|
Post by Ratty on May 23, 2017 7:20:09 GMT
My dad was born in 1899 (d. 1974), Mum in 1906(d. 2005). Times were tough for them during the depression but they lived by the sea at Redcliffe, just North of Brisbane. Dad and a couple of friends contributed towards the cost of a net and they went fishing for mullet (or whatever) wading into the sea off the beach. One day, a shark got caught in the net and chewed it up a bit. Exaggeration Alert! Dad said they were so poor they couldn't afford to repair the net. Dad was a carpenter and I recall him pulling bent nails out of wood and straightening them too, Glenn. Just recently, on out latest move, I finally dumped several bottles of sorted second-hand nails, screws, bolts, nuts, etc. Mum never wasted anything, even folding up supermarket plastic bags into inch squares and keeping them because "they might come in handy one day." Ah, those were the good old days. PS: During WW2, Dad was a construction supervisor for the American Army, building bridges in far Western Queensland and as far North as Darwin. Mum was employed as the camp cook during those days but she was evacuated when Darwin was bombed in 1942. My Godfather was an American Army engineer. (No, there is no family resemblance. )
|
|
|
Post by glennkoks on May 23, 2017 11:54:26 GMT
Back on topic, yes you can produce copious amounts of food from a garden. But just like the big farmers it is all about the number of growing days. Late and early frosts can still reek havoc on small gardens. While nowhere near a frost can one expect more headlines like this during this solar minimum?
"Tonight, Houston may be as cold as it’s been in late May in 20 years"
For our latitude that headline means about 59F or 15C. Very, Very pleasant for SE Texas this time of year.
|
|
|
Post by phydeaux2363 on May 23, 2017 13:40:26 GMT
My dad was born in 1899 (d. 1974), Mum in 1906(d. 2005). Times were tough for them during the depression but they lived by the sea at Redcliffe, just North of Brisbane. Dad and a couple of friends contributed towards the cost of a net and they went fishing for mullet (or whatever) wading into the sea off the beach. One day, a shark got caught in the net and chewed it up a bit. Exaggeration Alert! Dad said they were so poor they couldn't afford to repair the net. Dad was a carpenter and I recall him pulling bent nails out of wood and straightening them too, Glenn. Just recently, on out latest move, I finally dumped several bottles of sorted second-hand nails, screws, bolts, nuts, etc. Mum never wasted anything, even folding up supermarket plastic bags into inch squares and keeping them because "they might come in handy one day." Ah, those were the good old days. PS: During WW2, Dad was a construction supervisor for the American Army, building bridges in far Western Queensland and as far North as Darwin. Mum was employed as the camp cook during those days but she was evacuated when Darwin was bombed in 1942. My Godfather was an American Army engineer. (No, there is no family resemblance. ) I'm sorry guys, I love you but couldn't help but think of this as I read this thread. www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjh4rjlkYbUAhXB6yYKHROaBr4QyCkIKTAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXe1a1wHxTyo&usg=AFQjCNHd7rdEC1_pELCgTnZzm8l8qDSWfg&sig2=ZRWKR-u6vKtx06dfSBn2kw
|
|
|
Post by phydeaux2363 on May 23, 2017 13:52:12 GMT
Just curious. Is the Alzheimer's setting in, or has the message board link in the drop-down menu on the Solar Ham homepage disappeared? Is Kevin trying to tell us something?
|
|
|
Post by missouriboy on May 23, 2017 17:07:49 GMT
I asked my father if he ever went hungry during "The Great Depression". He said he could not remember being "hungry" but remembers eating oatmeal for days on end for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's a far cry from hearing my kids whining about running out of milk on occasion for their cereal... My father passed away about a month ago but the stories he told my kids about growing up during the depression were priceless. Fortunately or possibly unfortunately my kids will never have to pull nails out of a bunch of scrap wood that I scrounged up so they could be straightened and re-used. Till the day my father died he threw away nothing that could be re-used, re- claimed or re-purposed. That sounds like my wife's father to a tee. He had sheds of old, damaged and broken stuff and plain ole useless stuff till he found a use for it and it useful again. No matter the condition is was a part of his inventor to be re-purposed in one way or another. Reading these stories makes me also think of my own grandparents and how they recognized the importance of stuff too. I realize lots of their stuff wasn't made to be throw away but it was also a different mindset. Too much of the world today is filled with waste. This reminds me of something... A long time ago back in college when I was learning how to think(not sure how that worked out) I remember stopping into a professors office in the English department. The University of Washington was pretty multicultural even back then. getyarn.io/yarn-clip/fe02c14c-9219-4725-a7cc-d7cb7e0d582fThis particular professor wrote poetry and maintained a very large file cabinet filled with words, lines, sentences, half-assed thoughts, unfinished works, finished works and unrealized works. I was told to never, ever, throw anything away as it could always have a purpose. Sounds like the FBI.
|
|
|
Post by missouriboy on May 23, 2017 17:15:35 GMT
My fathers family (2 adults and 9 children born between 1908 and 1928) survived on a 62 acre farm (purchased in the 1880s and still in the family). A 1-acre garden, a small orchard, bee hives and field crops supplied the family, a mule, a milk cow, multiple hogs and some horses. A small blacksmith operation, a small grain mill and the surplus field crops generated a small cash surplus. My father said that without squirrels and rabbits there would often have been no meat on the table. The deer were long gone ... eaten out by the the early settlers. A tough life by todays standards. A root cellar and a cistern were the frig and water supply. Bathing was not often and definitely not hot. But my grandfather refused to sell the old-growth white oak trees to the whiskey barrel makers that swept through the countryside at the turn of the century. Part Baptist, part Celt I'd guess. No matter what the need for firewood, the old trees remained. They are still there ... and the pellet makers shall not have them. The 40-pound squirrels that forage the shagbark hickories and walnuts are safe and feisty. Them big squirrels Rebel squirrels have their ways.
|
|
|
Post by missouriboy on May 23, 2017 17:18:19 GMT
My dad was born in 1899 (d. 1974), Mum in 1906(d. 2005). Times were tough for them during the depression but they lived by the sea at Redcliffe, just North of Brisbane. Dad and a couple of friends contributed towards the cost of a net and they went fishing for mullet (or whatever) wading into the sea off the beach. One day, a shark got caught in the net and chewed it up a bit. Exaggeration Alert! Dad said they were so poor they couldn't afford to repair the net. Dad was a carpenter and I recall him pulling bent nails out of wood and straightening them too, Glenn. Just recently, on out latest move, I finally dumped several bottles of sorted second-hand nails, screws, bolts, nuts, etc. Mum never wasted anything, even folding up supermarket plastic bags into inch squares and keeping them because "they might come in handy one day." Ah, those were the good old days. PS: During WW2, Dad was a construction supervisor for the American Army, building bridges in far Western Queensland and as far North as Darwin. Mum was employed as the camp cook during those days but she was evacuated when Darwin was bombed in 1942. My Godfather was an American Army engineer. (No, there is no family resemblance. ) I'm sorry guys, I love you but couldn't help but think of this as I read this thread. www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjh4rjlkYbUAhXB6yYKHROaBr4QyCkIKTAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXe1a1wHxTyo&usg=AFQjCNHd7rdEC1_pELCgTnZzm8l8qDSWfg&sig2=ZRWKR-u6vKtx06dfSBn2kwSome say that "the good old days" were not really so good.
|
|
|
Post by nemesis on May 23, 2017 21:14:28 GMT
Some say that "the good old days" were not really so good. Well, I think we had less 'stuff' then but more freedom.
|
|
|
Post by glennkoks on May 23, 2017 21:35:02 GMT
One thing we do know is the climate had a role in The Great Depression. The wet period prior to the Dust Bowl years helped fuel the Roaring Twenties and The Great Plow Up was underway. The wet cycle gave way to a drought and will likely do so again.
Personally, I think the Dust Bowl was much more climate than it was man's agricultural practices. Sure plowing that much of the natural grasslands did not help but there would not have been a Dust Bowl if the rains kept falling.
We have been flipping from cold cycles to warm ones and wet cycles to dry ones since our planet's atmosphere first evolved and I think it will continue to do so despite an increase in CO2. That's why I am a leaning towards cooling over the decades to come.
Just how much if any cooling is going to occur is way beyond my pay grade.
|
|
|
Post by glennkoks on May 23, 2017 21:42:10 GMT
Some say that "the good old days" were not really so good. Well, I think we had less 'stuff' then but more freedom. I don't know if we had more freedom or things were just simpler and the pace of life slower. Family dinners without an iPhone. Mom's, Dad's and siblings in the same room gathered around the radio listing to The Green Hornet. No fast food, no rated R, no Youtube etc... Seems like the Golden Age of our nation to me. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I72p73Lhnk
|
|
|
Post by nautonnier on May 23, 2017 22:04:39 GMT
Just curious. Is the Alzheimer's setting in, or has the message board link in the drop-down menu on the Solar Ham homepage disappeared? Is Kevin trying to tell us something? The link has not been there since Kevin redesigned the main board. It is sometimes easier to get to here via WUWT
|
|
|
Post by Ratty on May 24, 2017 0:04:28 GMT
|
|
|
Post by missouriboy on May 24, 2017 1:39:12 GMT
WYB Fido, that I thought about including a link to Python while I was writing those reminiscences. Then I forgot ..... You need some good Virginia cider to stimulate your memory.
|
|
|
Post by Ratty on May 24, 2017 2:05:15 GMT
Alcoholic?
|
|
|
Post by sigurdur on May 24, 2017 2:53:13 GMT
|
|