We got the heads-up on this cooker from a good friend who was kind enough to introduce us to a close family member that has not only built one, but has modified/improved the plans you’ll read about and has some cooking experience that he can share also. Thank you “Cousin Martin”.

First, lets take a general look at the solar cooker as described by the posting at ‘wikia‘:

“The Fun-Panel solar cooker can be built in about an hour from a single cardboard box and some aluminum foil. This is significant, because traditional solar panel cookers such as the CooKit often require a large sheet of cardboard for construction. The Fun-Panel can also be adjusted more easily for different sun angles. This very powerful cooker is a true breakthrough.”

Here are some of the Fun-Panel’s advantages:

• “It’s easy to figure out how to cut and fold the cooker using the cardboard from half of a single box — you don’t need a big sheet of perfect cardboard. Every US Post Office sells a large cube-shaped box (20” x 20” x 20”) for about $6 that can be used to make two Fun-Panels.
• All cuts are 90 (degree) cuts — no curves.
• It is easily scaled to the size of cardboard box you have on hand.
• You can cook at all sun angles including low sun angles (morning and evening or high/low latitudes)”

Here are some of “Cousin Martin’s” observations/experiences:

• ’My experience with this very simple and VERY cheap-to-construct cooker has definitely convinced me of the practicality of solar cooking. It plainly has its limitations, but you really can cook without fire, without fuel, without smoke, and without electricity. Because it so cheap to build, it is very cost-effective. So many preparedness items involve $$ that are in short supply. This is one everybody can have, and the fuel is free.”
• “I cooked in the solar oven today. I put a sectioned sweet potato in at 11:30, in enough water to float the sections. I pulled it out about 2:00 and it was fully cooked. The ambient outside air temperature was 52 F and the official winds were NW at 12, gusting to 18mph, though I cooked in a wind-sheltered area. I re-oriented the oven twice during the cooking.”
• Here are three techniques “Cousin Martin” has found to improve the solar oven construction experience:
• “Scoring” the outer layer of the cardboard along the projects fold lines with a shallow cut using a razor knife
• Using a stiff straight-edge for the initial bends of the fold lines. Cardboard has a ‘bias“ because of its internal stiffening structures and it doesn‘t want to bend straight along just any line that happens to be drawn on it. The aforementioned scoring helps, but so does a stiff, straight board or piece of metal held along the fold line as one bends the cardboard.
• I used 3M general purpose aerosol spray adhesive (the Home Depot, <$5) to bond the aluminum foil to the cardboard after all the folds had been “worked into” the cardboard.”

A genuine “thanks” is appropriate here to PH’s friend and “Cousin Martin” for their observation and interest in providing preparing families with a great alternative cooking method for good times or bad.
Until next time; keep your eyes on the horizon as the weather’s changing fast.

MEXICO:

• “… To update the data on Mexico, its now our #2 source of imported petroleum because Saudi Arabia has fallen from #2 to #4.
• As of November 2009 (the latest data available) the U.S. imported 1.08 mbpd of crude and finished petroleum products from Mexico. Its exports to the U.S. peaked at 1.46 mbpd in 2004, the same year its production peaked. Net exports (production minus consumption) fell to 1.06 mbpd in 2008.
  For the years 2005-2008, Mexico’s exports to the U.S. declined by 0.51 barrels per day. In 2010, supply is expected to fall to 2.5 mpbd — nearly half a million barrels per day less than 2009.”
• “Consequently, Mexico’s oil reserves have decreased by more than 75% in two decades (owing partly to the correction of a previous, ridiculously inflated figure), production has begun to decline and exports are falling fast.”

VENEZUELA:

• “… As of November, the U.S. was importing 0.9 mpbd from Venezuela, making it our #3 source. Its exports to the U.S. peaked at 1.8 mpbd in 1997, the same year as its production peaked. Net exports (production minus consumption) have fallen 38% from the 1997 peak of 3.1 mpbd to 1.0 mpbd in 2008.
  Venezuela’s oil exports to the U.S. have been declining markedly since 2004, after a long period of relative stability, from 2004 through 2009, Venezuelan petroleum exports fell 0.7 mbpd.”
• “Now Chavez is turning east for help in developing his nation’s oil and gas resources. Recent agreements include a $20 billion joint venture with Russia to develop the Junin 6 field in the Orinoco oil belt, … .
  China has agreed to build a refinery and develop the Orinoco heavy oil fields, and Venezuela has guaranteed 560,000 barrels per day to China this year.
  
• “Chavez will put exports to the U.S. on a short path to zero the first chance he gets.”

PH Comment: It looks like oil availability and prices are going to be problems for the U.S. in the not-too-distant future unless we have a war between Israel and Iran: then the not-too-distant future will become NOW.

Until next time; keep your eyes on the horizon as the weather’s changing fast.

**PrudentHome Note/Request**: Please keep the Jim Rawles family (survivalblog.com) in your prayers as they are contending with the significant illness of Mrs. Rawles.

Signs of Weakness: Breitbart.Com today posted this Sara Lepro piece: “Signs of weakness in economy boost Treasurys”. The article discusses America’s debt condition via Treasury prices and here are some of the articles highpoints;

• “On Friday, a government report revealed more weakness in the economy, sending investors in search of safe-haven assets like Treasurys.
• “The Commerce Department said the nation’s gross domestic product, a measure of the economy’s total output, fell at a slower than expected pace of 1 percent in the second quarter. But the revised first-quarter GDP contraction came in much lower, at a 6.4 percent from 5.5 percent, the worst quarterly reading in nearly 30 years.
• “The report also said consumers cut spending by 1.2 percent in the second quarter, after a slight increase in the  previous three-month period.”
• “One of investors’ biggest concerns this year has been whether there will be enough demand to support the massive amounts of debt being pumped into the system to fund the government’s economic stimulus program. If demand were to continually fall short, the government would have to bump up the returns it offers investors on bonds in order to attract enough buyers. That could send borrowing rates higher on loans including mortgages.”

Observations on America’s Debt Condition: On 7/30/09, Mike Folkerth (King of Simple) posted  this on his blog (mikefolkerth.com): “Please Mr. Chinaman; Can you Spare A Dime?”. The article is an observation piece on American debt history and some of it’s consequences for today. Here are a few of Mr. Folkerth’s gems:

• “Thomas Malthus explained every negative aspect of unchecked population growth in 1798, including the relationship between diminishing per capita employment and population density. Along came the delusional likes of economist John Maynard Keynes and his buddy Franklin Roosevelt, who said Malthus was all wet and set out to prove it by enacting the New Deal; prove that is, that you really can run a finite planet on exponential growth, debt, and over population. Wrong.”
• “The pyramid scheme of massive social programs and increasing the non-productive sector of government under FDR (following Keynes guidelines) rocked along until the unfortunate 1970 catastrophic event of peak U. S. oil, which was a show-stopper for a country that based their entire existence on never ending domestic expansion and exponential growth (commonly known as , the buy now, let someone else pay much later without the benefit of natural resources, plan).
• Of course the above arrangement was designed to fail and certainly didn’t disappoint. The new scam that replaced exponential growth was one of fiat-debt-capitalism of exponential growth of debt under a non-backed paper money scenario. This plan was designed to faol abd once more did not disappoint even one little bit. After 39 years on the new fiat-debt-capitalism-plan, the U.S. has now run the debt-well completely dry and we have now lowered ourselves to begging the COMMUNIST CHINESE and ARABS for help!!! Bad, bad plan.”

Until next time: keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.

View #1.: This view is from the noted author (“World Made by Hand” & “The Long Emergency”) and commentator James Howard Kunstler in his 7/20/09 piece “Is Obama Gorbachev?” via lifeaftertheoilcrash.net. Here’s a part of that view:

• “The US economy is now dying a slow and painful death because it had become based on activities that had nothing to do with producing real wealth. Instead, it became dependent on rackets, that is, behavior geared to getting something for nothing”
• “These rackets are often summarized under the acronym FIRE (for finance, insurance and real estate), a system set up to strip-mine profits from the wish commonly labeled ‘the American Dream’ — itself a product of televised advertising and propaganda.”
• “The end product of all that was the doomed economy of suburban sprawl, an infrastructure for daily life with no future in a world defined by fossil fuel scarcity.”
• “The unraveling of debt at every level now is directly related to the mis-investments made in that life.”

View #2.: Charles Hugh Smith in his Monday, 7/20/09, post “Denial, Fear, Anger: The Real Depression Part I” at oftominds.com, brings us this view from correspondent Steve R. on “…the psychology of our post-bubble culture:” Here’s a part of that view plus a great quote from one of Mr. Smith’s readers:

• “Now that the promised dream is crumbling, people are justifiably angry for behaving as they were encouraged to but effectively being duped and punished by the system.”
• “Sure it was mostly technically legal – another big problem with the system. The incentives do not reward honorable behavior and personal responsibility (quite the opposite it seems).”
• “A society perceived to be based upon trickery, deceit, obfuscation by legal fine-print and rewarding failure of the biggest/most connected may create a population of angry, skeptical people.”

From reader Angry Saver: “In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” - Eric Hoffer (the self-educated, longshoreman philosopher/PH)

It is time, and past time, for each and all of us to embark on a self-education effort to prepare ourselves for what promises to be a different -and probably more difficult – future. Different and difficult, but with the possibility of far greater rewards and satisfaction.

We’re going to take a short vacation to visit family and plan to be back next week with Part 2 of “The Case for Cast-Iron Cookware.” It’s the hard-use and hard-times cookware for right now! Until next week: keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.

US National Security – Imported Oil and Food: Energy Bulletin (energybulletin.net) on 6/1/09 presented a post authored by Rick Munroe: “Review of Rand study, Imported Oil and US National Security (May 2009)”. Although this was a summary of the full report, there were three areas of concern that seemed to stand out as particularly pertinent to the American family.

Here are some of the highlights:

• b. Policy recommendations: “… on corn ethanol: “Using corn for ethanol is economically inefficient and has harmed US national security.”
• c. Agri-food concerns: “The UK – truckers blockade indicated how quickly a fuel supply shortage can cause a food supply crisis. The vulnerability of the agri-food sector is particularly noteworthy. When oil prices spike, there is a direct and fairly immediate effect on the price of food (and eventually on the viability of the import-export model itself). Any threat to food imports must be offset by domestic food production. However most family farmers cannot readily absorb high fuel prices, so they may be forced to curtail on-farm activities at the very moment when their nation needs them to produce more, not less. Given the seasonal narure of most agricultural production, a price spike during the critical months could effect an entire year’s production”
• e. Civil disorder: An important Energy Bulletin reviewer’s observation of a possible short-coming in the report – “The authors appear to have complete faith in the “unseen hand” to efficiently sort out all resulting difficulties during a major fuel emergency. There is barely a hint in this study of the potential for civil disorder despite the nation’s extreme dependence on oil products, it’s suburban configuration and it’s reliance on just-in-time delivery for many essential goods. Nor is there any consideration of how low-income Americans may react to suddenly being immobilized by fuel poverty.”

Betting the farm: Why Jim Rogers Is Betting The Farm is the Lew Rockwell (lewrockwell.com, on 6/2/09) headliner to the Garry Whit piece in The Standard (thestandard.com.hk) on 6/1/09.

The article speaks to commodities in general but food in particular regarding future prices and investment possibilities. One of the worlds most savvy investor’s observations/opinions are highlighted but it may be more valuable to the average family to look at the root causes for future food price escalations. Here are some of those causes;

Long term: “…the rising global population will be a fundamental driver of the rising price of food.” Also, “.. global warming. Dry places getting dryer and wet places getting wetter and this is playing havoc with farming.” In addition, “ Rising wealth leads to rising food consumption, but it also leads to more meat consumption, Raising cattle or sheep requires significantly more grain and stimulates demand… .”

Short term: “ …the credit crunch.”, as “Farmers cannot get the finance they need to buy the inputs (i.e. seed, fertilizer, and pesticides) that go into growing food.” Also, “A tumbling dollar is likely to cause food prices to rise …. Debased currencies stimulate an appetite for investment in real assets.”

The two articles we’ve reviewed today point clearly to the need for the prudent home to develop both a significant home storage program for food (and essentials) and a home food production program for sustainable family welfare.

Until next time, keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.

Mr. Vail notes, “…with violence flaring, the potential for collapse in Mexico is once again in the headlines. Oil production is down, violence is up, and the government is preparing for a showdown with the drug cartels.”

Mr. Vail’s concerns are echoed by the U.S. Military’s Joint Forces Command in their Joint Operating Environment 2008 report which listed Mexico as one of the two (with Pakistan) states most likely to collapse in the immediate future.

Joining Mexico’s falling oil production and even more rapidly declining oil exports are her flagging tourist revenues, reduced remittances from her workers abroad, and finally , the low price of oil itself.  Is Mexico in a financial and governmental death spiral?

The Economy–Wealth Destroyed: “45 percent of world’s wealth destroyed: Blackstone CEO” by Megan Davies and Walden Siew in a piece posted today by Reuter’s (reuters.com).

“Private equity company Blackstone Group LP (BX.N) CEO Stephen Schwarzman said on Tuesday that up to 45 percent of the world’s wealth has been destroyed by the global credit crisis.” All of this has taken place “… in as little as a year and a half. This is unprecedented in our lifetime.”

Jobs Out: “Record number of Americans on unemployment”is the title of the CNNMoney article by Julianne Pepitone on 3/12/09 (cnn.money.com).

“The number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment insurance rose last week, with the number of people collecting benefits overall rising to a record 5.3 million, according to a government report released Thursday.”

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics, was quoted in the article as saying that “…claims are nowhere near their peak, which could be close to a million.”

The article also noted that “…more jobless Americans are having trouble finding work, 5,317,000 continued filing for unemployment insurance in the week ended February 28. That’s an increase of 193,000 from the revised number from the previous week. It was the highest level since record keeping began in 1967.”

Cheap In: “Extreme cheapskates: Tightwads revel in frugality” says the Breitbart headline at breitbart.com, on 3/11/09.

‘The recession is making tightwads … cut back even more. They’re going way beyond sharpening their coupon scissors, replacing already cheap store-brand fabric softener with vinegar and even making their own detergent.”

“Frugal people are now looking at more ways not to spend money.”

“I am questioning every single purchase…”

Even though many of the ’fearlessly frugal” haven’t as yet lost their jobs, they’re still cutting corners, saving more and sleeping the sleep of the economically prudent realizing that saving money can be the equivalent if earning it.

Until next week then, keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.

Professor Barro’s determination of the odds of a depression in the U.S. rest on his analytical approach using “…long-term data from many countries and takes into account the historical linkages between depressions and stock market crashes.”

His study produced two conclusions, “…periods without stock-market crashes are very safe, in the sense that depressions are extremely unlikely. However, periods experiencing stock-market crashes, such as 2008-09 in the U.S., represent a serious threat. The odds are roughly one-in-five that the current recession will snowball into the macroeconomic decline of 10% or more that is the hallmark of depression.”

Food–Finally an ‘Organization’: Energy Bulletin (energybulletin.net) on 3/04/09 has given us some hope that folks around the world, and certainly within the U.S., are recognizing the need and value of the sustainable family food garden and are coming together within this recognition.

In a post entitled ‘Promoting the “localest” food of all, globally” – Kitchen Gardener International, KGI ( “…a 501c3 nonprofit founded in Maine, USA with friends from around the world.”) describes it’s mission as one “… to empower individuals, families, and communities to achieve greater levels of food self-reliance through the promotion of kitchen gardening, home-cooking, and sustainable local food systems.” as well as to “…connect, serve and expand the global community of people who grow some of their own food.”

KGI’s “Justification” is as follows: “With the world in the grips of intersecting food, fuel, financial and environmental crisis, it is clear that we need to make a shift in the way we eat and live. Kitchen gardens, food gardens, Victory gardens – whatever term you prefer – have been an important part of our past and will play an even more crucial role in the future as we work to feed a growing world population using a dwindling and increasingly polluted natural resource base.”

Amen. You can access KGI via kitchengardeners.org on the net and we hope that you will do so.

Note: KGI is the kind of effort we’ve been reporting on here at Prudent Home almost since our beginning. It has been a fragmented work in individual countries such as Great Britain, the U.S., Russia and South Africa, based on similar a similar understanding: ultimately, the food security of the individual, family, and community rests with the food production of the individual, family, and community.

Until the end of the week then, keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.

This rare combination of clear, understandable, and useful data can most recently be found, not surprisingly, in a recent post on mikefolkerth.com (Mike Folkerth – King of Simple) on 2/24/09.

The title of Mr. Folkerth’s post is “Wrong Thinking is a Dangerous Process” and here are some excerpts:

“…Many people are viewing the possibility of total economic recovery under the misconceived belief that the U.S. will always be top dog in the consumption department; no matter what… a few pesky facts tell a very different story.”

“The U.S. represents 4.8% of the world population, but currently consumes 25% of all energy and 30% of world materials. Our plan is to substantially grow that number!

In 1980 the U.S. was the largest creditor nation on earth. Today we are the largest debtor nation on the planet to the point in fact, that we borrow money from third world countries to pay the interest on the National Debt.

The U.S. is totally dependent on borrowing from foreign nations to fund our government and our personal lifestyles.

Somewhere between 80% to 85% of Americans are broke, should the phantom equity in their homes not be considered. In other words, 30 days from bankruptcy should their income streams cease.”

“The U.S. has a trade imbalance of about $700 Billion per year. In other words, we buy about $2 Billion more per day from foreigners than we sell.

Should the Chinese manage to raise consumption to the same per-capita rate as Americans, they would require 100% of all resource production on earth.

If India and China were to collectively consume at 50% of the U.S. per-capita rate, the same result would be obtained; 100% resource depletion, with the remainder if the world having zero.

The U.S. hit peak oil production in 1970. Today we produce 40% less than we did in 1970 and consume 40% more. We purchase that energy on credit from others by borrowing against the future.

Over our lifetimes, we consume some 75% over that of our European counterparts …”

“If anyone can read the points that I have just made and continue to believe that the U.S. will always have the upper hand and that our economy will return to status quo through growth of debt and population; have your doctor check your medications.”

MORE COPING: “Recession grows interest in seeds, vegetable gardening” by Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY (via Energy Bulletin at energybulletin.net on 2/24/09, Food & agriculture)

Seed sales of vegetables at the U.S.’s largest seed sellers have increased at a double-digit pace this year, according to Mr. Horovitz’s article, and this is the result of hard economic times.

The last time food gardening seed sales increased this much was 30 years ago said Bruce Butterfield, National Gardening Association’s group research director, as the NGA projected the number of homes growing gardens to increase this year more than 40% above two years ago.

PrudentHome plans a “sources and methods” gardening article at the end of this week and it looks like we’re about on time.

Until then, keep your eyes on the horizon as the weather’s changing fast.

“Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is no prospect of a near term resolution to the crisis.

Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.

THE ECONOMY/MCCOACH: From “The Hijacking of America” by Greg McCoach at www.321gold.com on 2/19/09 (thanks to survivalblog.com of 2/23/09 in the section “Items of the Economatrix”)

“Looking at the dismal record of fiat currencies throughout history, no country that has disconnected their currency from a gold or silver standard has ever made it past the 40^th year mark before inflationary panic and disaster unfolded. The United States is now in the 37^th year of it’s fiat currency experiment since Nixon took us off the gold standard in in 1972.”

THE ECONOMY/W.B. YEATS: From Yeats poem “The Second Coming”:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

More accurately, the Yeats poem would perhaps reflect our general world condition and not just the narrow economic scene.

SOCIAL UNREST: “Britain faces summer of rage – police” is the article’s title in the UK’s guardian.co.uk/uk post on 2/23/09.

“Police are preparing for a ‘summer of rage’ as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions, the Guardian has learned.”

The article goes on to note that “…people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings”

are “…becoming ‘foot soldiers’ in a wave of potentially violent mass protests.” and that “…middle-class individuals who never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests…”

‘COPING’: Two articles in Energy Bulletin (energybulletin.net, Food & Agriculture) on 2/20/09 deserve attention: the first is “UK allotments boom as thousands go to ground in recession” by Rebecca Smithers, The Guardian.

“…as recession bites, the growing enthusiasm for homegrown veg has seen more than 100,000 people join waiting lists for a patch of land as demand hits an all-time high.”

And second, “Portland, Maine allows backyard chickens” from Tom Bell, Portland Press Herald.

“…Portland City Council voted 7 -1 to remove its long standing ban on chickens and allow people to keep up to six hens within city limits.

“ …proponents of the measure…said the measure is part of a broader movement to create a situation in which food sources are found as close to home as possible.” and that “This brings us one step closer to sustainability …”

Until a little later in the week then, keep your eyes on the horizon. The weathers changing fast.

The folks at “ The Daily Reckoning” on September 11, 2008 seemed to reach some similar positions. An article by Bill Bonner, “ No More Delaying this Decline”, questioned the bail-out of ’Fannie’ and ’Freddie’ this way, “… what does it mean when the world’s most free-market government nationalizes its largest finance industry? “ It appeared to mean that while the shareholders here would suffer loss, the bond holders would not because the U.S. is in critical need of foreign capital to function. Foreigners hold literally trillions of U.S. dollar-debt as well as dollars themselves and if they thought the U.S. government would fail to back those they would dump them, effectively ending the dollar-based monetary system.

WATER & ENERGY: Energy Bulletin – Sept 12 (energybulletin.net),” Shrinking Water Supplies and Growing Energy Demands “ by David Hampton, E Magazine. This David Hampton article notes significant linkage between energy sources and water usage. For the U.S., in example, both nuclear power stations as well as conventional thermal units use major amounts of water in their “wet” cooling systems with 39% of all U.S. freshwater withdrawals in 2000 going to thermal power stations .

While agriculture is the worlds most significant user of water, there has been very little linkage (so far) between biofuel production and water usage. Other less conventional sources (shale oil & tar sands?) seem to require large amounts of water too in their processing.

FOOD & SUBSISTANCE FARMS: “Fannie, Freddie, Subsistence Farming and You” by Sharon Astyk published 9/9/08 by Casaubon’s Book and archived 9/10/08 by Energy Bulletin (energybulletin.net)

After a brief discussion of America’s economic crisis and a tipping of the hat to probable financial collapse, Ms. Astyk speaks of/to a “new normal”. This “new normal “ will encompass the societal changes brought about by peak oil and climate change: these changes will be huge. “It is quite possible that urban and suburban farming may provide a large portion of vegetable and livestock for the cities.” she says, but “ the suburbs will be quite hard put to feed themselves.” The suburbs will move to subsistence farming to meet a large portion of their food needs.

This subsistence farming will be similar to a lot of farming today in that it will not be full time but will share time with a second job of some sort outside of the home. Conditions themselves in the future will be similar to those now with everyday folks struggling even more to meet their basic needs. It is also a strong probability that subsistence farming will be further supported as an economic necessity due to the expense of commercially grown foods that will be, in the main, exported.

The foregoing is very brief sketch of a well written and reasoned piece that is worth your time to read. It supports the proposition that now is an excellent/the best time to develop food producing, storing, and preparation skills at the home level. While the future may not be “Mad Max”, it almost certainly won’t be a return to “Ossie and Harriet” either and their’s an awful lot of room in between.

Until next week, keep your eyes on the horizon.