January 2022 newsletter

Zettel Family Farms 

Certified Organic Grass-fed Beef, Pastured Pork and Chicken
Chepstow, Ontario, Canada
To Order, Call Ted @ 519-881-8773 or email ted.zettel@gmail.com.
Order online at zettelfamilyfarms.ca/storefront

 

Happy New Year!

All the Zettel family sends to you our hope that 2022 brings you peace!  We want to thank all of you who make this farming adventure of ours possible by choosing Zettel Family Farms meats for your families.  As in the beginning, we are striving to supply the best food money can buy, at prices the average family can afford.  So many of you express your appreciation for the exceptional quality that you experience.  This is greatly appreciated and on days when farming is tough, this kind of feedback helps to keep us going.

On Sale: Buy in bulk

Get in on these specials for the month of January;

What If: A conference on Emergency Preparedness

An article by Ted Zettel

In the past couple months we have been invited to participate in several conferences focussed on how to prepare for potential upsets in the world around us.  Disruptions in the food supply chain, shortages of some everyday items, reports of shutdowns of large food processing plants, among other things, have many people thinking about what can be done to prepare.  If the systems that we all rely on are becoming less reliable, are there steps we can take to be able to cope, if and when they eventually fail?  This kind of thinking can lead to some interesting discussions.  I am fully aware that not everyone enjoys this type of speculative attention to possible disaster scenarios. If you are in this camp – and prefer to stick to what we know exists in the present – I understand and respect that as a valid preference.  Individuals like myself who find a certain excitement in engaging in wide ranging “what if” exploration of the future, can easily become carried away.  But with the degree of uncertainty and unpredictability of world events that have characterized the past two years, it seems reasonable and prudent to admit that the world is changing and we will have to adapt.

One of the great difficulties in knowing how to prepare is the confusion over what to prepare for.  Are we talking skyrocketing prices for food, or empty shelves at the supermarket?  Will the power grid go down, or become unreliable?  Will there be a breakdown in the political system, civil unrest, or martial law.  What would happen if the internet failed?  So many drastic events – each requiring specific actions to mitigate the detrimental impact.  The fact is we just don’t know what our world will look like 10 years, 5 years or even 1 year from now.  It could be very similar to the past; good times; the Covid experience faded into memory and life back to “normal”.  That is the best case scenario that the majority of the population is hoping for and banking on, taking no pains to be prepared for anything else. But a significant minority , myself included in this group, see this as wishful thinking at best, or at worst, ostrich syndrome!  It can be argued pretty effectively that many aspects of the pre-covid life were anything but normal when viewed through a global, historical lense, and that the inherent unsustainability of the systems that feed us was only exacerbated by the pandemic. To put it more bluntly, and at the risk of oversimplification, western civilization in the 21st century is overdue for a correction which is inevitable.

So what to do?  One great piece of advice is to make the changes that will make life better, whether or not things go south.  For instance, if you decide to have a garden, even a few tomato plants on the balcony, or learn how to preserve some of your own food, you will benefit just by spending some time in this wholesome, creative activity.  Total food self-sufficiency is not likely a realistic goal for any of us, but moving toward it by growing and storing some of what you eat is an admirable start.  There is something very rewarding about serving your own food, which you have laboured for, to your own family.  And the knowledge and experience gained could be priceless if we do ever come to a real crunch.

Another sensible preparation is to set things up to insulate against short term supply problems.  This could mean getting a chest freezer, buying food in bulk, vegetables in season, canning or drying.  Our ancestors would prepare for winter by stocking their larders with a few months supply of root vegetables, smoked or salted meats, canned fruits, jams, pickles, relish and so on.  How long can your household get by without going to the store?

Even if you don’t grow the food, it is still possible to stock up.

An idea that I brought home and decided to act on was to put in place a backup power system for your home.  To give credit where it’s due, the electrical power grid in Ontario has been insanely reliable over my lifetime, to the extent that we don’t bother to prepare for it going down.  Having a portable gas generator that can run a few of the most essential circuits in the house is a relatively inexpensive insurance against shivering in the dark, unable to cook.

There is one observation that can easily be missed in our attending to the necessities of food and shelter.  It is the importance of community. As we imagine a world upset by failure of one or more aspects of society, it is apparent that the prospects to survive and thrive will require innovation and creative adaptation.  Those qualities are always limited in a single individual or family, and multiplied in a community of people working together for the common good.  We could greatly enhance our capabilities by forming strong bonds of friendship with other people around us so that we are not alone when the challenges come.  The unprecedented degree of individualism that is common today, where few people even know the names of their neighbours, is in itself a point of vulnerability.  Historically speaking, our ancestors weathered the storms and trials of their times with a degree of interdependency which is practically unknown today.  We may have to work at reinventing it.

 

 

This message was sent to sam.zettel@gmail.com by sam@zettelfamilyfarms.ca.

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