Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[brewster]

Reds don't run out there?

Apparently way back in the day they were in Delaware Bay in south Jersey, and occasionally wander up here still. There's more being spotted, along with other southern species like Sheephead, dorado and cobia as the fictional global warming brings them further north.

[Speaker to Animals]

That's good news. Hopefully you'll be able to just fish for them from the windows of your buildings.

[TheReal_ND]

Reds don't run out there?

Apparently way back in the day they were in Delaware Bay in south Jersey, and occasionally wander up here still. There's more being spotted, along with other southern species like Sheephead, dorado and cobia as the fictional global warming brings them further north.

That's wild. They run off the Texas coast every year around October to February.

[brewster]

That's wild. They run off the Texas coast every year around October to February.

There's a fishing youtuber EliasV, who moved from Brooklyn to NC, he's been hammering the reds. They're common in the Chesapeake too. Everyplace is different, you don't get the gator blues we do, 20 pounders that can take your hand off.

[Hastur]

In an apocalyptic scenario my plan is to learn how to dress and cook a squirrel. There are enough of them around here to keep the family fed for a few years at least.

The Furloughed government workers will have them all eaten long before you get to them

In the Apocolyse Scenario we'd be right back to Pre-Columbian and Frontier days living, you'd eat whatever calories you could get your hands on. Hardly anyone eats squirrel anymore. We spit cooked one on a camp trip as a kid, I wasn't impressed. I'm sure the Appalachian poor mastered how to cook them.

Did you watch Winter's Bone? They did squirrel hunting for food in it. Great movie.

[Fife]

They bait those Ozark squirrels with meth.

[Speaker to Animals]

Saffron: about $5,000 per lbs.






Seems like a fair amount of work. I wonder if you can streamline it in a greenhouse.

[Montegriffo]

Saffron: about $5,000 per lbs.






Seems like a fair amount of work. I wonder if you can streamline it in a greenhouse.

Making ground with farmed truffles now. 40lb - 50lb an acre at $600 - $1200 a pound.
Less work harvesting plus you get a nut harvest as a bonus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/busi ... uffle.html

[Fife]

Making ground with farmed truffles now. 40lb - 50lb an acre at $600 - $1200 a pound.
Less work harvesting plus you get a nut harvest as a bonus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/busi ... uffle.html

I remember reading something a while back about a few people who made a try at truffles up in the Smokies; something about trying to look for something similar to French/German vineyard environments. What I recall is that the damn things are very very hard to cultivate and just about any bump in the biological road will kill the fungus.

What kind of dogs are used to sniff out truffles? It would probably be more fun training the dogs than hoping to make a living on underground shrooms.

[Montegriffo]

Making ground with farmed truffles now. 40lb - 50lb an acre at $600 - $1200 a pound.
Less work harvesting plus you get a nut harvest as a bonus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/busi ... uffle.html

I remember reading something a while back about a few people who made a try at truffles up in the Smokies; something about trying to look for something similar to French/German vineyard environments. What I recall is that the damn things are very very hard to cultivate and just about any bump in the biological road will kill the fungus.

What kind of dogs are used to sniff out truffles? It would probably be more fun training the dogs than hoping to make a living on underground shrooms.

I think any dog can be trained to find truffles. It has a strong and distinctive smell so you just have to play hide and seek with a bit of truffle and the dog soon learns how to find it.
Pigs are traditionally used in France but they like to eat them so you have to be quick to get the truffle off them (fingers have been lost).
Harder to get a 400lb pig in your car too.

So dogs are the more popular choice for truffle hunting. Alana explained that virtually all dogs can be trained to hunt truffles-they all experience the world through scent. It’s her job to train them to find truffles, and the key to this is scent and positive rewards. They smell a truffle, they get a treat. She even showed a picture of a 13 year-old corgi who had just found its first truffle. Her advice is that the size of the orchard and the conditions should influence the breed. A chihuahua can’t cover a lot of territory, but a golden retriever can. A sheep dog will get distracted if sheep are nearby.

The breed used by Italians for truffle hunting is an Lagotto Romagnolo, a breed of water dog that dates back to Etruscan times. There are three this year at the festival: Rico (short for Enrico Bacio il Tartufaio), Mila and Lolo. Both Rico and Mila were raised in the traditional Italian way-with truffle oil put on their mother’s nipple while they nursed. This afternoon, the festival hosted a visit to Robert Sinskey Vineyards, where the dogs demonstrated their skills. It takes a truffle orchard 5 to 7 years to produce truffles, and these were planted in 2010. Anticipation is growing. It’s not yet ready to be harvested, so truffles were buried for the dogs to find. They zig-zagged the terrain, noses to the ground, and started to dig when they found something. Lots of other dogs were out there, interested in the treats that the truffle dogs were getting as part of their training.

http://www.napatrufflefestival.com/truf ... d-dog-pig/