In tough economic times, people are rediscovering the old-fashioned root cellar.
By Lisa James
September 2010
Until not all that long ago, eating during the winter wasn�t as easy as driving to a supermarket. �If people from ages past could stand in front of even an ordinary grocery store shelf, the variety and abundance would floor them,� say Steve Maxwell and Jennifer MacKenzie, authors of The Complete Root Cellar Book (Robert Rose).
Back then people preserved their own winter food supplies in root cellars, �cool, usually humid places ideally suited to storing vegetables, fruits, nuts and other foods,� say Maxwell and MacKenzie. Today, a desire to save money has combined with a back-to-basics ethic to revive interest in this venerable food storage system. But Maxwell and MacKenzie also cite more profound reasons for building a root cellar, desires �for the deepest kind of food craftsmanship and a way to contribute to effective environmental stewardship.�
I dream of living in a time like the "Little House on the Prairie" days. I purchased a canner this summer so I could preserve food for future use but I returned it thinking I could find one at a garage sale or on Craigs list for 1/10th the price I paid.
Preserving veggies the old lactic acid way was very common years ago. I have several liters of preserved veggies like cabbage, beet, onion, olive and various greens sitting in my cupboard.
Hey, we had a fallout shelter when I was A kid... to many spiders and the thought of spending time down there with my old grandmother was truely terrifying.
adjust the temp with a window... probably wouldn't work if you lived in a warm
Root cellars can be done in any house with a basement. You section an area off climate though. We are managing to keep ours warm enough in the winter with our freezing conditions... the verdict is still out for the summer.
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"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." Marcus Aurelius
Hey, we had a fallout shelter when I was A kid... to many spiders and the thought of spending time down there with my old grandmother was truely terrifying.r.
It wouldn't be too fun with old grandmother, huh? lol Actually, if things got to the point where you needed to live in a bomb shelter that time wouldn't be fun no matter who you had with you....unless it was Victor Frankl or Mother Theresa or Jesus for that matter!!!!
I'm so grateful to live in an era of washing machines, electric ovens, electric lights, and refrigerators.
I have no qualm depending upon technology. After all, we've been depending upon technology of some sort for centuries. The hoe. The pitchfork. How many would really want to go back to plowing with a stubborn mule, instead of a tractor?
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- Jim
�Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.� Sir Winston Churchill
We LOVE our tractor. My husband never smiled driving the BMW the way he does when on the tractor!
We traded the beamer for this:
Like your priorities Arrowwind09.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfh
The hoe. The pitchfork. How many would really want to go back to plowing with a stubborn mule, instead of a tractor?
Scared of hard work jfh?
Men were the ones in the field typically. When I think of Little House on The Prarie days I think of simpler times with pure food, wholesome fun, a connected family, and a life without the modern medical BS that permeates our culture.
We LOVE our tractor. My husband never smiled driving the BMW the way he does when on the tractor!
We traded the beamer for this:
Yeeee haa! Have you taken it for a spin Arrow?
When I was married, we had the same tractor. Started out with a ford, sold that & bought the john deere. I used to drive that baby around. Never, ever imagined myself on a tractor so I'm still smilin' & shakin' my head over that. There was a bucket loader on the front, so it made cleaning out the horse stalls alot easier than walking a wheelbarrow back & forth over 4acres to dump.
The ex uses it (contractor) for small backhoe & posthole digging jobs so he doesn't have to sub the work out to an excavator.
They're nice tractors.
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The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease
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