Starvation Starts Small

Here in Central Florida, life is good.

In Ocala, which is located at the geographical center of the State, the air is pure and the water is sweet. The land is rich and abundant.

The ancient oak trees sway gently in the idyllic breeze, their grey beards of Spanish Moss dancing like the hoary beards of Granddaddy Rednecks discussing the quality of their latest batch of sippin' likker.

Well, you get the picture.

Central Florida is a very nice place to live.

And there is no reason that anyone should be missing any meals, going hungry, or slowly starving in such bountiful environment.

Unless, maybe, they lost their job to the COVID-19 Pandemic, and have burned through whatever small savings they may have had, maxed out their credit cards, sold whatever they could sell in a series of desperation yard sales, run out of unemployment benefits entirely, and are down to their last few Fateful Choices.

Like the choice between one more package of Mac&Cheese for the kids or another half-gallon of gas for the car.

One thing about our modern Society: help is always further away than you can walk.

I don't get out much. I haven't been sitting around listening to people talk about their problems.

I knew many parts of the US were in serious trouble, but I didn't see many real signs of that in Marion County, other than the rash of desperation yard sales.

Accordingly, I was surprised when I crested a small hill a few days ago as I headed south into Ocala (the County Seat) and saw a long line of cars parked on the side of the road.

I mean a line of cars a half-mile long that snaked off the right of way into a defunct shopping center and filled every space in its otherwise unused parking lot.

Someone had set up a soup kitchen/free food giveaway in the shopping center.

Hungry people were literally waiting hours on the side of the road to get some food.

Any food. Whatever was available. Whatever they could get.

That's the way it goes, I guess, in a famine.

It starts small: food gets a little more expensive, then ridiculously expensive, then certain foods become essentially unaffordable.

The foods that are still affordable are the cheapest and least nutritious generic factory foods that can be stuffed into a can.

And then the price of that goes up.

But that doesn't matter much because, by then, a lot of people can't afford to buy it anyway.

Jobs may go away, but rent doesn't, and debt doesn't, and the cost of electricity and gasoline cannot be evaded.

Full meals become skimpy meals. Skimpy meals become inadequate meals. Adults cut their portions so their kids can have a little more.

But it's still not enough. It's never enough.

Inadequate meals become missed meals.

Hunger stops by for a visit and overstays it's welcome.

Then the day comes when it will be a week before the next government check comes in, and you only have three days worth of food left for yourself and your family.

You get by--somehow--only to find out that the monthly check from the government will now only buy twenty days of food.

Or less.

What can you do when you have no job, nothing worth selling, and a hungry family?

You steal. You start off with shoplifting at the local supermarket (still a lot of rich people shopping there!)

Then you move up to B&E, armed robbery, and car theft if you can find a good chop shop.

But it's never enough. It'll never be enough.

The World is broken, and you can't fix it.

And then the food riots start.

Prep up, fellow Monkeys, while you still can. And weapon up because the time is coming when you will need weapons to keep what you have.

With my eyes now more open, I have become aware of the neighbors who had no gardens that have suddenly taken up gardening, and the sudden sprouting of backyard hen houses where never a rooster was.

And the new fences going up.

A Wolf Winter is coming, and it will be a hard one.

 

Yes sir ,, I don't think we've seen the worst of this yet. Whe you see the people standing in line , instead of sitting in their cars in the food lines ,, you'll know we're near a total collapse .
Am I the only one that believes the Democraps are pushing this virus to levels far more serious than it really is ??

 

NOPE !!
It's a HOAX !!!
Flu

Canada BS

 

It is just getting started. I am fortunate enough to be able to help a few folks I am fond of out. A husband and wife with 5 kids that were doing very well in life before the Covid Lock Downs. They were grasshopper and not ants though..... but not entirely they had a 4-5 Month Cash Stash for hard times and a decent food reserve. Before Covid they were knocking down 6 figures. A month ago the wife called and asked if they could come work on the farm in exchange for food. Explaining their business was gone and they were in bankruptcy and they did not get the much vaunted Payroll Protection to keep the business afloat through the lock down. She said they had sucked up their pride and hit the food pantry and got enough to feed the kids for about 4 days and told they could get more in 30 days. These folks have been loyal customers to me for 12 years now and we have became good friends over that time.

Soooo they made the 90 miles drive up here in what I figured would be their newer SUV but turned out to be a early 2000s mini van... the SUV got the Repo. Anyway they arrived cooking in their own juices from the trip in a minivan with no AC and all but one window would not go down. The kids barreled out and bum rushed me with hugs and UNCLE MIKE!!! UNCLE MIKE!!! And yes I love those youngins like they are my own. I knew they were coming so already had a grill full of hot dogs and hamburgers burning and a couple of watermelons on ice. They all ate like they had not seen food in forever. Had a long debate about how they were not going to work for me for food. But they were going to learn something from me for food. I gave them a small chicken coop I had retired and already had it broke down and it only takes a dozen screws to put back up. Some T Post and a 200' roll of chicken wire to make a pen and a dozen good 2 year old laying hens. Then we hit the warehouse and loaded a mid size box stove into the van and I finally got rid of that brand new stihl 390 chainsaw that I hate with a passion and enough stove pipe to get a good draft. Explaining winter is going to be rough when you can't afford to have that propane tank filled. And put them in touch with another friend about 5 miles from them that is a whiz at safely installing wood stoves. Then we filled up one of my big storage totes up from the pork, beef and Poultry freezers and stacked up 10 cases of quart mason jar canned stuff and another tote with potatoes, sweet taters and some more musk and water melons. About 2 months worth of food all together.

Then they get ready to leave and that junk ass van won't start. I am not a great mechanic but their mechanical skills are somewhere between a brick and a rock. So under and over the van I go looking for the most obvious culprits. Finally found it the wire to the solenoid had been mostly chewed through by a mouse or squirrel so a few snips and strips and twist with some liquid tape fixed that. Got to looking at the AC and it had the same problem of chewed wires and a few more wire repairs and they had fairly functional AC then what the hell lets see whats going on inside the door panels with the power windows. Yep more chewed wiring and a nice collection of hickory nuts. And fixed those as well. They are coming back for a week in November and are going to learn how to water bath can, fill my land owner deer permits by learning how to sit in the rocking chairs on the cabin porch and shoot the deer under the apple trees and then how to hang, skin, and break down a deer carcass. And then how to pressure can venison.

These are real decent folks that had a booming and very successful business and were living the dream and doing well. Then it all came crashing down around them. Their one saving grace is their house was paid for and they were allowed to keep it in the bankruptcy. So their situation could be a lot worse if not for that. Morale of the story is just how fast folks have gone from doing well to desperate. With no warning they went from good to you are shut down by executive order indefinitely. Then it was just one downward spiral after another for them. Even those who were reasonably prepared with 3 months reserve and backup of everything are running out.

Covid has proven to be very deadly the mortality rate among small businesses and jobs is very high......... Not so much in humans . Even is Covid ends post election a whole new series of events is going to explode in the coming weeks and Months. Violence and Chaos themselves are hard to predict but predicting the Violence and Chaos that is coming down the road does not take a fortune teller with a crystal ball to see. Yeah 2020 may very well be a cake walk in comparison to what we are potentially looking at in 2021.

There are going to be even more very desperate people and very damn few of them are going to have friends like me to help them out and teach them. The only reason I am helping these folks out is I consider them to be my son and daughter and their kids my Grand kids. Not many that can pull my heart strings and make the ice around it crack. Those kids can though

The Town where my Farmers Market is has one of those food drives where they unload a couple of semi trailers full of boxes of food on pallets and give it away. Watched them yesterday unload and 48 pallets of those boxes disappear in 30 minutes time with at least 100 more cars in line when they ran out. Thought there was going to be a small riot by those who didn't get a box and had the gates closed on them. The Mayor, Police Chief and officers handled the situation very well and diffused the tension to manageable levels. Impressed with the Mayor and Chief asking everyone to come over into the park and having a town meeting on the spot and explaining they are doing all they can and getting all the food they can for these food drives.

Hell I didn't realize so many people were that hard up until I saw that. That is a fairly small town of about only 7,000 people. I will help people within my small circle or tribe because I have the resources to help and well they will help me if I ever need it. Everyone else at this point should have already been in a circle or tribe. Some of my Vendors that normally attend the market right up to November are dropping out and telling me they are worried hungry people will know they have food and want to be forgotten and out of the public mind before things get even worse. LOL Can't blame them I shut the Chuck Wagon down for the same reasons.

Now it seems to be a very good time to turn the lights down and close the curtains. I do demand that the folks I help out keep it quiet because While I have production and reserves both are limited and can only go to so many people. And well I have my own plan to drop totally off the grid once more and disappear Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Hard to gauge just how deep the worst is going to run with all of this "That Will Never Happen In America!" Happening and escalating sometimes daily.

 

YUP

 

Doesn't end. You are 82, everything paid for, a rental property bringing in a little extra money, some savings, social security check coming in, no pension, that all got changed to a 401 to help you out you know. Property taxes are due in Dec, about 1/2 of what I paid for the place 40 years ago, the teachers haven't worked since Feb, never missed a pay check, nor did the staff, principals, etc, who have no contact with the online students, the police want a raise due to the increased cost of living and medical care, and on it goes. Somehow it isn't necessary to vote on the expenditures, falls back to last years budget, contracts with the police and fire unions, etc, and like vultures they will take your house in a minute if you don't pay the property taxes. Have "free" medical care with Medicare, only costs the wife and I about half of our Social Security check to pay for it when times are good. Between us the Medicare is about $400 a month for part B and D, and supplemental insurance is about $550 a month. Since Medicare only covers about 80 % of the bills and the wife and I are not in excellent health, don't want to roll the dice and end up with the hospital taking everything and they will in a heartbeat. Hanging over our head at all times is the terror of nursing home care, not covered by Medicare in long run and state and industry have a very efficient system to take everything you have. In one sense they have no choice, the teat they suck is running dry, the rehab facility at the hospital shut down, could figure no way to run it with Covid, and the people coming in for routine hospital care stopped coming. Small 100 bed old hospital is losing about $10 million a month with everything cut to the bone. If government doesn't bail them out, gone in a few more months.

So far for the middle class and the elderly, the help that the government has given hasn't reached them. The $2400 the wife and I got doesn't even cover the increasing costs of living. I can not evict nor force my renters to pay rent, but all my bills keep coming due on the rental property. I have good people renting and they are like family and have paid and I would have a hard time forcing a hard working man who has been married for 15 years and has 5 kids out and leaving the place empty as no one else has any money either.

Even if the taxes and such stopped, most of my neighbors are not only grasshoppers, but have borrowed money to get thru the summer. They not only have nothing put away for winter, anything they do get will be taken by the banks, credit card companies, loan agencies, and for most of them the concept of cutting expenses never enters their mind, they just try to borrow even more to continue the life style that they have had in the past.

Here in NH most people in the rural areas are a few days from being out of food. The custom is to have a $15,000 4 wd tractor rusting in the yard as a status symbol along with the $40,000 4 wd crew cab pickup, the $350,000 2 story neo colonial 2500 sq ft house, and while they are earning $75,000 at the moment, they have $500 in the bank and owe $10,000 on their credit cards. There is no money left over for.useless things like food and fuel for the long run, and in one sense they are right, If they lose their jobs, in 90 days it is all gone and most of the jobs being in construction, working for the government, or shuffling papers in one way or another. Next downturn usually gets 25 % or so in past, this time might be a lot worse. Add the people in the urban areas that aren't doing well even in the good times and believe it is all due to some one else and not due to their not participating in the system, 3 rd generation unemployed single parent mother with 3 children, no skills, and no child support from children's fathers. If we elect some one on the left as President and a Democratic congress and what could possibly go wrong?

Reached the point that I no longer have the resources to help out family in long run, to say nothing of strangers, but I am one of those the AOC and tribe are looking at to finance the drones from the urban areas. Try to stay grey, but don't look good.

 

I would imagine that there are plenty of clean-up jobs along the Gulf Coast for someone with a camper and a truck with a few skillzs
Houses need tearing down and rebuilding,All trades should be needed in that retrospect.
People who want to work can find something in construction after Laura/Sally....Just thinking out loud.

 

I saw a lady shoplifting in the local supermarket on Thursday. It has been on my mind because I said nothing, I just watched her do it. I do not condone theft but she stole baby food.

 

With all of this good cheer, try reading “Lost Prophecies of the Future of America” by Michael Snyder. If you’re not prepared not, it’s real late in the game.

 

We have a food bank here locally

I get a kick out of the Caddies and Huge SUVs with god only know how much they cost rimz - and watch the crew waddle over to collect their free Chow.

I have rather large Samoans / PI walk up to the car (I sit inside and keep any eye on it while the DW shops for groceries) and in a loud voice say "Hey! I need some gas money" I suppose they have become somewhat used to folks giving up some $ on the demand.

I just shrug and say - "I feel your pain Bro. Got laid off last year. Wife's trying to use the last of the food stamps inside. Ya know Bra?" Up to now, they just nod and walk away.

That grocery store closed this week. We don't go to that 'mall' anymore, too many Mau Maus.

The State of Alaska is quickly running out of $ - being a Dem run Socialist paradise and all - I do wonder what will happen when the freebies run out.

Gonna be an ugly winter. Sad to say, I really don't think there is anywhere left in the USofA you could run to and be "safe". I'd settle for someplace where the weather isn't lethal in the winter....the DW OTOH, is so rooted here, it ain't going to happen.

You'll know the end is near when the cross border traffic is headed South, one way.


.

 

I had talking with folks about this happening for months and some have listened, some not so much. Driving around town one can see many small business's that had closed during this covid sham.

Son works as a cook in a small bar/diner and says they have doubled and tripled their daily receipts. Most all that traffic is from the state next door that continues to have restricted dining rules. He has mentioned that they have difficulty occasionally getting some food ingredients.

 

I don’t believe in stealing either but would keep my mouth shut about the baby food too.

 

Sad but it’s going to get worst before it gets better. It really worries me because of my grandkids and great grandkids. One of my grandchildren just lost his job in the oil field and he has a wife and two kids to support.

 

I am one of the lucky ones, and very grateful for it. The Mr has a bulletproof job now, and my neck of the woods has not been particularly hard hit in economic terms. Everything is open and places are hiring.

That said I have noticed an uptick in traffic at the local food pantry and am seeing some stuff at the store is either not coming in, or getting bought completely out. Mebbe both. I doubt I'm the only one needing 1 and buying 2 right now. I'm keeping an eye on the inlaws who are elderly and not in the best of health. Long as they can afford cigarettes I'm not worried about them but if those two hacking black lungers suddenly quit smoking I'll know they're having money problems and it's time to check their fridge.

 

Things must be improving in the big city I passed thru this morning in a light rain

Not 1 Hobo working the street corners asking for money to buy food...hahahahaha

 

And after a 2 month wait, my replacement chest freezer is arriving tomorrow. Granted it's only 11 Cubic feet but that'll hold enough meat and veg to take us through mid summer if i plan the package tetris well enough.

Old freezer was 8 Cubic feet and gave up the ghost early summer. You'd think they'd last more than 20 years. LOL.

 

The back log on Chest freezers over 4CU feet and lower cost refrigerator freezers has been insane.

 

ME Three ,,
I have seen young folks up here not have enough $ at the till in line , Back then i was within hearing distance , I'd just tell the cashier , that's on my dime when I get there ..,, Not chips , but good basic food ,,

Now with the 2M /6' rules , i see lots of unpaid food at the tills..
None of these folks know me or where im from (80 miles away )
Sloth