June 2, 2009

HOLLY NOTE: Yesterday we received an interesting message from a website reader. She is LDS and if anyone should be up on preps, food storage and current event, she should be in the know. The information below is as it arrived, though the personal comments have been removed. Read what she shares:

I am relatively new to viewing your site (about 4 months) but I love the information you list. I purchased your Garden Gold book and love it! Like you, I am a Christian (LDS...aka Mormon), and have been following the world events closely, noticing many "signs of the times" being fulfilled at an alarming rate! I received an e-mail yesterday that I thought you may be interested in, although I'm sure you're right on top of the subject! I have just copied and pasted it rather than to forward it as I don't know if the original senders would want me to hand out their e-mail address. Thanks for all you do! Your site is awsome!

Take a look at the attached email describing the shutting down of irrigation water to California Central Valley farmers. Folks, if this is not a wake-up call to get your non-hybrid seed gardens planted and your short- and long-term food storage in immediately, I do not know what is.

May 16, 2009

Name Withheld

We have the perfect storm brewing:

(1) No bridge credit for farmers to get their crops in this year due to the credit crisis, resulting in many farmers not planting this season;

(2) Farmers in Colorado, Texas, and possibly other states not planting this season because they cannot get as much for their crops as it costs to produce them;

(3) Foreign countries shutting down exports of food to the U.S. (which is a net 15% food importer as of today) due to crop failures and food shortages in their own countries;

(4) A daily devaluing dollar that will not buy as much foreign food as it used to, with the high probability of runaway inflation once foreign countries are no longer willing or able to subsidize our debt, which will further decrease purchasing power and increase food prices;

(5) No export restrictions on American farmers, who can and do sell their crops to foreigners who will pay more for them than Americans will, with the result that our production goes overseas and not to us;

(6) Pending legislation that may soon may make it much more difficult to farm and/or will shut down organic farms, farmer's markets and possibly home gardens in the near future;

(7) The potential of a flu pandemic with potential quarantines and consequent cessation of shipping and ability to shop; and, now, for the piece de resistance,

(8) California shutting down irrigation to farmers in the Central Valley, thereby killing off the source of much of our fruit and vegetables, to save the allegedly endangered smelt! All of these circumstances, documented in mainstream media, point to very little food being available this fall, and with what will be available being very expensive.

These circumstances are the setting for an apocalyptic food shortage of biblical proportions. Only the very most blind and arrogant among us could fail to see the immediate and obvious necessity for the home production and storage of food and other necessities that our prophets have been teaching us for decades, but which most of us have been blowing off for the same period of time.

(Only about 3-5% of LDS families currently have food storage.) One of our latter day prophets has stated that storing food may be as necessary for our temporal salvation in this day as Noah's entering the ark was for his temporal salvation in his day. This time is coming and may be here very soon.

Wheat, corn, and legumes doubled in price last year. If you don't believe me, compare the prices you are paying for things now with what you used to pay for them. A little over a year ago, I could buy a one pound bag of dried beans in any grocery store for between $.69 and $.89. Last week, I paid $1.49 to $1.69 for the same, non-organic, one pound bag of dried beans. Two years ago, I was buying hard white wheat for between $11 and $12 for 50 lb. Today you will pay between $18 and $26 for the same bag. Six months ago, that bag of wheat cost $32. Bread and cereals have doubled in price. You may still be paying $2.00 for a box of cereal just like you were a year and one-half ago, but the boxes are half the size. Don't believe me? Go check the size of your boxes. As the conditions I listed above come home to roost this fall, however, even these times, with these current high prices, will begin to look like the good old days.

I have been warning this audience for over a year now about the necessity of getting food storage and other preparedness items, and have been providing information as I have become aware of it to help you succeed in this endeavor. I cannot emphasize or stress more strongly now the need for getting in food storage and for planting a garden this year while food and seeds are still available and still affordable. I recognize that I am going out on a limb by suggesting that if you do not get what you need this spring while things are still available that you might not be able to get them at any price. But, the fundamentals, underscored by the conditions I outlined above, suggest that this may well be the case. If it turns out not to be the case, you can have a good laugh at my expense and tell me to go and get a tin-foil hat, but the apocalypse is still coming. Consider any extra preparation time to be a gift.

There is a reason why the brethren, for the last two years, have been emphasizing preparedness, and why, in the last general conference, they stopped preaching preparedness and started preaching faith and hope in the face of adversity - the last remedy after it is too late to prepare. I am going to suggest that if you want to be considered to be a faithful Latter Day Saint, that you will put your money where your mouth is and actually do what the people you revere as prophets, seers, and revelators have told you to do, not just give lip service to them being prophets, seers, and revelators. They have said, repeatedly, to get financially and physically prepared. These are not mere suggestions for the faithful. For the faithful, they are calls to action. The definition of faith (cf. Alma 32) is that after you hear the word you act on it and then see the results. Act on the word. Now.

I am going out on a limb here by suggesting that the window for preparation is closing rapidly, possibly this summer and fall. Get your preparations done now if you have not done them. The Church cannot prepare for you. There are too many of us and there are too many members from third world countries who are physically unable to prepare. The Church has to look out for them, not for those of us who can and should look out for ourselves, and have been commanded to do accordingly. Your neighbor or family member cannot prepare for you, either. Planning to raid your neighbor or family member's larder when times get tough is not only improbable, but evil. Your neighbor or family member does not have the responsibility or the resources to prepare for you, and your neighbor, and your neighbor, etc. ad nauseum.

I will not list here all of the possible resources for preparation. Refer to my preparedness announcements for this information. But, I will reiterate the value of the church canneries. Long term storage foods, such as wheat, beans, rice, and milk are available there, and are available for approximately half the price you will pay for them elsewhere. They are good. I use them. I particularly like the hard red wheat. It is excellent. Store things so that they will keep under adverse conditions. Be wary of plastic pails - rodents can and do chew through them, and they split over time and under stress. Metal cans are far better, particularly if kept in a dry

(read rust-free) environment. These, and the canners to fill them, are available through the church canneries. And, do not forget to store the other ingredients that you will need to make the contents of your cans palatable. Learn how to make your bread, and how to cook and eat your beans now, before you have to depend on them.

I would not be sending this email to you if I did not care about you, and your and your family's welfare. The window of opportunity is slamming shut fast. Don't let it slam shut on you!

Note: If you have been preparing, good for you! It is always fun to preach to the choir. But, once you have your house in order you can go out and help others to prepare. You are not fully prepared until your neighbor is prepared.

Government Has Shut Off All Canal Irrigation Water to Central Valley California Crop Lands!

I'm just so upset!

When we lived in California, we would often drive out to the central valley to drive along gazing at the beautiful orchards. It was such a wonderful experience to be surrounded by tall, lush orange trees, avocado trees, or almond trees in turn. We'd talk about how they spaced the trees, how they were irrigating the trees, what was used as a ground cover between the trees etc. Various farms would have unattended tables along the road where, on the honor system, you could leave money in return for a basket of Kiwis or Plums. It was heaven.

Last night on the news a segment came on totally shocking my husband and I. Because a 2" fish, SMELT, has recently been placed on the endangered list, and because it might get caught in the canal water pumps, all water to these farms is being cut off. The water is being pumped into the sea rather than go to the farms in California's central valley (our country's fruit and vegetable basket) because we can't have a SMELT caught in the canal water pumps now can we?

Footage was shown of dying almond orchards, or the empty water canal, of lines of the unemployed: some cities there now at 40% unemployment because of no work on the dying farms. Third generation farmers were interviewed almost in tears seeing the work of generations being totally destroyed.

This is as outrageous as the new bills trying to be passed forbidding people to save their own vegetable seeds, and another bill insisting that every single person's animals or birds be individually microchipped and paper work done on every single one of them. (rabbits come and go)

Some people are figuring things out and PLANTING in their own yards. I know this because Indiana Berry has been totally sold out of all their berries for a month or so as also Nourse Farms in Maine. Spooner Farms in Oregon which also supplies nursery stock to the whole country is sold out of all their Caroline Raspberries and has backorders for the next two years.

I think my husband and I will meander over to the nurseries here this afternoon and see if we can't purchase and then squeeze in just a few more different varieties of fruit trees.

If ALL of our fruits and nuts are to be imported from foreign places as the Central California Valley becomes a dust bowl............ this will HIKE PRICES TERRIBLY and increase worries about possible diseases. Yet, the sources will be so hard to track.

Lots of my friends still living in California laugh off their current woes, (legalizing marijuana being discussed, Prop 8 woes, wildfires, bankrupt cities, possibility of more earthquakes, drought, and now dying orchards....... they say they are not worried because if things get tougher...... they will just come and live with me. If all your friends and family are planning to just come and live with you too..... maybe I will see you at the nursery this afternoon also......... and we will buy a few more fruit trees together.

Sincerely,

EM