Food shortages are here and getting worse.

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There's a number of small dairy farms around us to purchase raw milk, or to barter. My cousin and I trade raw milk for eggs, so I don't pay for it. We have a local butchering place that butchers whatever you bring to them for processing, but they have a way long wait list. One of my cousins buys angus calves at the sale barn when the price is decent, around $400, raises them up, either resells or butchers. He kept one for butchering for both of us to share, and a local amish guy does butchering out of his home (not licensed) that we used to butcher the cow. We paid $500 for the butchering. Split the meat between us. This particular cousin does raise all of his animal feed on his farm himself. He also does 15 acres of alfalfa on our farm. We are in need of more butchers in our community for the larger animals.
 
Amish Heart said:
There's a number of small dairy farms around us to purchase raw milk, or to barter. My cousin and I trade raw milk for eggs, so I don't pay for it. We have a local butchering place that butchers whatever you bring to them for processing, but they have a way long wait list. One of my cousins buys angus calves at the sale barn when the price is decent, around $400, raises them up, either resells or butchers. He kept one for butchering for both of us to share, and a local amish guy does butchering out of his home (not licensed) that we used to butcher the cow. We paid $500 for the butchering. Split the meat between us. This particular cousin does raise all of his animal feed on his farm himself. He also does 15 acres of alfalfa on our farm. We are in need of more butchers in our community for the larger animals.
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Thank you so much for sharing! Do the small dairy farmers grow their own feed or do others grow it for them and trade feed for daily products? Having more than one person as a butcher sounds important if there are enough folks raising animals. 15 acres of alfalfa is a lot of alfalfa! Do you feed your rabbits hay and alfalfa? When you do things local and by trade, who needs a license to butcher! 😃
 
It depends on how many acres or sections they farm, would determine if they grew their own feed. This particular cousin was doing alot of dairy cows (Jerseys) and right when the pandemic hit, the milk company that would come and get the milk every other day said that they couldn't take it all. Trucker shortage. Farmers were dumping milk. About nine months later, a big rig came in and hauled out all but a few cows, he sold most of them to a farm in a neighboring state. Said the manure was worth more than the milk. So now he only milks about 4 jerseys, makes better money buying calves at the sale barn, raising them, reselling them at adult weight. I think he farms about 250 acres plus, is certified organic. Grows milo, soybean, oats, wheat mostly. Has a few horses (for the buggy), farms with a tractor. Has bees, about 50 head of cattle at the moment, chickens that he got mostly from me, maybe 20 or so. So the milk from the cows is used to bottle feed some of the very young calves he buys, or he sells it as raw milk to a few people. I pick up milk every Sunday when we go for family dinner, and mid week if I stop by. I also get straw from him for our chicken coops. I keep a round bale of our own alfalfa for our rabbits. I think everyone around here does their own small animal butchering: chicken, duck, turkey, rabbit. Not so many raising turkeys though, and I hope to change that with ours. Most do their own pigs in the winter, too. 15 acres of alfalfa sounds like alot, but it's not really for around here. We have another 6 acres of pasture not being used that he brings over a few cows to fatten up and stay the summer. Thinking about a few sheep for ourselves this year, or maybe a pig, but nothing too heavy. I'm getting old. We have a huge roundtop building that we only store our tractor and mower in, so my cousin stores organic hay in it till it's sold. Our other neighbor next door, an amish family also needs to put stuff in there from time to time if the weather turns. We have a path between our two farms, and we help each other out the best we can. He has an electric freezer and another that's his inlaws in one of our outbuildings that has electricity. We trade electricity for hamburger and sausage. I do help with rides, too, to the bigger town. Another neighbor just called to see if I'd take her and her little one to the bigger town on the 19th for the baby's check up doc appt, and to do shopping. She'll want to go to Aldi and she'll want to take me to lunch at Chic fil a, and then more shopping at Walmart. We'll make a day of it. I'm also a driver for their kindergarten aged daughter to the amish school in the mornings. I drop off our little granddaughter to school each morning, and it's only a mile from there. It's good to be in a good caring community. And if you show that you are good and helpful, things just flow. A certain Hungarian that is doing just that comes to mind.
 
My german neighbor and I just put up 500 ft of fencing around his land after the surveyors finally measured it and found out he had a little bit more than he thought. He has had dogs running back into the darkness sometimes when he went out at night and his wife is afraid of the wild dogs here. We put 8ft tall acacia posts at the corners and galvanised steel posts every 13 ft. rammed into the ground. Tired.
Our gypsy neighbor lost his job at the company "Schwarzmüller" building tractor trailers. Too much supplied materials coming from the Ukraine...are no longer coming. He will start driving out pizzas and BBQ from a new Double Decker red British bus restaurant on Saturday...for about $2,00 an hour...
I will be welding the rust on my Renault which he is driving at the moment till he can finally pay for it. It will need inspection in June and needs some work.
We planted 30 ft of leeks, 30 ft of cucumbers and 50 ft of cauliflowers yesterday.
I also am buying 20lbs of flour every couple of days to take back to Germany the end of the month to family and friends. 5 liter bottles of sunflower oil and apricot marmalde are on the list also. My niece even asked for mustard!!!
It is getting tight in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece with rationing of foodstuffs also. Our stores are full and the price of diesel and gasoline are stable at about € 1.30 per liter by statute of the president. ($5.00) On my trip to Germany last week, the price went to $8.00/gal. in Austria and jumped to over $10.00/gal. in Germany. Thank God I filled up in Austria and my car goes over 800 kilometers on a tank, I made it back to Austria without needing to get too much diesel in Germany and then made it back the 400 kilometers into Hungary again...Live free and pray, Gary
 
GaRp58 said:
My german neighbor and I just put up 500 ft of fencing around his land after the surveyors finally measured it and found out he had a little bit more than he thought. He has had dogs running back into the darkness sometimes when he went out at night and his wife is afraid of the wild dogs here. We put 8ft tall acacia posts at the corners and galvanised steel posts every 13 ft. rammed into the ground. Tired.
Our gypsy neighbor lost his job at the company "Schwarzmüller" building tractor trailers. Too much supplied materials coming from the Ukraine...are no longer coming. He will start driving out pizzas and BBQ from a new Double Decker red British bus restaurant on Saturday...for about $2,00 an hour...
I will be welding the rust on my Renault which he is driving at the moment till he can finally pay for it. It will need inspection in June and needs some work.
We planted 30 ft of leeks, 30 ft of cucumbers and 50 ft of cauliflowers yesterday.
I also am buying 20lbs of flour every couple of days to take back to Germany the end of the month to family and friends. 5 liter bottles of sunflower oil and apricot marmalde are on the list also. My niece even asked for mustard!!!
It is getting tight in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece with rationing of foodstuffs also. Our stores are full and the price of diesel and gasoline are stable at about € 1.30 per liter by statute of the president. ($5.00) On my trip to Germany last week, the price went to $8.00/gal. in Austria and jumped to over $10.00/gal. in Germany. Thank God I filled up in Austria and my car goes over 800 kilometers on a tank, I made it back to Austria without needing to get too much diesel in Germany and then made it back the 400 kilometers into Hungary again...Live free and pray, Gary
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If there is one person that I don’t have to say “be safe“ to it is you. Make those supply runs to Germany work for you too. I know you will do that. Live free!
 
EastenerWesterner said:
If there is one person that I don’t have to say “be safe“ to it is you. Make those supply runs to Germany work for you too. I know you will do that. Live free!
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Very few people come to know me. I only show them the man outside, the little boy inside belongs to my wife. The man is protected by a strong faith and an angel named "Hahuija" He has called my name often and sent me to do things in the middle of the night or spontaneously to help others. I do not smoke anymore because he said to stop now and save the rest of my health back in August of the year 2000.
You are one of the very few who has gotten insight to my life and maybe gotten a taste of the boy??? God bless you and yours. Live truely free, Gary
 
bill harrell said:
For you guys with a stock pond or a small silted in lake, If you need fertilizer, dredge the silt of of the bottom of you stockpond or any natural pond and add it to your topsoil. You will be amazed. Your stockpond will hold more water also.
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Fantastic idea!! We have a very nice size pond and I never even thought of using the silt!
 
A glimpse at our rapidly rising Food Prices! I need to put in more onions now!

EDIT: These are the type of increases we WILL see by end of the year.
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GERMANY already way deep in food inflation!

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MACRON promising the Citizens THEY (not the elites I’m sure) will have to choose between eating and not freezing to dearth. What a guy, eh?

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Went to Wallly Worrld last weekend to buy up ground beef.. it was over $4.00 a lb. I was planning on making make-ahead dinners for the week, so was buying up enough ground beef for a meatloaf, spaghetti, and tacos, plus pork tenderloin and some chicken....4.5 lbs. Of ground beef was little over $20.00... I stopped at local meat market on way home it was on sale $1.99 a lb. Bought 10 lb...this week ground beef was $5.00+ a lb. At W-world! Went back to meat market, bought another 10 lb. Still $1.99 lb. I'm waiting for full beef I ordered to get ready..hopefully will be in next couple weeks! I paid $4.00 a pound for the entire beef, plus the other costs..came in at $3k but that seemed to be the going price everywhere I checked near me...most had none available until next year..
 
Honestly, not seeing these kind of price increases in Portland. Prices have gone up, but not that much. I have seen some shrinkflation, but for the most part, 5-20%. Many veggies still the same as they have been for the last couple of years. Of course, they aren't real.

Wife has us on a keto diet. She makes these amazingly delicious frozen "fat bombs", and says we need fats in our diet to keep from getting fat. Local store has 73% ground beef. We used to always buy 92%. The 73 is fatty for sure, but I am staying tighter, less than 10%bf. It is usually $27 for a 10# log, but they have sales at $17, so I buy three at a time. So far, I'm a believer.
 
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Helen Back said:
Honestly, not seeing these kind of price increases in Portland. Prices have gone up, but not that much. I have seen some shrinkflation, but for the most part, 5-20%. Many veggies still the same as they have been for the last couple of years. Of course, they aren't real.
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Should have made it clearer. These price increases above are what we are going to see by the end of the year. Gives us a peek into what our grocery bills will look like.
 
I have no doubt. I just hope the masses will know who to blame, and punish when it happens here. Of course, I don't think the fools will do anything but attack each other. I am very curious to see how law enforcement responds. Let's remember the left saying all of the looting was "reparations". There is going to be ALOT of reparations in the near future. Glad I live in a rural area.
 
GeorgiaPeachie said:
Thank you so much for sharing! Do the small dairy farmers grow their own feed or do others grow it for them and trade feed for daily products? Having more than one person as a butcher sounds important if there are enough folks raising animals. 15 acres of alfalfa is a lot of alfalfa! Do you feed your rabbits hay and alfalfa? When you do things local and by trade, who needs a license to butcher! 😃
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The ranchers around here all grow their own hay. Most ranchers bring their cows off the range around October and start feeding them at home. We normally turn our cows out around the first of May through October.
We have a butcher in town and a couple guys with farm kill trucks. We have a good relationship with the butcher here so she always makes room for our beef. We take our meat chickens to a processor about 80 miles south.
I had plans of putting in 40 or so acres of dryland grass, oats and alfalfa this year for hay, but with the high cost of fuel, seed and fertilizer I decided to hold off until next year. I know, it could get worse. In the old days they used to grown a lot of alfalfa on this property but the elk ate a lot of it too.
I'd like to get a milk cow sometime but it would produce far more milk than we could use, even letting the calf take most of it.
Most rural people are very self sufficient, to varying degrees. And they're also very creative in solving problems. Many of us already trade and barter for things we need.
 
Helen Back said:
I have no doubt. I just hope the masses will know who to blame, and punish when it happens here. Of course, I don't think the fools will do anything but attack each other. I am very curious to see how law enforcement responds. Let's remember the left saying all of the looting was "reparations". There is going to be ALOT of reparations in the near future. Glad I live in a rural area.
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It has become crystal clear that anyone in a city is going to see or experience a lot of violence and death IF this food shortage and continuing inflation is not stopped.
 
GeorgiaPeachie said:
It has become crystal clear that anyone in a city is going to see or experience a lot of violence and death IF this food shortage and continuing inflation is not stopped.
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To us. I work with the public, in their homes, M-F. I can tell you the vast majority of people have ZERO idea of what is coming. I see ZERO preps, and lots of video games (adults), mortgages, new cars, computers, take out food, but nothing that says prepared, or even armed. I talk with these people, and it is rare I find someone that knows. We are the exception rather than the rule.

I make subtle comments to feel them out; things that someone like us would get instantly. When they miss it, I do my work and look at them, imagining their fate.
 
GaryLa said:
In Florida, I have seen ponds/lakes empty like a bathtub from improper dredging.

I don't know much about it, but I heard there's a "pan" that can be cracked by digging equipment.
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That is true , if you dig down to permeable soil , your water will return to the water table. But you can seal it back up with cement or oilfield gel or scrap sheetrock. Anything fine textured enough to stop the pores in the soil. The organic material was previously doing this.
 
Helen Back said:
To us. I work with the public, in their homes, M-F. I can tell you the vast majority of people have ZERO idea of what is coming. I see ZERO preps, and lots of video games (adults), mortgages, new cars, computers, take out food, but nothing that says prepared, or even armed. I talk with these people, and it is rare I find someone that knows. We are the exception rather than the rule.

I make subtle comments to feel them out; things that someone like us would get instantly. When they miss it, I do my work and look at them, imagining their fate.
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You are doing your part. I have been trying to do the same when I am out and about. Where I am there are about half or a little less that understand and I feel are at least gathering up some foods and planting gardens. Sigh.
 
Helen Back said:
To us. I work with the public, in their homes, M-F. I can tell you the vast majority of people have ZERO idea of what is coming. I see ZERO preps, and lots of video games (adults), mortgages, new cars, computers, take out food, but nothing that says prepared, or even armed. I talk with these people, and it is rare I find someone that knows. We are the exception rather than the rule.

I make subtle comments to feel them out; things that someone like us would get instantly. When they miss it, I do my work and look at them, imagining their fate.
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The aunt in OC has enough for a couple months before I gotta go get her. She has friends in Mololla. That’s a special community I like.
 
 
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