GETTIN' YOUR MIND RIGHT

"I received an email from a reader regarding Mexico’s freeze damage over the last few weeks. In summary, large-scale producers of foods, such as Sysco, have sent out emails to major vendors explaining that there might be shortages of row crop foods due to freezing temperatures that hit Mexico. It goes on to say that Florida is normally the ‘Plan B’ as they grow many of the same varieties, but they’ve been hit hard by freezes in December and suffered slight to moderate damage to their forecasted citrus harvest.

It also details that expected shortages could be counted on 30-60 days from now and that Mexican farmers are still unsure of their next step with nearly total loss in many crops – do they try and quickly replant, hoping for a late March-April yield? Or disc the fields and wait? Other information coming in states that many of these crops have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in price. For example, a carton of tomatoes went from $6.95 all the way up to $22.95 in one week. And that’s just one example!

This WILL affect your food cost and supply. If you’re not going to your local farmer’s market, now is the time to make friends and learn about it! This is also the time to start understanding how to grow your own foods and operate a personal garden. I offer numerous articles here at TruthisTreason.net for gardening help, from squarefoot gardening, to growing inside of a small apartment. The choice is yours..."

To read the rest along with the sourcing for the threat the writer describes go to Truth is Reason

Look, I hate to keep harping on the same thing but if you aren't getting ready to go hungry now's the time to start. A year or so ago reports were already surfacing of distortions and outright lies about the amount of food we had in storage and the projections for coming crop yields. This was done to depress commodity prices in an effort to keep money flowing into Treasuries to help ward off collapse. Consequently, decisions are made based on these lies regarding what crops to plant and how much. Knowing that we were truly running short on food, for a variety of reasons, would also affect the ethanol push and get into the pockets of farmers and ethanol producers, not to mention the politicians pushing all this green energy crap. So instead of planting corn for food consumption valuable acreage is wasted creating an incredibly inefficient yet wildly profitable energy crop. And other crops are planted on ground that could have been better used for something else. And on and on.

Add to this the increase in demand from developing nations, crop failures around the globe and now the deep freeze here and in Mexico and we have the potential for mass starvation around the globe. And starvation leads to unrest, which leads to riots, which leads to power vacuums, which opens doors to those that would fill those vacuums. Getting the picture yet?

So here's the thing you need to know; act now or starve later. And if not starve, face real financial difficulties. Even if food is available, supply and demand along with the rising cost of fuel and the devaluing dollar mean that it's going to cost you to fill your belly. A big part of the world will be choosing between eating and keeping the lights on.

So start to think of ways to decouple from these two major costs in life, food and fuel. Obviously you have to have both but how you get them and what form they take are up to you. You can grow your own food or create relationships with those that do. Money may not be worth much but you might have skills that are. Barter is a beautiful thing. Energy is a bit trickier because we have to have gas to get to work. But we can use it way more wisely. Electricity is something that we've all become accustomed to and something that, personally, I kind of like. However, it's easy to lower your dependence on it. Turn off the lights, heat with wood, get used to a colder house in the winter and a warmer house in the summer. We've had a heating cost of $1 a day this year in our house and it's been brutal winter. We've heated approximately 3600 square feet for this price. And we've been comfortable.

We can food now and we're learning to cure meats and dehydrate the food we grow. The smokehouse is under construction and the chickens are laying eggs. And the deer steaks we cooked this weekend were wonderful!

Is all this enough when the world comes apart? Nope! But it's a start and I'd rather have started the process and given it a lot of thought so that I've got my mind right (Strother Martin was great in "Cool Hand Luke", wasn't he?) when the SHTF. Because in the end the biggest part of dealing with the coming collapse is mental and spiritual. If you've prepared yourself mentally it'll make it a whole lot easier not to panic when everyone else does. And that'll be the edge that lets you protect yourself, your family and your community.