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Did not have the time to read the other posts , but generally they are excellent. Before I give my usual tirade of gloom and doom let me just say you will be best of being prepared with a food pantry (Food for Health) and water filters (Sychelle) (just two key ingredients for survival). Also attempt to downsize to a point of very'conservative living and belongings. Don't buy much as it will be worth nothing in years to come. We will enter a period of financial collapse but it will be worldwide precipitating robberies,looting muggings etc). Natural disasters will increase (I was crushed to see Alabama,Missouri,Oalklhoma etc divastated), but I'm talking about utter destruction of most of the US and possible changes in topography (worldwide).
Das
Not to mention solar flares. These huge bunkers built in nowhere in America are specifically for that purpose with trains riding into them 100s of feet underground and miles long are for a select few. I've seen a couple documentaries showing it along with stuff on youtube. Even mystics who channel other beings say they are coming and people should have an underground shelter, or house that's airtight. And to have foods, I think iodine rich foods to help fight the radiation we'll all experience. I've also heard from a number of sources that the coastal areas will be in trouble with tsunamis and storms and it's best to live away from them.
No car tech should ever be laid off..... There are people who think car techs are magic men. I am lost on why you haven't got for hire work..
Back in 79, I got hit by a car and broke all my ribs on the left side next to my spine, and my collar bone, and my bloomin neck on the right side. I lost my speen, and have a collapsed lung. In less than 3 weeks after i was back working on small engines. Outboards, lawn mowers, chain saws and weed wackers. I had a wife to support. I have another wife now, and she is working to a goal and a dream of her own, so right now I am the sole source of currency.
Waiting to get ahead is never a good idea. Time's awastin.... I type here at meal times, and if I take a days rest, but I tend to work 7 days a week at one thing or another.
The lastest feat was digging up the lawn and the driveway to instll wire and a pipe to hold a hose so that water from the brook can get to the lawn. The next part is getting that water to the garden, so the well is no longer watering a 60 x 100 garden.
After that I hope to build a 2 hydralic rams and get electricty off line for anything but house water.
No car tech should ever be laid off..... There are people who think car techs are magic men. I am lost on why you haven't got for hire work..
Back in 79, I got hit by a car and broke all my ribs on the left side next to my spine, and my collar bone, and my bloomin neck on the right side. I lost my speen, and have a collapsed lung. In less than 3 weeks after i was back working on small engines. Outboards, lawn mowers, chain saws and weed wackers. I had a wife to support. I have another wife now, and she is working to a goal and a dream of her own, so right now I am the sole source of currency.
Waiting to get ahead is never a good idea. Time's awastin.... I type here at meal times, and if I take a days rest, but I tend to work 7 days a week at one thing or another.
The lastest feat was digging up the lawn and the driveway to instll wire and a pipe to hold a hose so that water from the brook can get to the lawn. The next part is getting that water to the garden, so the well is no longer watering a 60 x 100 garden.
After that I hope to build a 2 hydralic rams and get electricty off line for anything but house water.
I'm not a car tech. More like someone who took autotech in vocational h.s. but didn't like it but work on my own car to save money. Could have got the ASE certification in another year but didn't like it. I was a civilian travel consultant on an airbase, the problem is I had to live around there to work there which wasn't worth it to me so I never took the job back. Cost of living there was more than here so it evened out. Might this summer though now that family issues are resolved. Yea keep busy. I've try to profit on that hobby with craigslist or something.
I'm certified with cpr and first aid but there's always alot more to learn, those certification classes don't go very indepth with practise so maybe a good first aid book is good to read. I receive unemployment benefits , hoping to find a job that pays more this summer, but that's quite hard. I had a good job. Doing whatever I can under the table until then.
Good Luck to you! I'm stuck in a part-time job myself. Lost a good paying job in Jan '09. I want to build a small stockpile in case of a small-scale problem in my area. It's tough with no money. I'm getting quite good at coupon clipping/printing and combining with sales. Gets a few extra items in the pantry that way.
Workin' up hay and grain to feed a horse will be Hell if it were me. Each one consumes a 1/2 (70 pound bail) a day. Horse hay has to meet certain specs and can't be dusty. You can feed cattle anything, but not horses you expect to ride. Being just out to graze doesn't always work out well either, more so if you live in a place like NH where there is no natural graze for a minimum of 3 months of the year, and then Whoa first growth is hi test and overly rich.
It isn't nearly so simple. A man can get pretty dang tired walking a colliced horse out too.
And that doesn't even include the acers you need to grow hay on... Been a while since I needed hay, but I bet it costs more than a gallon of gas per 70 lbs bails.
1 ton bales will be out of the question, since moving them won't be easy.
If SHTF for cattle ranchers, we can kiss red meat good bye.
In SHTF it isn't likely meats will be on the open market anyway. Any meats people get will be wild game and that won't happen once a month for most if that. The fact is most people won't have any meats, fish, or fowel unless they either raise them, or hunt every single day.
I won't be hunting every single day myself, because that is wasted energry.
I would rather spend my time working up plants to eat and gathering wild foods. That's a better bet, and potting some small game on occasions to mix in with plants. That might be once a month.
The rest of my time will be making items I can use as others wear out, or working on what's to eat 120 days from now... When ever now happens to be.
SCG, Yeah I don't look at things like a lot of people do. The area I live in has been logged over no less than 3 times by white man. The result is junk littering the woods for miles in every direction.
But I don't go and drag everything home. I don't need it at home, it's far better right where it is.
At the best on a discovery of say a slave whip (2 man cross cut saw, made out of high carbon steel) is, I will make a minor effort to protect it. I know where one is and it is rusted beyond use as a saw, but it still can be a lot of other items. I took that from a brook banking and stuck it in a hollowed out Beech Tree, standing it on one end inside the tree. That wasn't to hide it so much as to get it off layin' on the ground, partly in a brook.
What ever I need to be sharp, and hold a cutting edge is what that would be.
The copper water heater I found all shot up is plenty good for arrow heads, and assorted other smaller items. If it were larger and not so shot up, I could make a big pan for boiling maple sap or making sea salt, but it's not, so larger items are out for that heater.
I know where bottle dumps are, so I can always have water tight containers. Those are also rodent and bug proof with a stopper made right of wood.
But once again they are far better where they are, rather than me dragging it all home.
Just the fact I know where these are, if something happened and I had to leave and move fast I have a goal, a place to go and get what ever it is I need.
My bug out bag is a little different from most as well. It has odd things like smaller lighter wood working tools, than are average. One is a 4 pound wood splitting maul, which is less than a 6 lbs standard maul. Another is a draw shave, smaller than standard. I have a limited variety of Swiss Scorps and chisels, so I can carve out bowls, cups and spoons on a whim.
The carry hatchet is a PEXTO, a no longer made wicked nice piece of steel. Once when I could hear, I could flick a finger nail across the cutting edge, and it would ring. I can't hear it ring anymore, but I know it still does. As I see it that is the caddilac of all hatchets.
I bought the head only at a yard sale when I was 19 years old for 3 bucks and back then 3 bucks was a lot of money Today it sports a curly hickory handle, nice huh? It also has a leather case I made, which is a little different too from most. I sure don't need a cut from that hatchet. If I do it won't be pretty and it will be better than bone deep. No fun.
I can do all of this with stone tools too, but in stone it takes longer, and fire is first used, and then the stone tools are used to scrape not cut.
But my ways are not likey to be popular as they are so far removed from what people know today.
It's a good bet my ways are just over the top, under terms of Too Strange to suit most people.
There is a following I rather enjoy however, of Buck Skinners, with a like mind to me. They often pay cash and trade items they have to get what ever the lastest wacko items I have made recently.
Once I got 100 dollars and a string of antique blue 7 layered chevron beads about 3/4 inch diameter for a all wood and bark canteen. It looked like a regular sized metal canteen with the wool on the sides, but was all made of birch bark, bass wood, sewn with cordage i made of bass wood, and had split white pine sides. Any place a modern man would have used a nail I used sharpened twiggs of hemlock trees, a evergreen not a toxic hemlock plant. I would have used long thorns if I could have found any.
To this day I grin, and sometimes laugh out loud at the first comment the first guy made, and he was the buyer too. He said It's heavey, why is that? I said It's heavy because it has about 2 qts of water inside. He then said it isn't leaking! I said No, it's a canteen and it's not supposed to leak!
That old man ran for the first time in 40 years to get cash and grab up beads... He was right back too.. He hide that canteen for the rest of the event, not wanting anyone to know what I made, or what he paid..... damnned fool.
There is a good book called "Frontier Living" by Edwin Tunis. In it the every day life of people on the frontier was described. They all owned a good horse and yes, you need hay for it. Most of the food was turkey breast (which they called "bread" as real bread was scarce at least in he beginning). They all had a cow or two and their pigs used to roam the forest so often they needed a gun to "get them home". Most of the other food was wild game and corn grown on a cleared property. They did it in the 1700 and 1800s, so could you (or I) today.
ognend, I wouldn't count on we could do that today. Back then acers were shingled over all the time. Domestic stock could sometimes share lands on acers for the good of all. There isn't close to that much land now, not a bit. A buddy of mine who is really remote had a large hog get away, and the cops kept calling to tell us where it was, over and over and over. That thing weighed 1,200 pounds and the cops fear it. It was like pre 9-11 and the worlds worst terrorist at the time locally, with city people having moved in. Some of them took it as a monster for real. Panic mom's calling in the children and over a hog LOL
If you can graze a horse, just one on land you got you got more land access than me.
Pilgrims with cows didn't eat the cows either they got milk, and slaved to get that milk. Your right they ate fowel as meats and the eggs. But you don't get eggs all winter unless you can fool the fowel.
I will give you that in some locals there is more deer now than there ever have been, but that isn't the case where I live. ( I can still dream right?)
If you can graze domestic, and have rural woodsland let me know.
I can tell you if it happens you don't know, how to use domestic stock to clear land labor free almost. I assume you know, but question if you have that type of land, and want to use it.
Let me grab my crystal ball... mmmmm, nope, it's broken.
Kidding. Of course we can't see the future, so there is no absolute. But we can certainly see trends and analyze the situation from our vantage point in time. And of course, it doesn't look good. I don't really see things getting better, so I guess the question is how soon and how dramatic will be the economic collapse? I'm hoping that it will be a gradual decline because that gives me much needed time to get things in order. I'm getting there.
I think your plan is generally good. Of course, you too, are gambling that you have some time. I'd flesh it out a bit with details. Very detailed lists, timelines, and plans. Otherwise you might find yourself "drifting" a bit as I sometimes do. Sometimes it's hard to stay focused on the matter at hand unless you're forcing yourself with details.
I've been working on food and the land issue. I actually have purchased a little patch of land--it's not the greatest, but I'm not rich. Small piece of land in a very small hamlet far away from big cities. There are only a few small towns anywhere near. At least it's something. I have the weapons taken care of. Mainly, I'm concentrating on developing traditional skills as I save money to actually move and build a small home. I've also decided to get a minimal amount of silver (maybe gold) as currency backup. Not much (again, I'm not rich!), but I don't see the dollar ever really reviving. If anything has ever served as currency since the beginning, it's silver and gold. Not much for me though, because I'd rather get items that are actually useful (especially in the absence of electricity). Lehmans has been my friend lately.
So, just from my perspective, I'd say the main thing is persistence and detail. It's easy to get sidetracked and put things off because "things ain't so bad... yet." But I have to remind myself that I don't want to be caught with my pants down when things DO get really bad.
It looks like you're on an excellent track and your plan sounds sensible. You've got the land issue checked, the weapons issue checked, the hard real world value exchange: gold/silver possibles checked. All very wise moves.
Other areas you or may not have already covered:
Stored Food issues. Long term food storage is a crucial issue in the coming days. Since the local Safeway/markets will be one of the stores to be emptied as global disintegration grows more obvious and the population starts to wake up to the crisis. I learned a great deal from the Mormons regarding food storage.
They have Mormon food storage/grainary faciliteis in various parts of the country and the one I visited in Spokane, WA was a huge help to me. I managed to buy and can and store over eleven tons of dry stored/can sealed food with Carbon Dioxide (if I recall correctly) to kill the oxygen sprayed into each metal can filled with various items like wheat, oats, corn, etc. and I factory sealed each of thousands of cans and then stored in my cellar. The Mormons were a huge help and one of the few groups in the country who are preparing for emergencies.
Dry food storage issues are crucial. There will come a day when severe food shortages will grow in severity and food of any kind will be on the minds of everybody.
The storing of traditional heirloom seeds is another important subject. With tradional heirloom seeds, one can grow futures seeds for future gardens and stay alive in the long run. Modern high tech seeds are fake/artificial created seeds designed to make the user dependent on having to continuously buy more store bought "fake" genetically manipulated seeds. Go for the Heirloom varieties to stay alive.
Water is another crucial issue. A safe and reliable supply of water is key to remaining alive. A drilled well where water can be accessed easily and, if need be, without the use of an electric water pump, would be a major advantage.
Fire: starting fire each day crucial. Matches are unreliable and can run out. Try a product called firesteel.....firesteel.com It is the most reliable tool for starting well over 10,000 fires on one stick...produces a 5,000 degree instant spark to start even in wet conditons
Our current ways are failing and these times are proving it.
The only solutions are to wage wars, inflate money, cut everything.
Half of America is one paycheck away from being broke.
Federal government is lieing to keep the markets up.
The first signs of a collapsing economy are now clear (to the average person who isn't whitewashed)
My plan
2011:
cut all unnecessary expenses (car,vacation)
save money for land far into the country
study up on effective bartering
2012:
continue to save money
buy land
keep close to loved ones
My checklist:
maps and almanac
means to fresh water or filtered water
generator
nonperishable food and non-gmo seeds
weapons for self-defense
Let me know if I missed anything and please share your ideas.
dont forget skills. having all that is not very good if you dont have the skills to go along with it.
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, hoping to find a job that pays more this summer, but that's quite hard. I had a good job. Doing whatever I can under the table until then.
