Burra Maluca

It grows wild here.

I've never noticed that it causes problems other than attempting to shade stuff out, but so far it hasn't invaded the veggie beds.

It's attempting to out-compete the prickly pears and the peruvian apple cactus though!

Douglas Alpenstock wrote: we are not in a closed system. Community and local trade open doors.

This is a goat belonging to a friend of mine who lives about a mile away. I had the honour of milking her for a few weeks while my friend was in hospital a couple of years ago so I know exactly how they are looked after. He loves goats, he hates gardening, he lives very hand-to-mouth.

The goats are fed exclusively by grazing and browsing. They have quite a lot of room to graze, far more than most people would want to give them. There are trees such as olive, orange and cork oak growing on the same land, giving shade to the goats, a harvest, some browse for the goats, prunings to feed the fire, etc. At the time this photo was taken, this goat hadn't kidded for over a year and was giving just over a litre of milk a day. That's nearly two pints. That's enough for a couple of people. More goats give more, maybe even a yield of kids for meat too. No grain. Ever.



Once a month we take our friend shopping with us as he has no transport. He pays us in cheese! I'm not sure how much fat there is in the milk but it tastes creamier to me than most of the other goat milk I've drunk, except Anglo Nubian milk. So I'm guessing around 4% fat. That cheese took around 5 litres of milk to make so likely contains around 200 grams of fat, or around 7 ounces.



Which seems like an awesome trade for a lift to town, from our point of view!

He does like it if I wash out the cloth and give it back to him for next time though...

Tereza Okava wrote:
We are at a time right now (and also considering, in this thought experiment) a situation where the calculations of whether something is worth our time or not may be shifting.
I make a point of growing only things that aren't dirt cheap to buy, but as things change that cost/benefit shifts. This year when the price of olive oil went sky-high we started using a lot more home-rendered lard and schmalz from the meat we buy. We don't get buckets of it, but we have enough to cook with.

I've been doing something similar. My energy levels aren't quite as bad as they have been, so maybe I'll manage to pick more olives this time around if I continue to improve. For the last few years I've basically just picked olives for the table rather than for oil. But at the moment we can pick up free bags of fatty pork scraps which I sort out and render lard out of. It's a lot less effort for me than hauling my butt up to the top terrace and picking olives!

But if food prices do go up drastically, living off the crumbs from the rich man's table will be less of an option as there will be far more people wanting cheap cuts of meat and demand for the free stuff will no doubt increase to the point that it won't be free, or available, any more. Also there will be less work for the boys to do, so less money, and less fuel to go to the shops so often. At the moment my son picks up bags for me when he passes the shop, but as people run out of money he's likely to not be driving around the place so much. I'll have to switch from tightwad to something more self-sufficient.

I think staying flexible is important!

Nicola Bludau wrote:the space required for these crops is not really feasible for most people. The extraction of oils is difficult. And the amount is not huge, especially in the case of grapeseeds.

Where I live pretty much everyone has a few olive trees. Most villages have a press. My neighbour has a press too but he says the work involved is so great that he only makes a few litres and the rest of the crop goes to the village press. Many olive trees, including most of our own, simply don't get harvested as the work is too great for the return and there aren't enough hungry people around to do it.

If the cost of food goes up 10x that will change!

Grapeseeds here are simply a by-product of pressing grapes for wine. I doubt many people would grow them specifically. But again, if food prices rise the balance will shift in favour of collecting those seeds instead of dumping them.

Living on nuts and seeds as your fat source is not feasible, it would take way too much space. This is why people in the past didn't do it.

Looks around at a landscape dotted with ancient olive trees and almonds and walnuts. Um, OK. Maybe the old folk here didn't rely on nuts and seeds and olives exclusively for their oil needs, but they sure made a difference. And I think that's what will be important if food prices rise significantly - that anyone who can contribute does so.

Here are some of my neighbours, tidying up their olive grove which has no doubt been in their family for generations.

From all the figures I've seen, yes rabbit meat is rather lean.



But if you were eating it with other things it could easily be balanced out. Maybe a rabbit pie with a milky sauce. Or simply served with bread and butter, or peanut butter.

Or how about a rabbit 'pie' with a flax-seed based topping, a bit like a cobbler.

Nicola Bludau wrote:For most dishes, you need some sort of oil, butter or lard, which means nuts as such won't do it.

So cook different dishes.

It sure as hell beats starving!

Anne Miller wrote:Today I have seen several posts with M2, what is that?

m2 is square metres.

I haven't figured out how to make it look the way it should.

If I do, I'll come back and edit the post...

edit - hold down the alt key then press 0,1,7, 8 and a superscript 2 appears by magic! but only if you use the numeric keypad, not the numbers at the top of the keyboard...

²

m²

Nicola Bludau wrote:Don't dream that your garden saves you; living on vegetables is starvation. You may be able to grow enough starches (potato, sweet potato, corn grain, canna edulis, taro, banana), and if you raise rabbits, you will have plenty of protein. However, the biggest problem is fat.

Some quick ideas for things that could be grown that supply fat...

peanuts
flax/linseed
olives
avocado
sunflowers
pumpkins
peanuts
hazelnuts
sesame seeds
almond
walnuts
hickory
grapeseed
macademia

It's not actually necessary to extract the oil either. I make muffins using ground linseed (flaxseed) without any eggs or added oil. Linseed is around 67% fat and 13% protein. Also a ton of fibre. I generally mix it half and half with wheat flour to make muffins or bread rolls.

Is there a good thread on permies for home-grown fats and how to use them? Maybe someone could make one?

My other half 3D printed up one of these for me, which works very well even when the cobs are very dry. It's a bit like a giant pencil sharpener - classic corn sheller

A frustrated uncastrated male donkey can be dangerously unpredictable.

Is there anything you can do to encourage the owner to have him castrated?