The "Hungry Times"

Suppose...

Suppose something were to happen and rural folks were "encouraged" to move into dense-pack housing in urban areas. Suppose your refused.

Suppose that the incentive for moving was that the supply chain, maybe, could keep you fed but if you refuse then you might have to shift for yourself.

While this seldom happens in isolation, for the purpose of this blog-post let's pretend it does. There are no jack-booted thugs storming across the sandy-plains of Michigan or Georgia or Eastern Germany. Just you and your family trying to figure out where your meal will come from.

January

Foraging: 40 deer per square mile is considered a heavy population. That works out to one every 16 acres. Or, at 100 people per square mile (fairly typical for southern Michigan rural areas) one deer for every 2.5 people. Let's assume you manage to snare a deer and call it 15 pounds of lean-meat per person.

Garden: You still have some carrots you mulched that you can dig up. You have some turnip greens.

Remainder: Food from storage.

February

Foraging: You set out snares and catch two rabbits a week. You have to race the coyotes, foxes and possum to get your catch. That is 4 pounds of very lean meat per week. You are starting to crave fat.

You go ice fishing. You split the galls on goldenrod to collect some grubs to sweeten up the hook of the teardrop jig. You get four bluegills and you save the guts for bait.

Garden: Running out of carrots. Now scavenging garlic greens for flavor.

Remainder: Food from storage.

March

Foraging: In addition to the snares for rabbits, you are putting out snares for starlings and other birds. You are STRONGLY considering catching mice...to feed the dog, of course.

You discover that squirrels are fat and they become your newest favorite-animal. 

The snow is mostly melted. You could collect maple sap by you have to boil 30 gallons of sap to get one gallon of syrup.

You watch the picked farm fields like a hawk hoping to harvest some early geese.

Garden: Tapped out.

Remainder: Food from storage.

April

Foraging: Suckers are running sporadically near the end of the month but you don't live on a stream. You make a gill net anyway. You have a friend with a flooded drainage ditch that connects to the Spicer Creek.

You walk the south side of ridges looking for early dandelions and other greens. Yellow Rocket is eagerly sought and your urine turns fluorescent yellow.

Garden: Still tapped out. Maybe you can get a few stalks of rhubarb near the end of the month.

Planting peas, potatoes and field corn. 

Remainder: Food from storage.

May:

Common carp begin spawning in the shallows when the water temperature stays above 65 degrees for several days in a row.

 

Foraging: Migratory birds, primarily ducks. Carp are spawning in the shallows. Bluegills are on their beds late in the month.

Young rabbits and woodchucks show up in the later half of the month. 

Morel mushrooms early in the month. Oyster mushrooms later in the month.

Greens and maybe some Jerusalem Artichokes.

Garden: Tapped out. Burning lots of calories planting the garden and getting almost none out of it.

Cabbage and broccoli transplants are planted in early May. Tomatoes and peppers are planted at the end of May. 

Remainder:  Food from storage.

June:

Foraging: Lots of young rabbits. Robbing eggs from bird nests. The bluegills that are spawning near shore are rapidly fished-out.

Greens, mostly nettles and poke because they produce so much. You learn to dislike greens. It seems stupid to boil them multiple times to make the edible.

This time-table is highly dependent on the weather, especially early in the growing season. This early-June corn plant is stressed by cold and too much rain.

Garden: Strawberries through the middle of the month. Raspberries and cherries toward the end.

Lettuce, peas, onions are harvested.

Beans are planted the first week of June and vining crops are planted the second week of June. 

Large volumes of food but not lots of calories. You have been losing two-pounds a week for several months and are running out of pounds to lose.

Remainder: Food from storage

July:

Foraging: Lots of young rabbits. You sit in the garden and shoot starlings with your pellet gun because you are counting on every bit of food.

Greens shift to Lamb's Quarters, amaranth and purslane (which are weeds in your garden)

Garden:

Lettuce, peas and onions in the first two weeks.

Everything changes in the third and fourth weeks. Earliest sweet corn and potatoes are ready for harvesting. Wheat is ripe. Green beans and cucumbers start coming in. It is like a switch flipped on July 20.

Remainder: Food from storage for the first two weeks. Replenishment starts the third week as the first wheat comes off of the farm fields. 

Discussion

In spite of what Porgy and Bess told you, living is NOT easy in the summer, at least not until the second half of July (in Michigan).

In all likelihood, the majority of the calories that you put into your mouth are coming out of storage until at least July 20 unless....

Domestic animals

Suppose your neighbor has a cow or even several cows. They can even be "beef breeds".

Suppose you work out a deal. Maybe you trade a bang-stick and ammo and your labor to buy-into a 1/3 share of a cow-in-milk. If the cow drops her calf in April and the calf is not fed his mother's milk, then a 1/3 share might be seven gallons of milk a week*. At 4% fat and 3.5% protein and 3% lactose that works out to 17000 Calories a week and all of it from old grass that is not edible for humans AND it is showing up during the most calorie-starved time of the year.

If there are just you and your wife, then 17,000 Calories are about half of the calories you need per week. If there are four of you, then 17,000 Calories is about one-quarter of the calories you need.

Of course you can get milk from sheep and goats and camels and horses and yaks if that is what you have. 

*I used 1/3 of the average, commercial Holstein milk cow's production level in these calculations.