Sir Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577 and died in 1640. He was an influential Flemish artist, diplomat and cook.
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Eggs, fats-and-oils revisited
Papillon
This is in-reference to the difference that fats-and-oils can make in austere circumstances.
The book Papillon was published in 1969 and the author claimed it was an autobiography of when he was imprisoned in between 1931 and 1945.
At one point during his incarceration, he was under the protection of a guardian angel and he received a gift of a half-coconut a day (an additional 700 Calories per day). The half-coconut was a major game-changer. Before it showed up, he was clinging to life by the thinnest of margins. He was cold and shivering even when the weather was hot. After they started showing up, he was filled with energy and doing pull-ups and running in place. Life was good.
In time, the (illegal) deliveries of the coconuts were discovered and stopped. Life once again became grim.
Link to a three-minute clip from the movie when the first half-coconut showed up. The clip starts when the protagonist (played by Steve McQueen) is recovering from a beating and is at a low-point in his life.
Because we live in a society where access to fats-and-oils is virtually unlimited, the role that they play in brain chemistry and how they impact emotional health is rarely appreciated. If you love movies and have lots of time, the movie "Lorenzo's Oil" might be worth your time.
Raccoons
It was mentioned in the comments that mountain men sought bears in the late autumn just before they went into hibernation because they were rolling in fat.
Raccoons, unlike possum, also pack on the fat and hibernate during the winter. A fully grown, boar raccoon in late fall can be carrying five or more pounds of fat on him.
Paying wages with vegetable oil
I image that some of you did the math in your head after I proposed paying for 1 day's labor with 250ml of vegetable oil. 250ml at approximately 9 Calories per ml equals 2,250 Calories which is less than the laborer burns in a day. Why would anybody work for that?
The answer is that the calculations are done on the increments.
My reasoning is that it is 2,250 MORE Calories. Somebody else in the laborer's household stands in the bread-line to get his 2000 Calories-per-day that is distributed for famine relief.
Working 8 hours is about 800 MORE Calories burned over the course of 8 hours of work. So he is getting paid with almost 3X times the Calories burned when calculated as (Incremental Calories Received) / (Incremental Calories Burned). That is, 2,250 Calories received / 800 more Calories burned = 2.8 payout or 1.8 net gain per calorie burned.
If the worker walked the entire 8 hours, it would burn about 1600 more Calories and the economics would shift. Most work is less than half "walking" time and is more tedious than strenuous. Pulling weeds, hoeing, watching children for example.
Some kinds of work like cutting and hauling wood in the wood-lot, running a mechanical tiller, chopping weeds beneath an electric fence, bucking bales of hay have significantly higher calorie burn-rates and will require much higher pay-rates to make the economics work for the laborer.
Delayed onset muscle soreness
Yeah, those Farmers carries are sneaky.
It isn't debilitating but it is noticeable. Mostly in my pecs and quads. A little bit in my forearms.
Get back on the horse and ride it
Counterintuitively, continued exercise may temporarily suppress the soreness. Exercise increases pain thresholds and pain tolerance. This effect, called exercise-induced analgesia, is known to occur in endurance training (running, cycling, swimming), but little is known about whether it also occurs in strength training. There are claims in the literature that exercising sore muscles appears to be the best way to reduce or eliminate the soreness, but this has not yet been systematically investigated. -Wikipedia
Mission creep
My smartphone will not up-date to the newest operating system.
Keeping the OS "fresh" is considered a good practice because evolving security risks are addressed with patches.
The reason it will not update is because it requires 17.8 Gigabytes of free memory. The new OS boasts two AI modules which may be adding to the bloat.
A lightweight Linux install requires about 5GB.
Windows 3.1 Operating System, by comparison, required 3 Megabytes of RAM and 6.2MB of hard drive space. So, doing the math, the OS for my phone requires 2000 times more memory than Windows 3.1
Donald, take a vacation
I say this with love in my heart, Don, you are acting like a man who is in dire need of some down-time. Take three days off. Take care of yourself. Let the dust settle. Get some perspective. Make a plan.
We will survive three days without you. Heck, the country managed to stagger along for four years under Biden and he was never really all there.
Today's work-tickets
Deliver Quicksilver to play-date. One of the new kids is named "Felonious". Ok, I fictionalized her name for privacy reasons. But the child does have a name that is listed in the Michigan Penal Codes. Why do parents do that?!?
See if my buddy on Bellevue Hwy has a window of time to sell me the item he agreed to hold for me.
Buy a couple of gallons of vegetable oil and transfer it to mason jars. My current plan, based on information that 10x45mm shared, is to put a layer of polyethylene "stretch wrap" over the glass jar before installing the lid. I doubt that he jar will vacuum seal but I can leave the screw ring in place and that should maintain the compression on the seal and minimize oxygen infiltration.
Buy some rodent poison.
Clean the truck in preparation for deer season. I would invite Don but I don't think the Secret Service would approve of Don Sr. joining our party.
Visit the dentist.
Monday, November 9, 2026
Farmer Carries and other random thoughts
Lifting notes
I have been enjoying the Farmer Carry. I can walk with Mrs ERJ during my recoveries, pop into the gym and do a "set" of Farmers Carry and be out of the gym in time to catch Mrs ERJ on the next circuit of the walking track.
A few days ago I was able to catch Darius, one of the fitness trainers, between classes and he graciously gave me five minutes of his time. No sarcasm...he gave up his "getting ready for the next class" time to coach me.
Based on my goals, he gave me a 10 meter long path and told me to walk out-and-back twice (2 x 2 x 10m = 40m). He told me to put the kettlebells down, spin around and then pick them up at the terminus of each walk.
He started me at 30 pounds in each hand. I am somewhat above that now 8-).
I go to the dentist tomorrow
My appointment to address the missing filling is tomorrow afternoon.
My gut-feel is that I will either end up with a crown or will have the tooth removed.
A pithy quote about preparing (from a very long essay)
Household braced for the worse one (case) loses almost nothing if the better one arrives. Household braced for the better one loses a great deal if it does not, because the things it would then need are unavailable precisely at the moment of need. That asymmetry carries the entire case for doing anything. Source
Hidden contempt
The "academic advisors" in the education industry have contempt for today's young people. In general, they have greater contempt for the young men than they do for the young women.
They believe, deep in their black-hearts, that men are not capable of being responsible.
Responsibility is the combination of "Authority" and "Accountability".
Accountability without authority is scapegoating which is the tool of every tin-pot despot.
Authority without accountability is the other face of tyranny.
The education industry coddles young men instead of challenging them. It weakens and emasculates them. It crowds them into a land of fantasy.
While most young people enjoy the coddling, in-the-moment, part of them craves adventure, heroes and challenges. They are being fed unlimited amounts of cotton-candy when they need freshly-killed meat that is charred over an open fire and still leaking red juices from the interior.
"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign..."
"One is the loneliest number..."
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| Our local Walmart now carries reloading tools and components!!! |
Sunday, November 8, 2026
People don't need therapy. They need work.
Scott Galloway said "for most of the young men he works with, a job, friends and a girlfriend would do more than therapy".
"...get a job, get a friend, get a girlfriend, get out of the house, start exercising"."That is the equivalent of a nuclear detonation of therapy for 60 to 90% of the young men I deal with."
Galloway is one of the most respected members of the WOKE community.
"A job" is the gateway to self-esteem, discipline, discretionary income, practicing social skills and status within the greater community.
Galloway's public statements are an unexpected dose of reality and represent a shift of seismic proportions in "WOKE" thinking.
I expect it to get disappeared, at least for a while.
What about fats and oils?
There are large numbers of people who are new to war-gaming "famine" scenarios. I feel compelled to throw a stake into the ground to, maybe, provide some perspective.
There is a spectrum of scenarios that range from long-term, total collapse of civil society on one end while the other end is characterized by a weakened safety-net that allows the most fragile and isolated to fall through the cracks and die from malnutrition.
The middle-range is some combination of reduced supply/choices, reduced logistical capability or increased demand/prices...but there are still remnants of social structure that prevent total free-fall of food availability. Versions of the second scenario are what happened in the U.K., Germany and the US during WWII.
It is imperative that the planner communicate a clear vision of the scenario he is planning for. Plans that are useful for one group of scenarios may be wasted effort for other scenarios.
This particular post looks at a scenario that is somewhere in the middle of the famine spectrum.
In my humble opinions, the responsible "prepper" position is to position one's pantry and garden so that we can reduce our burden on the struggling system. It doesn't necessarily mean that we will be totally decoupled from it. It means that we will do as much as we can so that there is more for those who actually need it.
Peering into my crystal ball
Likely to be available:
- Carbohydrates, grains
- Cheese
- Dried soybeans
These are logistically "easy" and the path-of-least resistance for people trying to backstop shortages.
Likely to be in short(er) supply
- Protein (other than cheese) from animal sources
- Fresh fruits and vegetables
- "Human-quality feed" for animals (bagged feed for chickens, pigs)
These are logistically more difficult due to being perishable, bulk and cost.
Likely to be spot shortages
- Convenience foods: Frozen, ready-to-eat meals
- Meals prepared outside of the home
- Flavorings: garlic, onions, peppers, herbs, spices
- Fats and oils
- Comfort items like candy, sugar, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis
Dietary disruptions
Rapid changes in diet will cause intestinal distress. Switching from a diet where 45% of ones' calories come from fats-and-oils to a diet heavy on grains, especially if they are high fiber, will incapacitate some people.
Another factor is that some people will be forced to become less sedentary and will need more calories. Increased need for calories combined with food with fewer calories per unit volume will compound the problems in the lower digestive system.
Bureaucracies being what they are, nearly everybody who is not a child, pregnant/nursing or working in an "essential industry" will be tagged as "low needs" and be allocated a ration of 2000 Calories/day which is great for a sedentary, 150 pound woman but woefully short for an active man who weighs 200 pounds.
Some of the difference will come from the fat-on-our-back, but that eventually runs out. A person burning 2800 Calories a day but only eating 2000 Calories a day will lose one pound of body-fat every five days. When he runs out of fat he starts metabolizing muscle.
Back to fats-and-oils
A source of supplemental fats-and/or-oils is the logical choice to increase the ration's calories without grossly increasing the bulk in your digestive system.
As a planning exercise, let's assume
- Everybody is allocated 2000 Calories a day in tortillas, bread, breakfast cereal like substances by FEMA
- Assume that your household is mixed, half only need 2000 Calories a day and half need at least 2800 Calories a day so the average need is 2400 Calories per day
- At 9 Calories per gram, a budget of 45 grams of additional F&O per person-day is a reasonable starting place for this scenario.
- A gallon of vegetable oil weighs 7.6 pounds and represents about 75, 45 gram doses. That is very, very close to the volume of a shot-glass.
- Ergo, one gallon of oil or 7.6 pounds of butter/lard/tallow represents slightly more than two people-months of supplemental F&O. In a scenario without external ration support, it represents half that time.
If the crisis is short-term, then a person burning 2800 Calories a day can easily make it through a month and will lose about ten pounds. Not a big deal. For most of us, a six month disruption means we are deeply into losing muscle.
A few parting thoughts
Written narratives of wars almost always record extreme optimism about how short of a period the war will last. The American Civil War was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks. WWI and WWII were expected to only last a few months. In fact, each of those wars lasted more than four years AND the impacted areas were in-crisis due to demolished infrastructure and lack of manpower for a like period of time. That tots up to about a decade of hunger.
Looking at Cuba, the people are still impoverished 65 years after their color revolution. From another perspective, American Indians are still impoverished 200 years after losing their war.
Another consideration is that a stick of margarine (2.5 man-days supplemental amount) or a 1/4 liter of oil (half a standard "water bottle" represents 5 man-days of supplemental amount) might be a half-a-day's and a day's wages for outside help. It is a commodity that is easily divisible, a durable store of value and can be traded by the person who receives it for other things they need. It has intrinsic value. That is, it has enough of the characteristics of money to be a serviceable substitute for it.
Summary
One gallon of vegetable oil represents about 2 man-months* of calorie supplementation for a "buffered" economic crash and 1 man-month of supplementation for an unbuffered crash. At current prices, a gallon of name-brand, long shelf-life** vegetable oil (Wesson) costs $13/gallon at our local Walmart.
Oils and fats go rancid when exposed to oxygen, so thought must be given to storage. Rancid oils are not toxic but have a much lower smoke-point when used in frying and might cause digestive distress when consumed in large quantities.
*Remember, this scenario assumes a household of one man and one woman in traditional roles. If you are a single guy then you might want to double that amount/person. If you are a single woman you might want to halve that amount.
**Breeders have been selecting soybean genetics that have reduced amounts of linolenic acid in their oil molecules. Linolenic acid is the component that oxidizes the most quickly and is the main driver of oil turning rancid.
Quick chemistry lesson: Edible fats and oils are a glycerine molecule with three short, fatty acids attached to it. Think if it as being like the letter
"E"
where the backbone (the vertical line) is the glycerine molecule and each horizontal line is a separate fatty-acid.
Fatty acids that are saturated are straight lines and the molecules pack easily. Consequently, they turn solid at higher temperatures than "E" molecules made with kinky, unsaturated fatty acids.
The more highly unsaturated the acid (i.e. poly unsaturated), the less stable that horizontal arm is and the more susceptible it is to partial oxidization...that is, becoming rancid.
The actual mix of short, fatty acids varies by the genetics of the plant. There are strains of sunflowers and soybeans that produce oils that are low in Linolenic and high in Oleic short, fatty acids. Those oils exhibit shelf-life that is significantly longer than oils made from traditional sunflowers and soybeans.
As a consumer, you can read the "Best by" dates and select the brands with the longest storage horizon. You can store them in cool, dark places. You can repackage them in glass which excludes oxygen. All of those moves should significantly increase the shelf-life of your oils.
Or, you can store tallow, coconut oil(fat) or clarified butter. Since they are very high in stearic acid, they are relatively impervious to oxidizing. They are, however, very high in saturated fats which has been linked to cardiovascular disease. Get educated and make your own decisions.
Saturday, November 7, 2026
From the comments: When you get visitors who expect charity
From the comments: I’m checking stock to make sure I have more of whatever. Also had thoughts what do we do if he/she/they show up expecting us to help or take them in. Who do you turn away? Can’t help everyone.
You are the Chief Executive (along with your spouse) of your domain. Who you "hire" and who you "fire" is a key role of management.
In a factory, the role of management is to ensure the smooth, efficient and economical operation of the enterprise by minimizing waste and maximizing the production of the highest-value products within the constraints of the facility and inputs. Management's role is to create harmony.
For starters, turn away quarrelsome people. Not just for your benefit but for the benefit of everybody who you extend the privilege of being your guests. Figuring out who is quarrelsome is not rocket-science. They announce themselves. They demand.
Proverbs 21:9 "It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than in a mansion with a quarrelsome woman" but let's be honest here, men can be every bit as quarrelsome as women. People who hold on to grudges and who argue until the other party submits destroy harmony.
Don't let them in the door, even if they are your child. They might be "good" for a short period but will regress to their true nature. People regress to their ingrained behaviors that they are most comfortable with when they are stressed. They are EXTREMELY unlikely to embrace discomfort and rise to the needs of austere living.
People who stir-the-pot are destroyers of harmony and value their own power and status more than the success of the group. People who raise legitimate questions are not stirring-the-pot but ask the question to ensure they don't fail the organization.
Turn away people with a history of gossiping. Loose lips sink ships...and destroy cohesiveness. It isn't that "you hate them", it is that your life-boat cannot afford to have them on the premises. You are not acting as a person. You are acting in the role of Chief Executive (or Captain) of the life-boat.
With respect to neighbors and tools..."You asked to borrow my chainsaw. The deal is that if I loan out my chainsaw then I also loan-out my labor running it. You get me AND my chainsaw." At that point, you might start dickering about what three hours of your time + chainsaw are worth. If you don't have firewood, you might do it on shares. If you don't have a bicycle but the neighbor has extras, it might get you a bicycle. If you are running short of gasoline, maybe you can siphon five gallons out of the old lady's Suburu.
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| Courtesy of Google: Grocery stores in Kent County, Michigan. It is 23 miles as-the-crow-flies from the upper-right corner to the closest major grocery store. |
People who shop every day (even if it is buying a coffee or a bagel) or get two Grub-hub deliveries a day cannot imagine living eight miles from a store and having to walk or ride a bike to get there.
Throw in the fact that power and internet are likely to be more intermittent in the boonies than in the city and things will have to be totally Mad Max before your little bit of heaven is attractive to most people.
During famines in India, people leave the countryside and go to the big cities looking for work.
During the ending days of WWII, people stayed in Berlin until the Soviets were within just a few miles of the city limits.
So, my gut-feel is that almost all of the people you DON'T want as "guests" will self-select to stay away from your life-boat (especially if you have the foresight to turn off the internet router during the daylight hours when they are most likely to show up).
The power of language
I need a better word than "guest". The word "guest" implies hospitality and the life-boat can only afford about three days per person of hospitality. After than, the relationship has to change. The person who is living on your property must become a value-producing part of the domestic ecosystem. They have to earn their keep.
I am open to suggestions regarding a better noun than "guest".
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