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.

• … Globally renowned commodities expert and investor Jim Rogers says world’s focus in the coming years is going to be on agricultural commodities and food prices. According to him, the prices of agricultural commodities and food are going to continuously rise in the coming years. “Commodity prices are going to shoot up. The challenge is that people are eating more foods these days. But the supply of food products is coming down,” he said. Rogers, who is now settled in Singapore and who has been heavily into agricultural commodities in China, says that THE BIGGEST PROBLEM THAT THE FOOD SECTOR FACES IS THAT THE INVENTORIES OF FOOD ARE THE LOWEST NOT IN YEARS BUT IN DECADES (caps/PH).
• “Food supply is going to remain down since we have serious production problems. At the same time people are eating more and we are burning some of our foods as fuels.” said Jim Rogers.

PH Comment: Aren’t we glad that we’re continually expanding our stored foods and our food production (e.g., gardening) skills?

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

• “I suspect there will be some seeds you just won’t be able to buy if you wait (to order your garden seeds) too long on it,” said Bill Hart, the wholesale manager in charge of seed purchasing at Chas. C. Hart Seed Company in Wethersfield, Conn.
• “The problem is primarily due to soggy weather last year that resulted in a disappointing seed crop. European seed growers also had a bad year, leading to a big increase in orders for American seeds.” (Please note that this means that American home gardeners are competing with their European counterparts for available garden seed during difficult economic times both in the US and the EU/PH) Demand for seeds in the U.S. soared last year, as the poor economy and worries about chemical use and bacteria contamination prompted many people to establish gardens.”
• “Kathy Gocke of Bondurant, Iowa said she orders early for herself and her county’s master gardener’s program and advises others to do the same.”
• “Burpee Seeds in Warminster, Pa., bills itself as the largest provider of home garden seeds, and Chief Executive Officer George Ball said the company’s huge reserves mean it will have plenty of seeds. But Ball said he understands why others might have limited supplies after a big spike in demand in the past two years.
• “It was unlike anything I’ve seen in the past 30 years,” he said.

PH Comment: What if Mr. Ball’s estimate -“plenty”- of his company’s “huge reserves” of seed are wrong and/or demand from Europe and the US far exceed his expectations? What about next year? Have you noticed the weather in the US this year?

• “ Barbara Melera, owner of D. Landreth Seeds of New freedom, Pa., expects carrot seeds to be especially hard to find because of big orders from Europe, which had a poor crop last year. Also, fewer farmers are opting to grow seeds, she said. Many now have switched to growing corn for the biofuels industry. “In this country farmers who grow things for seed are becoming an endangered species,” Melera siad. “The farmers producing things for seeds is reduced significantly, and in the past two or three years they can get more money for growing corn for ethanol plants than carrots for seeds.”

At the end of a review and commentary on Chapter 4 of Steve Solomon’s book “Gardening when it counts – Growing Food In Hard Times” a short time ago, we recommended that the home/family gardener obtain their seeds from a regional seedsman or one with a climate similar to their own. Please let us amend that recommendation now to: buy seeds for your garden from any reliable seedsman – again with emphasis on those varieties that do well in your area (If you have any questions, check with your county ’Ag’ agent of state university), buy enough for two full gardens MINIMUM, and buy them NOW.
We plan a review with commentary on Chapter 5 – Seeds, of Mr. Solomon’s book next week. Please stay tuned.
Until next time; keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.

Iran Again: A weather report attempts to give an idea of upcoming/incoming weather in order for its viewers/listeners/readers to have some advance notice of the coming weather conditions and events, especially those that could produce dangerous results, and prepare accordingly. Here’s a bit of weather PrudentHome thinks is worth watching for:

• “US raises stakes on Iran by sending in ships and missiles” is the title of this Chris McGreal piece from The Guardian (guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan31) made available via Drudge Report (drudge report.com) on 2/1/10. Here are some of its key points:

• “Tension between the US and Iran heightened dramatically today with the disclosure that Barak Obama is deploying a missile shield to protect American allies in the Gulf from attack by Iran. The US is dispatching Patriot defensive missiles to four countries — Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait — and keeping two ships in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Washington is also helping Saudi Arabia develop a force to protect its oil installations.”

• KEY POINT: “Washington is also concerned at the threat of action by Israel, which is predicting that Iran will be able to build a nuclear missile within a year, a much faster timetable than assessed by the US, and is warning that it will not let Tehran come close to completion if diplomacy fails”

In an economically/financially  fragile world, a major war in the Middle East, with its almost certain effect of reducing oil availability, could/would be devastating to the industrialized nations of the world and their peoples: that includes the USA and us.

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

A Brief Apology: For over a month now, we here at PrudentHome have been dealing with a severe illness in one of the senior members of our family. It has taken our time, our effort and our concentration in order to give that family member the care and help they so richly deserve. It has not taken our commitment to strive to give the readers of PrudentHome our best efforts in helping them prepare for what we are sure are the difficult times ahead. We have been sporadic in our postings during this trial but we have been posting. We will continue on with our best efforts. Thank you.

Fragile Food Production: Food production in the world appears to be growing more fragile by the day as food producers fight challenges like the weather (climate change), oil price fluctuations, pests (Ug99), water availability, and a growing shortage of farmland. Now there’s a new concern: food production expectations. Here’s what it looks like in the headline from a World Net Daily (wnd.com) post this 1/10/10: “Government cover-up of food production shortage feared – Reports show demand growing, production declines estimated at 30%”. Here are some of the articles key points:

• “While trend experts, economists and investment gurus have been predicting food shortages for some time, new evidence indicates the U.S. Department of Agriculture mat be covering up the greatest food shortage in modern history.”

• “ … growing economies in Asia have ben consuming record amounts of raw goods, particularly food staples as consumers move to higher calorie diets. When supplies are reduced and demand is constant or growing, pieces normally rise.

Industry observers and economists remained mystified by the low agricultural prices in spite of this trend.One analyst, Eric DeCarbonnel from MarketSkeptics believes the answer is found in data he believes the U.S. Department of Agriculture has manipulated to keep prices low.

“Instead of adjusting production estimates down to reflect decreased production, [the USDA] adjusted estimates upwards to match increasing demand from China. In this way, the USDA has brought supply and demand back into balance (on paper) and temporarily delayed a rise in food prices by ensuring a catastrophe in 2010,” he said.

DeCarbonnel points out that across the Midwest United States, many counties already have been declared federal disaster areas, which is defined by a decrease in crop production of at least one type by 30 percent or more. Hundreds of other counties across the country have experienced crop failures of 10-20 percent, not enough to qualify as federal disaster areas but still contributing to the overall poor harvest.”

• “DeCarbonnel’s conclusion is that the government is intentionally covering up the nature of the food shortage because if the public realized the true extent of the crisis and/or prices rose dramatically, economies could collapse and governments could fall.

He’s not alone in his claims, as researchers around the world are now publishing similar accusations.”

For a more extensive treatment of this subject/information, go here:
http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/12/2010-food-crisis-for-dummies.html

This is the kind of information that has led/leads PrudentHome to encourage its readers to: expand your food storage program (and purchase your garden seeds for this years garden ASAP – enough for two gardens MINIMUM) and keep your awareness of what’s going on at the highest level.

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

Chapter 3 – Tools and tasks: If Mr. Solomon’s book title and his first two

Photo Credit: Marc Smith

chapters left you with the slightest doubt about his seriousness concerning gardening in hard times then his ‘Chapter 3’ on tools and tasks will dispel that doubt.  His first section begins:

• “The basic three and a file – To handle a garden up to a quarter acre (1,000 square meters) in size, if are minimally fit (I said “minimally fit”; I did not say male nor did I say huge), only four tools are essential: an ordinary combination shovel, a common hoe, a bow rake, and a 10- to 12-inch long (25- to 30 centimeter) metal file (with handle) to periodically sharpen the  shovel and hoe. … “
• “Please do not buy cheap discount store tools. If you are what Australians call ’skint’ (broke). You will do better pawing through secondhand shops until you find good ones. Where can you find quality new tools? I suggest a visit to a commercial hardware store, landscapers or nursery supply company, or contractor’s supply store and inspect what they sell to trades people. … Quality tools aren’t cheap, but they work out to be the least costly in the long run.”

PH Comment: Here we would add a fifth tool; a “file card” to clean the file’s grooves after use each use and before a coat of oil is applied to prevent rust in- between filings. Also, consider -since there are only four basic tools- having a reliable back-up for each of these important four. Too, the standard “T” rake works very well for us in place of the bow rake (later in the book, Mr. Solomon acknowledges “I could do it with a “T” rake …”) and is easier to find.

Each of these ‘basic three and a file’ are discussed thoroughly, including their application, from the beginning with ’How to start a new garden” through  several types of gardens, including ’Raised beds and raised rows’ and ’Making hills’. Mr. Solomon keeps it clear, simple and workable

The author has a very special and brief section in the chapter called “Hills and survival gardening“.  Here’s just a small piece:

• Imagine this : It is spring planting time, but nothing has been dug and you urgently need to make a garden. There is sod. You have a shovel, some seeds and not much else. What do you do? Garden like the Native Americans taught us … . Don’t even consider growing any demanding vegetables. You’ll grow easy stuff: winter squash, corn, sunflowers, … tomatoes … .”
• Mr. Solomon then goes on to tell us how to prepare the soil, plant, fertilize and expand the garden under difficult conditions. Here also, he gives special attention to the potato and it’s growing.
• The balance of the chapter contains some expanded gardening instruction, tool selection, tool use and tool maintenance as well as an excellent chart on measuring soil amendments.
• There is then a section on miscellaneous tools such as the wheelbarrow, sprayer, small kitchen knife and bucket. As with the ’basic three and a file’, all are thoroughly, if briefly. discussed as to types, acquisition, use and maintenance.

Then the final section: ’Care of tools’. It’s here that the author shows us a brief glimpse of the complete gardener: “Once tools were expensive, valued, and cared for. … people have forgotten how to care for valuable tools.” Mr. Solomon reminds us of the value of tools: the value in using them well and maintaining them well especially under conditions where they might be hard to come by.

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

• “Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher.”
• “An editorial in the medical journal (the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine/PH) agreed.
• “The current recession is likely to generate for children in the United States the greatest level of material deprivation that we will see in our professional lifetimes,” Stanford pediatrician Dr. Paul Wise wrote.”
• “… other recent research suggesting that more than 40 percent of U.S. children will live in poverty or near-poverty by age 17; and that half will live at some point in a single-parent family. Also, other researchers have estimated that slightly more than half of adults will use food stamps at some point by age 65.”

PH Comment: What the above article and information suggests to us here at PrudentHome is that America is in rough shape economically and socially. A lot of the statistics used to develop just the numbers PrudentHome has presented have been based on several decades worth of research  with a clear implication that things are getting worse not better. This is something that the preparing family needs to keep in mind as it works toward greater independence. This situation looks like a long haul at best and a sustainable preparation program is going to be required.

Conversations With ‘Pop’ Smith:

PH Question – “ ‘Pop’, we’ve been talking about a good general, in- depth family preparation program as being a base for dealing with almost any specific crisis-event coming down the road but do you see any problems on the near horizon that we might want to keep our eyes pealed for?

‘Pop’ Smith: While nobody can predict the future, all of us would want to be keenly aware of the direction our economy is taking. We’re at real unemployment at close to 20% with about 70% of our economy depending on near-full employment. Credit is tight and the people and the country owe more than they can pay back. This in a context of nervous creditors, national and international, wondering if we’re going to outright default on our debt or our country is going to print a lot more money with no backing and default that way. Either way things don’t look good.

Wages look like they’re going to hold steady at best for a while so with everything costing more (not just in the stores but in all your local and state taxes and “fees”), look for a lower standard of living for the average American in the short haul at best.

Also, you’re going to want to keep a sharp watch on the middle east. If Israel and Iran go at it, then all the bets are pretty much off the table. The bad now will seem good then

Don’t forget terrorism and civil unrest. Both of those are nearly sure bets pretty soon.

Bottom line: You’ve probably heard about the “Long Emergency” and the “Long War”, well I’d bet that you’re going to begin hearing about the “Long Recovery” pretty soon now. That’s what I’m preparing for: sustained hard times.

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

Chapter I, con’t: “Size of your garden”

• “As a rough gauge, take the 2,00-square foot wartime allotment plot in the United Kingdom. Britain’s cool and frequently cloudy summers mean that most vegetables grow more slowly than they usually do in the United States or southern Canada. But on the plus side, the mild English winters allow gardeners in many areas to harvest frost-hardy crops year-round. The wartime British were not expected to make a complete family diet pot of 2,700 square feet of vegetables. Their staff of life was bread from the local baker. … Probably during the war years vegetables, including potatoes, did not make make up more than a third of the family’s total caloric intake.”
• “ … If your goal is to produce not half, but nearly all the calories and nutrition needed year-round, and your family can depend on the ordinary potato as their healthful staff of life, then you can add more land in order to produce sacks and sacks of nutritious spuds or sweet potatoes. … The good thing about potatoes is that working plots of this scale (from 500 t0 750 square feet per each adult depending on water conditions/SS) can be done entirely with hand tools. To produce the same amount of nutrition by growing cereal grains would require five to ten times as much land per person. The healthful potato is really the thing for getting through hard times.”

PH Comments: We are in strong agreement with Mr. Solomon in his comments regarding the nutritional value found in both Irish and sweet potatoes (and recommend growing both where possible) but again we part company as regards his method of gardening requiring relatively large amounts of land.

Based on our own experience, our observation that the average homeowner/gardener in America has significantly less land to work with than Mr. Solomon proposes,  and at least two major gardening methods that require relatively little land and have proved reliable/productive here and around the world: we support/advocate the more intensive gardening systems found in John Jevons’ “ ‘How To Grow More Vegetables’ “ and Mel Bartholomew’s “Square foot Gardening”.

We plan to continue reviewing Mr. Solomon’s excellent book (and to continue commenting where we think appropriate) coming up as he has produced a wealth of gardening information and insights for dealing with gardening in hard times.

Until a little later then: keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.

• “ … the United States Government is on a trajectory to default on their obligations. In it’s current condition, it will not be able to fund its forecasted budget deficits and unfunded social security and medicare promises on top of its current debt obligations. … we don’t know when the market will react to it, but there is no longer any doubt about the extent of their trajectory. There simply isn’t enough taxing power, value creation or outside capital willing to support its egregious spending.”
• “From 2004 to 2009, US obligations increased by an average of almost 50% over this six year period under both calculation methods, while US government revenue increased by only 12%. No company or government can increase its liabilities by more than four times the rate of its revenue and stay solvent for an extended period of time.”

A Response?: We, (PH), wondered if this bit of information from the Financial Times (FT.com) on 11/03/09 could be a response, in part, to the information presented above in “Dead Government Walking”. See for yourself:

• “Gold prices continued to rise on Wednesday extending the all-time highs which followed India’s central bank bought 200 tonnes of the precious metal, swapping dollars for bullion as the country’s finance minister warned the economies of the US and EU had collapsed.”

Food – Stamps: From newsmax.com on 11/4/09 we get this headline, “A Record 36 Million in U.S. on Food Stamps”. Here’s the nut:

• “The number of Americans receiving food stamp assistance soared above 36 million for the first time in August, the eighth month in a row that enrollment set a record, the U.S. Department of agriculture said on Wednesday.
• USDA said 36,492 million people were receiving food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. … At the current rate, an estimated one in eight Americans receive benefits.”

PH Comment: The above information are only a couple of snapshots of conditions in the US and the world at the current time. These snapshots along with the comments/observations from economic and social analysts like Prof. Nouriel Roubini, Martin Weiss, and Gerald Celente, would seem to demand the prudent family prepare for a darker future.

At PrudentHome we still advocate strong general preparation for very hard times in the future along with heavy investment in faith, family, friends and neighbors.

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

An Apology: We have missed a full week “plus” of posts due to illness within our family. Our health concerns seem to be diminishing with this brief time in treatment and we hope to have all well and about soon.

We have just a couple of post’s planned for this week with a full schedule beginning the next week. Thank you for your understanding.

Continuing Book Review – “ ’Gardening When it Counts’ “ by Steve Solomon: Introduction/Chapter I-  con’t:

“The coming hard times”

• “We are soon going to base our civilization on something other than oil … or else we aren’t going to have much of a civilization left. Soon, everything made with oil is going to cost a lot more; gasoline, food, clothing, transportation, heating of houses, etc. And after that, if oil is still the basis for almost everything we do, then everything is going to cost even more.”
• “… those practicing raised-bed intensive methods will discover that intensive use of land requires large quantities of water, manure/compost, and fertilizer.’
• “Water has become scarce in many places. … watersheds are becoming ever more degraded, lessening the recharge of groundwater.”
• “Chemical fertilizers and many organic ones too, are made with petroleum or natural gas, so they are going to become more expensive.”
• “This book is for people who must have a good result.”
• “The successful home gardener must start with strong seeds and truly healthy transplants of varieties that are dependable and productive.”
• “Actually, to veggie garden successfully you only need a few hand tools, used properly.”

PH Comments: We agree with most of Mr. Solomon’s statements. We sincerely question his observations/conclusions however regarding the use of raised/intensive planting beds as requiring “large quantities“ (what are “large quantities” here and how does that square with these intensive techniques being taught/used successfully in some of the most difficult terrain, climate and poorest countries in the world? – Check out and follow up on some of this work being done via Bountiful Gardens catalog) of  “…water, manure/compost, and fertilizer.”

Again, we are going over Chapter I carefully to establish where Mr. Solomon is coming from in his observations and conclusions. There’s plenty of room, in our view, for honest yet differing opinions as to what might work well or best in particular situations. We have an open mind.

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