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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >I have no intention of carrying any of my preferred supplies. They are  
> almost all in place at my preferred place to live--good times and bad.

A good point included in the above is that the homesteading lifestyle does 
not change that much in good times or bad.

Bob, listen to this fable.  I once knew someone of very bad eating habits and 
who was sickly because of it explaining why he didn't eat any vegetables.  He 
said that he'd read that canned or frozen vegetables lost a little of their 
nutrition in processing and so since he had no source for really fresh 
vegetables, he just wouldn't eat any at all .... ignoring of course that 
frozen 
vegetables were a billion times better for his health than none at all.

Likewise (and this is a true story) someone I knew had vowed that her garden 
would be entirely organic.  It as a disaster an grew nearly nothing on the 
inhospitable hard blue clay.  I asked her what she used to develop the soil.  
The 
aswer was nothing.  Near by was a riding stable with a great mountain of 8 
year old horse manure that was hers for the hauling.  For Demeter's sake, why 
haven't you worked several tons of that into your garden???   Oh, because 
she'd 
heard that horse people gave harsh toxic wormers to their horses and she 
didn't want to have any such goings on in her garden. (An unfouned concern, 
by the 
bye).

The meaning of these fables is this, Bob.  Very grim times are coming, we are 
already up to level one grim now or higher (or lower).  Those with some place 
to go and plant a few potatoes and stay warm in a small cottage are going to 
do fine.  Exactly where that is, or whether you will take gold or gunpowder 
or 
rum with you, are trifles.  Such trifles do not make or break the undertaking 
any more than freezing vegetables makes them nutritionally useless or manure 
from wormed horses is going to poison your cabbages.  

James