can bacon

CAN BACON


Ah, Sunday, a day when lesser mortals must throw themselves upon the mercy of their divine being and beseech for forgiveness. Myself, absolutely no sacrilege intended, implicit or implied, am so close to perfect that I need not attend any services. When Baby Jesus is your buddy, these are the kinds of perks you get to enjoy. To those doubting Thomas’, please review exhibit A, my hair. Anyhoo, since I’m not otherwise engaged in other activities such as trying to save my soul since I’m, say, an envious bastard that covets the perfect hair of others, I can sit down to write. Obviously, since you are reading this Wednesday morning, I am now posting two days ahead [ note-written two weeks ago and delayed posting ]. But just to caution you, until I firmly solve my generator/battery problem you might not see every single day have an article. I might still only do six days a week. When I do skip Sunday, at least for the next weekend or two as I await a mail order part, it is not because I’m going to church. It is because I am being tested ( as only the worthy are ) and must overcome adversity. I’ll eventually get to seven articles a week, subject only to equipment failure or the annual visit down south to the parents ( this March I’m paying to fly my daughter out to her grandparents where I will visit everyone together- my thought is this is the last affordable plane tickets I’ll ever get, and it has been nearly five years since I’ve seen her ). Or, I’ll try to keep them infrequent, when you all piss me off and I need to rest and recoup a day.

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To the minion that challenged my assertion that the lack of documents proved fast collapse. Understandably, my notion is just an unprovable theory and could be wrong. But I don’t think I care for the notion that all the educated people were too busy in the fields to document the collapse. The middle ages saw monks self sufficient in food production, but also saw them copying books. That might not be a perfect analogy since the monasteries had certain monopolies that helped sustain them, plus plenty of prime land to do so. And plenty of willing labor as the alternatives were more unpleasant to some. Plus, they were in effect getting a free ride off the power of the church. But it does point out that not everyone must necessarily allow knowledge to die so they could plow from dawn to dusk. Also, in any collapse there is the tendency to live off the past, to scavenge. Such as our current tendency ( now so entrenched and happening long enough to call it a sustainable trend ) to neglect infrastructure. Sometimes for profit, sometimes for lack of physical materials needed. Are you telling me no writer in the entire empire had enough stockpiles or access to scavenged material to free up enough time to document the collapse? I’m not trying to get the last word in here- please feel free to respond. Perhaps we can get a mini-sport going, half the minions voting for each side. Go, Bison! Go dude that has bad hair!

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I don’t normally get “Backwoods Home” magazine. Every once in awhile I’ll order the anthology for a year. I think I’m up to year thirteen or fourteen. It is cheaper than the subscription and more compact. I rarely refer to them, being the epitome of Gottdamn Yuppie Scum Survivalism, but they are nice to have just in case. Take this last issue. Here goes Jackie, yammering away about being self-sufficient with TWENTY ACRES OF WOODS added to your homestead of farmland and year round stream. And hinting you can do this cheaply. Yes, if you are sucking off the government tit at a hundred grand a year as a civil servant, this set up might indeed be affordable. Until your local government can’t borrow anymore millions from the central bank, even at a subsidized interest rate of one percent ( here’s an example of insanity- little old Elko, population 18k, is going to borrow $8 million to repave main street, calling it a bargain since their credit is good and their interest rate is lower. I’m kind of wondering where my doubled property tax is going now if this is an example of government prudence ) and goes bankrupt and lays your expensive ass off. For the rest of us mere mortals, $1k junk land with three years of wheat at $500 and $200 for a Russian bolt with 400 rounds of ammo, a $500 trailer and $300 in solar panels and batteries- $2500 homesteading instead of $250,000 is more realistic. Replace a ten grand well with locating by a body of water to haul your daily needs, sans gardening, or have a rain catchment. The five grand septic is replaced by a free sawdust composter. And the forest is replaced by solar heat ( I’m typing in fifty degrees inside the tin box while its 19 outside- wearing a couple of sweaters makes solar heat alone comfortable ).

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Since I did pay the outrageous fee to remind myself how little BHM has changed in twenty years, I feel free to steal the canned bacon idea from that issue. And, just to be fair, the issue did also include a wonderful article of all technical aspects of LED lights which alone pays for the price of the mag if you are planning on buying any expensive LED’s and need advice. For instance, how many lumens per watt. Okay, to bacon. This assumes you know how to can meat. The thing different in canning bacon is the need to lay the raw meat on masking paper. Lay out in a single layer on a piece of masking paper eighteen inches long. Lay another piece of masking paper over that. Fold in half so that the bacon is folded. Roll up tightly and stick in the jar. After you pressure can it for ninety minutes at ten pounds of pressure, you have canned bacon that peels off the paper in individual pieces ( without paper it is a solid mass of fat and meat ). HMMMM…meat candy.

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The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
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