Gold & Silver Forum - Possum Living

Gold & Silver Forum (http://goldismoney.info/forums/index.php)

- Survival Prep (http://goldismoney.info/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=141)

- - Possum Living (http://goldismoney.info/forums/showthread.php?t=247764)

http://www.f4.ca/text/possumliving.htm

Do you want to get out of the rat race but not drop out? Do you want to live a life of leisure without worry or guilt? If your answer is yes, Dolly Freed will show you how to live well without a job and without working very hard.

After discussing reasons why you should or shouldn't give up your job, POSSUM LIVING gives you details about the cheapest ways with the best results to buy and maintain your own home, dress well, cope with the law, stay healthy, and keep up a middle-class facade--whether you live in the city, in the suburbs, or in a small town. In a delightful, straightforward style, Dolly Freed explains how to be lazy, proud, miserly, and honest, live well, and enjoy leisure. She shares her knowledge of what you do need--your own home, for example--and what you don't need--such as doctors, lawyers, and insurance. And she has a lot of realistic advice about saving money, as well as practical information about

* buying a house cheaply through a foreclosure or back-tax sale

* raising and slaughtering rabbits

* catching and cooking fish and turtles

* distilling your own moonshine

Mainly, however, through her own example, she hopes to inspire you to do some independent thinking about how economics affects the course of your life now and may do so in the coming "age of shortages."

If you ever wondered what it would be like to be in greater control of your own life, POSSUM LIVING will show you--and help you do it for yourself.

DOLLY FREED and her father have lived outside of Philadelphia in their own house on a half-acre lot for almost five years. They produce their own food and drink and spend about $700 each per year. Dolly is 19 years old and lists her occupation as "chief possum."

Contents

Introduction
1. We Quit the Rat Race
2. The Cost of Living
3. Income
4. We Rassle with Our Consciences
5. Meat:About Killing Meat--Presenting a Case; Rabbits; Slaughtering Rabbits; Chickens; Pigs ; Goats; Game Meat
6. Fish:Catching Fish; Cooking Fish; Turtles
7. Gardening:Herbs; Garden Cultivation; Foraging; Yellow Rocket; Mushrooms
8. Grain
9. Groceries
10. Preserving Food:Canning; Smoke-Curing
11. Nutrition
12. The "Necessities of Life":Glossary; Yeast; Sugars; Equipment; Freeze-Concentrating; Winemaking; Recipes
13. Housing:Low-Cost Housing; How Foreclosure Sales Work; Back-Tax Sales; Home Repairs; Your Property Tax Assessment
14. Heating
15. Electricity
16. Clothing
17. Transportation
18. Law:Rules; Procedure
19. Health and Medicine:Dolly's Depression Dispersing Directions; Home Remedies; Dental Care; Various Therapies

FYI from Carver

Re: Possum Living

Remember reading the book early in the 80's. Always wondered what happened with them. What are they doing today?

Re: Possum Living

had a brother in law lived in a van for a while. parked behind the public library, worked part time somewhere..... lot of low profile types around.
Mostly they are ignored, like ya said "under the radar"

Re: Possum Living

the regulars at the I 5 rest area do ok, move from one side of the highway to the other every three days. just south of williamette river. plenty of aluminum cans to turn in, water and toilet at hand, wooded area in back for tent, or parking if you have a van.

Re: Possum Living

Making a still out of a pressure cooker. :bull-buddy-icon:

Quote:

To distill, of course, you must have a still. The pot of our still is a six-quart Mirromatic pressure cooker. (We get triple duty out of it, using it as a still, canner, and pressure cooker.) The pipe is an 8-foot length of ordinary 5/8-inch copper tubing. It's bent at one end like a shepherd's crook so that after coming straight out of the top of the pot it slopes around to let the condensed product run out to the end. For cooling, a 5-foot length of 1-inch copper tube was put over the other tube, the ends cut and bent and sealed with solder. Two nipples of 5/8-inch copper tubing were soldered over holes drilled in the opposite ends of the water jacket. Rubber tubes (from a junked washing machine) were slipped into the nipples and taped up watertight. The end of the bottom hose has one of those rubber things that slip over a water faucet. The end of the top hose goes into a drain. We once had a still which had a bicycle inner tube as the water jacket. The input and output tubes were sealed in with putty and tape. Some condensers consist of a coil of copper tubing cooled by air, but they are harder to make and don't work as well. Sometimes, instead of draining the water down the sink, we'll attach the output tube to the garden hose and run it down to do to the garden.

A wooden support holds the pipe in place. (See illustration.)

Notice that the product doesn't come into contact with the solder.

Here's how it works: The pot is set on a burner on the kitchen stove, and the fermented must is strained into it. (The wheat and yeast residue is given to the rabbits.) Don't overfill the pot--two-thirds full is a maximum. The lid with its rubber gasket is then closed on it. A stiff dough of flour and water is mixed and spread around the nipple on the pot's lid, care being taken to avoid getting any in the hole. The end of the 5/8-inch pipe is put over the nipple and seated in the dough, and more dough is spread at the junction to complete the seal. (This dough bakes hard during the run and is also fed to the bunnies.) The water hose is hooked up, the flame turned on, and that's it. With practice you learn to regulate the flame and water flow efficiently.

The first few ounces of the run will be within a few percentage points of being pure alcohol. As the run progresses, the alcohol coming through the pipe will have more and more water in with it. When a sample taken from the dripping pipe no longer tastes of alcohol, the run is over--all the alcohol in the must is now either in the fruit jar you set under the pipe, or in your tum-tum. A gallon of 10% must will normally run out a quart and a half of 26.7% strength. Sometimes we'll take two of those runs and redistill them to get two-fifths of a gallon of 50% (100 proof) strength, or two quarts of 40% (80 proof) liquor.

Then again, sometimes we just go ahead and drink up the first run. It mixes well with anything gin or vodka mixes with. We like it with weak iced tea with mint leaves or anise seeds, but you'll soon find your own favorite mix. If you like gin and tonic, you're sure to like quinine-and-'shine.

Since the first run is less than 30% alcohol (if you let the latter portion mix in with the stronger first cut), you can sip it neat, traditionally out of the fruit jar. If you do, you soon become a member of the Fraternity of the Ridged Nose. The ridge comes from the edge of the jar pressing the bridge of your nose as you put away the old juice. There are Ridge-Nosers all over the country. Don't try ridge nosing the first few ounces of the run or any of a double-run or you might find yourself on the floor.

Normally a double-distilled product will be as clear as water (or gin or vodka, for that matter), but a first run might have some cloudiness due to spillover or frothing. If that bothers you, just let it stand in the refrigerator for a day or two and it will all settle out.

If you don't rinse out the still-pipe and let it sit a few days between runs, you may notice a film forming on the Product toward the end of the run. This is "mother of vinegar" and is completely harmless. It's caused by vinegar-forming microbes which were at work on the residual alcohol in the pipe.

Incidentally, our small, efficiently cooled still gives off no tell-tale odor.

Freeze-Concentrating

You can raise the percentage of alcohol in a fermented solution by partially freezing it and then discarding the ice. Since water freezes at a higher temperature than alcohol, the ice will be mostly water. The main drawback here is that any sediment or dissolved substances, such as unfermented sugar, will remain in the beverage. This is not the case with distilling. On the other hand, freeze-concentrating will intensify the flavor of a bland wine.

Re: Possum Living

Hello Real Jack !!,
My wifes grandma made it through some really
tough times selling homemade spirits
made on the gas stove ( vodka concoction )
and selling through the window of her home...
If you run across any other viable blueprints or homemade
parts / pieces list...I would be interested to hear of it...
Regards,
Haystackneedle

Re: Possum Living

the dumbest thing I ever read............no doubt

her and daddy were selling porn:smokin: