More Portents for Katie Rose

More news from Katie Rose on the alfalfa front.

more on alfalfa and grass hay

by Katie Rose

After putting the goats out to pasture I drove down the hill to the local hay dealer. I just have a gut feeling I am going to want one more ton. Folks had told me he still had hay.

What he does is grow about 2000 acres of alfalfa and then buys copious amounts from other farmers - some here, some in Montana, and some around Yakima/ Ellensburg. I usually avoid him as I'm not certain that his bale weights are accurate.

I drove in and it was eerily empty. He had no alfalfa at all. None. Then I asked him about grass hay, and he told me he had "just a little bit." He went on to tell me that he had just called his regular suppliers in Montana, asking for a few semi truckloads. He was told that the ranchers had sold all their hay "for quite a bit more" than he was used to paying. He could locate no hay, and the 2000 acres he grew has been sold to local folks like me.

Then he looked at me with this shocked, befuddled look and said, "Folks who haven't gotten their hay aren't going to get any. Come Spring..." he just shook his head, whistled and walked away.

I ran out of hay last spring, and came running to him. I wonder how many of his regular customers are planning on him having hay for them when they run out?

I have been fretting and fretting about stacking alfalfa instead of PM's this Fall. Now I am extremely grateful I chose alfalfa.

The hay really is all gone.

More wisdom from Katie Rose

When I read this earlier today it made me weep.

We are headed for war.

This time it will be different. We have lost our factories and steel mills. We have lost our shoe manufacturers. We have no manufacturing base anymore.

Things are so different than they were during WWI and WWII.

Our borders are nonexistent. There have been many reports of ME men entering our land via the southern border disguised as Mexican and South Americans.

The men in WWI and II were primarily raised on farms. They were used to hardship. They were used to discipline and hardwork.

This time I believe it will be fought here on our turf. We have brought it to others. They will bring it to us.

Listen to what my 86 year old Mother says. She lived through the Great Depression and WWI. She cries nearly every day as she watches the news. She knows what is coming.

She has asked me to ask all you parents to please buy underwear, socks and shoes in incrementally larger sizes for your growing children. She says people forget that children grow, and there are no shoes, no new underwear, no new socks available during war. If your child wears size 6 shoe, get a size 7, 8, 9, 10, etc for them now. If you are a grandparent and you know your children won't listen to you about this, buy the clothing for your grandchildren yourself. And buy it now.

My Mother also said that there was no or very little sugar available. Sugar is necessary for canning fruit. Yesterday we canned 4 dozen pints of crabapple jelly. We used 25 lbs of sugar. (Crabapples are sour) I will be replacing that sugar ASAP.

There also was no oil for cooking. She has us buying lard from Wally World. She insists that it will outlast cooking oil and not grow rancid.

There are other things we need to be stacking besides silver and gold right now.

The handwriting is on the wall.

Prepare Accordingly.

Are you listening?

Even More Portents from Katie Rose

Mitt Romney, Monsanto Man

By Katie Rose

I became interested in Monsanto because of the hideous birthing season I had last Spring with my dairy goats.

One died in my arms. Another nearly did. I have never been so traumatized as I was by these births. I didn't know animals could cry. Mine did. I sobbed along with them.

So I went looking for answers. And that is when I found out that all the terrible happenings were listed in one article or another as being caused by the GMO laced feed I was feeding my animals.

What good does it do to BTFD's and Prepare Accordingly if the very ones we are preparing for (our children/grand children) are potentially/slowly being poisoned by GMO foods?

Farm animals reproduce quickly. One of my four year old goats is a grand mother. We can see the generational GMO side effects much sooner in animals.

Reading about Mitt Romney's ties to Monsanto makes me want to throw up. 

It appears that Monsanto owns both major candidates.

We are soooooooooooo screwed. 

More Portents From Katie Rose

More On Alfalfa

By Katie Rose

We are one of the few places in the nation that was able to grow and harvest alfalfa this year. We were not able to get a third cutting due to lack of rain and a late first harvest, but our fields were green and lush. We are extremely fortunate.

I don't know how the hay dealers in the rest of the country found us, but they surely did. And farmer, after farmer, after farmer sold their entire crop before harvest. I have never scrambled like I had to this Fall in order to secure food for my animals. I am 1/2 ton short, but feel extremely blessed to have enough to squeak through till Spring. I would like another ton, but have no idea where to get it. Oh, there are unethical folks who are saying their 60 lb. bales weigh 90-95 lbs., but I am not interested in doing business with them. They still have a few bales of hay left. No Thank You!

I am hearing that many were not so lucky. The alfalfa is gone, sold right out of the field. Usually there are hay barns stacked to the brim waiting for buyers, with farmers hoping that it will all sell. Not this year! It is all gone.

One of the local feed stores has begun to sell Timothy Pellets by the pallet (half ton) to those not fortunate enough to find any hay. Unbelievable! This is Fall and people are going to be buying pellets all Winter long!?!?

Last month I ordered a half ton of barley for my Redneck Fodder Experiment. I ordered it directly from a local farmer. He pre-sold it to me at the going rate, 12 cents a pound, $120.00 a half ton. When I went to pick it up this week I could tell I would need more, as I had no clue how much volume a half ton of barley was. So I asked if I could purchase another half ton. He smiled sweetly and said, "I haven't any. Since we spoke last month, the price I receive for barley went up to 18 cents a pound. I sold my entire crop. It's gone."

That is the word around here. GONE! Sold! GONE!

No full hay barns. No bales languishing in the fields waiting for buyers. No barley for sale. No wheat for sale. No oats for sale. It's all gone.

I will be driving over 200 miles round trip to pick up 80 lb bags of oats, wheat, and barley for my fodder experiment. There is none available locally. Every time I speak with the mill, it has gone up in price.

People who come to TF Metals are usually a cut above average. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from my personal experiences.

One thing I have learned from all this. Having personal relationships with local farmers has really paid off. And having been ethical with the farmers in the past, having kept my word when I have ordered from them, has made it possible for me to feed my animals this winter.

I hope you are filling your pantries right now. With QE III, a terrible Midwest harvest, and saber rattling everywhere, it is only a matter of time before the food shortages lead to food riots.

I truly do not see any other outcome.

Portents

Being a bit of a nutter, I spend a lot of time on Turd Ferguson's precious metals blog. One of the regulars goes by the name of Katie Rose. She recently posted this and I think people would do well to read it and see she is talking about much more than alfalfa.

Alfalfa ~ Lessons I am learning

By Katie Rose

Since this is a website where we continue to stack gold and silver to protect our families from the inevitable monetary collapse, I thought I'd share with you about another group of folks who are also stacking.

Unlike paper gold and silver that can stretch a commodity, farmers are stacking something more precious to them than both gold and silver. Because of the drought, farmers are stacking alfalfa. And believe me, it has become as scarce and as costly as physical PM's.

We have a farm hand who is in jail due to an old drunk driving charge. When he turned himself in three years ago, the court sent him packing, saying he was "a non-violent offender" and the "jail was full." It's harvest time, so of course, an officer showed up and hauled him away, just when I need him the most. I can't stack ten tons of alfalfa, he can. :)

So I have been distracted and not on top of securing the 10 tons of alfalfa I need for the winter. Before this was not a concern, lots of ranchers growing tons and tons of alfalfa. And I had lots of farmers who told me to call them the last week of August for second cutting. They wouldn't take any orders, I was to call them. They wouldn't let me prepay either.

I have called and called and called. So far, all I have is 2 tons in the barn, and 3 more tons promised. One farmer with 700 acres of alfalfa has been selling his harvest to local folks for two days and only has 1 ton left! This is unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am seeing a low level panic among hobby farmers like myself. Farmers we usually purchase alfalfa from have none, have sold it to hay dealers in other parts of the country, or are holding on to it to see what it will bring this winter.

And I have a gut wrenching feeling that the panic I am experiencing among my friends is a foretaste of what we will be experiencing around food and PM's in the future.

• No one will tell me where they are getting their alfalfa until they have all they need safely stacked in their barns first.
• The farmers are reluctant to sell until they know how much they can get from out of area buyers.
• There are no buyers for farm animals right now, as no one knows how they will be able to feed the animals this winter. And we are being told it will be a hard winter.

I was just a few days too late, and the alfalfa is gone. This is only Wed. of the last week of August, and the alfalfa is leaving by the semi load heading east.

So, being resourceful, I am going to begin a grand experiment. I am going to purchase a few tons of organic barley from a local farmer. It is ordered and not yet harvested. Then I am going to do a "Redneck sprouting system" in our laundry room. Hopefully, I can create enough "fodder" to fill in the gaps from the missing alfalfa.

There are so many lessons to be learned from this.

I hope you have a supply of food to see you through difficult times. There is a feeling of panic around here concerning alfalfa. Most of us need second cutting alfalfa, and it came and went in the twinkling of an eye. I suspect we may be just weeks away from the same quiet panic when it comes to long term storage food. This has not been a good year for farmers.

There will be a time (maybe not this year, but soon) when our grocery store shelves will look like those stripped clean prior to a hurricane or a major snow storm. I am seeing it here with alfalfa. It gives me no pleasure at all to know the same is on the horizon for food.

When I asked is she minded me posting this here and, if not, did she have anything she'd like me to say by way of attribution, her response was

The truth is, I am just a woman who has too many goats and not enough alfalfa.........

We could a lot more like her.