Ever wonder?

[Rod Caster]

For dinner tonight I boiled a couple plucked partridge with potatoes, then baked it all with spinnach for 10 mins. I kept the stock and froze it for future use. It was a simple dinner but obviously delicious.

 

As much as possible, we've been trying to simplify our food by foraging, hunting and even breeding rabbits. More to come, including pheasants and/or chickens and gardens. But really, we'll likely always depend at least 80% on grocery stores.

 

Ever wonder how much effort and resourcefulness it would have taken a couple hundred years ago to feed a family, likely a LARGE family and the things we would be without? I mean, where would I get spinach or any fresh leafy greens at this time of year? And hunting a bird wouldn't be this easy.

 

As long as you have the means, and since you are all on the internet right now, you do!, we have a very convienent life foodwise don't we?

[Fisherman]

Yup.

[kickingfrog]

Refrigerators, freezers and non-wood stoves haven't really been around that long. Meals were a hard, full time job.

[manitoubass2]

We do a similar thing, trying the best we can. Its tough though. About 10 years ago me and two buddies got stuck on an island with minimal tools and it sure was tough. Another day i woulda been dead. Gave me a new appreciation. Food is no doubt a full time job if we went back old school

[bigugli]

Refrigeration and freezers have certainly made things easier. But we did have similar options even 200 years back. They just required more work and planning.

Your yard was for growing garden veggies. No cabanas, ornamental plantings or swimming pools. If you owned a house, you had a cold cellar. No problem keeping root crops and apples til April in there. Your wife also dried foods, or canned intensely. I still put away 100+ jars of pickles, preserves and fruit for winter every year. Sugaring off in early spring was a necessary ritual. it was your source for sugar during the year, and any surplus was bartered at the general mercantile for those things you could not produce yourself.

Meat was dealt with in three ways. Smoke and cure, or salt and dry, was by far the easiest, but still a 1-2 day process. Pickling, but the Mrs had to really know what she was doing. Folks I knew, growing up, were still pickling herring and smelt from Simcoe in the early 70's . man were they good.

There was a refrigeration, of sorts. There was the ice house. A cabin, 1/2 buried in the ground built of thick timber. Seams grouted with thick wads of moss or peat. In winter, the men went out with ice saws and cut huge slabs of ice that were placed in the huts to the ceiling. A space tween the wood and ice was packed with sawdust. The rafters were also packed with insulating of a fashion. You could then keep meat hung in there for months without spoiling. In cities, companies sold blocks of ice to be placed in an ice box to keep food from spoiling.

In cities many went to the baker for bread. The norm was to bake fresh bread once or twice a week. Every culture has it's own version of hard tack or biscuit for when grain for fresh bread was in short supply. For Finn's it was rye ring or Reikäleipä. Others have rusks, hard tack, etc... I still practice some of the old world recipes

it was all much more labour intensive, yes. The focus on living was to survive. Fishing was not a hobby, it was a chore. Fish were food, not playthings. People certainly did not have the leisure time they enjoy currently in Western society.

[Rod Caster]

Thanks for that Bruce.

 

I find it funny how back then you needed to do those things to sustain and not die, and yet nowdays you'd lose money doing it. I mean,... if I ever quit my job to self sustain, well I couldn't afford my property and my children (6 months away) couldn't keep up with the modern world. Sure makes it hard to even consider reverting to the old ways. It's our own fault/choice but wow we are enslaved to corporations and governments.

[Moosebunk]

By this time of year Wendigo Psychosis would have already set in.

[bigugli]

Thanks for that Bruce.

 

I find it funny how back then you needed to do those things to sustain and not die, and yet nowdays you'd lose money doing it. I mean,... if I ever quit my job to self sustain, well I couldn't afford my property and my children (6 months away) couldn't keep up with the modern world. Sure makes it hard to even consider reverting to the old ways. It's our own fault/choice but wow we are enslaved to corporations and governments.

Actually, you could still self sustain. It's your lifestyle and priorities that change. It's amazing how much clutter and stuff we insist on accumulating. You would be amazed at the number of families north of Waterloo who still live without the hydro grid. Not all are members of the "black hat" society either.

I admit that I have had the good fortune to have actually experienced, hands on, much of what I wrote. I am also experiencing some of it again in my later years . I also admit, sadly, that I have not passed on half as much to my children.

[manitoubass2]

Thanks for that Bruce.

 

I find it funny how back then you needed to do those things to sustain and not die, and yet nowdays you'd lose money doing it. I mean,... if I ever quit my job to self sustain, well I couldn't afford my property and my children (6 months away) couldn't keep up with the modern world. Sure makes it hard to even consider reverting to the old ways. It's our own fault/choice but wow we are enslaved to corporations and governments.

i second that post by bruce. Our goal is too be self sustaining, but there are sooo many variables to deal with. We have a large family, school, hockey, soccer and other " social" activities that i believe the kiddos deserve. So its hard to step away from that. But, for years now we have been teaching the kids to fish, forage, start fires etc. next up is hunting. Its gonna take time, but in ten years, i can totally envision us in the bush with minimal needs. But its tough, even the mere mention of the word gas, changes everything

[manitoubass2]

Oh and the mere fact its basically illegal lol. But thats a whole other topic

[Sinker]

I was born and raised like this.

 

My dad came from a family of 14 kids. No hydro, no running water. They didn't see a real care until the late 60's....no roads!! My nan would bake bread EVERY day. 14 loaves.all while cooking, cleaning, and making clothes.

 

I think about this all the time, and try to pass as much of it onto my kids as they can bear with. 4 years ago my old man moved back to the home he was born in....along with his 13 siblings. This crew are real survivors.

 

This day and age, its harder to go back to that lifestyle, no matter how bad I'd love to.

 

Great topic! I could go on, and on about this stuff!

 

S.

[manitoubass2]

I was born and raised like this.

 

My dad came from a family of 14 kids. No hydro, no running water. They didn't see a real care until the late 60's....no roads!! My nan would bake bread EVERY day. 14 loaves.all while cooking, cleaning, and making clothes.

 

I think about this all the time, and try to pass as much of it onto my kids as they can bear with. 4 years ago my old man moved back to the home he was born in....along with his 13 siblings. This crew are real survivors.

 

This day and age, its harder to go back to that lifestyle, no matter how bad I'd love to.

 

Great topic! I could go on, and on about this stuff!

 

S.

awesome! Please do!!!

[manitoubass2]

One thing i find hard to plan is whether or not i can do without some modern day toys. There is definitely a difference between old school, and the new old school lol, if that makes any sense? I mean things like fishing rods and lures, chainsaws, 4 wheelers and ski doos, things like that

[manitoubass2]

It would be nice to still have things like that, i mean they make hard work a lil less hard and provide more options. But financially, if you step outta the grid, how do you do that? Unless you get a license to trap, but then you still need phone and or internet to sell. The bartering system would be ideal, but where i live i cant see that happening

Edited November 25, 2013 by manitoubass2

[Sinker]

I'll add some photos to this tomorrow. We still can a lot of goods, do maple syrup, grow our gardens, hunt, fish, and make use of everything possible, but times have changed so much, it is cheaper to go with the new ways with some things.

 

Could you imagine raising 14 kids in a 4 bedroom home with no hydro or running water? I'm not even 40 and I still remember fetching buckets of water from the brook beside the house in the middle of winter, and heating them on the woodstove to have A bath when I was a kid.

 

People nowadays have no idea about this kind of lifestyle, and most think I'm nuts to want to go back to it. They don't know what they're missing.

 

S.

[manitoubass2]

Call us crazy then sinker, cause it sounds like heaven to me. To me there is just nothing on earth more satisfying then working for your own families survival, in the elements and raw. Where rules and morals are taught and used, where knowledge is king, and worth more then its weight in gold. Man, sounds too good.

Edited November 25, 2013 by manitoubass2

[Sinker]

We ran dogsleds to haul lumber to our sawmill in the winters, and fished in the summer from a 32ft trap skiff with a 6hp acadia diesel engine. 8 guys, up to 8000lbs of fish, 3 times a day, in a boat with 6hp.....and we were styling...most crews had to row!! Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur, but its really the way humans are supposed to live. Next to no impact on the environment, all natural foods, no health issues....the way life is supposed to be! Nobody wants to do the work involved to live like that anymore. I fear for the lives my kids and grandkids are facing.....the whole planet is going to pot.

 

S.

[bigugli]

Back into the conversation, was just tying some more worm harnesses.

 

I'm not saying all modernization is bad. Truck and tractor are just an improvement over horse and wagon. Both have costs to use them. Modernization does make things easier and allows us to be more productive. It takes a day to buck up a face of firewood with the old cross cut or swede saw. I've done it. Only takes 1 hour with a decent chainsaw. I used to be able to split wood as fast as a mechanical splitter, but only for the first hour. A computer, if seen and used as a tool/resource for communication or information, is a library at your fingertips. You don't need the gamer equipment and programs.

Sinker's upbringing is no different from thousands who grew up outside the city right into the 70's. Drawing water from the well. Running out to the "Honey House" on a cold winter's night to answer nature's call. Uncle Johnny didn't install running water until 1972. We didn't have great means growing up. By the age of 8 Gram had taught me to sew enough to mend a hole in my trousers or darn my socks. I could also knit my own mitts and scarf. Fish 'was' food, and we caught and ate a lot of it. As a family we entertained ourselves playing cards and board games together. We watched television together as a family Sunday evenings. Today, My wife watches TV constantly, whereas I can't stand most of the drivel that is allegedly "quality programming. There was no such thing as bored with nothing to do. There was always something to apply your energies to, if you couldn't make up your mind, Mom would find something, whether you liked it or not

[manitoubass2]

Another thing that often gets overlooked. K, my better half pickles and cans. But now that i think about it, i better learn too. Life outside the grid could be terribly rough if something happened (sickness or injury). Same goes for her, i better get her on the guns and hunting. Tough to do though since her grandma was accidentally shot by a family member

[bigugli]

Another thing that often gets overlooked. K, my better half pickles and cans. But now that i think about it, i better learn too. Life outside the grid could be terribly rough if something happened (sickness or injury). Same goes for her, i better get her on the guns and hunting. Tough to do though since her grandma was accidentally shot by a family member

My mother can outfish most fellas on any given day. My Gram could hold her own as well. If there was one thing I learnt from youth, there are no fixed roles by gender. You do what you need to, in order to sustain yourself. The things you are good at, get really good at. In rural life it takes a family to survive and thrive.

[manitoubass2]

K, serious question. If members here were fishing solely as a means to feed their families, what would you be fishing for? Myself id take pike first, sturgeon second. Pike for immediate eating and smoking/pickling, then sturgeon just based on sheer size for smoking. In these circumstances a good sturgeon would go along way in terms of healthy fats and protein. I watched a documentary on a russian fellow, he was a trapper. Him and a group made a nice living until they were basically shunned by the government, but they continued to live where they were and fish/hunt/trap with minimal tools. It was pretty cool. Seemed like they ate a literal ton of pike though

Edited November 25, 2013 by manitoubass2

[bigugli]

We ate what we caught, growing up. Pike and sheephead were great for moujakka (chowder). Nothing lit up my Gram's and my great Aunt's eyes more than when I would walk in the door with a fresh pike. I would kill for a bowl of Gram's fish head soup. It was only much later that I learned to filet them. Bass, walleye and perch were staples. Then there were lakers , whitefish, pannies, smelt. My one uncle, and some of his pals, would go out and catch loads of coarse fish like cats, gar, bowfin, herring, just for the smokehouse. You also have to realize that limits were much more liberal then. The limit on whitefish was 25.

 

Living in the bush, or farming are lifestyle choices, not simply career paths. You have to plan out your days and weeks carefully with lots of cushion for the unexpected and nature's surprises.

I just got my weed cloths up off the ground Friday morning, despite being saturated or under water. If I had waited til this morning, they'd be frozen in until spring. Really screws up the schedule. I try to turn soil in the fall, it may have to wait until spring. Wood gathering has to happen every week. You need wood for cooking, for heat, for chores. Look at 10 bush cords per year as a starting base.

Edited November 25, 2013 by bigugli

[Sinker]

For us on the east coast is was cod or nothing. We always had herring, mackeral and capelin salted, smoked or canned as well.

 

Moose and birds were the meat staples.

 

Grow your potatoes and other root vegtables, and keep them in the root cellar for the winter. We had a couple sheep, and usually one cow that we butchered in the late fall, and hung frozen in the storage shed all winter.

 

 

Its not an easy lifestyle, that's for sure, but its good for you, and the people who know how are the ones you'll see surviving is stuff ever hits the fan.

 

S.

[Muskieman]

My Mom is from a family of 22, she's 77, my Dad was from a family of 18 he'd be in his 114 th year. I'm only 40 , needless to say I'm an accident , but I'm happy to be around.

I have many stories that have been passed down , for the girls ,canning greens for the winter , raising Pigeons , Rabbits , Goats ( cows were too costly to maintain ) Chickens and Ducks, mending, sewing , knitting etc... And the boys would be responsible for tilling the land , fetching water, stockpiling firewood for the winter, prospecting, gold panning, fishing , hunting ,trapping , they were never bored and always had something to look after, It wasn't an easy life that's for certain.

 

 

Randy

[Rod Caster]

A cellar is one of the next big 'lifestyle' items on my list. I have sandy soils and very steep slope in my backyard, I was thinking of excavating it out next year maybe into the slope. Good place to store homemade beer/wine if I ever do so.

 

No Excavators in the early 1900's, right?

Edited November 25, 2013 by Rod Caster