Sitting it out

It’s my guess that were are going to get some serious political shakeout by the end of the year. Politics will be almost unrecognizable by 2023. With that in mind it’s probably best to let some things run their course. Not too much I can do about it anyway. Try not to hate your neighbors. 

What I can do is pay attention to the basics. It looks like we are seeing some price relief in key areas: fuel, shipping, and even used cars are coming down in price. The housing bubble is busting in a number of of places. Not everywhere as some markets are still hot. In fact, there are areas of the country where prices never inflated all that much in the first place. 

I’ll probably put off buying lumber for house projects another few weeks. There’s a balancing act involved. Prices may be lower in the future, but my construction has to be done before the weather turns cool again. One year the price of 2X4s was so high that I ended up framing a well cover in peeled cedar poles. I could rough saw some of my own lumber but it’s a pain and time consuming. 

Dehydrated long storage food has come down in price. A friend of mine now has enough dehydrated food to last him about a year and a half. I’ve restocked some, but there’s more bang for the buck in other dried foods. Beans, rice, wheat berries and oats are good staples to have. Don’t forget lots of spices to keep things from being too boring. 

Our garden looks like a confused jumbled mess and that’s a good thing. Our raised beds are hidden behind the tall sunchokes so people don’t even know we are growing food. We also have a lot of flowers for bees. This fall the plan is dehydrate a huge mess of sunchokes. I really like them in soups and stirfrys. 

While the days have been pleasant, nights have been cool -down into the 30s even. Pretty chilly for July. I actually have the heat on right now.  On the bright side, we are still not quite in drought conditions. 

This could be an interesting hurricane season. There’s probably a good reason the weather folks have added a category 6 to the hurricane scale. Conditions look ripe for some interesting weather. If you live in a hurricane prone area better check your preps. Even if you don’t live in hurricane alley be aware that disruptions ripple through the country. Food and fuel supplies could get disrupted. 

Medications could become an issue. Locally we’ve seen a lot of supply disruptions and pharmacy closures. That could be because we are rural and at the tail end of supply chains. These issues could become more widespread. With that in mind we’ve been expanding our knowledge of local herbal alternatives. They’ll be better than nothing. 

There’s been a rise in religious intolerance. What I mean by that is religious people are being more intolerant of other’s religions -or lack of religion for that matter. One of the strengths of the US is that it’s a secular country. If you want to live in a theocracy move to Iran. 

To sum up, shore up your preps and remember to be kind to one another. Like it or not we are all in this together. 

-Sixbears