BarredBuff
El Presidente de Pollo
This makes me want to reassert my list, and change it.
Are we close to SHTF scenario?
- Thread starter Shella
- Start date
mlynd
Almost Self-Reliant
me too:/ I know I'm not ready yet there is till so much I need to get to be prepared
- Thread starter
- #23
I think the S has already hit the F, and we are in a long slow state of dwindling. Look around you. How are is infrastructure in your community? How many people do you know who are unemployed and can't find a job? How about when you go to the store--notice much inflation? Any reporting of that going on in the news? And you, if you have a job, are you doing as well as you were a few years ago? Furloughs? Reduced paychecks? People in the next cubicle over clearing their stuff out and leaving, never to return?
I don't think our civilization is going out with a bang, just a whimper. I don't see things improving anytime soon. This has happened before, in fact, it has happened to every civilization on earth at one time or another. A few robust centuries, then decline. Well, we're in the decline phase. Whatever you are doing to prepare, keep on going. Stock up, because infrastructure disruptions are probably next: interstate shipping of groceries may slow down, power may become sporadic. My county is laying off a significant proportion of its workforce. We have already seen the police force and the fire department reduced. Even the morgue is closing.
I am working on getting my last child through university. She wants to be a nurse, and I think that is the best possible choice for her. I am willing to take on some debt to support that, but all my other debts are paid in full, including my mortgage. I recently bought a fuel efficient car, paid cash. We are working on our big garden in the country. We are making infrastructure improvements to the farmhouse, fixing the roof, painting, next year we'll drill a new well. We've already fixed the wiring and plumbing. In a couple years we will move there. If we can't sell our current house, we will rent it.
My emergency supplies are laid in, 6 months worth. I've been efficient about rotating stock so everything is getting used and replace with fresh stuff. I feel pretty satisfied that we are good through the end of the growing season, at which time we will have potatoes, onions, garlic, sauerkraut, winter squash and canned tomatoes and beans from our land. That's the basis for many a meal. Add eggs from the chickens, and in a pinch you could survive quite well, although you'd be bored as hell with the meals.
So keep on keeping on. I'm betting all of us who are in the middle of "getting ready" will be able to finish projects over the next few years. I agree it will be tougher for our kids, and tougher yet for their kids.
I don't think our civilization is going out with a bang, just a whimper. I don't see things improving anytime soon. This has happened before, in fact, it has happened to every civilization on earth at one time or another. A few robust centuries, then decline. Well, we're in the decline phase. Whatever you are doing to prepare, keep on going. Stock up, because infrastructure disruptions are probably next: interstate shipping of groceries may slow down, power may become sporadic. My county is laying off a significant proportion of its workforce. We have already seen the police force and the fire department reduced. Even the morgue is closing.
I am working on getting my last child through university. She wants to be a nurse, and I think that is the best possible choice for her. I am willing to take on some debt to support that, but all my other debts are paid in full, including my mortgage. I recently bought a fuel efficient car, paid cash. We are working on our big garden in the country. We are making infrastructure improvements to the farmhouse, fixing the roof, painting, next year we'll drill a new well. We've already fixed the wiring and plumbing. In a couple years we will move there. If we can't sell our current house, we will rent it.
My emergency supplies are laid in, 6 months worth. I've been efficient about rotating stock so everything is getting used and replace with fresh stuff. I feel pretty satisfied that we are good through the end of the growing season, at which time we will have potatoes, onions, garlic, sauerkraut, winter squash and canned tomatoes and beans from our land. That's the basis for many a meal. Add eggs from the chickens, and in a pinch you could survive quite well, although you'd be bored as hell with the meals.
So keep on keeping on. I'm betting all of us who are in the middle of "getting ready" will be able to finish projects over the next few years. I agree it will be tougher for our kids, and tougher yet for their kids.
BarredBuff
El Presidente de Pollo
ETA: I can't read 
- Thread starter
- #26
FarmerChick
Super Self-Sufficient
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that's just it. they can't. it is too out of control. they can't make cuts to the level needed or they will destroy the poor economy also at this point.Shella said:
that is why a real change is coming. there are no more bandaid fixes for a gaping bleeding wound. the little and too late fixes are over. it will be big changes coming and it has to be that way.
I totally agree that it is coming. The economy has not improved like they want us to beleive. Crime rates are up. If you look at the countries across the ocean that are cutting their debt.........it does not look good for them. If our government has to cut social programs what is the fall out? If they have to raise taxes??? There are a lot of things that could easily push us over the edge. What if your power bill doubles or even triples?? The new EPA rules are going to shut down a lot of coal fired power plants. There is nothing to replace their output... Where I live the power company is looking at having to shut down 3 out of 4 coal plants. They then have to buy the power from another utility at market price. On the news last night was a report of 3 meat processing plants being shutdown. How many new people on the unemployment line?
I beleive that is 1 to 2 years away. I am preparing like it is happening next week.
I beleive that is 1 to 2 years away. I am preparing like it is happening next week.
Icu4dzs
Super Self-Sufficient
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There are a number of items that will give you a great deal of confidence and peace of mind on the subject of "being prepared". If you own or can borrow a p/u truck, clean the back of it and get it filled with wheat at the closest elevator; the closer the better. It is however a good idea to prepare ahead of time for when you get home with that amount of wheat. Have 30 gallon new, metal trash cans and plastic bags ready to put the wheat into and make sure you have a good dry, cool place to store it. Wheat will store indefinitely if kept dry and reasonably cool. So will honey. Get all you can of each. Wheat in its berry form has a signficant number of uses, not the least of which is planting it for next year. Obviously, bread, sprouts and juice can all be made of wheat as well as a cereal.
Another grain to get would be corn. Be certain that the corn is not damaged in any way and it must be dry.
Corn will do several things: a) feed your animals b) grow more c) grind it for flour. It is stable if kept dry. Barley would be the best grain to have after wheat, particularly if you have a gluten issue. It is highly nutricious and while it doesn't store indefinitely, it will certainly store for a few years. If you put in 5 gallon buckets and add some nitrogen gas (food grade N2) it will store for at least 10 years. Nitrogen in the bucket will replace the oxygen in the air and prevent "friends" from living in there while you are waiting.
The next item to store is beans and lentils. Get all you can. Store them in 5 gallon buckets as well. Get some gamma lids for each bucket to use as "working stock" once you have this stuff.
If you can find it, get 5 gallons of alfalfa seeds to sprout and plant. Also might be a good idea to get 5 gallons of mung beans. They are both very nutricious sprouts and that keeps your body happier because the vital energy in them is never lost, it just passes to your body when eaten.
It is also a good idea to get at least 5 gallons of salt. You can get sugar in 10 lb bags fairly cheap right now, but they have to be stored in airtight containers and that means you want to get good ones. Buy some small containers to use for working stock so you don't have to open your important stores frequently.
Now, if you are telling me that this is financially out of your league, I would probably argue that because I paid $135 for about a ton of wheat at the elevator when I first moved to my current home 5 years ago. I have not even dented my supply. Even making a loaf of bread a day only consumes about 1 lb.
Think of how long you can eat with enough wheat, barley, beans and o yeah, get several hundred pounds of rice. The trick with rice is that while it doesn't have all that much nutritional value, it fills the belly and satisfys the hunger pangs. Beans have protein so they are essential to survival. The next item to store would be sunflower seeds. (the black ones are high in oils.) Oils are necesary for survival. Of course, butchering a pig will provide enough dietary fat to last you quite a while, but then you don't want to eat too much of that. You get the protein from the meat and the fat in the diet so life can be fairly comfortable as long as no one decides they "want" what you have" One short meal of 256 grain Pb will satisfy their hunger problem.
Be certain to use food grade buckets (if you can get them...restaurants throw them out routinely after they are empty) and keep out about a half gallon of each type of grain/seed/bean so you can start using it now. That will help your body accept it once you have to resort to that style of eating.
Collect all the canning jars you can find, buy them from folks who no longer want them much cheaper than what you pay at the store. Learn everything you can about how to heat your living space during cold weather and learn everything you can about how to purify water for drinking, no matter how bad it is polluted. Water is LIFE. No water, no life. KNOW water, KNOW life!
Think about how you will create energy utilization. Electricity is NOT that hard to make on a small scale. It is very difficult to make it on a large scale. Learn to involute on your use of energy now so that if you lose it you don't become despondent.
Now, after having told you all that, the most important thing to consider is how much you need for how many people you are going to feed for how long you are going to have to feed them.
How long is this going to last? How long will it take for society to re-build to a working economy? Currently, we don't know and really can't know that answer because we aren't completely certain of the exact nature of the S hitting the F, nor do we know the magnitude thereof. With the Iranians building a missle site on an island off the coast of Venezuela and trying to build one in Cuba, the current "likelyhood of a thermonuclear attack on this nation is estimated at 29%.
Whether it were to come from a nation state or a terrorist faction, is in my mind really immaterial. Both will achieve the same effect, i.e. chaos. The more incidents that occur, the more chaos that will ensue. Then there is the consideration of how your fellow Americans will react. In the event of a massive thermonuclear incident, much of the area affected by that weapon will be unsuable for a very long time. Going there would be suicidal. The population will be decreased and the need for skills of all sorts will become paramount.
The one very important point to recognize is that we just don't know how long our preparations will be required or for that matter, how long they will last, given any number of variable parameters, such as folks who come to stay with you, etc. The LDS church used to teach their members to store enough for 1 year and they have amended that to be 2 years. But remember, that this two year period should be used to help rebuild Society, along with surviving on your own. "no man is an island..."
One of the more significant issues is the psychological effect this will have on people. If, as you might guess, you are unable to leave your home environment (locality) for a significant period of time, tempers will rise, liberals will criticize those who prepared rather than accept their own failure and any number of issues will cause what used to be known as "cabin fever" where someone who is confined in a small space for a significant period of time begins to decompensate psychologically and start doing some very strange things. They screen for that in folks who go to the International Space Station but the rest of us just have to take "pot luck" with whoever is around at the time ZERO.
Talk to people now. Get them thinking about not only collecting grains, beans, and seeds, but vegetable seeds! Even the hybrids, if stored properly, will yield something in a pinch. The concept of hydroponic gardening is a good one because then you can have a year round garden. Tomato is a perennial and will yield frequently. Keep this in mind. There is NO REASON in this world why we should have anyone run out of food if everyone does just a little to help themselves and their neighbor. The old and infirm are still able to do some things even if it is just watch children. Another really good thing to have is a library on the way things were done before electricity. I'm told if we lose the internet, we revert to 1979, but if we lost electricity, we revert to 1879. That is a long way, but still quite do-able. Folks before us did it. We at least will be able to maintain the knowledge of how to do some things that will let us return rapidly to the 20th century. We won't have that many folks to help, but the infrastructure of this country that will be left behind will be usable to be "re-purposed" into things to make life better.
It is also important to realize that we will NOT have the ready supply of medicines that we have become accustomed to having. This is particularly concerning because the death rate of just routine things in the survivor population will be high without them. We have learned to keep folks alive longer than used to be possible with those medications. Additionally, the use of antibiotics will disappear or nearly so. Things that would otherwise be treated simply with antibiotics will lead to death in many cases without them. Insulin falls into that same category. Learn to make soap. Soap is probably the one most important public health principle that has saved more lives than any medication. We won't lose our memory for what causes disease just our ability to deal with it as well. The old and infirm along with the sick/diseased and the very young will be the first population to suffer attrition. The next population that will see attrition will be those who are caught stealing or harming others. They will meet a more "unsatisfying" form of attrition. The last will be those who are injured and can not recover. Take good care of your body and your health. Stop whatever chemical vice you currently indulge, be it tobacco, alcohol, drugs either legal or illegal and excessive eating. Find ways to help each other and do what you can to create strong bonds that will be needed in the face of hard times.
So for those of you who survive the initial event, you want to also think about how to start life up again. That is the motivation for why I have practiced this for so many years. I honestly believe I will survive the initial event and that I am here to help put "life back together" with my friends and neighbors. The most important thing we can do is plan not only for ourselves and our personal survival, but for the survival of our nation and its principles and ideals. With out those, people who are struggling to stay alive will do things they never imagined simply to stay alive. We need to do better than that. We need to protect our right to self-determination and our freedom. What good is it if we can get a cup of food a day from some tyrant or dictator who thinks that our lives are expendable?
Think about how you will contribute to the survival of not only yourself and your family but your neighbors and your state and your nation. The land mass will remain the same size although much of it might be denied to you because of radiation, or maybe even warring parties. The bottom line is that we must think not only of our selves but our form of government (i.e. the Constitution of the United States of America) and maintain the dignity of our intellectual achievements in that regard so that no matter who does this to us, we will be able to maintain the dignity of a free people and leave that as a legacy to our children and those who follow them.
The list of things I recommended are in no way complete for your individual requirements, but they are simple; they do NOT require any significant technology to prepare for use and they can be kept in large quantities for long periods if handled properly. Avoid storing cans of food because they are more vulnerable but good for the immediate use after an incident. Use them first and then resort to your dry goods.
"Love your neighbor as yourself" "Keep your head on a swivel, your butt below grade and your powder dry"
Never lose sight of your humanity regardless of how others may lose theirs.
Trim sends
//BT//
Another grain to get would be corn. Be certain that the corn is not damaged in any way and it must be dry.
Corn will do several things: a) feed your animals b) grow more c) grind it for flour. It is stable if kept dry. Barley would be the best grain to have after wheat, particularly if you have a gluten issue. It is highly nutricious and while it doesn't store indefinitely, it will certainly store for a few years. If you put in 5 gallon buckets and add some nitrogen gas (food grade N2) it will store for at least 10 years. Nitrogen in the bucket will replace the oxygen in the air and prevent "friends" from living in there while you are waiting.
The next item to store is beans and lentils. Get all you can. Store them in 5 gallon buckets as well. Get some gamma lids for each bucket to use as "working stock" once you have this stuff.
If you can find it, get 5 gallons of alfalfa seeds to sprout and plant. Also might be a good idea to get 5 gallons of mung beans. They are both very nutricious sprouts and that keeps your body happier because the vital energy in them is never lost, it just passes to your body when eaten.
It is also a good idea to get at least 5 gallons of salt. You can get sugar in 10 lb bags fairly cheap right now, but they have to be stored in airtight containers and that means you want to get good ones. Buy some small containers to use for working stock so you don't have to open your important stores frequently.
Now, if you are telling me that this is financially out of your league, I would probably argue that because I paid $135 for about a ton of wheat at the elevator when I first moved to my current home 5 years ago. I have not even dented my supply. Even making a loaf of bread a day only consumes about 1 lb.
Think of how long you can eat with enough wheat, barley, beans and o yeah, get several hundred pounds of rice. The trick with rice is that while it doesn't have all that much nutritional value, it fills the belly and satisfys the hunger pangs. Beans have protein so they are essential to survival. The next item to store would be sunflower seeds. (the black ones are high in oils.) Oils are necesary for survival. Of course, butchering a pig will provide enough dietary fat to last you quite a while, but then you don't want to eat too much of that. You get the protein from the meat and the fat in the diet so life can be fairly comfortable as long as no one decides they "want" what you have"
One short meal of 256 grain Pb will satisfy their hunger problem.Be certain to use food grade buckets (if you can get them...restaurants throw them out routinely after they are empty) and keep out about a half gallon of each type of grain/seed/bean so you can start using it now. That will help your body accept it once you have to resort to that style of eating.
Collect all the canning jars you can find, buy them from folks who no longer want them much cheaper than what you pay at the store. Learn everything you can about how to heat your living space during cold weather and learn everything you can about how to purify water for drinking, no matter how bad it is polluted. Water is LIFE. No water, no life. KNOW water, KNOW life!
Think about how you will create energy utilization. Electricity is NOT that hard to make on a small scale. It is very difficult to make it on a large scale. Learn to involute on your use of energy now so that if you lose it you don't become despondent.
Now, after having told you all that, the most important thing to consider is how much you need for how many people you are going to feed for how long you are going to have to feed them.
How long is this going to last? How long will it take for society to re-build to a working economy? Currently, we don't know and really can't know that answer because we aren't completely certain of the exact nature of the S hitting the F, nor do we know the magnitude thereof. With the Iranians building a missle site on an island off the coast of Venezuela and trying to build one in Cuba, the current "likelyhood of a thermonuclear attack on this nation is estimated at 29%.
Whether it were to come from a nation state or a terrorist faction, is in my mind really immaterial. Both will achieve the same effect, i.e. chaos. The more incidents that occur, the more chaos that will ensue. Then there is the consideration of how your fellow Americans will react. In the event of a massive thermonuclear incident, much of the area affected by that weapon will be unsuable for a very long time. Going there would be suicidal. The population will be decreased and the need for skills of all sorts will become paramount.
The one very important point to recognize is that we just don't know how long our preparations will be required or for that matter, how long they will last, given any number of variable parameters, such as folks who come to stay with you, etc. The LDS church used to teach their members to store enough for 1 year and they have amended that to be 2 years. But remember, that this two year period should be used to help rebuild Society, along with surviving on your own. "no man is an island..."
One of the more significant issues is the psychological effect this will have on people. If, as you might guess, you are unable to leave your home environment (locality) for a significant period of time, tempers will rise, liberals will criticize those who prepared rather than accept their own failure and any number of issues will cause what used to be known as "cabin fever" where someone who is confined in a small space for a significant period of time begins to decompensate psychologically and start doing some very strange things. They screen for that in folks who go to the International Space Station but the rest of us just have to take "pot luck" with whoever is around at the time ZERO.
Talk to people now. Get them thinking about not only collecting grains, beans, and seeds, but vegetable seeds! Even the hybrids, if stored properly, will yield something in a pinch. The concept of hydroponic gardening is a good one because then you can have a year round garden. Tomato is a perennial and will yield frequently. Keep this in mind. There is NO REASON in this world why we should have anyone run out of food if everyone does just a little to help themselves and their neighbor. The old and infirm are still able to do some things even if it is just watch children. Another really good thing to have is a library on the way things were done before electricity. I'm told if we lose the internet, we revert to 1979, but if we lost electricity, we revert to 1879. That is a long way, but still quite do-able. Folks before us did it. We at least will be able to maintain the knowledge of how to do some things that will let us return rapidly to the 20th century. We won't have that many folks to help, but the infrastructure of this country that will be left behind will be usable to be "re-purposed" into things to make life better.
It is also important to realize that we will NOT have the ready supply of medicines that we have become accustomed to having. This is particularly concerning because the death rate of just routine things in the survivor population will be high without them. We have learned to keep folks alive longer than used to be possible with those medications. Additionally, the use of antibiotics will disappear or nearly so. Things that would otherwise be treated simply with antibiotics will lead to death in many cases without them. Insulin falls into that same category. Learn to make soap. Soap is probably the one most important public health principle that has saved more lives than any medication. We won't lose our memory for what causes disease just our ability to deal with it as well. The old and infirm along with the sick/diseased and the very young will be the first population to suffer attrition. The next population that will see attrition will be those who are caught stealing or harming others. They will meet a more "unsatisfying" form of attrition. The last will be those who are injured and can not recover. Take good care of your body and your health. Stop whatever chemical vice you currently indulge, be it tobacco, alcohol, drugs either legal or illegal and excessive eating. Find ways to help each other and do what you can to create strong bonds that will be needed in the face of hard times.
So for those of you who survive the initial event, you want to also think about how to start life up again. That is the motivation for why I have practiced this for so many years. I honestly believe I will survive the initial event and that I am here to help put "life back together" with my friends and neighbors. The most important thing we can do is plan not only for ourselves and our personal survival, but for the survival of our nation and its principles and ideals. With out those, people who are struggling to stay alive will do things they never imagined simply to stay alive. We need to do better than that. We need to protect our right to self-determination and our freedom. What good is it if we can get a cup of food a day from some tyrant or dictator who thinks that our lives are expendable?
Think about how you will contribute to the survival of not only yourself and your family but your neighbors and your state and your nation. The land mass will remain the same size although much of it might be denied to you because of radiation, or maybe even warring parties. The bottom line is that we must think not only of our selves but our form of government (i.e. the Constitution of the United States of America) and maintain the dignity of our intellectual achievements in that regard so that no matter who does this to us, we will be able to maintain the dignity of a free people and leave that as a legacy to our children and those who follow them.
The list of things I recommended are in no way complete for your individual requirements, but they are simple; they do NOT require any significant technology to prepare for use and they can be kept in large quantities for long periods if handled properly. Avoid storing cans of food because they are more vulnerable but good for the immediate use after an incident. Use them first and then resort to your dry goods.
"Love your neighbor as yourself" "Keep your head on a swivel, your butt below grade and your powder dry"
Never lose sight of your humanity regardless of how others may lose theirs.
Trim sends
//BT//
BarredBuff
El Presidente de Pollo
Not to bring religion in to this BUT in a way I feel guided by homestead efforts and the patterns they set. I measure the proximity of this up and coming problem in how secure I feel. I feel we are 2 years away from it, based on my belief and intuition. In regards to what Icu4dzs said, I think you should have at least two years of supplies/food you can not/ do not make/produce yourself.
For us this would be:
Flour
Sugar
Salts
Baking Powder
Baking Soda
Coffee
Tea
Drink Mixes
Vinegar
Crisco
Dry Milk
Dry Butter
Lye (but can be made)
Rolled Oats
Canning Lids
Peppercorns
Clorox
Borax
Then supply speaking, I want to have on hand. Milk filters, Matches, Nails, Wire, Screws, Scrap Lumber, Firewood, Hand Tools, Basic Medications, Basic Hand Kitchen tools, Hand tools/devices that save time (ex: apple peelers), seeds, sewing supplies, weaponry, ammunition, and etc.
I think that with main course food storage variety should be present. Icu4dzs would survive on what they have but it'd get boring. You need all of the other stuff. If you eat it NOW, learn how to have it THEN. You will want a sense of normalcy especially after those first few months. Have meats stored, canned preferably. We are gradually converting to canned storage. We freeze very little vegetables, mainly meat.
I think that your canned storage should have four "divisions". Basic ingredients (canned corn, canned roast, tomatoes, green beans, canned milk, etc.), Semi prepared items (spaghetti sauce, tomato paste, tomato sauce, pie fillings, veggie mixes, etc.), Meals in a jar (canned vegetable soup, canned baked beans, canned chili, canned soup beans, and any other meal that could go straight to a jar), and then Condiments or treats (relishes, salsas, pickles, ketchup, barbecue sauce, etc.).
That is how my storage is setup to work. Ours just needs to be built upon.
But skills and knowledge are good preparations too.
For us this would be:
Flour
Sugar
Salts
Baking Powder
Baking Soda
Coffee
Tea
Drink Mixes
Vinegar
Crisco
Dry Milk
Dry Butter
Lye (but can be made)
Rolled Oats
Canning Lids
Peppercorns
Clorox
Borax
Then supply speaking, I want to have on hand. Milk filters, Matches, Nails, Wire, Screws, Scrap Lumber, Firewood, Hand Tools, Basic Medications, Basic Hand Kitchen tools, Hand tools/devices that save time (ex: apple peelers), seeds, sewing supplies, weaponry, ammunition, and etc.
I think that with main course food storage variety should be present. Icu4dzs would survive on what they have but it'd get boring. You need all of the other stuff. If you eat it NOW, learn how to have it THEN. You will want a sense of normalcy especially after those first few months. Have meats stored, canned preferably. We are gradually converting to canned storage. We freeze very little vegetables, mainly meat.
I think that your canned storage should have four "divisions". Basic ingredients (canned corn, canned roast, tomatoes, green beans, canned milk, etc.), Semi prepared items (spaghetti sauce, tomato paste, tomato sauce, pie fillings, veggie mixes, etc.), Meals in a jar (canned vegetable soup, canned baked beans, canned chili, canned soup beans, and any other meal that could go straight to a jar), and then Condiments or treats (relishes, salsas, pickles, ketchup, barbecue sauce, etc.).
That is how my storage is setup to work. Ours just needs to be built upon.
But skills and knowledge are good preparations too.
