, people get together and talk face to face!!!!!
Lancaster PA here, we still have a nightly ice-cream truck during the hot months only and a basic ice cream cone is about $6. Trust me, the kids do not go running up to that truck. I was part of the 60s back to the land movement. Way back then there were no internet or cell phones. Everyone had at least one side gig either making goods for sale or providing a service. We connected through classified ads run in the monthly Mother Earth News and other niche magazines. The Whole Earth Catalog was a household requirement. I think the thing that broke our movement was a lack of a strong homeschooling system...it just wasn't there and defiance of the system meant jail time and maybe losing custody of your children. It was a different time. Love your podcast, thank you for spreading reality.
At 67 wish I had more time with my husbands grandparents. Every year we would go up to help on the farm for a couple weeks. They were in their late 80’s still farming with horses in New York. Grandma used a wood burning stove.(best baked goods ever) I would soak up as much information and skills as I could during those 2 weeks. To this day I will think I wish I could ask grandma/grandpa what they would do. Living in Florida cold storage/root cellar not an option. Wish some of the elders were here to ask. Good for you guys for realizing the value of what is being lost!
I heard roots and refuge yesterday ‘podcast. It was Jess interviewing the Jeremiah’s grandma from Newfoundland and it was very different when she was young. They had to barter veggies for meat. A worthwhile 45 min. To listen in.
It was meat and potato diet in the north. They salted and smoked their meat. Stored their potatoes in an attic through the winter because it was cold there. You didn't butcher until winter for cold storage . They made ice houses. Got ice from the lake.
Most folks do not know that ice plants were a thing long before electric was readily available. Big Ammonia Chilling operations were dangerous places on good days and fully deadly on a bad day. Losing a limb was a fairly good day. Much better than an ammonia line break.
@@markpashia7067-My Dad told stories of his dad and his brother traveling 200 miles round trip with two horse drawn wagons to get ice and salt for the community every fall. Hard to believe doing that now.
I am 64. When I was very young I remember that my gramma had an ice box- she had a huge block of ice delivered to the house and it went in the top compartment like our freezer, but that kept the food cold. Also she had a metal box in back of the house and the milkman delivered it to the box
I remember we had an icebox when I was small. I also remember having to clean the ice out the freezer unit in the early days. I’m quite a bit older than you I think.
Excellent topic today! I'm gardening & canning and live in a Senior Park. Ben - several people have said to me recently "I know where to go so I won't be hungry". I had to think about my response. Give them a fish or teach them how to fish. If the internet and RUclips weren't available, teach in-person classes on gardening & how to raise and process animals in the space they have now. Encourage them to learn now and build their physical library if the grid goes down for any length of time. Go to their homes and help them build a plan.
You guys wont have problem if the internet goes down. Al has has an excavator and loader, All he needs now is a single axel dump truck. Jason can build and Ben can be a butcher and do his thing. I would recommend you all build a root cellar or bunker. Love watching you on youtube.👍
I'm 68 and grew up here in SW Virginia, close to Blue Ridge Mountains. My parents grew up even further into the Appalachian Mountains. I saw smoke houses for meat and tobacco (!) all my life. I've been served country ham, salt cured, many times. I grew up canning my entire life. It's interesting watching & listening to you guys (others) as you try to learn old ways. Personally for me, Joel Salatin is always a great source of how things were done. He's just a bit younger than me & he's rdone and/or researched many of the old ways.
My kids have always been on a rural road so this past summer while we were visiting my sister they learned how to flag down the ice cream truck. I think my sister had more fun sharing that experience with them because it did bring back a fond childhood memory.
I’m 55 and my family has been on the same piece of land since the 1800’s. Ice was collected from the ponds in the winter and kept in the “ice house” to keep stuff cold. It lasted until fall. By that time most of the cold stuff was already consumed. It used to get cold here sooner and by November they could collect ice again, then the butchering started. Most was smoked, sugar cured or salt cured. Chicken was always fresh, except for chicken feet which were dried for broth. We sugar cure hams and smoked bacon until the 90’s. Field corn was raised, dried on the stalk then picked and stored in the corn crib for the animals in winter. The folder was stored in “corn shocks” which are only decorative now. Sausage was ground and placed in casings with a ton of spices and salt, then smoked. Any red meat was dried-not smoked, to preserve and rehydrated to use. Cheese was aged stored in the milk house along with the milk and butter, which was either rock, block or partially underground. Eggs were always used fresh. Canning has really only been popular since latter half of the 1800’s. Food was mostly stored in the cellar. Things like tomatoes and cucumbers if raised at all well only for in season eating. The big difference is people changed what they are based on what they had access to. Unlike what we do now.
I have a cook book from a middle school and it talks about how many logs you should have to bake something. It's pretty fun to read. Talks about medium fire and such.
Here's an idea for a topic.......let the audience ask questions in previous videos to whomever that want to ask a question to and then whenever there's enough questions to split up between the three of you, y'all can take turns asking and answering the questions during the podcast. Another idea, occasionally let the wives do the podcast, instead. It would be a totally different perspective from their point of view on homesteading. Just something I thought I would mention to you guys. Either way, I love the videos and content.
Honestly I have to say these podcast videos with 3 dif homesteaders bouncing ideas off each other is actually super cool!! It’s always neat to get someone else’s views on how they would do something or maybe neat hacks to help the homesteader, or just simple minded homestead conversations. This to me is what is needed by homesteaders more than anything, is let’s air out the dirty laundry of it all and get to the nitty gritty of what do we really need to focus on when we’re doing this for a living. Meaning the things that really matter!! Keep pumpin out the neat videos guys👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I remember when I was a child we did a lot of canning, and we had a Ice box for things that had to be kept cold. Once a week we would go to town and go to the ice house and buy a huge block of ice for the ice box.. We also canned most of our meat. I am 81 years old. We also did not do a large amount of processing chickens, we only killed what we were going to eat that day.
The Amish can meat. I grew up with an icebox for a fridge and a woodstove.. There was a drying rack over the kitchen table to dry clothes. We had a big field of rutabagas that were harvested in fall and taken by wagon to the waxing station 10 miles away on the wagon. Brought home and dumped in a big shored up hole in the side of thegravel pit hill. Covered with canvas then sawdust , boards and dirt. One room in our cellar had big vevetable bins using sawdust to keep them. Dad made his own maple syrup from a maple bush. The boys would go up to lake huron in the spring for the smelt run/ Small fish that were gutted and breaded and fryed. Yum
Im 70 and growing up one of my Mamaw's lived in the country in southwest Virginia at the base of the Appalachian mountains. She died when I was 5 (1958). This is what I remember. She had no electricity, so she cooked on a wood stove and heated her house with fireplaces in every room as well as oil lamps. She had no running water, so drinking and cooking water came from walking to a mountain stream close by and would fill 2 stainless steel buckets with good cold spring water. Because she didn't have running water there was an outside toilet for the bathroom. Didn't have a refrigerator since no electricity though she had a stone dairy outside her backdoor that had a little cold spring running through it that she stored milk and things that needed to be kept cool. When we ate lunch, she had a white table cloth that she covered all the leftover food from lunch and left on the table. At suppertime, she and mama would reheat the leftovers that were covered in the dining room with that white cloth on Mamaw's woodstove. I remember if I got hungry after lunch, I would reach my little hand underneath that cloth and get a chicken leg to eat! She raised 2 hogs every year. Don't know who butchered them, but she had a big smokehouse to store the cured hams. She also canned chicken and pork as well as all the vegetables she raised. Sometimes my mom and I would go there so mom would help her can. There was no canner like we have today. You would build a fire, then set a big wash tub filled with water over the fire and can veggies, fruit and meat in that wash tub filled with hot water over a fire. The wash tub held 21 quarts per canning. Took all day and they had to keep fire going all day to maintain boiling water to can. I'll forever remember the simplicity of how my Mamaw lived. I loved going with her to gather eggs. Papaw died when I was a baby so I never knew him. Oh, Mamaw had no telephone, so no way to reach her. She and mom wrote letters to each other. Sweet memories.
Jason nailed it. Posting flyers at the library. So much of life revolved around the library and the churches. And bulletin boards were a physical thing with thumb tacks. This was true until about 1990 when the interwebs were born. You went online to local networks and sometimes connected to the WWW. Personal Computers only came in the eighties. Sometimes we forget how recent it was. I first wrote a computer program in high school in the sixties with a remote connection to a main frame computer at a defense contractor connected by phone to our school. Most schools did not have that.
I am in my 70's . . . raised in a family of eight. Lived up in wintery Cape Breton Island. The old folks used to say "ten months of winter and two months of bad skiing". Never was hungry. Looking back, the people lived in a circle. Summer, grow the winter food (garden), harvest the winter hay & oats. We had sheep, cows, horses, chickens, a pig and a dog. A nine month pig provides a lot of food, when they were butchered they were huge. Lambs can be harvested anytime, but we usually sold our lambs and calves to a butcher who drove around the country buying animals. My parents used ice as a means of storage, plenty of ice in Cape Breton, in the summer a shed over a shaded open spring, very cool. It was all very normal to my family, I never recall people fretting about hardship. I must admit, for me the one who at the time was most interested in the homestead life, it was a lot of work, no leisure time, I soon found out that there were easier paths in life. - Jason is right back then there was a real community, I see, none of that today. -Al, there was very little dependence on hunting, yes my dad would do a bit of hunting during deer season and us boy would snare some rabbits but it was more sport or pastime as fishing. -Ben very good point on food shortage, get an army, they'll come.
Let me suggest to you guys to take a joint family trip to Italy, in northern Tuscany and Emilia Romagna. So many people, farmers and non-farmers, hunt, cure their own meat, grow their own food, make their own cheese, wine, olive oil. It's just the norm out here. There are organic farms as well. Also there are agricultural organizations that could help you identify the right locations for the skills you want to learn. I live in Northern Tuscany.
Well I'm 75 and I can tell you Ben how my Mom cooked and what we ate back then. It was mostly simple foods. The basics. The occasional pastry or cake. We ate much less dairy than I eat now. And my Mom always had a small garden. She would grow tomatoes, berries, cucumbers, green and yellow string beans, potatoes, carrots, and onions mostly. We would all go strawberry picking in early summer at local farms each year. Also we went to apple farms. So Mom made jams with white sugar and used melted wax at the top of the jar after the jam was cooked. We ate stews or some main staple like meat, chicken, and fish occasionally with two vegetable sides. No pasta. No desserts unless we had something to celebrate. The worst part about living in rural Canada in the 1950s was that by that point, all the mothers used margarine, and were brainwashed into thinking Wonder Bread was full of vitamins haha. It's a miracle I survived haha, thank God.
With no internet to make an income I think there will be a lot more farmers markets and festivals. My grandparents lived a very different life. They had a huge farm. They raised their own beef, pork and chickens and huge gardens. My grandfather plowed his fields with a team of mules. Water was carried in from their bubbling spring down the hill. Had an outhouse, smoke house, corn crib, oil lamps, no electricity, multiple fireplaces, a wood stove, no refrigerator but had root cellars. Washed clothes using a hand wringer maching and hung things on the clothes line. Clothes Iron was heated on the wood stove. They raised 6 boys and 2 girls. All went to a one room school house with a wood heater. Us grandkids from town loved going to the farm and especially spending the night and the food tasted so much better. Especially loved riding the mules and exploring the land. Then looking for Rabbit Tobacco to smoke as teenagers. 😂🤣
What a great topic today! My grandparents - they used to cut huge blocks of ice out of lakes in the winter - and keep the ice cold with hay and get ice during the summer. Fast forward - when I was a kid - hand held calculators hadn't been invented yet, lol. I remember black and white tv too. I'm 67. I bought encyclopedias for the kids in the early 80s. Times have certainly changed.
Grandma in rural Iowa had no electric, candle lite, cellar to store food eggs and ice wrapped in gunny sacks, no running water, and to out house eat out in back, cooked on wood cook stove and summer a two burner kerosene little stove, heated water for Saturday night bath in big oval copper bucket, I am so glad I got to see that because now I know how to survive if need be, canned and fill the cellar shelves with her garden bounty, grandpa butchers the chickens best fried chicken in my life.
Jason I can see you being the solar cold room builder either mobile or in house. So many people now see cold rooms as a necessity more so then a root cellar. Ben could weld security screen for all those foodies that are trying to keep the slackers out. Al could grow a million chooks on his property and give one free with all his coffee sales. Lol
When I was small my Dad worked at a store at night butchering meat. He worked at the sawmill during the day. I went with him and watched him make hamburger and sausage. Cut up half a hog. ❤ He had to work hard and sometimes come in late.
I'm so glad you guys are doing this podcast! Wow, what would you do if there is NO internet? Nice that you got your workshop floor epoxied Al. Wow, broke your door and mower! That hurts! Nice Jason, you and your family went to Washington D.C. and all those museums! Yup, I'm not used to the hustle and bustle of the major cities in my state anymore. It's too busy! I like the less hurried small town traffic much better. Cool, an old house in the museum and see how the people lived in it with the journal someone kept. Payphone in the museum. Sounds fun! Thanks for sharing that Jason. Wow, classes on butchering meat birds, pigs, and cows. That sounds like a busy Fall for you Ben. Closing out the garden too! I think you would be successful doing wood projects Jason. I'm glad you have that to fall back on! Interesting, the ice cream truck idea! That could work. You've got to have some dry ice that's handy. Cool, vegetable or milk wagon. For you Al, maybe you could do a meat locker for the local people for deer and other animals. The mobile truck sounds great too! I think all of you could be great at doing butchering and showing how to process animals. I'm not sure it would be great as a job. Yes, harder to sell stuff when you can't put it online. It's good you can work at a machine shop again Ben. Craft shows for soap and knives sounds like another option. I think in the old days we had more fermentation of vegetables and storage of potatoes, onions, carrots, and cabbage to get through the winter. Harvesting the animals right before winter we had to preserve the meat to eat during winter so lots of salt curing or smoking. Everyone did a lot of canning. Everyone had a smoke house. We have lost a lot of knowledge. Wow, that's a scary comment to say to you Ben that you are a place to go for food. Nope! We always think we would rent out spots on our field for people to grow their own food if we had to. We wouldn't rent it out for much. We have a parking lot near our field because our barn had a store in it years ago. We have a garden big enough for us near our barn so it's removed from the field. It would help us and help people at the same time. I'm glad you are all making a living from RUclips! I like real books too! I love my ChickLift! This was fun to watch. Thanks guys!
This has been a very good conversation. You all have talents that would allow you to live fine if the word IF came out. That brings me to my grandparents and the store they use to have and grandpa being a butcher. I only wish I could have seen more of that with them but like I said before the big stores pushed them out of business. Great video today. I am in my late sixties and you brought back many memories. Great topic. God bless
Jason, I remember you built a cold room for the Rhoades family and would think you could make a decent living doing that and Al, you would be a great shop teacher in any high school in the North East. Now Ben the guy that has all those Young men growing up on that wonderful homestead, I say every week teach those young men how to use tools safely and include Sister with the group. This old MaDeare so enjoys watching your channels. You guys, put your families first, love your wives well and are training your children well. Some work is hard but you, #PressOnRegardless.
There are still plenty of people practicing old methods like north american indians,amish,mennonites,potugeese,italians and jewish cimmunitues. You can also start now and save videos to watch offline and cjeck out local libraries. Check out books like the lost ways etc. Thete are lots of videos on curring meats making sausage etc.
Its definitely important for people on social media who can/harvest meat, etc. to NOT show all of their food resources because it would put the family in danger of theft/raids or other unrealistic expectations that they are somehow entitled to a portion of the fruits of your labor. So, I would encourage everyone to "turn their waiting rooms into a classroom" - whether it's growing herbs, microgreens, patio gardens or larger plots, as well as chickens, etc. Learning to can produce from farmers markets (buying their seconds for better pricing), etc.
The old folks who wonder if you are sane remember how hard life was back when they were kids. It is easy to remember the fun parts like free range kids, but most want to forget getting up before the sun to milk the cows by lantern and working all day until the sun went down with hard physical labor. And you had kids for free labor on the farm. Twelve to fifteen kids was not uncommon and kids at ten had chores that were really jobs. I have been there picking string beans, bucking hay bales, cutting firewood not for a fireplace but real home heating. Cows milked, garden tended, chickens cared for both meat and egg layers, When it is your day in day out job it is not always fun. An outhouse and honey pot for nights, hand pump hauling water for everything. That was why a Saturday bath in the kitchen was a thing with reusing the water for the kids because you had to carry the water in by bucket and heat on the stove and you had to haul out the old water by bucket from the wash tub in the middle of the floor unless you were rich and had servants. Who wants to give up running water and indoor plumbing? Step in the shower when ever you want. This all changed in my lifetime for most rural folks. My mom remembers having the last outhouse in her city for disease reasons they were outlawed but her mom was a widow and poor. The city finally helped with indoor plumbing for her family just for health board reasons. It was a hard life from sun up to sun down, but the whole family was a business. Chores divided by ability and age and everyone worked. Even in winter there were things that must be done like bringing in Ice blocks when the stream froze as those had to last into the summer. Timber was cut and made into boards or firewood. Had to stack lumber to air dry for next years use on outbuildings. No Lowe's around the corner. Once kids could read, write, and "cypher numbers" (basic math) they were needed on the farm. In our family the older kids left for the city as soon as they could. The boys WANTED to go to high school since that meant moving to the city and getting out of chores. Most went into the military and after coming home wanted nothing to do with the farm, but a couple carried on the family business. Husbands and wives were REAL partners in the family business back then. That is what I see with Al and Gina as they both pull to the same goals. Don't know about Jason and Ben as I have not watched their channels much yet. Love what you are doing but the old rule was it ain't a farm without forty acres and a mule. Less than that was a hobby, but I know this homesteading RUclips works with less. Good luck guys. On education, my parents generation was expected to go to eighth grade local laws, my grandparents generation usually went to third or fourth grade until they got down basic math (less than algebra). My generation required sixteen years old but expected a high school diploma. My children are expected to have more and encouraged to do college. Kids today need an advanced degree to be anything much. The times, they are a changing. (song lyric for those who are too young)
Interestingly yesterday the local tech school announced a semester course to become a butcher. We have such a shortage you almost need to book a year in advance. This is at MSTC in central Wi.
I grew up in rural Washington state back in the stone age on a subsistence type farm. Most of what we ate we grew or foraged. We did have electricity but it was common to lose power not only in the winter but even the summer for a few days or even over a week at a time. It wasnt a big deal if the power went out. Our heat was from wood and we had a "trash burner" in the kitchen right beside beside the electric. Grandma and Grandpa never transitioned to an electric cook stove. Sure wish i had her stove now. The longer outages were during the winter, of course. It would just be a case of moving the food from the fridge/freezer out to this one shed that was flimsy enough for water to freeze in it but it still protected it from wild animals. In the summer time if there was no power the next day we would start pulling meat from the freezer to cook or can so it wouldnt be lost. The worst part was it meant we were going to have fried smelt for breakfast 36:52 , lunch and dinner because smelt arent that great canned. Smelt is not a great fish. Gardening was more simple back then and so were menus. There was only one type of anything grown. Only one green bean and one dried bean, one tomato, one green pea, one carrot, etc. We didnt have taco tuesday, curry or asian cuisine. Mom wouldnt have known what to do with snow peas or jalapeno peppers. We had wells so if the power was out we had to use the hand pump to water the animals and ourselves. We didnt have an indoor toilet so nothing was different about that. We never said there was a storm coming and had to rush to the store for bread and milk. Weather reports were very inaccurate. The best weather reports came from the neighbor who had an uncle who lived close to the coast. When a storm hit there he would make a collect call to our neighbor. He would give a fake name. Each fake name meant something different so our neighbor would be given a heads up about different situations without having to pay for the call. It would be nice going back to sending and receiving letters. Email and texting isnt the same.
I live in Amish country here in Indiana even they use propane now for refrigeration and cooking etc . Bartering used to be a big thing. An exchange of skills to help each other in community.
So many say that if things go south they would take to hunting. What would happen is that “wildlife” would become scarce very quickly with everyone hunting in and out of season. I think Al could become the ice man - harvesting ice like the Amish and then delivering it to homes that have refrigerators that take blocks of ice. Jason would be the builder helping us all build smokehouses and outhouses. Ben would be the handyman and gardener like my dad who said he was a “jack of all trades” but “master of none”! Enjoyed the video. Being 70, I luckily got to experience homes without electricity and bathrooms and older relatives that we watched and learned from.
I'm 61 and we had nothing like internet, cell phones etc. We mailed letters, went to people in person, had encyclopedias, library. We had real butchers in grocery stores that got their Meats from locker plants and locals. My dad's aunt and uncle had smoke house and grew stuff and preserved it. They lived with the seasons. And growing up with that, I loved it. Now I miss it.
I am 70 years old. I got married in 1974. I would cook all my bread, rolls. Make pickled goods. I never bought anything for my freezer…I made it. But then the ingredients got so expensive. It is now cheaper to buy a loaf of bread, even though food prices are going up and up. There are now people who can’t afford to feed their family.
Great topic. Many decades ago, there was a truck called The Country Store" that came by my Grandmother's house. you could walk in and it was set up just like a small grocery store. Back then we had a milk man that delivered our milk. Fun fact; the first grocery store was built it 1916. My question has always been, how do we get the things we can't grow. Can we do without some things, or can we find a substitute that would be easily attainable? Most elderly folks 80+, are usually home bodies. Keep the convo going somebody has a grandparent or great grand that would love to talk to you. Always have a plan B.
@@zippythechicken I totally agree. After rereading what I wrote, I should have said, the questions I ask others to think about. Many folks are new to the homestead life. Thanks for your input. 🙂
I remember as a kid a truck would drive around that would sharpen your kitchen knives. I always thought it was weird but when I talk about it around the older people they used to love them.
Back before stainless steel knives that don't keep as good an edge as carbon steel knives you would need your carbon steel knife sharpened. People are going back to the carbon steel knives but they are very expensive and you have to take care of them so they don't rust and you have to keep them sharp. If you find a slightly rusty kind of blackened knife with a wood or antler handle at a garage sale, grab it and learn to sharpen it with a whetstone. They are the best knives.
It's too bad people from my generation (I am 72) were not given much encouragement when they tried to live a sustainable life. We were kids who had a lot of skills because we had grown up with gardens and family farms. A lot were just called hippies and made fun of when they tried to live like you guys do! And there was no internet to make money. Someone had to "work for the man" away from the farm. From my POV, these young people were discouraged so they gave up and moved on to the greedy materialist life! So sad....
I think the back to the land movement in the 1970s may have saved a lot of the old ways because they were researching how people lived before and then wrote books about it. Not everything was in vain. Lots of good books with so much great knowledge came out of that! If it wasn't done back then a lot more would have been totally lost to us. I thank the sustainable pioneers from then for handing down so much information!
I have been doing it for years. I’m 57 and I grew up with no tv and no internet, we used to have a pantry, and a butcher a fish monger and a milk man come round weekly and daily. We had a fridge and never missed out. Fruit in England was plain apples plums and pears, oranges were rare in my house. My mums dad bought home a banana once and all the 10 children they had wanted to try it so he peeled it ate it all to himself. Mum used to roll food in balls and stuff it down the turkeys neck, when she was a kid. There was a lot of black market stuff too. Lol. That was before the war, and I can remember helping my mum in the garden with the twin tub and the mangle. 😊. What would kids do today with out their phones. We used to catch tadpoles and disappear all day playing. 😂😊
I’m 70, and we ate a lot of beans and cornbread. My dad would fish, and hunt, and raised quail. So we had fresh fish, venison, squirrel, rabbit, and quail. My mother canned all summer, either what we grew or was given. We did have electricity. 😊
I was born in the 50s we had 1 phone and 1 TV for 6 kids. We were outside all the time, even in winter. Sledding , ice skating and making igloos. Neighbor had a pony and a sleigh. Tons of fun. My best friend lived on a farm we.spent lots of time exploration in the woods and they had a bug old Buick we drove in the field and lane . Learned to drive about 10 years old. Our road was paved but hers was gravel. We were never in before dark
I found thiis conversation so very interesting. I'm 87 and was raised for my first 14 years on a farm that had no electricity. We lived in Nebraska so had long cold winters as well as 4 seasons.My father farmed and never left the farm to earn an income. In the first years on my life we rented land but finally dad was able to purchase the farm that provided all for our family of 6. We butchered our beef and pork, mom would wrangle a chicken by hand if that was what she was having for our meal for that day. We had a good sized root cellar where lots of stuff was stored. We had ice from ponds or from an ice store intown but that was a good 15 mile from home. We used streams, horse tanks and such to keep things cold in the hotter times. We kept the milk, butter and cheeses in the horse tank that we would be using in the immediate time. We had not refrigerator that I can remember. There was a locker in town where we could have our meats stored but that was in the later years. Before that it was dried, smoked, cured and shared with others rather than have it spoil. Our farms community was all rural with farms at least a mile to 5 miles apart but everyone helped each other with planting, harvesting, butchering, in good times and in bad. We were never without that helping hand. Most had large families to get all the work done as well as help the other one that needed help. No one went without ever but neither did we ever say we didn't like what we were having for a meal. We were all of us in the family invested in getting whatever food there was available to the table and never did we even consider not eating it. I remember many times we had potatoes for every meal fixed in some very tasty way as my mother was very creative in how to make a great meal. Other times there was pancakes or biscuits and some kind of gravy for a meal. There often wasn't any sort of meat to flavor that gravy either. But because we had the good dairy cows we had plenty of milk and cream and all the things that come from that. We never thought of having a day off, getting away from it, taking a vacation or whatever the current generation is always moaning about today. We made it financially because we required none of the toys that seem to be a necessity today. We had no credit cards so bartering, trading or selling we the way of life. We had a telephone toward the last years on the farm but it was a community line where you would hear whose call ir was by the number of longs and short rings that came on. If it wasn't yours you didn't get on the line although we did know there were some who would get on the line and "rubber". That's were they would listen to the conversation that was going on between someone else. We were. never to take up a long time on the line as it was for everyone's use. To this day I don't like long phone calls nor do I care to be on the phone much. We used kerosene lamps for light, corn cobs, pieces of fire wood or maybe coal foro heating the pot belly stove. Coal though was an expense we couldn't afford. Gathering corn cobs out of the pig lot was our punishment often for disobeying the rules or just because we needed to get more in the shed. We boys and girls all learned how to do the same chores as it was required in order to survive. Mom always had a huge garden which required weeding all the time so that was another chore we all did. Canning was always done and to this day I remember how to do those blessed green beans by the hundred quarts and not enjoying the task. But that didn't mean I got out of doing it for a minute. I'm so blessed to have been raised during that time and learned how to be content with little, had skills that I used all my life raising my own family and have passed down to my kids and grand kids. We kids learned to play together, be creative in our play. I attended a one room school with one teacher with no assistant for her during the class time or recess. She lived with one of the families in the community. My father was on the school board as were other fathers. I don't remember the teacher ever having a difficult student as we all knew what was waiting for us at home if we were trouble. We had all the basic classes as well as art and music taught by the same teacher. I walked to school with my 2 brothers about 3 miles from home, all year round. Some students were fortunate to have a horse they rode to school kept in the barn on the school ground but we never did. After a severe blizzard that froze all our cattle and kept us stranded on our farm with snow drifts higher than our second story house, we could not recover enough to continue to farm. In my 8th grade we moved into town and life totally changed. Because there were many farmers who suffered the sane there were many looking for work as dad was. Dad never did find a good steady job for several years and then moved the family to Southern California where he was able to find work. By that time there were 8 of us in the family. I had started college so didn't move to California with the rest and again, life was never the same. I still would rather be on a homestead than in the city but God doesn't always hand us what we would rather. Again, it's ours to be content in whatsoever place we are in. I now enjoy a slower life with my kids, grand and great grands close by having had a great life because of what I learned on the old homestead.
Thank you for this topic! I'm 71 yrs old, and Im very interested in this subject. Living in Maine, this past growing season as Al said, has been horribly rainy and the harvest was negligable. Please follow up with this subject!
i was only born in 1964 and i remember going to friends farm and planting potatoes and all under ground foods like beets, carrot, parsnips they grew tons and canned like like crazy it was great fun and still remember it 59 yrs later hugsss
I'd like to see you discuss from the guy's point-of-view what projects or items you have built or considered for food storage. Because we all know that it's great to grow your own food, but you need to seriously consider where you are going to put it all once it is harvested.
That's so funny, Jason! A friend of mine had an ice cream truck in California. He made an OK living. Wife worked in an office. I've always wanted to visit the DC museums. Very cool.
My thoughts on what did they do 100 yrs ago I think community was a bigger thing and one household would not have a whole cow…. People took a share(bought) and different animals were butchered at different times and again shared 🤔👍😎
Sorry Al I haven't seen your channel but will check it out. However Jason you are Totally a McGuyver I tell you just seeing that trailer freezer and helping Justin with their freezers I mean I would Pay good money for that help. I haven't gotten my land yet but you and your wife are SKILL RICH. Ben I am sure you would Never run out of students for your classes. I subscribe to All things Homesteading NC and people are moving her in droves and they are Always asking for some help. IT'S Unlimited. There Is talk about YT going down because of their censorship. The Bearded Buthcher on RUclips does the mobile thing they are on yt and Instagram ❤
I also thought of some other resources that would make great homeschool field trips, your local historical societies! Every town in the Finger Lakes of New York has one, and believe me those folks love to share what they know! Besides the Smithsonian there is Colonial Williamsburg, We have gardens and Longhouse museums here which show how things were made and a complete village just outside of Rochester NY that has people in each house to tell about the people who lived in it, what they did, what they ate and raised and how it was built! I think you guys should ask your wives to check it out and go as a family! There is nothing new under the sun!
Don’t think that you can’t grow a years worth of food to feed a family in a northern climate - I do every year and have all my 70 years of life. I live in central Canada zone 3a and we have at most 3 months plus in a good year another week on either side of June to August. In a 1 acre garden, plus 4 greenhouses , I grow enough food to share around 5000 lbs of food with our local food bank, plus feed my family (7) until the next harvest season. My grandmother taught us how to garden, and how to preserve the meat by smoking and canning. Build an ice block refrigerator to keep food cool. Build a root cellar to store veg that can last all winter. Forage for plants that can be used for food and medicine. I have also added some modern technology to assist with food preservation - freeze drying - meats, vegetables, fruits, meals, herbs, spices - that if done correctly can last 25 years - no refrigeration required.
Ben, you might find that local butchers would be glad to have your help during fair season when they are swamped with all the animals coming in from 4-H auctions.
This is a subject that can be seen from a business and life perspective. We rely so much on infrastructure (internet, automated banking, business services). The more we go automated, the more people forget the manual ways. If you don't have a backup, you can lose your business or way of life. I worked in Disaster recovery/contingency from an IT perspective. Just from a bad storm, people need to be prepared. Just common sense things people need to remember. My contingency brain is always working in my personal life now because of working in that field. It's a thing that everyone needs to think about. Even from simple power failure issues. What will you do?
My grandmother had an icebox, which looked kind of like a refrigerator, but was cooled by big chunks of ice cut from nearby lakes here in Vermont. The ice was loaded on big wagons, covered with with sawdust, and hauled back to the farm with their big Belgian workhorse to put in their cold cellar, stored with sawdust, and hauled piece by piece upstairs to use in the icebox. She kept her milk from their cow, homemade butter, milk clabber, any foods that needed to be kept cold. Their meats were cured, and I remember my grandpa eating a lot of dried beef, home dried. I don't believe they had real running water until after I moved up here from Tennessee in 1957, when my mom died. I remember as a little girl, being at their farm and taking a bath in a big tub in the kitchen, with water heated in the water well of their wood stove! They lived without electricity until the 40's. My parents were the same as yours--I rode all over the rural roads here in Berlin, VT. That was my transportation, and I used to go out on my bike and collect 2 cent coke bottles to turn in for penny candy. My parents had no idea where I went, or what I ate, or who I saw. And it was all pretty safe back then in the late 50s and early 60s. This was a very interesting video, guys, thank you!
I live in Florida. Really trying to treat our summer like your winter because it's just to hot and humid to spend time outside. I grow Seminole pumpkin, blackeye peas, sweet potato and okra, that's it during summer. So, heading into our "fall" I'm getting the garden ready. Green beans, radish and kale are out of the ground. Y'all inspire this 58 yr old to keep plugging along. Thanks!
Check out the historical sites. Locally we have the Shakers, Sturbridge Village, Pioneer Valley here in New England. My diet has changed drastically since the 50's when I was a child.
All righty then another great podcast,I didn't get to see this one live shame on me but it was still great as a video y'all have a nice week and stay safe. See ya soon
Talking about how folks did it without electricity and refrigeration, I am in my late 70's and have always had electricity, but I remember my grandparents stories about how they lived before the time of electricity. For lights, they used oil lamps and candles and to keep things cold they had an ice box that they would get blocks of ice and put them in the ice box to keep things cold. The ice would be collected from ponds and lakes during the winter and stored in an ice house with sawdust to prolong the preservation time. They had a wood stove for cooking and heating. They had a cellar in their house where they would store all the produce, either it being canned or in bins. The cellar was always much cooler than outside as it was below ground level and the earth kept the temperature much cooler. They had spring fed water that was gravity fed that provided their drinking water. They lived in the country and always had a garden to provide for vegetables and livestock and chickens for meat, dairy and eggs. They also did hunting and fishing for wild game. They had a rain barrel in the back of their house that was used for keeping catfish alive that my grandfather would catch and keep some of them in the rain barrel for future use.
Something any of the three of you could do is what I saw as kid growing up in the 50’s. There was a farmer in a neighboring community who grew vegetables and would load his station wagon up one day a week and drive through our neighborhood selling veggies out of the back of his station wagon. I don’t know if it could be done at a profit but at the cost of organic foods these days it might be profitable.
Hey Ben, you need to make an outdoor kitchen for you guys, especially for canning season and for the smoker. Al can give you some pointers on what to include.
The mobile butcher idea is good. It would seem much better to "harvest" your animal in their familiar place while they are maybe eating a nice snack than to haul them off alive to a traumatic end at some off site, unfamiliar slaughter house.
I am 81 years old. I remember a good bit from 1946, before my Dad got home from the Navy. Mom and I lived with her parents in a town that is now part of Nashville, TN. The ice man would come down the alley twice a week and put a 25 lb block of ice in the top of my Grandmother's old oak icebox. In summer, all us little kids would follow the iceman around the neighborhood to get the little chips of ice that landed on the flat bed of his truck when he ice picked off the chunks of ice. There was a grocery, tiny by today's standards, that served our community. Everyone walked to the store and hand-carried home their purchases. Everyone lived within about 1/8 mile of the store and thought nothing of this. In season, a produce truck came through the neighborhood a couple of times a week. The Jewel Tea truck, with about anything needed for kitchen (except food) and bath, came around a couple of times a month. Then there was the Watkins man and the Fuller Brush man. We got by very well.
I live in Ireland and suggest wwofr Ireland. Wwoofers are the name given to people who register to work on organic farms to learn how to farm in return for their labour or sweat equity, bed and board are provided by the host. You can stay from 2 weeks to even a year. You get to choose what type of farm you go to and the skills involved. You can visit places worldwide and learn by doing. Website explains how it works. Love the content of your conversations and applaud you for stepping g out of the modern norm to live your dreams. Wwoof stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms
l'm 86....grew up in SoCalif....so much more freedom than kids have today....Wartime shortage came soon after Depression shortages, so ''making do'' was a way of life.
we were not allowed to use the car in town
We used to buy items from what we knew as the Jewel T man. That was back in the 70's
I heard last week they are going to ban all organic foods. But they are making clued fake foods they now label kosher. Nothing makes sense… on purpose.
Hey guys Jon here from CRAZYDAYSHOMESTEAD. My grandfather was 93 when he died. He said when he was a boy his meal for the day was a Lard sandwich. 2 pieces of bread with lard in the middle. Salt is the only way to truly cure meat for long term without electricity. Freeze drying would probably be the next. St. Croix sheep are naturally parasite resistant. Great job guys keep it up
I see Al as a contractor, Ben as a market gardener, and Jason as a wood worker/ homesteader. Really I would picture all of you still homesteading.
I don’t see Ben a market gardener with the list of things he can do. Welder, knife smith, butcher, carpenter and I’m sure there is much more that I’m not remembering😊…
@@sallyburkett-caskinette8723 Midwife err midhusband? He delivered Buggy after all.
AL could work for Ken's Carpentery
Al could do a lot. Hes had so many jobs, even cop. All three will need to be "market underground gardeners" for local people, and "builders". If the internet goes down, society will be totally broken, so just switching to antoher trade that likely wont exist isnt going to work. Take care of yourselves and share by trade.
My granny was born in 1898. They had gardens, did alot of canning. Had chickens and a cow. And hunted as needed. Lots of meals with bread gravy and one dish meals
Root cellars, storage in a cold creek, salt preserving, fermenting, smoking meat, eat within season.
Ben makes a very good point. Ask not what you'd want to do instead, ask what skills you have that you can trade or sell.
Way back 100 plus years ago, people only needed hard cash money to pay taxes and the general store. The Dr could be paid in chickens, the hardware store in well made knives or baskets or fishing nets. Trust me, people have thrived for millions of years without the internet, some still do. Its not the end of the world, just another unexpected happening on the farm.
Ben made such a good point about being in a grid down situation and how people scope out who they can go to in that emergency, instead of preparing for themselves. I'm preparing for my family, not for my neighbors, my extended family, anyone that wants to show up at my door. I just can not be that person, and I should never be expected to be that person. Hopefully people continue to wake up and see the importance of what that security means.
Understanding that what i have done wasn't just done overnight, either. It's taken me two years to get six months of food stored up. Little bits at a time, and growing a decent garden in the city. I can't grow my own meat, so rely on other sources, which is costly for me. Preservation is a separate cost, buying enough canning supplies to get it all shelf safe. So much goes into the idea.
My ancestors were farmers for over 100 years, root cellars, canning, smoke houses, snow and ice. Before electricity, you put food in the stream and ice plants were everywhere. Everyone had a garden and families and relatives shared food. There are farmers that have the knowledge from their ancestors in America. I grew up without the internet, people get together and talk face to face!!!!!
Lancaster PA here, we still have a nightly ice-cream truck during the hot months only and a basic ice cream cone is about $6. Trust me, the kids do not go running up to that truck.
I was part of the 60s back to the land movement. Way back then there were no internet or cell phones. Everyone had at least one side gig either making goods for sale or providing a service. We connected through classified ads run in the monthly Mother Earth News and other niche magazines. The Whole Earth Catalog was a household requirement. I think the thing that broke our movement was a lack of a strong homeschooling system...it just wasn't there and defiance of the system meant jail time and maybe losing custody of your children. It was a different time.
Love your podcast, thank you for spreading reality.
At 67 wish I had more time with my husbands grandparents. Every year we would go up to help on the farm for a couple weeks. They were in their late 80’s still farming with horses in New York. Grandma used a wood burning stove.(best baked goods ever) I would soak up as much information and skills as I could during those 2 weeks. To this day I will think I wish I could ask grandma/grandpa what they would do. Living in Florida cold storage/root cellar not an option. Wish some of the elders were here to ask. Good for you guys for realizing the value of what is being lost!
I heard roots and refuge yesterday ‘podcast. It was Jess interviewing the Jeremiah’s grandma from Newfoundland and it was very different when she was young. They had to barter veggies for meat. A worthwhile 45 min. To listen in.
It was meat and potato diet in the north. They salted and smoked their meat. Stored their potatoes in an attic through the winter because it was cold there. You didn't butcher until winter for cold storage . They made ice houses. Got ice from the lake.
sounds good to me
Most folks do not know that ice plants were a thing long before electric was readily available. Big Ammonia Chilling operations were dangerous places on good days and fully deadly on a bad day. Losing a limb was a fairly good day. Much better than an ammonia line break.
@@markpashia7067-My Dad told stories of his dad and his brother traveling 200 miles round trip with two horse drawn wagons to get ice and salt for the community every fall. Hard to believe doing that now.
I am 64. When I was very young I remember that my gramma had an ice box- she had a huge block of ice delivered to the house and it went in the top compartment like our freezer, but that kept the food cold. Also she had a metal box in back of the house and the milkman delivered it to the box
I remember we had an icebox when I was small. I also remember having to clean the ice out the freezer unit in the early days. I’m quite a bit older than you I think.
We had a milkman from a local dairy delivering milk in cans to our doorstep every other day. We had a large family (9) and drank a lot of milk.
Excellent topic today! I'm gardening & canning and live in a Senior Park. Ben - several people have said to me recently "I know where to go so I won't be hungry". I had to think about my response. Give them a fish or teach them how to fish. If the internet and RUclips weren't available, teach in-person classes on gardening & how to raise and process animals in the space they have now. Encourage them to learn now and build their physical library if the grid goes down for any length of time. Go to their homes and help them build a plan.
How is it possible that my three favorite RUclipsers are doing this?! Love y’all! I feel it all!
It's really nice living in a place that has 4 seasons! And the knowledge is not completely lost- it's out there!
You guys wont have problem if the internet goes down. Al has has an excavator and loader, All he needs now is a single axel dump truck. Jason can build and Ben can be a butcher and do his thing. I would recommend you all build a root cellar or bunker. Love watching you on youtube.👍
Bring back the milkman😊
I'm 68 and grew up here in SW Virginia, close to Blue Ridge Mountains. My parents grew up even further into the Appalachian Mountains. I saw smoke houses for meat and tobacco (!) all my life. I've been served country ham, salt cured, many times. I grew up canning my entire life. It's interesting watching & listening to you guys (others) as you try to learn old ways. Personally for me, Joel Salatin is always a great source of how things were done. He's just a bit younger than me & he's rdone and/or researched many of the old ways.
My kids have always been on a rural road so this past summer while we were visiting my sister they learned how to flag down the ice cream truck. I think my sister had more fun sharing that experience with them because it did bring back a fond childhood memory.
I’m 55 and my family has been on the same piece of land since the 1800’s. Ice was collected from the ponds in the winter and kept in the “ice house” to keep stuff cold. It lasted until fall. By that time most of the cold stuff was already consumed. It used to get cold here sooner and by November they could collect ice again, then the butchering started. Most was smoked, sugar cured or salt cured. Chicken was always fresh, except for chicken feet which were dried for broth. We sugar cure hams and smoked bacon until the 90’s. Field corn was raised, dried on the stalk then picked and stored in the corn crib for the animals in winter. The folder was stored in “corn shocks” which are only decorative now. Sausage was ground and placed in casings with a ton of spices and salt, then smoked. Any red meat was dried-not smoked, to preserve and rehydrated to use. Cheese was aged stored in the milk house along with the milk and butter, which was either rock, block or partially underground. Eggs were always used fresh. Canning has really only been popular since latter half of the 1800’s. Food was mostly stored in the cellar. Things like tomatoes and cucumbers if raised at all well only for in season eating. The big difference is people changed what they are based on what they had access to. Unlike what we do now.
Looking at antique cook books will help you see what folks used to eat. I have a mid-1880's southern cookbook which is quite fascinating
I have a cook book from a middle school and it talks about how many logs you should have to bake something. It's pretty fun to read. Talks about medium fire and such.
I'm only 64 , and not giving up , don't give in to deciept, Show how to grow food , catch fish, hunt or grow a garden , just don't give up !!!!!!
Here's an idea for a topic.......let the audience ask questions in previous videos to whomever that want to ask a question to and then whenever there's enough questions to split up between the three of you, y'all can take turns asking and answering the questions during the podcast. Another idea, occasionally let the wives do the podcast, instead. It would be a totally different perspective from their point of view on homesteading. Just something I thought I would mention to you guys. Either way, I love the videos and content.
Jennifer- great ideas!
People would be eating a lot of soup! You would concentrate more on the garden and canning. Wild life, and things like that
Honestly I have to say these podcast videos with 3 dif homesteaders bouncing ideas off each other is actually super cool!! It’s always neat to get someone else’s views on how they would do something or maybe neat hacks to help the homesteader, or just simple minded homestead conversations. This to me is what is needed by homesteaders more than anything, is let’s air out the dirty laundry of it all and get to the nitty gritty of what do we really need to focus on when we’re doing this for a living. Meaning the things that really matter!! Keep pumpin out the neat videos guys👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
We have a butcher shop that's been here for almost 100 years. They make their own sausage, bacon, and even process game that hunters bring in.
I remember when I was a child we did a lot of canning, and we had a Ice box for things that had to be kept cold. Once a week we would go to town and go to the ice house and buy a huge block of ice for the ice box.. We also canned most of our meat.
I am 81 years old. We also did not do a large amount of processing chickens, we only killed what we were going to eat that day.
As a young kid in the 50’s and 60’s you learnt to be aware of your surroundings because nobody new where you were, but off we went gone for the day.
The Amish can meat. I grew up with an icebox for a fridge and a woodstove.. There was a drying rack over the kitchen table to dry clothes. We had a big field of rutabagas that were harvested in fall and taken by wagon to the waxing station 10 miles away on the wagon. Brought home and dumped in a big shored up hole in the side of thegravel pit hill. Covered with canvas then sawdust , boards and dirt. One room in our cellar had big vevetable bins using sawdust to keep them. Dad made his own maple syrup from a maple bush. The boys would go up to lake huron in the spring for the smelt run/ Small fish that were gutted and breaded and fryed. Yum
Im 70 and growing up one of my Mamaw's lived in the country in southwest Virginia at the base of the Appalachian mountains. She died when I was 5 (1958). This is what I remember. She had no electricity, so she cooked on a wood stove and heated her house with fireplaces in every room as well as oil lamps. She had no running water, so drinking and cooking water came from walking to a mountain stream close by and would fill 2 stainless steel buckets with good cold spring water. Because she didn't have running water there was an outside toilet for the bathroom. Didn't have a refrigerator since no electricity though she had a stone dairy outside her backdoor that had a little cold spring running through it that she stored milk and things that needed to be kept cool. When we ate lunch, she had a white table cloth that she covered all the leftover food from lunch and left on the table. At suppertime, she and mama would reheat the leftovers that were covered in the dining room with that white cloth on Mamaw's woodstove. I remember if I got hungry after lunch, I would reach my little hand underneath that cloth and get a chicken leg to eat! She raised 2 hogs every year. Don't know who butchered them, but she had a big smokehouse to store the cured hams. She also canned chicken and pork as well as all the vegetables she raised. Sometimes my mom and I would go there so mom would help her can. There was no canner like we have today. You would build a fire, then set a big wash tub filled with water over the fire and can veggies, fruit and meat in that wash tub filled with hot water over a fire. The wash tub held 21 quarts per canning. Took all day and they had to keep fire going all day to maintain boiling water to can. I'll forever remember the simplicity of how my Mamaw lived. I loved going with her to gather eggs. Papaw died when I was a baby so I never knew him. Oh, Mamaw had no telephone, so no way to reach her. She and mom wrote letters to each other. Sweet memories.
Jason nailed it. Posting flyers at the library. So much of life revolved around the library and the churches. And bulletin boards were a physical thing with thumb tacks. This was true until about 1990 when the interwebs were born. You went online to local networks and sometimes connected to the WWW. Personal Computers only came in the eighties. Sometimes we forget how recent it was. I first wrote a computer program in high school in the sixties with a remote connection to a main frame computer at a defense contractor connected by phone to our school. Most schools did not have that.
I am in my 70's . . . raised in a family of eight. Lived up in wintery Cape Breton Island. The old folks used to say "ten months of winter and two months of bad skiing". Never was hungry. Looking back, the people lived in a circle. Summer, grow the winter food (garden), harvest the winter hay & oats. We had sheep, cows, horses, chickens, a pig and a dog. A nine month pig provides a lot of food, when they were butchered they were huge. Lambs can be harvested anytime, but we usually sold our lambs and calves to a butcher who drove around the country buying animals. My parents used ice as a means of storage, plenty of ice in Cape Breton, in the summer a shed over a shaded open spring, very cool. It was all very normal to my family, I never recall people fretting about hardship. I must admit, for me the one who at the time was most interested in the homestead life, it was a lot of work, no leisure time, I soon found out that there were easier paths in life.
- Jason is right back then there was a real community, I see, none of that today.
-Al, there was very little dependence on hunting, yes my dad would do a bit of hunting during deer season and us boy would snare some rabbits but it was more sport or pastime as fishing.
-Ben very good point on food shortage, get an army, they'll come.
Let me suggest to you guys to take a joint family trip to Italy, in northern Tuscany and Emilia Romagna. So many people, farmers and non-farmers, hunt, cure their own meat, grow their own food, make their own cheese, wine, olive oil. It's just the norm out here. There are organic farms as well. Also there are agricultural organizations that could help you identify the right locations for the skills you want to learn. I live in Northern Tuscany.
Well I'm 75 and I can tell you Ben how my Mom cooked and what we ate back then. It was mostly simple foods. The basics. The occasional pastry or cake. We ate much less dairy than I eat now. And my Mom always had a small garden. She would grow tomatoes, berries, cucumbers, green and yellow string beans, potatoes, carrots, and onions mostly. We would all go strawberry picking in early summer at local farms each year. Also we went to apple farms. So Mom made jams with white sugar and used melted wax at the top of the jar after the jam was cooked. We ate stews or some main staple like meat, chicken, and fish occasionally with two vegetable sides. No pasta. No desserts unless we had something to celebrate. The worst part about living in rural Canada in the 1950s was that by that point, all the mothers used margarine, and were brainwashed into thinking Wonder Bread was full of vitamins haha. It's a miracle I survived haha, thank God.
With no internet to make an income I think there will be a lot more farmers markets and festivals. My grandparents lived a very different life. They had a huge farm. They raised their own beef, pork and chickens and huge gardens. My grandfather plowed his fields with a team of mules. Water was carried in from their bubbling spring down the hill. Had an outhouse, smoke house, corn crib, oil lamps, no electricity, multiple fireplaces, a wood stove, no refrigerator but had root cellars. Washed clothes using a hand wringer maching and hung things on the clothes line. Clothes Iron was heated on the wood stove. They raised 6 boys and 2 girls. All went to a one room school house with a wood heater. Us grandkids from town loved going to the farm and especially spending the night and the food tasted so much better. Especially loved riding the mules and exploring the land. Then looking for Rabbit Tobacco to smoke as teenagers. 😂🤣
they are goingto maki itillgal to sell food to otherswtheglobal reset. you willsell black market.
Love the podcast btw great talks
Iceboxes, root cellars, spring boxes.
Some week’s topic: What is your next thing you want to build on the farm and why?
What a great topic today! My grandparents - they used to cut huge blocks of ice out of lakes in the winter - and keep the ice cold with hay and get ice during the summer. Fast forward - when I was a kid - hand held calculators hadn't been invented yet, lol. I remember black and white tv too. I'm 67. I bought encyclopedias for the kids in the early 80s. Times have certainly changed.
Ben look for old cook books that will give you a lot of information on old recipes, Old way of doing things.
Grandma in rural Iowa had no electric, candle lite, cellar to store food eggs and ice wrapped in gunny sacks, no running water, and to out house eat out in back, cooked on wood cook stove and summer a two burner kerosene little stove, heated water for Saturday night bath in big oval copper bucket, I am so glad I got to see that because now I know how to survive if need be, canned and fill the cellar shelves with her garden bounty, grandpa butchers the chickens best fried chicken in my life.
Jason I can see you being the solar cold room builder either mobile or in house. So many people now see cold rooms as a necessity more so then a root cellar. Ben could weld security screen for all those foodies that are trying to keep the slackers out. Al could grow a million chooks on his property and give one free with all his coffee sales. Lol
Chooks are expensive to raise to he'd go broke! It's hard to sell stuff like that through the mail. Love the coffee idea though!
When I was small my Dad worked at a store at night butchering meat. He worked at the sawmill during the day. I went with him and watched him make hamburger and sausage. Cut up half a hog. ❤ He had to work hard and sometimes come in late.
I'm so glad you guys are doing this podcast! Wow, what would you do if there is NO internet? Nice that you got your workshop floor epoxied Al. Wow, broke your door and mower! That hurts! Nice Jason, you and your family went to Washington D.C. and all those museums! Yup, I'm not used to the hustle and bustle of the major cities in my state anymore. It's too busy! I like the less hurried small town traffic much better. Cool, an old house in the museum and see how the people lived in it with the journal someone kept. Payphone in the museum. Sounds fun! Thanks for sharing that Jason. Wow, classes on butchering meat birds, pigs, and cows. That sounds like a busy Fall for you Ben. Closing out the garden too! I think you would be successful doing wood projects Jason. I'm glad you have that to fall back on! Interesting, the ice cream truck idea! That could work. You've got to have some dry ice that's handy. Cool, vegetable or milk wagon. For you Al, maybe you could do a meat locker for the local people for deer and other animals. The mobile truck sounds great too! I think all of you could be great at doing butchering and showing how to process animals. I'm not sure it would be great as a job. Yes, harder to sell stuff when you can't put it online. It's good you can work at a machine shop again Ben. Craft shows for soap and knives sounds like another option. I think in the old days we had more fermentation of vegetables and storage of potatoes, onions, carrots, and cabbage to get through the winter. Harvesting the animals right before winter we had to preserve the meat to eat during winter so lots of salt curing or smoking. Everyone did a lot of canning. Everyone had a smoke house. We have lost a lot of knowledge. Wow, that's a scary comment to say to you Ben that you are a place to go for food. Nope! We always think we would rent out spots on our field for people to grow their own food if we had to. We wouldn't rent it out for much. We have a parking lot near our field because our barn had a store in it years ago. We have a garden big enough for us near our barn so it's removed from the field. It would help us and help people at the same time. I'm glad you are all making a living from RUclips! I like real books too! I love my ChickLift! This was fun to watch. Thanks guys!
Cool idea. Instead of a food truck where you go and buy a meal you sell fresh produce, eggs, etc. that you grow on your homestead.
This has been a very good conversation. You all have talents that would allow you to live fine if the word IF came out. That brings me to my grandparents and the store they use to have and grandpa being a butcher. I only wish I could have seen more of that with them but like I said before the big stores pushed them out of business. Great video today. I am in my late sixties and you brought back many memories. Great topic. God bless
People had the iceman delivered blocks of ice for our "icebox"
Jason, I remember you built a cold room for the Rhoades family and would think you could make a decent living doing that and Al, you would be a great shop teacher in any high school in the North East. Now Ben the guy that has all those Young men growing up on that wonderful homestead, I say every week teach those young men how to use tools safely and include Sister with the group. This old MaDeare so enjoys watching your channels. You guys, put your families first, love your wives well and are training your children well. Some work is hard but you, #PressOnRegardless.
There are still plenty of people practicing old methods like north american indians,amish,mennonites,potugeese,italians and jewish cimmunitues. You can also start now and save videos to watch offline and cjeck out local libraries. Check out books like the lost ways etc. Thete are lots of videos on curring meats making sausage etc.
Its definitely important for people on social media who can/harvest meat, etc. to NOT show all of their food resources because it would put the family in danger of theft/raids or other unrealistic expectations that they are somehow entitled to a portion of the fruits of your labor.
So, I would encourage everyone to "turn their waiting rooms into a classroom" - whether it's growing herbs, microgreens, patio gardens or larger plots, as well as chickens, etc. Learning to can produce from farmers markets (buying their seconds for better pricing), etc.
The old folks who wonder if you are sane remember how hard life was back when they were kids. It is easy to remember the fun parts like free range kids, but most want to forget getting up before the sun to milk the cows by lantern and working all day until the sun went down with hard physical labor. And you had kids for free labor on the farm. Twelve to fifteen kids was not uncommon and kids at ten had chores that were really jobs. I have been there picking string beans, bucking hay bales, cutting firewood not for a fireplace but real home heating. Cows milked, garden tended, chickens cared for both meat and egg layers, When it is your day in day out job it is not always fun. An outhouse and honey pot for nights, hand pump hauling water for everything. That was why a Saturday bath in the kitchen was a thing with reusing the water for the kids because you had to carry the water in by bucket and heat on the stove and you had to haul out the old water by bucket from the wash tub in the middle of the floor unless you were rich and had servants. Who wants to give up running water and indoor plumbing? Step in the shower when ever you want. This all changed in my lifetime for most rural folks. My mom remembers having the last outhouse in her city for disease reasons they were outlawed but her mom was a widow and poor. The city finally helped with indoor plumbing for her family just for health board reasons. It was a hard life from sun up to sun down, but the whole family was a business. Chores divided by ability and age and everyone worked. Even in winter there were things that must be done like bringing in Ice blocks when the stream froze as those had to last into the summer. Timber was cut and made into boards or firewood. Had to stack lumber to air dry for next years use on outbuildings. No Lowe's around the corner. Once kids could read, write, and "cypher numbers" (basic math) they were needed on the farm. In our family the older kids left for the city as soon as they could. The boys WANTED to go to high school since that meant moving to the city and getting out of chores. Most went into the military and after coming home wanted nothing to do with the farm, but a couple carried on the family business. Husbands and wives were REAL partners in the family business back then. That is what I see with Al and Gina as they both pull to the same goals. Don't know about Jason and Ben as I have not watched their channels much yet. Love what you are doing but the old rule was it ain't a farm without forty acres and a mule. Less than that was a hobby, but I know this homesteading RUclips works with less. Good luck guys. On education, my parents generation was expected to go to eighth grade local laws, my grandparents generation usually went to third or fourth grade until they got down basic math (less than algebra). My generation required sixteen years old but expected a high school diploma. My children are expected to have more and encouraged to do college. Kids today need an advanced degree to be anything much. The times, they are a changing. (song lyric for those who are too young)
Definitely very interesting topic & conversation. Al, I could see as a Contractor... Ben & Jason I don't know enough to say.
Interestingly yesterday the local tech school announced a semester course to become a butcher. We have such a shortage you almost need to book a year in advance. This is at MSTC in central Wi.
that is great! they are definitely not teaching butcher classes in L.A. lol
Are cows allowed in California. Lol
I grew up in rural Washington state back in the stone age on a subsistence type farm. Most of what we ate we grew or foraged.
We did have electricity but it was common to lose power not only in the winter but even the summer for a few days or even over a week at a time. It wasnt a big deal if the power went out. Our heat was from wood and we had a "trash burner" in the kitchen right beside beside the electric. Grandma and Grandpa never transitioned to an electric cook stove. Sure wish i had her stove now.
The longer outages were during the winter, of course. It would just be a case of moving the food from the fridge/freezer out to this one shed that was flimsy enough for water to freeze in it but it still protected it from wild animals. In the summer time if there was no power the next day we would start pulling meat from the freezer to cook or can so it wouldnt be lost. The worst part was it meant we were going to have fried smelt for breakfast 36:52 , lunch and dinner because smelt arent that great canned. Smelt is not a great fish.
Gardening was more simple back then and so were menus. There was only one type of anything grown. Only one green bean and one dried bean, one tomato, one green pea, one carrot, etc. We didnt have taco tuesday, curry or asian cuisine. Mom wouldnt have known what to do with snow peas or jalapeno peppers.
We had wells so if the power was out we had to use the hand pump to water the animals and ourselves.
We didnt have an indoor toilet so nothing was different about that.
We never said there was a storm coming and had to rush to the store for bread and milk. Weather reports were very inaccurate. The best weather reports came from the neighbor who had an uncle who lived close to the coast. When a storm hit there he would make a collect call to our neighbor. He would give a fake name. Each fake name meant something different so our neighbor would be given a heads up about different situations without having to pay for the call.
It would be nice going back to sending and receiving letters. Email and texting isnt the same.
I live in Amish country here in Indiana even they use propane now for refrigeration and cooking etc . Bartering used to be a big thing. An exchange of skills to help each other in community.
So many say that if things go south they would take to hunting. What would happen is that “wildlife” would become scarce very quickly with everyone hunting in and out of season. I think Al could become the ice man - harvesting ice like the Amish and then delivering it to homes that have refrigerators that take blocks of ice. Jason would be the builder helping us all build smokehouses and outhouses. Ben would be the handyman and gardener like my dad who said he was a “jack of all trades” but “master of none”! Enjoyed the video. Being 70, I luckily got to experience homes without electricity and bathrooms and older relatives that we watched and learned from.
There would likely be a big demand for his knives and welding skills.
I'm 61 and we had nothing like internet, cell phones etc. We mailed letters, went to people in person, had encyclopedias, library. We had real butchers in grocery stores that got their Meats from locker plants and locals. My dad's aunt and uncle had smoke house and grew stuff and preserved it. They lived with the seasons. And growing up with that, I loved it. Now I miss it.
I am 70 years old. I got married in 1974. I would cook all my bread, rolls. Make pickled goods. I never bought anything for my freezer…I made it. But then the ingredients got so expensive. It is now cheaper to buy a loaf of bread, even though food prices are going up and up. There are now people who can’t afford to feed their family.
Great topic. Many decades ago, there was a truck called The Country Store" that came by my Grandmother's house. you could walk in and it was set up just like a small grocery store. Back then we had a milk man that delivered our milk. Fun fact; the first grocery store was built it 1916. My question has always been, how do we get the things we can't grow. Can we do without some things, or can we find a substitute that would be easily attainable? Most elderly folks 80+, are usually home bodies. Keep the convo going somebody has a grandparent or great grand that would love to talk to you. Always have a plan B.
@@zippythechicken I totally agree. After rereading what I wrote, I should have said, the questions I ask others to think about. Many folks are new to the homestead life. Thanks for your input. 🙂
I remember as a kid a truck would drive around that would sharpen your kitchen knives. I always thought it was weird but when I talk about it around the older people they used to love them.
Back before stainless steel knives that don't keep as good an edge as carbon steel knives you would need your carbon steel knife sharpened. People are going back to the carbon steel knives but they are very expensive and you have to take care of them so they don't rust and you have to keep them sharp. If you find a slightly rusty kind of blackened knife with a wood or antler handle at a garage sale, grab it and learn to sharpen it with a whetstone. They are the best knives.
Good talk, guys. Interesting to listen in in your phone call😊
It's too bad people from my generation (I am 72) were not given much encouragement when they tried to live a sustainable life. We were kids who had a lot of skills because we had grown up with gardens and family farms. A lot were just called hippies and made fun of when they tried to live like you guys do! And there was no internet to make money. Someone had to "work for the man" away from the farm. From my POV, these young people were discouraged so they gave up and moved on to the greedy materialist life! So sad....
I think the back to the land movement in the 1970s may have saved a lot of the old ways because they were researching how people lived before and then wrote books about it. Not everything was in vain. Lots of good books with so much great knowledge came out of that! If it wasn't done back then a lot more would have been totally lost to us. I thank the sustainable pioneers from then for handing down so much information!
I read Canada is removing all books published before 2008-
@@lindahubbs8146 What??? That's crazy!
@@StoneKathryn my thought was the same-it’s, wrong, sad, controlling and crazy-
I have been doing it for years. I’m 57 and I grew up with no tv and no internet, we used to have a pantry, and a butcher a fish monger and a milk man come round weekly and daily. We had a fridge and never missed out. Fruit in England was plain apples plums and pears, oranges were rare in my house. My mums dad bought home a banana once and all the 10 children they had wanted to try it so he peeled it ate it all to himself. Mum used to roll food in balls and stuff it down the turkeys neck, when she was a kid. There was a lot of black market stuff too. Lol. That was before the war, and I can remember helping my mum in the garden with the twin tub and the mangle. 😊. What would kids do today with out their phones. We used to catch tadpoles and disappear all day playing. 😂😊
Spring house and root cellars
I’m 70, and we ate a lot of beans and cornbread. My dad would fish, and hunt, and raised quail. So we had fresh fish, venison, squirrel, rabbit, and quail. My mother canned all summer, either what we grew or was given. We did have electricity. 😊
I was born in the 50s we had 1 phone and 1 TV for 6 kids. We were outside all the time, even in winter. Sledding , ice skating and making igloos. Neighbor had a pony and a sleigh. Tons of fun. My best friend lived on a farm we.spent lots of time exploration in the woods and they had a bug old Buick we drove in the field and lane . Learned to drive about 10 years old. Our road was paved but hers was gravel. We were never in before dark
Sounds like so much fun. I loved summer nights when all the kids in the neighborhood would play flashlight tag!
I found thiis conversation so very interesting. I'm 87 and was raised for my first 14 years on a farm that had no electricity. We lived in Nebraska so had long cold winters as well as 4 seasons.My father farmed and never left the farm to earn an income. In the first years on my life we rented land but finally dad was able to purchase the farm that provided all for our family of 6. We butchered our beef and pork, mom would wrangle a chicken by hand if that was what she was having for our meal for that day. We had a good sized root cellar where lots of stuff was stored. We had ice from ponds or from an ice store intown but that was a good 15 mile from home. We used streams, horse tanks and such to keep things cold in the hotter times. We kept the milk, butter and cheeses in the horse tank that we would be using in the immediate time. We had not refrigerator that I can remember. There was a locker in town where we could have our meats stored but that was in the later years. Before that it was dried, smoked, cured and shared with others rather than have it spoil. Our farms community was all rural with farms at least a mile to 5 miles apart but everyone helped each other with planting, harvesting, butchering, in good times and in bad. We were never without that helping hand. Most had large families to get all the work done as well as help the other one that needed help. No one went without ever but neither did we ever say we didn't like what we were having for a meal. We were all of us in the family invested in getting whatever food there was available to the table and never did we even consider not eating it. I remember many times we had potatoes for every meal fixed in some very tasty way as my mother was very creative in how to make a great meal. Other times there was pancakes or biscuits and some kind of gravy for a meal. There often wasn't any sort of meat to flavor that gravy either. But because we had the good dairy cows we had plenty of milk and cream and all the things that come from that. We never thought of having a day off, getting away from it, taking a vacation or whatever the current generation is always moaning about today. We made it financially because we required none of the toys that seem to be a necessity today. We had no credit cards so bartering, trading or selling we the way of life. We had a telephone toward the last years on the farm but it was a community line where you would hear whose call ir was by the number of longs and short rings that came on. If it wasn't yours you didn't get on the line although we did know there were some who would get on the line and "rubber". That's were they would listen to the conversation that was going on between someone else. We were. never to take up a long time on the line as it was for everyone's use. To this day I don't like long phone calls nor do I care to be on the phone much. We used kerosene lamps for light, corn cobs, pieces of fire wood or maybe coal foro heating the pot belly stove. Coal though was an expense we couldn't afford. Gathering corn cobs out of the pig lot was our punishment often for disobeying the rules or just because we needed to get more in the shed. We boys and girls all learned how to do the same chores as it was required in order to survive. Mom always had a huge garden which required weeding all the time so that was another chore we all did. Canning was always done and to this day I remember how to do those blessed green beans by the hundred quarts and not enjoying the task. But that didn't mean I got out of doing it for a minute. I'm so blessed to have been raised during that time and learned how to be content with little, had skills that I used all my life raising my own family and have passed down to my kids and grand kids. We kids learned to play together, be creative in our play. I attended a one room school with one teacher with no assistant for her during the class time or recess. She lived with one of the families in the community. My father was on the school board as were other fathers. I don't remember the teacher ever having a difficult student as we all knew what was waiting for us at home if we were trouble. We had all the basic classes as well as art and music taught by the same teacher. I walked to school with my 2 brothers about 3 miles from home, all year round. Some students were fortunate to have a horse they rode to school kept in the barn on the school ground but we never did. After a severe blizzard that froze all our cattle and kept us stranded on our farm with snow drifts higher than our second story house, we could not recover enough to continue to farm. In my 8th grade we moved into town and life totally changed. Because there were many farmers who suffered the sane there were many looking for work as dad was. Dad never did find a good steady job for several years and then moved the family to Southern California where he was able to find work. By that time there were 8 of us in the family. I had started college so didn't move to California with the rest and again, life was never the same. I still would rather be on a homestead than in the city but God doesn't always hand us what we would rather. Again, it's ours to be content in whatsoever place we are in. I now enjoy a slower life with my kids, grand and great grands close by having had a great life because of what I learned on the old homestead.
A wonderful story. Have you ever thought to write it down in more detail? I'm so glad you shared that with us.
Thank you for this topic! I'm 71 yrs old, and Im very interested in this subject. Living in Maine, this past growing season as Al said, has been horribly rainy and the harvest was negligable. Please follow up with this subject!
i was only born in 1964 and i remember going to friends farm and planting potatoes and all under ground foods like beets, carrot, parsnips they grew tons and canned like like crazy it was great fun and still remember it 59 yrs later hugsss
I'd like to see you discuss from the guy's point-of-view what projects or items you have built or considered for food storage. Because we all know that it's great to grow your own food, but you need to seriously consider where you are going to put it all once it is harvested.
That's so funny, Jason! A friend of mine had an ice cream truck in California. He made an OK living. Wife worked in an office. I've always wanted to visit the DC museums. Very cool.
Spring house, smoke house, root celler! I am 75 year old TN woman. You filled those up before you filled the freezer on the back porch. 😉
My thoughts on what did they do 100 yrs ago I think community was a bigger thing and one household would not have a whole cow…. People took a share(bought) and different animals were butchered at different times and again shared 🤔👍😎
Outside of Aline, OK..there is a log cabin..it sits over a Sod house.. gives history of them, the early settlers ..it's so neat!
Thanks guys!
Sorry Al I haven't seen your channel but will check it out. However Jason you are Totally a McGuyver I tell you just seeing that trailer freezer and helping Justin with their freezers I mean I would Pay good money for that help. I haven't gotten my land yet but you and your wife are SKILL RICH. Ben I am sure you would Never run out of students for your classes. I subscribe to All things Homesteading NC and people are moving her in droves and they are Always asking for some help. IT'S Unlimited.
There Is talk about YT going down because of their censorship. The Bearded Buthcher on RUclips does the mobile thing they are on yt and Instagram ❤
I also thought of some other resources that would make great homeschool field trips, your local historical societies! Every town in the Finger Lakes of New York has one, and believe me those folks love to share what they know! Besides the Smithsonian there is Colonial Williamsburg, We have gardens and Longhouse museums here which show how things were made and a complete village just outside of Rochester NY that has people in each house to tell about the people who lived in it, what they did, what they ate and raised and how it was built! I think you guys should ask your wives to check it out and go as a family! There is nothing new under the sun!
Don’t think that you can’t grow a years worth of food to feed a family in a northern climate - I do every year and have all my 70 years of life. I live in central Canada zone 3a and we have at most 3 months plus in a good year another week on either side of June to August. In a 1 acre garden, plus 4 greenhouses , I grow enough food to share around 5000 lbs of food with our local food bank, plus feed my family (7) until the next harvest season. My grandmother taught us how to garden, and how to preserve the meat by smoking and canning. Build an ice block refrigerator to keep food cool. Build a root cellar to store veg that can last all winter. Forage for plants that can be used for food and medicine. I have also added some modern technology to assist with food preservation - freeze drying - meats, vegetables, fruits, meals, herbs, spices - that if done correctly can last 25 years - no refrigeration required.
Wow! Fantastic. I hope your family also knows how to do this for future generations. Thanks for sharing.
Ben, you might find that local butchers would be glad to have your help during fair season when they are swamped with all the animals coming in from 4-H auctions.
I am going to say that learning to make a spring house on each of your properties may be a thought.
I like newsletters, not a bad idea!
Ben, we've had several neighbors say the same thing about where to go for food! Ummm, no, please prep your own! (No chips in arms!!)
This is a subject that can be seen from a business and life perspective. We rely so much on infrastructure (internet, automated banking, business services). The more we go automated, the more people forget the manual ways. If you don't have a backup, you can lose your business or way of life. I worked in Disaster recovery/contingency from an IT perspective. Just from a bad storm, people need to be prepared. Just common sense things people need to remember. My contingency brain is always working in my personal life now because of working in that field. It's a thing that everyone needs to think about. Even from simple power failure issues. What will you do?
Good morning fellas hope all is well
Morning
My dad always told us to be home by dark thirty. Lol, ya life is so different now
In the 80’s in NorCal we raised pigs & a steer and the kill guy came to our place, did the deed then took the carcass to the processor of your choice.
I think the news letter is a great idea
My grandmother had an icebox, which looked kind of like a refrigerator, but was cooled by big chunks of ice cut from nearby lakes here in Vermont. The ice was loaded on big wagons, covered with with sawdust, and hauled back to the farm with their big Belgian workhorse to put in their cold cellar, stored with sawdust, and hauled piece by piece upstairs to use in the icebox. She kept her milk from their cow, homemade butter, milk clabber, any foods that needed to be kept cold. Their meats were cured, and I remember my grandpa eating a lot of dried beef, home dried. I don't believe they had real running water until after I moved up here from Tennessee in 1957, when my mom died. I remember as a little girl, being at their farm and taking a bath in a big tub in the kitchen, with water heated in the water well of their wood stove! They lived without electricity until the 40's.
My parents were the same as yours--I rode all over the rural roads here in Berlin, VT. That was my transportation, and I used to go out on my bike and collect 2 cent coke bottles to turn in for penny candy. My parents had no idea where I went, or what I ate, or who I saw. And it was all pretty safe back then in the late 50s and early 60s.
This was a very interesting video, guys, thank you!
the unity event celebrated their fifth year this year, its a huge event.
I live in Florida. Really trying to treat our summer like your winter because it's just to hot and humid to spend time outside. I grow Seminole pumpkin, blackeye peas, sweet potato and okra, that's it during summer. So, heading into our "fall" I'm getting the garden ready. Green beans, radish and kale are out of the ground. Y'all inspire this 58 yr old to keep plugging along. Thanks!
Check out the historical sites. Locally we have the Shakers, Sturbridge Village, Pioneer Valley here in New England. My diet has changed drastically since the 50's when I was a child.
Where do the cows go to now Al ?
START NOW!!!
we need to fight to keep money as paper, seriously.
Great video you guys do an awesome job
All righty then another great podcast,I didn't get to see this one live shame on me but it was still great as a video y'all have a nice week and stay safe. See ya soon
Talking about how folks did it without electricity and refrigeration, I am in my late 70's and have always had electricity, but I remember my grandparents stories about how they lived before the time of electricity. For lights, they used oil lamps and candles and to keep things cold they had an ice box that they would get blocks of ice and put them in the ice box to keep things cold. The ice would be collected from ponds and lakes during the winter and stored in an ice house with sawdust to prolong the preservation time. They had a wood stove for cooking and heating. They had a cellar in their house where they would store all the produce, either it being canned or in bins. The cellar was always much cooler than outside as it was below ground level and the earth kept the temperature much cooler. They had spring fed water that was gravity fed that provided their drinking water. They lived in the country and always had a garden to provide for vegetables and livestock and chickens for meat, dairy and eggs. They also did hunting and fishing for wild game. They had a rain barrel in the back of their house that was used for keeping catfish alive that my grandfather would catch and keep some of them in the rain barrel for future use.
Something any of the three of you could do is what I saw as kid growing up in the 50’s. There was a farmer in a neighboring community who grew vegetables and would load his station wagon up one day a week and drive through our neighborhood selling veggies out of the back of his station wagon. I don’t know if it could be done at a profit but at the cost of organic foods these days it might be profitable.
Nice podcast again, Thanks
Hey Ben, you need to make an outdoor kitchen for you guys, especially for canning season and for the smoker. Al can give you some pointers on what to include.
The mobile butcher idea is good. It would seem much better to "harvest" your animal in their familiar place while they are maybe eating a nice snack than to haul them off alive to a traumatic end at some off site, unfamiliar slaughter house.