Doomsday Preppers On TV Tonight (calves, water, soil, chickens)
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Aw, Mac_Muz, sometimes I think having an elephant to lift and tote things would be awfully convenient! That and some elephants would make a powerful defense creature... Can you just imagine having a mob descending on your rural home - and the elephant stands up and BELLOWS? Beats an ATT security system all hollow!
I don't worry too much about what I have/don't have compared to others. It's sorta like the folks who get on TV, YouTube, or in the local bar and start telling everyone what they have, how much better they are, how much money they have, etc. Why put up a neon sign arrow pointing directly to your house, saying, "HERE IT IS! COME AND GET IT!" ? (My friend Claire Wolfe used to point out that a lot of folks will do that simply to get others to admit to what they have.)
For years, DH and I lived in a nothing house, drove nothing vehicles, gave the appearance of having little to nothing. Everyone around us was in 'buy' mode, and sneered at us for working too hard and having "nothing" - while we just smiled and went on about our business. Then, when they were losing everything, we announced that we were moving - and showed the pics of the house and acreage and told them what we were planning to do, and packed up and did it. Everyone's opinion of what 'nothing' is, is different.
Some folks think that having lots of stored food and ammo is important - and of course it is. But when it runs out, then what? Some folks think that living off the land is valuable - but when everyone is trying to, it gets a little crowded (during the Depression, whole herds of deer and flocks turkeys were decimated in many states, some lakes were emptied of fish, and had to be repopulated).
Some folks think that having lots of gadgets will help them survive, others eschew comfort and live in tents even when they can afford to buy a permanent residence and acreage. In certain situations, some will be right, others will be wrong. And since we don't really KNOW with certainty what type of SHTF scenario will occur - we can argue and postulate, predict and insist, but until the grid actually DOES fail, or the food riots begin, or the Chinese buy up the land around us, or massive earthquakes and tsunamis alter the configuration of the land masses, or the FedGov starts RubyRidging every independent gun owner and sheperding them into those concrete structures with the barbwire fences, we don't really know. All we can do is mitigate what we can, while we can, to the best of our ability and finances, and - wait and see.
SCG, Evidently you missed one show on the tv of a Maine Logger using a Moose harnessed to twich out logs from the woods. The moose had been orphaned early in life and was trained to twicth logs just like a draft horse and could pull better than a draft horse.
There doesn't appear to be any laws against it based on the one tv show.
I would think there would be laws against this myself, but perhaps it's so rare that no law makers thought of the idea to make more law.
Me: I'ld take amoose anyday to an elephant I guess. They are natural to the land here where I live and I stand a far better chance of finding one young enough to train as a pet.
A reason why I don't is I don't have enough quarters tp pay city folk who come to see my moose. City folks families are so strange that one must pay to have their moose see them.
The land lord has taken in a GF and she is a city gal, nearly worthless so far as I can tell. Over the past couple days she's all bit up by the black flies and wonders what the cause of the patch rash is, even after being told. She won't stop wearing the scents and make ups that attract the black flies either. And so she wonders how i can be outside shirtless and not bit a bit. Oh Well.......
I worry some about modern guns and it's stored ammo, but I can fall back on flintlock muskets and flintlock rifles. Not really fall back either, but use them first as I have done for 30 + years and so conserve modern ammo better.
I will likey always be able to find car wheel weights, and rocks. No one can clean out this place of rocks. The problems I have are niters and sulfer, and there is no real sulfers in NH on the surface level anyway.
Charr is a no brainer here, and like rocks. Every rural brook is littered with alder.
I agree there isn't wildlife enough fish or mammal, but a reral big difference is there is few hunters and people that hunt compared to the 30's.
Sure any fool can go into the woods with a gun, but if that fool has no idea how to hunt he isn't going to get a thing anyway.
That might not be so bad as to have a while bunch of drivers in the woods sending me game as I wish. Letting them spend energy is just fine with me.
At this point if I wanted I could have had 6 bear cubs for the taking. I don't and train them man is a bad thing to be around instead, but I don't have to. People who must venture here see No Hunting Bear signs a neighbor posted a tad too liberally for my taste, but these others from away see these bright yellow signs and start to worry. LOL The town road is littered with these stupid signs on both sides of the road and all it does is scare people.
If you get hit by a tsunami, chances are I will be dead already. I am only apx 800' asl. With any warning I can be about 3,000' though, and in that volcano I guess where I used to live will be a salty pond
In my area we are very over due for a rocker. That volcano is the northern end of a fault that runs to the sea and then some under it.
No one appears to be worried much though. If it goes I am history in a second, so I won't worry about it either. Eastern rocks I hear are harder than in Cal and it takes less of a jolt to feel it. I think a 5.5 quake here is about equal to a 8.0 there.
Back to moose a decade ago there was the rage in a fashion of moose dung chockers and matching earrings. Really there was! No joke.
People would go find moose dung and dry it, then laquer the 'items' and make jewelery of it all. people from away were just thrilled to have these items of jewelery and spent money on it. This was almost as popular as weather sticks, but atleast weather stickes did something.
I used to make a minor earning on weather sticks myself.
The best seller was weather rocks which do nothing at all. The did sell though.
Hubby sat down to watch the show with me with arms folded and a sneer on his face, resigned to another lost hour that he could have been watching "Stargate Atlantis" reruns instead.
He had to admit at the end of the show that, however the producers and editors slanted the material on each family to their own ends, it was by far the most level-headed presentation we'd both seen geared to the masses of the unprepared.
Seeing the two little kids suiting up for a nuclear attack might have offended viewers amid charges of "child abuse," but it really was just another way to prep when you have a nuclear site in your vicinity.
The mom who took her two kids to the shooting range was just adding to their skill set.
The family compound guys sure had the right idea for the independently wealthy.
And the bunker guy was just prepping for the threat he viewed as most significant to his area.
All that being said, we agreed that compromising OPSEC to go on this program was a FAIL, since anyone with Google Maps and a source at the county courthouse could get all the info they needed to show up at the door in the event of a disaster.
And that surviving any disaster in Phoenix as an AO was pretty short-sighted. No offense, but we wouldn't want to try riding out any calamity in the middle of a desert with millions of sheeple around us.
Hmm, ditto on the OPSEC and the whole suburb-of-Phoenix survival thing. Both the SLC guy's bunker and the family farm in SC I could find in ha heartbeat just from the directions/MAPS given...if I could, someone else more local could even more swiftly. The suburb folks will be mobbed and everything destroyed within a month... and that's if there is no nuclear danger, no bug-out. If they leave, what they leave behind will be GONE, nuclear disaster or no. Then what?
Did you notice that the only ones who took the "expert"s advice was the guy in the bunker?
I was a little puzzled too about the water situations in all four places. Having water barrels is great - short term. Having them outside? Maybe not so great. The SC ones talking abt groundwater and lakes - SC groundwater is not dependable; during droughts or even if there are too many people using it, it dries up. Lakes, ponds and streams are indefensible from pollution, even natural sources, much less terrorists or other disasters. That was one of the reasons we moved out of SC - fresh water is pretty much a crapshoot, contaminated water is far more likely, between the nuclear power plants, the runoff and groundwater contamination from quonset-hut corporate chicken farms, and the attitude of the people there toward building looong strips of concrete and macadam, pumping from a water source until it completely runs out before looking elsewhere (the State right now is fighting with GA and FL for a piece of the Savannah River), and sewage treatment.They not only leave the P in their own _ools, they drink from them...
That guy in the bunker cracked me up when he said terrorists were going to bomb Omaha - they'd be more likely to bomb Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles; more dead, more bang for the buck - and more impact on him from both locale to prevailing winds. Not even the Weather Channel can find Nebraska on the map half the time! Which is just the way we like it, BTW.
More excellent points on the presentation, SCG! Say, I'll watch your show if you agree to become a commentator on events, since your logic and reasoning is so sensible and definitive. Oh, wait -- you'd still be ignored by the masses of the unprepared who wouldn't be able to hear you with their heads that far up their -- er, IN -- the SAND.
The guy with the aquaponics setup is to be admired for what he's accomplished and how he's willing to sacrifice his anonymity and privacy for the common good, but he's living in an indefensible house in a severely dry state surrounded by people who -- just a guess, here -- aren't on the same page.
I was most impressed by the SC compound, like everyone else, until you brought up these points about the lack there of clean water sources. I noticed on the current edition of the U.S. Drought Monitor that the WHOLE STATE is at least "abnormally dry." Well, if these conditions are not alleviated by monsoon rains during the hurricane season and instead herald "the new normal," I assume questioning those compound guys about their plans if the pond/well/water barrels all run dry would elicit the same arrogant response as when the show's expert tried to give them some advice.
At least I've read on the various forums that Survival Mom and her family are moving out of the Phoenix area -- smart girl -- and that she's willing to make that relocation gamble in order to stay true to the practical prepping advice given on her website. That decision convinced me that she does not think she "knows it all" and is willing to keep an open mind on becoming even more prepared than she already is.
Yeah, the bunker guy's going to hear pretty quickly from his 12 family members when they're all locked up down there in their metal tube after the bomb falls on Omaha -- yep, that's the number one terrorist choice -- that they're sick of eating ramen and cheese and bagging their own waste to dispose of topside whenever the radiation clouds disperse sufficiently to chance opening the hatch. It was an impressive setup but creepily like being buried alive before you're even dead for me.
Some day I'll have to visit Nebraska. That's the state with all the wheat and the little panhandle sticking out to the west, right? (Kidding, kidding...)
More excellent points on the presentation, SCG! Say, I'll watch your show if you agree to become a commentator on events, since your logic and reasoning is so sensible and definitive. Oh, wait -- you'd still be ignored by the masses of the unprepared who wouldn't be able to hear you with their heads that far up their -- er, IN -- the SAND.
Un-unh, no WAY I'd do a show. Tried advising people on forums and in chat rooms before Y2K (I didn't believe in Y2K, but, WTH - getting people to prepare is a GOOD thing, right?) WRONG. There was the guy who insisted that storing 5 gallon cans of gasoline in his 5th story apartment was a good idea. There was the woman who was going to put a portapotty in her apartment's backyard and try to post her children as guards. There was the guy who was trying to figure out how to wire his apartment thermostat to a generator... then there were all of the folks who had never canned, much less planted a thing, buying seeds in the middle of December, thinking they were going to grow a garden - or survive long enough to plant it - if the SHTF on January 1, 2000. It was at that time in my life that I decided that most people were too stupid to survive, and even a little knowledge of the basics, with common sense, will go a long, long way - and sharing it with idiots is a total waste of time.
I guess what really cracked me up were all the bags of flour (and the one the cat was gnawing on, in particular). You can't just let flour lay around for years - it decomposes very quickly, in about 6 months or so, because of the fats in the grain germ. Whole Grain can last forever - in the right conditions. Humidity affects it as does oxygen (people in humid areas who buy unsealed bins of grain have to line a garbage can with a thick garbage bag, pour in the grain, drop in a CO2 cartridge, and seal it up quickly). In dry areas you don't have to do this - but the already-processed bags of flour will still turn. Thousands of dollars wasted on basic ignorance. And they won't discover it until they actually try to use it... Look up "St. Anthony's Fire", ergot - it is a deadly mold that grows on grain, that is like intense LSD when eaten, is not destroyed by grinding and baking - but it can kill you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
At least I've read on the various forums that Survival Mom and her family are moving out of the Phoenix area -- smart girl -- and that she's willing to make that relocation gamble in order to stay true to the practical prepping advice given on her website. That decision convinced me that she does not think she "knows it all" and is willing to keep an open mind on becoming even more prepared than she already is.
I hope she does. Living in a suburb surrounded by people you do not know and cannot trust when their basic needs kick in, without an ongoing water supply plan or an escape plan... that is a huge red flag to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
Some day I'll have to visit Nebraska. That's the state with all the wheat and the little panhandle sticking out to the west, right? (Kidding, kidding...)
To repeat what I used to drawl at my kids, "Go git me sumfin to beatcha wid". Actually it's all the corn - Cornhusker state? - and that panhandle is a source of delight for me - whenever they catch holy hell in weather, blizzards or storms, it's about an hour from me, and I can follow it on the State webcams. Wheat is South and North Dakota.
Natural disasters are pretty uncommon here. All that flooding is 5 hours from me; the closest river is over 5 miles away - downhill. Earthquakes, even in the state boundaries, don't cause even a quiver in the Sandhills. Hurricanes and tropical storms are unknown, as are tsunamis. Tornadoes are a potential, but a 10 minute tornado beats the heck out of a three day tropical storm. Plus they don't usually hit houses - they can, but it's not common out here, because there are so few houses and so many many acres of - open country. No volcanoes.
As for man made disasters - no nuclear power plants upwind from us, none in a 3 hour drive. No hydroelectric dams. No military targets. No highly populated targets. Not even a food warehouse in 300 miles. If a terrorist tried to pull anything here, he'd get shot... and probably get laughed out of his organization - "You tried to blow up a bank on payday and got no people, just p'd off two angus bulls and six guys with shotguns? No virgins for you, moron!" It would cost too much in gas and supplies to even get this far out, for those fleeing from any populated area - and most of the 'food' is still on the hoof or claw, or in the dirt, or hidden away in basements and storage sheds underground. All of my neighbors prep, we all know it, we don't ask, we don't tell. Like the penguins, we "Just smile and wave, boys. Just smile and wave". It ain't perfect - nothing ever is - but it is about as close to perfect for me as I can make it.
The one big question I had after watching this was why did any of them agree to do this in the first place? All it did was increase their visibility in the area they have to live in. The only one who could possibly not suffer any negative consequences in the event of a disaster was the underground bunker guy, mainly because his bunker is probably pretty difficult to find unless he was followed there. He does need some more cover to hide the entry though, and I hope there was a secondary exit. All the others let everyone in their respective areas know what they have, I thought the whole purpose was to fly under the radar when it comes to prepping.
The two families in Arizona probably live there because that's where they were raised. They found jobs and spouses, and stuck close to home. But it seems to me that if they were really concerned with the events they spoke of, they would have chosen better locations to defend. The pool guy for example - would have been better off choosing a small acreage in the desert, building his pool fishpond slash greenhouse, and building a cistern for storing rainwater. He wouldn't have a bunch of hungry neighbors on his doorstep in a SHTF situation, and chances are that no one would even know where he was or what he had. Who in their right mind will hike out into the desert to find food and water? Safest place he could be really, if he absolutely must remain in that area. Personally, if I felt as strongly about the CME coming (or anything else for that matter) I would have looked long ago for a job somewhere safer than a big city in the middle of a desert...At least right now his family is probably saving a crapton of money with all the fish they eat, along with the rest of the food they produce. That was a clever idea, much more useful and cost efficient than a pool could ever be. Pools cost a lot of time and money to keep up.
Actually, Ode, I am fairly familiar with Northern Utah/Southeastern Idaho, having been all over it several years ago - both looking for property and hanging out with my brother, who lives in SE ID and hunts and fishes all around. That property looked very familiar, and I don't even live near there. Someone who lived in the area could find it pretty easily. Of course, there are a lot of very private people in that area - polygamy is a very popular lifestyle there, and prepping is a way of life, due to the heavy Mormon influence and accessibility to their food storage items - not to mention the incredibly rough winters there in the rural areas. There are only a few places that terrain would be as outlined in the vid; i.e., no rivers, no 'benches', flat land, even the mountain ranges in the distance have recognizable aspects... were someone really interested in finding his place, understood how to 'read' or were familiar with the terrain, they probably could take about 3 days of snooping around, know where it is, and file it away for future reference - especially since it is unoccupied most of the time; he'd never know they had been there. Which is another reason "bug-out" places bug me... if they are several hours away, that means that the owners aren't there every day. Easy pickings... especially if the weather gets bad and they can't get that way for several days, or even weeks. Doubt there's too many road plows to his bunker's front door... even with his Land Rover, it could be rough.
Good thing I have literally no interest in what anyone else is doing or has (I have enough to do just keeping up with things here!) and, even though I do have an evil mind, I'm not inclined (unlike some) to put it into use. (I once went on a trip and made notes of all of the ways a terrorist could get inside some very large airports and not be detected by "security" - at one major airport alone, I stopped at 11.)
(I once went on a trip and made notes of all of the ways a terrorist could get inside some very large airports and not be detected by "security" - at one major airport alone, I stopped at 11.)
SCGranny and I must have been separated at birth. I do the same thing. The airports while more secure than they used to be are still full of gaping holes. And there are those that think that putting tiny toiletries in baggies, taking off shoes, body scans and group grope aren't just theater to make the masses feel better...sigh.
On to the original topic. My DH and I watched this and it was good from the standpoint of what can be done. I completely admire the ingenuity of the pool to open biosphere setup in Phoenix but like others have said, his location would come home to bite, especially given the exposure of this special. We liked the SC compound set-up and the multifamily approach but would prefer something like this in the remote west or BC, Canada farther off grid with less emphasis on armed conflict and more on stealth and distance. Personally, a remote property across a big river, with similar neighbors, one way in with a bridge access is ideal. Very defensible. Worse comes to way worse, blow the bridge.
While we are in a city, we hide in plain sight. I talk to no one about our preps. If it came to it, we have ways of hiding things in plain sight and making our house look like a non-target that I won't go into on an open forum.
I liked the show but thought that the sharers painted big targets on themselves in the event of a crisis.
My reaction to that show, to be candid, is I feel compelled a bit to "keep up with the Joneses." Seeing what kind of comprehensive plans some of those individuals have, my feeble efforts seem all the more inadequate.
Me too, FTA. I thought I was prepared. I now realize I need to keep prepping.
Just want to say, I like the idea of the dehydrated goods, that makes more sense to me than the greenhouse pool. Don't have TV so it was nice to watch a show. Thanks for the link.
I like the idea of dehydrated foods, too... but the problem wth them is that they are finite. Once you empty that last can, then what? The pool makes sense to a certain degree - not in an urban setting, though.
I have chickens that produce eggs even in the bitterest blizzards... we hatched out some more babies this year, so we are fattening them for the freezer. The cows are producing calves, one each, every spring. The heifers we breed back, the bull calves we steer - milk and beef on the hoof. Their manure fertilizes the garden, which produces green stuff. The cycle of life is very important to sustainability. So while dehydrated foods make an excellent supplement to a food supply, they cannot be the only resource... unless you think that by some miracle, the populace will kill off all of the rampaging idiots and a Constitutional government - with considerably fewer, more prepared, more sober and tough and rational people - will simply hit the 'reset' button, all within a year or so. Me, I think we will suffer a "sea change" - unfortunately, NOT into "something rich and strange". Long-term sustainability is key.
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