🗣 Today I have a very special returning guest, Marjory Wildcraft, the founder of The Grow Network, a community of people focused on modern, self-sufficient living.
Free Webinar 👉 “How To Grow Lots Of Food In A Grid Down Situation Even If You Have No Experience, Are Older, And Out Of Shape”
Register Here: http://www.bgsfood101.com/
CHAPTERS:
0:00 The Grow Network
2:02 Why Preparing is Important
8:47 Food & Community
15:06 Having a Back-Up Plan
22:27 Energy Self-Sufficient
25:14 Creating a Plan for Security
27:42 Learn to Grow Your Own Food with Marjory
34:17 Intentional Economic Crash?
40:41 Lessons Learned from Natural Disaster’s
46:07 Opportunity in Crisis
TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:
Lynette Zang (00:00):
I’m Lynette Zang, Chief Market Analyst here at ITM Trading, but also a very proud prepper here on the BGS Beyond Gold and Silver Channel. Today I have a very special returning guest, Marjory Wildcraft, who is the founder of The Grow Network, which is a community of people focused on modern, self-sufficient living. She is fearless and is always experimenting with anything and everything related to food production and sustainability. She’s been featured on National Geographic as an expert on off-grid living, and she hosted the Mother Earth News online Homesteading Summit. Marjory was the focus of an article that won Reuter’s Food Sustainability Media award, and she recently authored The Grow System, The Essential Guide to Modern Self-Sufficient Living From Growing Food to Making Medicine, which is so critically important these days. We have all her links below and on our blog, and I’m so happy to have her back. Thank you for being here today, Marjory.
New Speaker (01:11):
If you think that the world is headed in a direction that makes you a bit concerned for the future, and you’d like to be as self-sufficient and independent as possible, then you’ve come to the right place. My name is Lynette Zang. Now it’s time to go Beyond Gold and Silver,
Lynette Zang (01:32):
Marjory, after everything you’ve been through with the hurricane, which is really what I think everybody wants to know about and how important being self-sufficient and able to sustain yourself. Thank you so much for coming today.
Marjory Wildcraft (01:49):
I’m more than delighted to be on Lynette. I love your podcast. I love your updates on the financial markets and yeah, I love what what ITM and BGS are doing.
Lynette Zang (01:59):
Well good cause we love what you’re doing too. So let, let’s just kind of jump in. You just went through Hurricane Fiona, do you wanna talk about that?
Marjory Wildcraft (02:09):
Sure. yeah, actually a week ago Saturday, so 10 days ago, the power went out and the winds really picked up. In fact, we’re in a bit of a thunderstorm now. I hope the sound comes through well. And it basically 10 days without power, tons and tons of flooding you know, water also shut down. You know, a lot of people dislocated from their homes, and we can talk about what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense. Now I’m a prepper and I’m living with a friend of mine in her house, and we’ve been getting her set up for just this kind of situation for a long time. Good. And for us, it was actually just a minimal inconvenience, honestly. But for a lot of people, their lives were really upended and destroyed. But if anything, for me, this is just a testament to why prepping is so important.
Lynette Zang (03:04):
Absolutely. I mean, it doesn’t matter what the crisis is, you still have to be as self-sufficient and independent as you can possibly be. So what was that difference? What, what do you wanna share with us?
Marjory Wildcraft (03:19):
Sure. So first of all, there were, there were a lot of people that, and when you hear it, and I’m still looking to buy, I’m negotiating to get my own place, which is a little bit of a vulnerable situation given how precarious we are with the collapse of the banking system and everything that’s going on. I think, oh yeah, very vulnerable, not having my own home. And, but whenever I talk to him, go, Oh, you wanna be on the, I’m like, No, I do not wanna be on the beach. I want to be as far away from the beach as possible. You know, do you want an ocean view? I’m like, no, I don’t wanna see the ocean. I love the ocean. I’ll climb up somebody else’s hill when I need to do that. Honestly, I don’t know if you know this, but you know, the reason Airbnb’s on the beach are so expensive is they have to replace the appliances in those condos houses or whatever every two years because they corroded and get destroyed. To give you an idea of how bad salt damage is that close to the ocean. Also, because salt in the water, and then of course those are the first people to get the brunt of any hurricane or any damage that comes, it’s, it’s gonna be coming by the ocean. So I definitely am looking inland a bit. There were, there are a lot of people that just keep building and rebuilding in areas that are flood zones. And I’ve got some photos. I’m hoping your people will dovetail some of these in just flooding everywhere. I mean that hurricane Fiona came and she just parked herself and moved really like, I mean, eight miles an hour and just for hours and hours and hours dumping, I don’t know how many inches of rain here and just flooding out so many situations. The flooding was actually worse. We only had, it was only like a category one storm. The winds were very high. I would say that she basically pruned every tree on the island <laugh> a natural pruning. Yeah. And so for days afterwards, a lot of the roads were closed just because there’s branches down. You know one of the real blessings and Luna, the power company, of course, everybody’s complaining about them. And I think I’ve got a quote for you from Peter Schiff about Puerto Rico gets hit by a category one storm. A hundred percent of people lose power, the exact same storm gets to category two and hits the Dominican Republic, and they only lose about 7% of their power <laugh>.
Lynette Zang (05:52):
So oh, yeah. Well that tells you about the infrastructure.
Marjory Wildcraft (05:56):
It’s years and decades of corruption. Yeah.
Lynette Zang (06:00):
Well, Marjory, you said that even though a lot of people there were devastated that you were just minimally inconvenienced. So` can you talk a little bit about what you’ve been doing and why this was not as big a catastrophe for you as it was for and your friend as it was for the other people on the island, or a lot of other people on?
Marjory Wildcraft (06:25):
Yeah, so yeah, so, sure. So we set up a solar power system on the roof and had eight panels. Now with the winds getting so high, it turned out some of the brackets on the weren’t that good and three panels got ripped off. But very quickly we were able to get somebody up there and patch up the other three. And so we had power, which is useful. We did go into, you know, conservation mode, right? So we’re not running the washing machine and we’re not, we’re not running air conditioners and we might have a little bit of a fan going or something, but you know, we’re, we’re being careful. We’re using flashlights on rechargeable batteries that we had charged prior to the storm. But, you know it’s not that big of a problem. And we definitely have a rainwater collection system, and so it’s raining all the time, honestly, a rainwater collection system for you and anybody listening, it’d be just as simple as taking a garbage can and putting it underneath the spot where a bunch of water is coming off the roof until you’ve got, you know so we’re, we do bucket baths. Let’s see here.
Marjory Wildcraft (07:35):
This is just a little, I don’t know, what is this, A two gallon bucket. You fill it with water and get yourself a cloth, and that’s a completely good bath right there, you know, bucket baths. And then of course blessings to whoever made the Berkey filter so that `we’ve got water. Yeah. A real big issue in situations like this is hygiene and you really wanna be extra careful to make sure that you’re, you’re being clean and you’re washing your hands and you’re, you know, we’re not doing the clean pristine like we would’ve done with the dishes, but you wanna make sure the dishes are clean and things are are sanitized Yeah. So one thing that was a saving grace also, I don’t know how AT&T did it, but we always had some basic cell phone service. It wasn’t always very good. In fact, you and I had tried to do an interview last week and we didn’t have enough bandwidth. But that was a real saving grace. Now I do have a backup satellite phone just in case. But turns out we didn’t need that. And so for us, when, when you were prepped like this and we had lots of food
Lynette Zang (08:46):
I was just gonna ask you about that. Did you have like gardens? Did you grow indoor as well or what happened to your garden?
Marjory Wildcraft (08:54):
Most of, yeah, most of the stuff is outside and because the house I live in now is on a ridge, there was a lot of wind damage to the gardens. But my roommate Shannon was, had a garage area where she put a whole bunch of the garden starts and plants and tuck them away safely. And actually I host a plant and seed swap party every two months. And it turns out last, it was supposed to be the Saturday that Fiona hit and we delayed it for a week. And we took out all those plants with all those seedlings and all those plants transplant, and we gave them away to people at the plant swap. We also had a friend who lives down by the beach and she had, you know, five inches of water all throughout her entire apartment. So she was camping out in our living room for, you know, five or six days while the water receded. And then she had to go through a really careful process to clean that because mold is a serious issue and so you’re doing a lot of sanitizing and scrubbing everything. And then some stuff was just destroyed. You just throw it out and then, you know, figuring out what to keep and what to throw away. There’s another interesting thing, we got a photograph here. The gas stations always had a line of at least 20 cars, if not 30 cars, every single. We don’t, we’re in a small town here, so there was only three gas stations in town, but always, always long lines. And a couple of days ago, I was actually, she came to the plant and seed swap a couple of women and they said, you know, we’re just so tired of paying for that generator. We’re thawing everything out. We’re cooking it up tonight, we’re gonna bring it to the farmer’s market and we’re giving it away for free, so we’re gonna feed everybody. It’s community. So it’s really, yeah, some really incredible outpouring of help and support. There has been some, you know, like around the gas stations, I noticed there, there’s some aggression, you know, some, some people upset. A lot of the road closures meant that if you needed to go somewhere, all your patterns are being broken up. So people are a little bit on edge and a little testy cause you know they don’t know what to do necessarily or things are changing a lot. So we also, like, we went to Home Depot to pick up some stuff, and believe it or not, the Home Depot and quite a few of the businesses here learned from Hurricane Maria. And I’m gonna go back to why Hurricane Maria has been such a blessing for this island, but they were just completely open and rocking and rolling cause they have total solar power and generators for their business. But we noticed, you know, in the parking lots and on the drive there, people were clearly out of their element and and a little bit more aggressive and a little bit more you know difficult I would say. So there’s been kind of both extremes and one of just incredible generosity of people helping each other. And then on the other a little more animosity and a little bit of more aggression and angst. So it’s bringing out the best and the worst I suppose, in a lot of the community.
Lynette Zang (12:23):
I think that’s true in any crisis you’re going to have, you know, that dichotomy, right? Yeah. And I mean, that is a concern when people are hungry and hopeless, they make choices they would not otherwise make. And whether it’s a patterned from a hurricane or a financial hurricane, you know, I think the more prepared you are, as you said, you know, you had minimal disruption
Marjory Wildcraft (12:52):
Really. Yeah. It was actually pretty easy. You know, we just kind of, and that really put us in a position to be able to help
Lynette Zang (12:59):
Exactly.
Marjory Wildcraft (13:00):
To be of service. Yeah.
Lynette Zang (13:02):
Exactly.
Marjory Wildcraft (13:03):
Now this really wasn’t that. I mean it’s, you know, it’s devastating in the news. Definitely. It is devastating in a lot of ways. But, you know, this is, I’m not worried about the power infrastructure because really, I mean, Puerto Rico has no coal, has no fossil fuels, no petroleum, no natural gas. And that’s where what our power plants are fueled by. And as you’re well aware, we’re gonna hit a situation where energy is so expensive you’re not gonna be able to afford it, so it’s not gonna matter whether the grid works or not.
Lynette Zang (13:35):
Exactly.
Marjory Wildcraft (13:37):
And really honestly, the supermarkets were pretty well prepared for this. Again, most of the supermarkets you have solar panel raised fast arrays and they weren’t open full hours, but they would be open and they knew it was coming and they had a pretty good bit of inventory. And so food was not an issue. That’s good. But, you know, I can definitely see scenarios where food is an issue and I think, I think you are well aware of what’s going on. You know, it’s even the mainstream media. Listen, my brother-in-law is totally a MSNBC fanatic and I’m not, that’s not my news source, but I like to listen to him to know what the mainstream media is pumping out. And he’s, the mainstream media is now pumping out the noise about food prices going up, food scarcity, and they’re basically preparing the general populous.
Lynette Zang (14:30):
Right. But if, but until it really hits, I mean, that’s a thing. It’s the shock and awe where people think their life is going to just stay the same. And that there aren’t really all that many problems, though things are very different than they were since 2020 and very different, very different than they were since two, since prior to 2008. So they’ve been moving us in this direction. But before we came on air, you said that there were some things that happened that didn’t have to happen. Can you tell me what you were referring to with that?
Marjory Wildcraft (15:09):
Oh, well, I just mean that people, the choices people make, like living in an area that is known to be a flood zone, right? Or living high up on a ridge that is known to get high winds or you know, knowing that you live in an area that gets hit by hurricanes and not having basic water supplies and food supplies and, you know, a hurricane lamp or flashlights or something like that. You know, people that are just completely unprepared. One thing I will say about Puerto Rico that in particular is Maria was an incredible blessing here because my, I’ve only been here about three years and I did not go through Maria. Is people said there was no solar, there was no backup. Anything prior to Maria, when Maria hit, it was a huge wake up call to a lot of people on the island. And now there is a lot of solar. People buy backup generators, I don’t know what they’re thinking cause you’re just changing, you’re just asking for another import, you know? Right, right? Like, that’s not gonna do you any good. And then you’re gonna be waiting in that line with all those cars at the gas station. And people were and moaning about like, Oh my God, it’s costing me like $20 a day or $40 a day to keep this stuff cold or whatever, you know, and or my air conditioning. And we’re all like, you gotta get out of that lifestyle with air conditioning. You don’t need air conditioning here. You know, like Right.
Lynette Zang (16:40):
<Laugh>, I actually had a similar thing happen, you know, up here where we are completely off grid and you know, it really is interesting when I’ve had like workers up here to help out and put them up in the guest cottage or whatever. And Angusa can verify this, but you know, we had enough water in the, in the tank there. How, how long should that last in normal? Like how long is it lasting you? About a month. About a month. And they went through it in 24 hours. Three days, Three days. Three days. And you know, I mean it’s like, I, I don’t really, you know what happens when you realize you’re in and off grid, you’re conscious, right? You make sure that the lights are turned out when you’re not using them. You know, you make sure that you take a reasonable shower and you don’t languish, you don’t, they put the air conditioner on, so they ran down the batteries for them. I mean the thing they, they ran down the batteries in what, 24 hours or something like that, Right. Where I’ve not had that problem at all. Either one with the water or, so you, it’s a different kind of mindset. Absolutely.
Marjory Wildcraft (17:54):
And you know, honestly Lynette, I can’t emphasize enough, and I know you’ve been been calling this out for a long time. This isn’t even the beginning. Like it is going to get a lot worse. I mean, it is gonna get a lot worse. There’s gonna be a time when Puerto Rico is not getting any energy at all. So it’s not gonna, you’re not gonna have, be able to complain about the grid, you know, and food supplies you know, I think one of the, you know, in Maria, or even on this in Fiona, you know, people kind of really mainland is gonna bring stuff in. You know, we, we’ve got a backup plan, right? There’s, there’s going to come a time when there is not a backup plan. By the way, one other thing that’s of interest, although there has been gasoline available, there’s like almost no diesel anywhere. Oh. And I have several farmers who are like, Hey, you know, we’ve, we’ve got a machine and we want to, you know, there’s trees down and we need to do stuff to get the farm going and all that. And they can’t buy diesel anywhere. And we’ve heard that there was a shipment that came in and there’s this controversy, is FEMA distributing it is the National Guard or what, you know, who’s got it, where is it going? But basically you, you can’t get ahold of it.
Lynette Zang (19:07):
But interesting about diesel because we did just get a diesel truck for up here because according to Anguss, who does everything in the world, frankly the reason why we got a diesel is cause we could make our own fuel.
Marjory Wildcraft (19:24):
That’s right. Yeah. And there’s, there’s biofuels and other things that you can make for a diesel engine. So Yeah, I’m just talking about what’s available
Lynette Zang (19:33):
Right. And what people are used to. Right? Yeah. So it, it’s, it’s kind of different if you have a diesel vehicle and you know, your plan is that if you need to, you can make it so that you’re prepared for that. Or you have a diesel vehicle and you’re going, well well help me, help me give it to me. Where is it? Who’s gonna distribute it? That’s, you know, that’s still dependency even though you’re in a position where you can actually make your own fuel. And, and I don’t know enough about that. We’ll do, we’ll do a video on that when, when Anguss is ready to show us.
Marjory Wildcraft (20:07):
Well, you know, a real simple thing is to just get a 50 gallon or a hundred gallon tank and fill it up with diesel.
Lynette Zang (20:14):
There you go.
Marjory Wildcraft (20:16):
You know, work out of that. A lot of big farms do that already. Right. because they, they need the diesel. So yeah, so it’s been been a very interesting experience. I will say some of the businesses, most of the businesses were shut down. The healthcare centers, the hospitals, they of course got priority and they’ve had backup. The pizza joint and the beer joint <laugh>, they were up and running right away and, you know, bless them cause pizza and beer is a comfort food.
Lynette Zang (20:52):
Yes it is. And, and you know, and that’s part of, even in your preparations, you know, it’s like people are probably gonna be surprised they say that I actually have stores of goldfish up here. Not cause I eat that stuff, but because my grandkids eat that stuff. And so even in your preparations, you really do wanna have some of that stuff that you’re used to. That’s kind of like your comfort.
Marjory Wildcraft (21:22):
Yes, I don’t eat ramen noodles, but yeah. I’ve got a small case of ramen noodles I’m gonna need to buy some more. Cause I know my kids love that and it’s a comfort food for them. I was actually super thrilled when so I’m digging through, you know, one of my cases of stuff and like, okay, what am I gonna eat today? Or what am I gonna make? And I had run out of chocolate, which is a sin upon sins. Yes, indeed. And then I’m digging around the bottom and I found this bag of like, it was organic, so that means there’s no calories in it. Right, right. Justin’s, you know, little peanut butter cup with chocolate and I’m like, yay. So yeah, I definitely encourage stashing in some, you know, comfort foods or, you know, I think lifesavers would probably have a shelf life of forever and be a wonderful, colorful sweet. Yeah.
Lynette Zang (22:13):
I love that Red dye number 52. Oh, it’s so good. I’d say that my grandson gives me a hard time about that all the time. I love that red dye number 17. But.
Marjory Wildcraft (22:25):
I know, right?
Lynette Zang (22:26):
But we are talking about, you know, in a circumstance, and one thing you mentioned that I thought was really important was that people learned from Maria, the businesses learned and probably some other people, individuals learned too that how important it is to be energy self-sufficient, right? So that you store it in batteries and you have that backup. But I know for me in April of 2020, that’s when I saw the hole in my personal strategy. So we used these opportunities or people should use these opportunities and see what could you have done different to make this circumstance better for you when it comes around again, even worse? I mean, we look at what’s happening Yeah. Across the pond, food wise, energy wise. But even in this country too, the cost and the viability of the grid and the droughts that we’re seeing, you know would you say that it would make sense to do some indoor growing, not just of your seedlings, but of maybe some of your supply fresh food?
Marjory Wildcraft (23:49):
Yeah. Yeah, I would, that’s a good idea. I mean, you should really try to have food growing everywhere, right? Yeah and food you know I often say, you know, we’ve, the calorie has been shunned for the last 50 years, but the calorie is about to become the next unit of currency. And they really are. I’m sure you’ve done some shows on this, on that they’re dismantling the food supply.
Lynette Zang (24:14):
Oh, absolutely.
Marjory Wildcraft (24:16):
And that means that, you know, and we’re also lulled into walking into a grocery store and it just looks like this huge abundance, which actually could disappear in less than a day. And it’s food is so important. So yeah, absolutely. Some indoor growing systems, outdoor growing systems, learning how to wild craft, learning how to forage, learning how to hunt, learning how to fish you know, all those skills, especially related to food. I know a lot of people talk about collapse and the first thing they’re thinking is defense. Especially the men. They’re like, Oh, good, I got my.
Lynette Zang (24:53):
Got guns and ammo. Yeah.
Marjory Wildcraft (24:54):
I’ve got my guns and my ammo and all that. Yeah. And women are often thinking about the medicines, which is, they’re both important. But really, I’ve interviewed a lot of survivors of collapse things scenarios. And food by and large is way more what they talk about than that.
Lynette Zang (25:13):
Well, you know
Marjory Wildcraft (25:13):
By the way, you know, I, I did have an interesting thing. So I was out walking around. I liked to walk around and get a sense of the vibe of the whole thing. And I was walking down one street that was kind of, well, no, the street lights aren’t out. So, and it was a little bit dark in the past. One thing I noticed was there were lots of groups of young people out walking around, which they wouldn’t normally be doing, but they’re kind of bored. You know, we’re 5, 6, 7 days into this thing. There’s no electricity, there’s no school, there’s nothing. So they’re kind of wandering around and, and and these you know, there’s six, seven young men. You’re kind of the musclely young guys, and they’re joshing around with each other and the punching shoulders and stuff. And I pass them and I say, oh buenas noches. And they’re like, buenas noches. And as soon as I get passed ’em, then they start, you know, doing cat calls. And I’m thinking, well that’s nice. You know, even in the dark, in the dark, I look good, Right? <Laugh>. But I immediately turn down another street that’s much more well lit because that’s just a, you know, a safe safer, right? Yeah. You can start circling back toward the circling back toward the plaza. And I thought, you know, in this situation, everybody still has good humor in a situation where there is no food and it’s very clear that the grid is not coming back. And there’s a lot that would be an extremely dangerous Yeah. Situation cause those young men, as much as they have, you know everything I’ve ever read and people that I’ve interviewed, it’s just astonishing how people change when they’re hungry and when they’re desperate. So
Lynette Zang (26:47):
Yeah
Marjory Wildcraft (26:48):
You know, for me it was sort of a wake up call of like, wow. And we did, you know, we did, I did see it the beginnings of, you know, groups, gangs of the boys basically roaming around right now, just having fun and laughing and probably stoned or whatever.
Lynette Zang (27:06):
Well, I would suggest, I’m sorry, I would suggest maybe a great Dane or three. I mean
Lynette Zang (27:15):
Seriously. That is one of the things that I’ve actually been doing for a long time. I switched from, you know, cute little medium sized dogs, like Cocker spaniels to Great Danes and Mastiffs. And I have three, well, my old girl which she may live forever. I don’t think she’s ever leaving. But you know, three huge dogs are very discouraging.
New Speaker (27:43):
But I wanted to come back to the food and the medicine. You mentioned the medicine and you know, you and I have talked about this before, but you have a free webinar that teaches people how to grow their own food and medicine. Can you and we’ve got the links below and also you can go to www.bgsfood101.com To register. But can you talk more about this webinar please? Yes. Cause I think this is so timely and critical, really.
Marjory Wildcraft (28:15):
So my, my previous life I was an engineer and then I, I became actually got into finance and became a money manager for managing investments. No history of growing food in there, right? I’m not a hippie from with the commune or anything, but I got the call, I mean, I got the call. It was a very loud communication from whatever source you call it, about 20 years ago that said, you need to focus on figuring out how to teach people how to grow food in a grid down situation when they’re, when it’s, they don’t have any time and they don’t know anything. And I basically began to dedicate my life to that and and completely changed my life. Sold off everything moved, you know, like everything. Because when you get the call, you get the call.
Lynette Zang (29:02):
I get it.
Marjory Wildcraft (29:03):
And so, yeah. And I didn’t know anything, so I was like, Why me? And they’re like, Well, I don’t know anything. And they’re like, You’re perfect. You don’t know anything. You don’t figure it out, right? And so I’m so grateful that actually we’ve had almost two decades to where I figured out exactly what is the highest calorie foods, what’s the most nutrition food, because people are really, even now severely malnourished. Yes.
Marjory Wildcraft (29:26):
What, what is the quickest and what is the average American who’s probably older, overweight, knows nothing, has limited resources. How do you take somebody like that with maybe all they have is a small backyard and get them producing a lot of food very, very quickly. So I had been working on this problem for almost 20 years and we’ve developed a whole lot of things. We were trying things and, and I’ve totally distilled those 20 years of not only research, but actual experimentation and implementation over and over again on how to, how to grow food when you’re older outta shape, when you know nothing. And what they’ll come away with is the first three things that they need to start on. And when they master those three things, which will not take that long, they’ll be able to produce half of their own food in a backyard size space. And I promise you, producing half is huge. It is huge. They’ll, they’ll come away with, and that can easily be replicated. So there’s crazy in-laws that show up. You know, you’ll know exactly what to tell them to do, to be able to expand these systems. You’ll know exactly what to do regardless of the season that we’re in. You’ll know what step to take first. And you’ll come away really empowered with like, you can do this. And I show you again everything, how to do it in a very simple way with materials that are easy to get, easy to scavenge you know, how to make this happen even in a grid down situation. So they’ll come away with a plan, they’ll come away empowered, they’ll know how to grow at least half of their own food. And that’s a free webinar. It’s a totally free webinar. Just because it’s time!
Lynette Zang (31:08):
<Laugh>, it’s time and it’s community. And you’re all about community folks.
Marjory Wildcraft (31:12):
You Yeah. Oh my god. You know, the grown network. There are so many times really, I mean, trying to get people to grow food has, for the last 20 years, there’s not been like a really good business model cause you know who wants to.
Lynette Zang (31:24):
Who wants to, right? I mean, it’s so convenient to just go to the store and get what you want. And you have, you have food no matter what the season is. You can have avocados and mangoes or what have you
Marjory Wildcraft (31:38):
Anyway. Yeah. You know, it’s great.
Lynette Zang (31:41):
As it works.
Marjory Wildcraft (31:42):
I was just making tons of money. I was like, why would I wanna do this? You know? But I knew what I knew and I was shown what would happen, which is where we’re at now.
Lynette Zang (31:52):
Yes, we are.
Marjory Wildcraft (31:54):
And I, I could not live with myself if I didn’t work on this problem and make this happen. So it turns out that having an engineering degree and understanding business and finance turns out to be some really great skills in order to build an organization and an entity and create all the things that you need to create to be able to handle the influx of people that we’re seeing now that are getting it and that need to grow food. So the webinars of free thing really and honestly, The Grow Network would have, I know that I have been guided and I know that I have been supported by a much higher power. Yes. Because honestly, the network should have crashed and burned and gone bankrupt quite a few times. But <laugh>, cause as I said, you know, getting people to grow food has not been a sexy topic all this time. But yeah, now, now we’re here and we’re, we’re ready to serve. And I’m actually very excited about this because for me, in my own life, being able to grow my own food, not only does the physical, the nourishment and the, and the gentle exercise so good for me, it makes me feel so good and I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. Yeah. But also the mental, you know, and the emotional, like I, you know, I don’t care if the grocery stores are boarded up, that’s not gonna affect me. I’m not gonna get tangled up in the long lines and be frustrated at gas stations. You know, I, you know, I am, I have a lot of skills and resources. I know how to take care of my kids. Yes. I know how to take care of my community. And those skills are not that hard to learn. Right. I mean, really, if you think about it,
Lynette Zang (33:32):
Well, not when you have a great leader, Marjory. I mean, you know, I didn’t know you all those years ago when I was first starting, but I have learned so much from you over the years.
Marjory Wildcraft (33:46):
Well, thank you. Yeah.
Lynette Zang (33:47):
And I just appreciate your work, and I understand what you mean by being guided even when it doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. It makes every bit sense. And we could just look at what’s happening, Oh, God. And the bond markets right now, I mean that to me, and you’ve got a finance background. I have a finance background. I mean, that’s the bedrock of the financial global economy. And it’s imploding right now.
Marjory Wildcraft (34:18):
It’s, it’s the whole thing. And they’re not gonna be able to stave off that, that derivatives quadrillion babo gazillion. It’s, it’s, they’ve been patching and patching and holding together and holding together, and they can’t hold it much longer.
Lynette Zang (34:33):
But when you look at what’s happening between fiscal policy and, and, and it’s fiscal and Oh, my bridges went byebye, but between, let me just say it this way, between what the governments are doing is completely at odds with what the central bankers are doing. And it, it looks to me very much like this is going to be an intentional crash. So, yeah. I mean, I hate to say that, but you know, it just, when when you, you know, do what I say and not what I do, and when you look at what they’re doing, and you see that the central banks are just hell bent on raising rates to fight the inflation that they cause, which they even admit what they’re doing isn’t really gonna fight the inflation that they caused. At the same time that you have the government stimulating in England lowering taxes and, you know, in the US issuing all these edicts and spending, you know, hundreds of billions and probably trillions, I mean, we don’t really know how much they’re spending. Let’s face it. You know, they’re, they’re at odds with each other. They’re creating inflation, they’re trying to fight inflation, but they’re both creating it. So it makes you go, Yeah. Are they really trying to stave this off? Or are they really trying to push us into it?
Marjory Wildcraft (36:03):
Well, it’s over, honestly, you know, you know, and yeah, there’s that, those factions doing that thing. But the bottom line is it’s, it’s over. Like there’s, we’re headed into an inflation. We’re in inflationary, and yeah, we are soon about to become, I’ll tell you the first sign I started to see, we haven’t seen the panic buying yet, but when you start to see that, you know, that’s like we’re months from the dollar crashing or maybe even weeks. But I was at when I said, when I was at Home Depot, and the first sign I started to see of it is I’m in the grinder section trying to get an angle iron attachment for my grinder. And the guy is standing next to me and I’m waiting for the thing. And that these two guys come up and they’re buying one. And the guy turns to the other guy and he says, No, man, you should buy three or four of them. And he goes, Why? He says, they ain’t going down, they’re never gonna go down. They’re only gonna get more and more expensive. So the guy grabbed like 10 of them.
Lynette Zang (36:56):
You just gave me goosebumps, because you’re right, that is the start of the loss of confidence, isn’t it?
Marjory Wildcraft (37:03):
That is it. Yeah.
Lynette Zang (37:05):
And this is
Marjory Wildcraft (37:06):
A con game that Yeah, I just watched that interaction. I was like, Oh my God. Cause, you know, people know it. They go, you know, I mean the gas part, they went way up and then they kind of went down a little bit. It was a little relieved. But yeah, when you go to fill your truck or your car and it costs twice as much, or you go to the grocery store and you spend the same amount of money and you only get this much, you know, I mean, people know you can’t fool ’em with your eight point half percent line of bs that’s official. You know, people know that it’s, it’s going up and Yeah. So, but the next thing will be really buying an earnest and panic buying. And then where it’s out of control. And we’re, and you don’t wanna be in that. You don’t wanna be in that. It’s just like going through a hurricane. You don’t wanna have to be figuring out your power, figure out your power and your water ahead of time. Figure out your food now so that you don’t have to be out there trying to scavenge around for food and chasing it while the price goes up every five minutes. You know? You know, And even if it’s just beans and rice, you know, at least you got something. Right?
Lynette Zang (38:09):
Right. Well, yeah,
Marjory Wildcraft (38:10):
Honestly, and honestly, it’s still pretty dang cheap to buy a year’s worth of food supply. It really is ultimately.
Lynette Zang (38:19):
Or go to the webinar and grow your own food and grow your own medicine too, which those are the two big things that are the two biggest during, I think we’re entering a hyperinflationary depression. So, you know. Yes. Those are the two big things that you really need to have.
Marjory Wildcraft (38:42):
And people, well, you know, I’m gonna store and I’ll get through it. I’m like, No, you aren’t. You know, that 2015 food chain reaction crisis let us know that they’re plant, This is a decade long, at least and the destruction that they’ve already done to the supply systems and the agricultural output and all the things that are going on. This is, this is not the only people who are gonna make it through this decade are people that are growing their own food. Honestly.
Lynette Zang (39:08):
Oh, I could not agree with you more, because they need to shift. The system is dead. It died in 2008. They just covered it over with lots of printing. And now that’s coming home to roost. There’s no place else to go. There’s no, there’s virtually no purchasing power in the currency. And we hear about the strong dollar, Oh, how strong this dollar is. In the meantime, it cost you more and more to buy your daily bread and anything else that you want. I mean.
Marjory Wildcraft (39:40):
I’ve heard people give that strong dollar, and I’m like, Oh, yeah. So you like that deck chair on the Titanic, Huh? That deck chair hold you up a little stronger than the other one. Right. You know, like the whole thing’s going down, like any fiat currency, they’re all fiat currencies, and they’re all, all the, it looks like every single central bank, every single government Oh, is, they’re all inflating at the same time. And you know, it’s just insane. It’s kind of an inflation game. Like who, who can, you know, print more, but it’s over it’s really over. My brother also my brother’s she’s 79. Yeah. 79. And he says, Oh, Marjory, you know, we’ve been hearing about the dollar gonna, I haven’t been hearing about that since I was a little boy. And I’m like, Yeah, I know. I lived through the seventies too, Frank. But it’s really happening now. It really is. They just, there’s no more kicking the can down the road.
Lynette Zang (40:33):
Exactly. We are at I could not agree with you more, and that’s what makes our conversations so important. Sorry. Yeah.
Marjory Wildcraft (40:48):
Get some water. You got that glass of water there?
Lynette Zang (40:50):
Yes. With, with a nice keeper line from my tree.
Marjory Wildcraft (40:54):
Nice. Mm-hmm.
Lynette Zang (40:55):
<Affirmative>.
Marjory Wildcraft (40:55):
So if anything I could say from this experience with Hurricane Fiona is, for me, it just showed me how important having prep are and how easy life can be when there is a big disaster. If you’ve been preparing and using your preps and you know what you’re doing and you’re able to be a calm force, you’re able to help others you know, it’s and it’s a no brainer. It’s a no brainer. I know, I know people listening to you have some sense that this is happening and I’ve really appreciated you with gosh, your conversation about the life cycles currencies and how important a goal is. And that really is,
Lynette Zang (41:36):
You know, Marjory, what I have found like, so interesting, and it’s funny because it’s only relatively recently that I’ve realized this, and it’s really dawned on me, there’s so many brilliant, smart people that understands macroeconomics, but what they never talk about is that this is the end of this iteration, this big fiat money experiment. And they need us to be freaked out and scared to death so that we’re willing to accept the next iteration that they’re gonna shove down our throats, which takes us into a full surveillance economy, which scares the crap outta me. No, no doubt. It scares. I’m old enough that that scares the crap out. It should scare the crap out of everybody.
Marjory Wildcraft (42:25):
It should, it really should. The like, as you had pointed out, there seems to be so many factions at all levels that are vying and, you know, absolutely. There’s a faction wanting more control and more surveillance actually, and utter control surveillance, you know, but there are, I believe, other forces that are like, No, you know, and, and you know, that, that, that we really want more freedom and independence.
Lynette Zang (42:53):
and privacy, what a concept.
Marjory Wildcraft (42:57):
Here’s a, here’s a concept that I’ve been thinking of. So you and I have lived long enough, we have seen technology completely innovate in so many industries, you know, so you know, there used to be the mail, right? And then, and then email got developed, or no, FedEx, right? Faxes. You remember fax
Lynette Zang (43:15):
Machines? I do remember fax machines, Yes, I do.
Marjory Wildcraft (43:18):
When I was running my real estate investment business, I live by my fax machine, you know? Right. And then, and then email became more legitimate, and then DocuSign and all that. And then it just got more and more and more efficient all the time. You know, Airbnb just completely you know, made the use of spare bedrooms and spare houses and completely took that and made a whole efficiency out of, and probably you know, the whole hospitality industry completely upended. Same thing with Uber and Lyft, with the automobiles. Like your average automobile sits around idle 96% of the time. And this was a way to eliminate or reduce congestion and use those resources better. And there’s so many places in our lives where something was inefficient or wasteful that we have come up with technology. And what is the most inefficient and wasteful thing that you can think of? Hmm. Would it be your government <laugh>? And so, Oh
Lynette Zang (44:21):
My God, yes. Well, that’s the definition, isn’t it? <Laugh>?
Marjory Wildcraft (44:25):
So what I see is that, you know, we’re actually, this is like one of those huge, gigantic, inefficient and wasteful things that is imploding. And we are, that’s why it’s so important to be alive now. It is. And have resources because with whatever we create in the future, it will be so much better. I really am so hopeful. You know, honestly, I’d say through a lot of my life I had, I hadn’t realized it, but there was some level of hopelessness or depression just because, you know, when you learn how the USDA is so tied in with the, the big ag and, and the chemicals and the, and there’s no way to turn that system around. And they have, you know, how the AMA has usurped the legal system and, you know, the medical system and how, you know, the whole thing is just so freaking corrupt and, and completely like
Lynette Zang (45:20):
Toxic
Marjory Wildcraft (45:21):
Impact corrupt. Yeah. Right. You know, and you know, almost inhibited, right? And now it’s breaking apart, which means there’s an opportunity Yes. For us as individuals, there’s all these different factions, but there’s also us, the people who go, Hey, wait a minute, wait, you
Lynette Zang (45:40):
Know, wait, let’s set this system up so that it works for everybody and not just the few.
Marjory Wildcraft (45:46):
Right. And, and where you’ll, you know, you’ll be standing up in your local community I’ll be standing up and my local community will be going, Well, you know, the mayor and all that. It’s gonna be ridiculous cause he’s, he is not gonna be working anymore. <Laugh> his salary of whatever it is per month is gonna be not even buying a coffee pretty soon. Right. So, you know, I mean, you know, it’s gonna be us standing up and I actually think that a lot of these kids that are sense this hopelessness are gonna, when when the whole thing starts to pull apart, some of them are gonna be going, Whoa, I can really make a difference in the world. Right? When you playing and part here and there be a vilification.
Lynette Zang (46:26):
There is, there’s always opportunity in crisis and we just have to step back and see. And that’s the important of community because one person can, I can make a small difference in, you know, my sphere of influence. But if we all come together, then yeah, I’m with you a hundred percent. And I too am like really, really hopeful that on the other side of this mess, we have a much more fair system of government, of the monetary system, the financial system, the medical system, everything. I agree with you. I’m so glad you brought that up. But a good place to start is with your webinar. Right, Exactly. Because you gotta, you know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time? You have to start somewhere. So I’m so appreciative of you putting that together. I wish I found you 13 years ago when I was starting my journey to learn how to grow a hundred thousand dollars tomatoes <laugh>.
Marjory Wildcraft (47:30):
Yeah. Oh gosh. I’ve been there. Oh my god. I was signing, actually, I remember I was literally regularly signing a hundred thousand dollars checks and my first tomatoes would die and I was sitting there crying on my knee, like all this money and all this power and all this stuff that I’m good at and it’s useless here, you know.
Lynette Zang (47:48):
<Laugh>. Well, but that’s, yeah. You know, you’re a wealth of knowledge, you’re a wealth of experience and you bring that all for free to, for people. So, I mean, you’re such a significant part of the community here, and I wanna thank you on behalf of everybody else for your work that I admire you so much. I really do.
Marjory Wildcraft (48:11):
Oh, thank you, Lynette. It’s been, it’s been a tough couple of decades, but yes. And you know, I guess who is the young man that coined this, but, you know, growing your own food is like printing your own money. It really is. Oh, it is. Food is the prox. It’s the pros of being able to get through this next period of time gracefully. And the great thing about growing your own food is it’s so healing. And you may go into it reluctantly, you don’t want to do it or whatever, but I promise you it will become the most important and delightful part of your day when you start getting into it.
Lynette Zang (48:47):
<Laugh>. Oh, it is. I mean, there’s nothing, you know, I love it when the babies are coming out, you know, the baby tomatoes, the baby peaches. It’s like, I get so excited and then to actually get to eat them when they’re mature. There’s nothing else like that. It really isn’t. We’ve covered a lot of things. Is there anything else that you wanna bring up today or would you talk about how people can find your work aside from this? But for, to sign up for the free webinar, just go to www.bgsfood101.com and definitely do yourself a favor and sign up for that webinar.
Marjory Wildcraft (49:26):
Yeah. And if you had there, I don’t think we tell you about it, but right after you’ve signed up, we send you a bunch of free stuff right away and, and you’ll have 72 hours to watch the webinar once you go there. But we, the thing people love the most is we have an e-book on 50 free fertilizers. So how to make your own free fertilizers
Lynette Zang (49:45):
Critical.
Marjory Wildcraft (49:45):
Have another Yes.
Lynette Zang (49:47):
Critical these days. Yep.
Marjory Wildcraft (49:50):
How to feed your chickens for free. Yeah. So how to make, you know, when you start out buy chicken feed, cause you one last thing to have to do, but then eventually you’re gonna want to, Cause you know, when the grocery stores close, the feed stores close, you need to know that. Let’s see another one that people really love is, it’s really funny, my friend David the Good, made this movie called “Compost the Movie.” And he just, he’s just funny and he just talks about all the different ways to compost. And his tagline is, Even Your Enemies. So I’m like, Oh boy, <laugh> David, let’s not go there, but he gotta show you how to compost everything.
Lynette Zang (50:26):
Including your enemies. He compost’s them?
Marjory Wildcraft (50:29):
Yes. So it there’s some free resources that come with it that really help to support you. And then we’ll also introduce you. The Grow Network has a very active and engaged forums area. We have, I think it’s 120 really experienced homesteaders who volunteer in our forums to help new people and answer questions. How things do you collect eggs or how do you process acorn? You know, all the stuff. And so yeah, it’s a big community and
Lynette Zang (50:58):
That’s what we need.
Marjory Wildcraft (51:00):
That’s what we need. And this is the, the online version of it. So yeah, so www.bgsfood101.com And you know, go watch the webinar and come, come participate.
Lynette Zang (51:11):
Absolutely. But additionally, we will have the links to your, to all of your information below, also on the blog. And Marjory, thank you so much for coming today and for those of you out there, please be safe and we’ll see you next time. Bye-Bye.
Marjory Wildcraft (51:30):
<Laugh>.
SOURCES:
⬇️ Follow Marjory Wildcraft for More
Website: https://thegrownetwork.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BackyardFood
Free Webinar: http://www.bgsfood101.com/
