Nature feeds the mouths of prey and predator alike, and as omnivores, we can eat most of the things they do. With a little planning, education, and work, we can greatly reduce our expenses at the grocery store. If you're living with nature though, I strongly recommend that you have a very good storage security system.
My policy is that any food near the abode is completely consumed once opened. What I don't eat, I feed to the fire. I'm fairly lazy, so part of my cleansing policy is throwing the plastic ware I used into the fire. Occasionally a crumb or two will make it to the ground, but it's important to consider the food chain. Bugs and rodents like crumbs. Snakes and other predators like rodents. My secure food storage system starts with trying to prevent the smell of food (sealed cans and containers) and then trying to prevent the access to those containers by sealing them in others, including the type that animals have a harder time penetrating.
In embracing Nature, we need to take into account nature's opinion on easy feed, but also where we stand in the Food Chain and how much of the food chain can be on our tables. And if we want to lower grocery bills, consider buying flour and sugar rather than cake mixes.
When the average person walks into the woods, they think of snakes, wolves, bears, and poison ivy. They see scary shadows, and fear being on the bottom end of the food chain. They rarely think about the free nuts and berries, or meat. I'm no expert on all the free foods and medicines that can be foraged, but like Einstein, I know where to find the expert. The author at "Eat the Weeds" has been foraging for foods for decades, since the first time his mother sent him out to pick up something off the forest floor. I can't match his knowledge or experience on the subject, and won't try to replicate his site.
I will point out that from one tree, I picked up 30 gallons of unhusked black walnuts. That was just from the ground under half of one tree. I picked up a gallon of pecans, and there's still more to be picked up. This is without truly exploring the possibilities for acorns, hickory nuts, and beech nuts. Fall and winter is nut season. Pick em up now and they'll store all year long.
I most definitely recommend investing in plant and tree identification guides. The National Audubon Society has the best versions I've seen. It crossreferences pictures and descriptions so that you can find "red berries" or "red flowers" or "orange leaves" in the fall, with pictures, and then look up the pertinent information. It is very well organized. They have other guides on mushrooms, rocks, wildlife and reptiles and bugs and birds. If you can find the plant in the book, you can find out how to use it at "Eat the weeds."
Don't ignore the food that is literally falling at your feet. Be smart about it, and make sure that what looks like food is edible or otherwise usable and start looking around to see what is less obvious, like the blackberry leaves which are evidently highly popular for tea.
Though, there are berries and nuts readily available, it's probably a good idea to supplement the part nature provides, with what it hasn't yet planted. Most of what you find in the produce section is less tasty than what it would be if grown in your garden. This isn't just a matter of enjoying the fruits of your labor, but rather a product of the means they take to prevent it from rotting en route to the store, as well as mass producing it.
I'm into low maintenance solutions, so, planting something that produces every year, especially if it reproduces more of the plant, is much more palatable than if I have to figure out how to get a new plant to grow every year. Nor does it escape me that if there is more of it than I want to eat, that I could take the excess to the Farmer's Market and sell the excess. Fruits, nuts, and berries meet this criteria.
The downside to the everbearing plants is that it takes them a few years to start producing. This means it's a priority to get in the ground sooner rather than later. Proscrastination means waiting another year for the results.
And though few berries produce for longer than a few weeks at best, a variety of berries can mean some berries all summer long. How many of each you plant is determined by how much you'll eat, if you want to sell the excess, and how much space you have to do it. Most plants fight for the Southern sky, but Northern facing slopes aren't bare, so priortize your plantings by what you want most and where it'll grow sufficiently.
For a good summer long supply of fresh fruits and berries, you might include blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, mulberry, cherry, grapes, and kiwiberries. Take some time and do some research. Don't just buy something off the Lowe's discount shelf. Particularly in the last few decades, geneticists have been tampering with nature, and not all the results are designed to produce tastier food. Nor do all plants play well with others. Tomatos, cherries, and strawberries can be isolationists, while black walnuts can be downright anti-social and territorial, spewing out growth inhibitors for other plants when it tosses the nuts down at you.
If you try to fight the growth inhibitors of walnuts, or force tomatoes and strawberries to socialize, nature will beat you soundly about the head and stomach, but if you embrace the realities, you can play the cards Nature deals. Those walnut husks are natural dyes, as well as a means of retarding (not stopping) growth in areas you want to slow. Just separate your strawberries and tomatoes. These reds don't like being close.
If you have a South facing slope, it's begging you to cultivate it. Consider the height each thing grows, and the shadow it will cast, but if you put grape vines on a Southern slope, even a 2 foot change in elevation means both 6 foot trellises will get plenty of sunlight.
Man won't live on nuts and berries alone. He needs a pump shotgun and box of birdshot, so he can add squirrel, rabbit, and fowl to the mix. He needs a rifle to knock down the coyote population that preys on his meat, and bring in deer for the year. And he needs a computer or DNR guide to know if his state offers a "landowner"/farmer permit.
Speaking of farming, if you have a forested lot, you're a farmer, a tree farmer. Look up IRS publications on it, and fill out Schedule F. It's a lot like a Schedule C, but the IRS understands you're more likely to lose money on a timber stand every year. Your property taxes and mortgage interests for that land are costs that amount to an income deduction. If you live on the land, you may have to figure out the percentages, but this is probably how the rich lower their taxes so much.
You'll likely want to have vegetables as well. It doesn't take a lot of space to grow the things you eat and it will definitely taste better than what's in the store. The garden doesn't have to be a huge rectangle all in one spot. In fact, I would argue that it is better to have a number of small raised beds, particularly if you need to bring in the richer dirt to feed those plants. Raised beds make it easier to reach the plants, and easier to contain the dirt from erosion and other plants from getting in them. On the other hand, it can reduce accessibility to mechanical tillers and tractors.
Coming back to the framing project, you can supplement the summer gardening with a greenhouse. This can help give you some fresh vegetables, despite the snow. If you are a little innovative, this is far less expensive as well as easier than you might other wise think. Take a look at the solar calculator and build your walls at a winter sun angle, remembering that the colder it gets, the more direct sun you want, and buy some used patio doors to provide that double paned passive solar system. The roofing doesn't really need to be clear though it doesn't hurt, but the non-southern walls probably shouldn't be. It's better to have those insulated.
Adding to the greenhouse concept, aquaponics is an interesting concept to be explored. The premise is that fish waste becomes the natural fertilizer, while the cycle of getting it there also provides the water needed. The plants keep the water clean by filtering out the natural fertilizer before the water is returned to the fish in what is basically a micro ecosystem. Of course the fish reproduce, so you'll also need to eat some, or they'll overpopulate. The questions become how to contain the water, and how to move the water, and what kind of fish.
For my money, I say catfish. They're low maintenance and tasty. They can live without you warming the water in winter. To build their habitat, you could buy a pond liner and dig out a hole for it, or find a discarded above ground pool or jacuzzi. These are far more readily available than you might think. Sometimes, buying new is not the best option. I have more to learn on this detail, but I suspect that in time, I'll have this one figured out to a degree that the fish have their own ecosystem to feed on, and plan to look at using the differences in elevation as the primary means of water flow. And I already know this will add the liklihood of an occasion meal of frog legs.
To supplement nature's supply of meat, you might consider a small chicken coop, along with a few other farm animals. Again, research is your friend. You'll need to know not only what they eat, but how much room they need, to feed themselves or where it needs to be supplemented. It doesn't take much of any of them, to give you enough milk and eggs for a family of four, as well as your annual meat intake and a good variety of food. I'm not a fan of goat meat, but I do like the concept of using them as a lawnmower, and selling them to those that do like to eat them.
While this is a broad stroke, generalized concept of how to avoid grocery bills, over the months and years, I'll develop these into more specific, specialized subject articles.
And to bring this one full circle, there is more to food storage than just a sealed container. At some point you're going to want to explore the idea of building a "potato cellar." A good place for this is the Northern slope, since it doesn't grow things as well. It could be that you want to use it as the foundation of your abode. In such a role, it would more likely be called a basement, but the difference between the two is whether or not you put windows in, and how deep in the ground you dig it.
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