Prep now, enjoy later

When we talk about prepping, I always see the usual items and storage ideas, which while all good, do not address a few things that I believe could be the difference between having to work extremely hard doing back breaking work that machines used to do, or being able to "pay" others to do, saving my back and my families time for other tasks.

I am talking about vices. Alcohol, cigarettes, etc.

We planted some tobacco this year, and while it didn't do nearly as well as I supposed it would, we still got fourteen pounds of cured leaf. That's between twenty five and thirty cartons of spikes folks, all for the planting of a few seeds. When the balloon goes up, smokers will be in a world of hurt when they have to go cold turkey.......or do they?

Same with alcohol. Federal law is a little cloudy here, but as long as it is for "personal consumption", the brewing of alcohol is legal. You just can't sell it.

What I have proposed to my group here where I live is that we plan to be able to support the smoking and drinking habits of those with weak constitutions, and have them do our ass busting work in trade. For instance, for a pound of tobacco, I will require two days of working in my garden turning soil or weeding, or two days cutting firewood. Same for booze. A gallon of wine for two days labor.

those who cannot or will not do without will have precious few options here. We have enough tobacco seeds to plant about one acre if we chose to, giving us several seasons worth of seed. Each season, we simply let a few plants go to seed and collect them for another crop. Booze is self explanatory. Here in Florida, wild citrus is literally everywhere and makes a palatable wine if done correctly, so that part is easy enough. In addition, I have [for decorative purposes mind you] a number of papaver somniferum seeds that could be planted to "beautify" the place.

We already store about a hundred of those little airplane sized bottles of booze for trading, and have successfully grown two types of Virginia tobacco, so we're on our way.

Any other ideas?

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=273458&highlight=barter

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=259561&highlight=barter

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=201169&highlight=barter

That first list is by far the best. I hadn't really thought about tools, but now that I do, I can't count the number of times I have seen slightly used hand tools at garage sales for fifty cents or a buck. Back in the day, I bought a large coffee can full of Craftsman sockets and built four comprehensive sets from it and I only paid two or three dollars for it. Same goes for rip saws and crosscut saws. As long as the rust is only light cosmetic rust that can be cleaned off with steel wool, and there are no pits, they will last forever if treated with respect.

Fire. Missed that one as a barter item, although it may sound evil, if I have fire and you do not, I now have the upper hand. While they may be ubiquitous right now, lighters will rapidly disappear when the balloon goes up. Wooden strike-anywhere matches can be dipped in liquified parafin to waterproof them and traded individually or in small packs of ten or something.

Food. Well, I am not big on letting on that I have excess food at first. I will wait and see how many leaves fall from the tree and whether things will stabilize enough to trade food. I don't want a path to get worn to my door. Although if offered gold or silver, I might be persuaded to do a trade at a neutral ground somewhere, but I don't want to barter/trade in my own yard.

Papver somneriferum will grow in FL? I thought it was kind of a cold loving plant. Should you ever do a test planting of your ornamental, do let us know if it grows OK.

Saludos from Peru my friends!

:wave:

It prefers a cooler climate and likes adversity. This makes the winter garden perfect for them. For ornamental purposes only mind you, ornamental only.

; - )

Wow. We are on the same page. Exactly.

I was just thinking about posting the benefits of taking up a hobby like growing tobacco or brewing. I'm a brewer and make beer and wine. I have always thought that it would be an incredible plus if SHTF.

I have been thinking of growing tobacco for the past few years and I will give it a go this year. What variety did you grow? Do you have a link for good seeds? I'm not a cigarette smoker, but I do like some pipe tobacco once in a while... either in a pipe or rolled into a cigarette. It's right up there with booze on my SHTF barter list.

I've added lighters to my list after reading the link posted here a while back about Bosnia... I recall that the author survived by refilling bic lighters from a large propane tank (BBQ grill size, I guess).

Great post. I'd like to hear more about your tobacco growing, though. I'm really interested in getting that going this year.

ADK

BTW, I grow my own hops for beer and a variety of fruits that I make wine from.

Cheap, easy, useful.

ADK

ancona said:

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Fire. Missed that one as a barter item, although it may sound evil, if I have fire and you do not, I now have the upper hand. While they may be ubiquitous right now, lighters will rapidly disappear when the balloon goes up. Wooden strike-anywhere matches can be dipped in liquified parafin to waterproof them and traded individually or in small packs of ten or something.

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Lighters require fuel. A good magnifying glass only requires some sunlight.

wrt tools -> for the last couple of years, I have been making an earnest effort to only acquire manual tools (ie. tools that don't require electricity to work). Trying to imagine life without a power grid.

Back in the way-back days, I took actual wood-shop in school, and we were actually permitted to use sharp edged tools. We were taught how to prevent damage and corrosion on steel hand tools. In the eight grade, we had a semester long project whereby we all built our own block plane. It was elegant in its simplicity, using a simple block of beech wood and a cut out bit of steel from a used circular saw blade. We were made to do it all by hand. We bored the main orifice using a brace and gradually larger bits, then we shaped the angle of the blade deck with chisels. Angles were checked with a T-bevel and discovered using a steel protractor. When the angle was correct, we used a wood threading bit to thread our keeper hole. A small beech wedge was placed over the hand sharpened and shaped blade which we tempered in a little open-hearth gas fired asbestos box, and the threaded rod was twisted against it.

I'll never forget the lessons we learned form our shop teacher, whose sole credentials at the time were that "He's just always been here". He retired during my sophomore year in high school with 40 years of service to the district.

Doing the math, and knowing that I was a sophomore in 1978, he would have started teaching shop in 1938, when there were only around three dozen total students in the school system.

I would propose that older folks will bring something more valuable than all the beef jerky in Florida, they will bring a lifetime of experience and knowledge. These folks grew up without beepers, mobile phones, calculators, computers, flat screen TV sets, cablevision, MTV, Makita cordless drills, laser levels, Bic lighters, cappuccino machines, and on and on and on. New words meant new things and a new way of doing things, usually easier than before.

When I look back over time, I remember my wonder and excitement as new machine names entered our lexicon, making us more productive and reducing the effort required for so many tasks. Now, to Google is to look for information, something I do regularly now, but a mere twenty years ago, not even a neuron in a college boys head.

Many folks look at a collapse as something to be feared, abhorred and avoided at any and all costs. They watch movies on the idiot box purporting to illustrate the dark, dangerous dystopia that awaits us if and when our paradigm shifts. I say we should embrace a more simple life, within which we produce more of what we need with our own hands. I believe that a world where more is made by hand and where community becomes and important part of our social construct, we as a society will flourish. This current paradigm of selfish want and personal gain has stripped us of our humanity and caused us to lose sight of what we built this nation from.

ancona said:

...
Many folks look at a collapse as something to be feared, abhorred and avoided at any and all costs. They watch movies on the idiot box purporting to illustrate the dark, dangerous dystopia that awaits us if and when our paradigm shifts. I say we should embrace a more simple life, within which we produce more of what we need with our own hands. ...

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People riot in the streets over expensive sneakers and Black Friday specials. They are not spiritually ready for a simple life.

This is my exact point. "Things" have become far too important to "people" and the want of same has led us to a bad place.

I try to teach my daughter about what is truly important and to show her that tangible articles are just that, stuff, which can always be replaced if broken, lost or stolen. I refuse to allow her to learn that having things is the end all be all, and that friends, family and righteous living is the great reward in life. Through education in a privatge institution and a little bit of "churching up", she has become quite the confident and intelligent young woman, and a valuable member of our future.

think skills like plugging holes in teeth, herbal and homeopathic healing stuff, for pretty basic things, could be useful too.

Kind of thing that could keep you from getting targeted as a nasty home grown terrorist hoardster, cos the knowledge is what makes it all work and why would you want to take out the local healer .... or let them starve ?

Could such a cunning plan that makes you useful to others, be better protection than guns and ammo ?

Being useful to others, if they are around at all, is probably good in most cases. You wouldn't want to be useful as a tool to a villain, however. I have healing skills, but guns/ammo still seem handy as well - it depends on what you encounter, being ready for one scenario doesn't help unless that's the one you are in.

Where I live, I kind of doubt we see the scenarios so popular on TV, since we just don't have the required population density - but I might really want a good rifle etc for hunting should I need the meat, and not be too worried that a rifle shot tells everyone for miles there's a working rifle and ammo around to steal.

I also have a solar powered more or less complete machine shop that isn't going down just because the grid does - nor will my ability to freeze food. A neighbour with a really serious wood shop is also going solar. I own a car that doesn't need anything but solar power to go. A little welding or other fabrication on demand for the locals already makes me useful.

And yes, a metric crap-ton of ways to make fire. I like hot food, if nothing else.

I already know the people I'd be trading with, and already trade with them. Where you choose to live is, in my mind, almost the entire deal here - get thee to a good place with good people first, then worry the rest. Places where density is low and people are already "close to the earth" and pretty independent already should be very high on anyone's prep list.

Re: hand tools, for " grid down" scenario. Why don't consider battery operated tools? I am a kind of general "DIY" guy, and worked my way up - as a kid/teenager, could only afford hand tools. Good thing, since you learn the basics, and it makes you resourceful and self reliant. But it is such a productivity boon, to use electric drill, for example, or circular saws - you simply cannot do some things without them, practically speaking.

Thus my take on this is: high quality, battery operated tools. If things go sour, I can always hack together few car batteries on the hand cart, and have some cord hacked from them, to my now-cordless tools. So it would make them cord-cordless ;-) . Plus one not necessarily very powerful nor expensive PV panel, to keep this homemade "UPS" juiced between the jobs.

For this reason, ideal would be 24V tools, since 2 car batteries in series would match working voltage perfectly. And there are tons of 12V solar battery chargers out there, waiting to be used - one just needs to rewire them in parallel for charging.

Unfortunately, before considering that, I went 18 V route, and thus I would need to use 3 x 6V batteries in series to get 18V, and have more hassle with charging. But still doable in a day - two. My best bet would be to use 6 x 6V batteries, paired in series, giving three 12V pairs, and then all three pairs connected in parallel for charging. And the opposite for work - two sets of three batts in series, giving 18V each, and connected in parallel.

Clear as mud I suppose ;-) . but trust me it will work, and call me spoiled, but if I can finish project in 1/2 or 1/3 time by using power tools, I'll take it. Especially, if things are sour, and I have to barter my skills/tools, for necessities

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

I certainly didn't mean to discount the possibility of using electric tools, merely to point out the unending utility of hand tools in general. While many tasks will take significantly longer, even become nearly inpossible without electricity, hand tools are a critical part of preps if only for just a few of our many tasks. I like the idea of building an "UPS" unit for battery tools, especially with the longevity of cycle one would get using a car battery with a portable drill or some other 12 - 24 volt tool.

Car batteries are not so good for slow and continuous discharge duties.
They have lots of plates with a microfilm of lead sprayed on em and are designed to give a lot of output for a short time.
Ive seen too many good batteries destroyed by drainage crews running pipe lasers all day and have given up trying to explain ....

Leisure batteries, the kind of thing you buy for camper vans / caravans have the right ingreedients but like all batteries need careful management for long life and good output.

They are expensive by comparison as the lead plates are much thicker.

Rechargeable batteries don't last forever. I wouldn't want to be dependent upon them when they fail.

Just wire your solar UPS for any common system voltage (12,24,36,48, 60v) and use an inverter with the existing hand-tool battery charger. Simpler and more portable, not to mention cheaper - now and later, with more versatility. The biz has gone *far* beyond 12v systems, since a kw at 12v is nearly 80 amps - that's why everyone has moved to 24v or more (including me, like 2-3 decades ago). 24v also runs a lot of milsurp gear you can still find around.

Don't use maintenance-proof lead-calcium car batteries. Every cycle takes almost half off their capacity - permanently. Get the good deep cycle types.

As it turns out, my Volt is actually the most efficient gasoline battery charger I've ever owned, FWIW. Things like variable cam timing and computer control blow the doors off 100% of other available generator sets. And I can also charge that off the solar (and do - it's never had a power company charge since I got it).

PMBug said:

Rechargeable batteries don't last forever. I wouldn't want to be dependent upon them when they fail.

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...that is why I have envisioned steampunk "UPS" wired system above - when my state of the art Li-Ions eventually fail, and I won't be able to replace them. Some kind of a basic battery, will be available - there's nothing so much high tech in many of them. They were available since 1800+, after all (I just refuse to go back to pre-industrial era, wherever I can avoid it with reasonable degree of fail-tolerance).

DCFusor said:

Just wire your solar UPS for any common system voltage (12,24,36,48, 60v) and use an inverter with the existing hand-tool battery charger. (...)
Don't use maintenance-proof lead-calcium car batteries. Every cycle takes almost half off their capacity - permanently. Get the good deep cycle types.

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I hear you regarding deep-cycle batts, this is the advice I read everywhere - don't buy cheap ones, you will be buying twice, and ending up with expensive ones anyway.

I was also wandering about the viability of converting some of basic utilities into DC powered ones (fridge, freezer, wash machine). Of course electronics are always powered by DC there, so it is a non issue (just matching the voltage), and some of the motors are also DC ones (new washers often use DC steppers, controlled by the mobo), but replacing the motors in fridge/freezer compressors with DC ones might be challenging (if interesting) project. Any thoughts on that, DCFusor - do you think it might be worth the effort, given the possible efficiency gains (using DC directly, instead of introducing loses on inverter, and then back, in individual trafos in the appliances?)

DCFusor said:

As it turns out, my Volt is actually the most efficient gasoline battery charger I've ever owned, FWIW. Things like variable cam timing and computer control blow the doors off 100% of other available generator sets. And I can also charge that off the solar (and do - it's never had a power company charge since I got it).

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It is interesting RE:Volt. I was also musing about hacking together some small electric car (mainly for tax purposes/fuel prices vs. electricity price today, and possible fuel-less operation tomorrow, when I am on my (more or less) self-sufficient, off grid turf), with relatively small range, AND a diesel pusher, like the one here:
http://www.mrsharkey.com/pusher.htm

After sleeping on the idea, it is actually quite a good one, for a "hack it together" type of DIY guy, like myself (and I believe Volt's drive train is more or less, an integrated & sophisticated version of the above - i.e., petrol engine is used to push the car, when it is needed - rather than relying on petrol->generator->motors path, which introduces few steps in the process between fuel and the tarmac, thus wasting energy on energy conversions)

cheers,

Silly questions, but....

1) What are you prepping for?
Monetary collapse? Civil war? Natural disaster?

2) What duration?
2 weeks, 6 months, 5 years?

Why not use inckel iron batteries? You can cycle them 25,000 times with pretty deep discharge abilities.

benjamen said:

Silly questions, but....

1) What are you prepping for?

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Peak Prosperity, in short... Like in, "it was good while it lasted", but I seriously think that we are going down now on the "good times" curve, and many things that we are taking for granted today, won't be available (or at least, not reliably) in the not too distant future.

That being said, having the luxury of living through monetary (Polish Zloty hiperinflation, induced on the purpose and in somehow controlled manner, to revaluate and price-discover the whole fecking economy, after the generations of centrally planned disaster that Communist economy was) and systemic collapse (above mentioned, in Poland '89 & onwards), I HOPE, that if we can avoid Third World War, we are better positioned than ever, to make the best of the paradigm shift change that will most probably take place (the end of cheap fossil fuels, and the aftershocks of that - monetary collapse being one of them)

For how long - permanently, I think, we will have to readjust our lifestyles quite drastically, and for good.

That is assuming, that our governments do not kill us all/regulate/tax us to death, to save us from ourselves. Which has high chance of happening (seriously).

bushi said:

Peak Prosperity, in short... Like in, "it was good while it lasted", but I seriously think that we are going down now on the "good times" curve, and many things that we are taking for granted today, won't be available (or at least, not reliably) in the not too distant future.

That being said, having the luxury of living through monetary (Polish Zloty hiperinflation, induced on the purpose and in somehow controlled manner, to revaluate and price-discover the whole fecking economy, after the generations of centrally planned disaster that Communist economy was) and systemic collapse (above mentioned, in Poland '89 & onwards), I HOPE, that if we can avoid Third World War, we are better positioned than ever, to make the best of the paradigm shift change that will most probably take place (the end of cheap fossil fuels, and the aftershocks of that - monetary collapse being one of them)

For how long - permanently, I think, we will have to readjust our lifestyles quite drastically, and for good.

That is assuming, that our governments do not kill us all/regulate/tax us to death, to save us from ourselves. Which has high chance of happening (seriously).

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That is a very big assumption! In such a scenario, an authoritarian government that is here to "save the people" could easily become your biggest issue. History is littered with dictators, nazis, communists, ect. that are allowed to rise to power in times of turmoil. International mobility become a fantastic asset in such times.
$.02

benjamen said:

That is a very big assumption! In such a scenario, an authoritarian government (...)

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..it is a sticky point in my assumptions, I know. That, and the fact, that I am an immigrant, and witch hunts tend to accompany this kind of turmoils, and being "different" in any way, makes you an easy target. Still, I believe that I have better chances to prosper here in Ireland, in times of possible extreme troubles, than staying at home, between ze Germans, and Russians

But what can you do, you have to make some assumptions, act accordingly, and hope you were not far off!

Monetary collapse and societal breakdown.

4 -7 years total duration with a trough of around two years to three years.

BTW, there are significantly more of us than you realize. Lots of folks simply drill down day after day, going about their business as if nothing has changed and nothing will change, while all the time stacking and storing. i see more and more folks at our local gun club with zombie guns, practicing and setting up their weapons

bushi said:

After sleeping on the idea, it is actually quite a good one, for a "hack it together" type of DIY guy, like myself (and I believe Volt's drive train is more or less, an integrated & sophisticated version of the above - i.e., petrol engine is used to push the car, when it is needed - rather than relying on petrol->generator->motors path, which introduces few steps in the process between fuel and the tarmac, thus wasting energy on energy conversions)

cheers,

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I'm pretty sure the Volt's petrol engine is a generator to be used when the batteries are depleted. The Prius can be driven by either, and the Insight is basically petrol with an electric assist. At least that is how I have understood them.

The South African experience...

A lot of people in the West are preparing for a SHTF type scenario.
The general approach is self sufficient, fairly remote/rural with land and plenty of guns & ammo etc.

The rationale being food & supplies could be hard to come by so better to be able to grow your own, and that people who haven't prepared will resort to crime to get it, so better to be as far away from them as possible and armed.

I myself am preparing for a one-off financial shock followed by a rapid deterioration that takes place over 18-48 months probably ending in hyper-inflation & the transition to a new gold backed currency model.

I've finally moved out of a main city to a more rural town (in England), but my tactic is to position myself in the town centre of the rural area. I also haven't bought as I want to be flexible as to where is the most secure place to move to is, but I suspect it will probably be an apartment complex. (I'm also prepared to fly to a third world country for a few years to wait it out.)

The reason for doing this is mainly my experience of having grown up in South Africa, while things will play out differently and quicker over here, I thought it might be useful to share my experience.

Over a period of about 2-6 years when Apartheid ended in 1994 the crime increased dramatically & the currency lost 75% of it's value vs. the $. The police force became overwhelmed, corrupt, and largely ineffective. (To be fair under Apartheid it had mainly been serving the white community.) South Africa which was already a poor country then had millions of refugees from Zimbabwe flood into it as well.

What most preppers expect was true - You did want to remove yourself from the major cities as this huge crime wave & economic collapse unfolded.

The Main City Centre - Johannesburg (From Wiki...)

It is the most dense collection of skyscrapers in Africa, however due to white flight and urban blight, many of the buildings are unoccupied as tenants have left for more secure locations in the Northern Suburbs, in particular Sandton and Rosebank.

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A crime wave swept through the city as businesses left the CBD, which made walking around the area dangerous.

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By the late 1990s, the Central Business District was a no-go zone and a virtual ghost town.

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However where it diverges is that the safest places to be were & still are the suburbs. Obviously some people were forced to move out but people who could earn in the new economy moved in. They have the resources to pool together to protect a very small area in a country/situation where unskilled and semi-skilled labour obviously becomes very cheap.

Examples:

My dad had a nice house in a reasonably affluent area, in response to the crime wave, they blocked of most street entrances to the suburb with huge metal fences, perimeter homes mostly got electric fencing. The one street entrance left open is manned 24 hours by guards. We also had a guard dog, rapid response panic buttons, metal security on all windows and doors & a gun. Most houses also have the bedroom area sectioned off from the living area with another metal security gate. As such it is quite hard to attack the property my dad lived in.

I however was even safer. In response to the situation a lot of secure apartment complexes sprung up. Mine had clubhouses, tennis courts, swimming pools etc. But very affordable. It was secured by high walls and an electric fence, a single entrance with 2 armed guards and 2 on patrol. They are part of a larger security company that can respond on mass in less than 3 minutes. As a result when you're inside you're very safe. Out and about you generally drive from A to B and don't walk on the streets and especially not at night. The shopping malls etc. all have very good security. So your most vulnerable points are actually out on the road which is why South Africa had the highest rate of Car Jacking in the world. At one point insurance companies even refused to insure certain models.

Ironically the most dangerous place to live in this environment is somewhere rural and away from other people. While there are a few other contributing factors (Rascism/restricting govt. laws), some may be surprised to find that the most dangerous occupation in South Africa is being a farmer. Their murder rate is 100 per 100 000 people vs. 30 for the avg. population and 50 per 100 000 for police officers.


Why? Despite having the most weapons, being well trained, they are actually the soft targets.
It is not feasible to electrify and monitor their large perimeter. Even though labour is cheap, it is too expensive for one family to get private security. They are also too remote to be in reach of rapid response type security services. So you have just one family with killer guard dogs, plenty of guns who are well trained but they can't be 'on guard' 24 hours a day. They try staying in radio contact with nearby farms and have farm watch type groups but they are largely ineffective. As a result they are most at risk from roving gangs of 3+ experienced armed criminals. (The dogs in both rural and urban areas are often incapacitated with drugged meat.)


I don't think going remote is a bad idea especially if things deteriorate in very rapid fashion before neighbourhoods and the free market have time to respond with security solutions plus another big part of it is that you are self sufficient and don't need to worry about earning a living in severely depressed economy.

But just thought I'd share an alternative view that I don't see mentioned a lot that a small apartment in a secure complex might be your safest & probably cheapest solution security wise. & if you are part of the 25% of the population/economy that is still functioning food is actually very affordable, (even in Africa where people are starving and there are droughts etc.) In fact you live very well, a full time housekeeper costs $160 a month for example. However if you have an unskilled job or one that is paid for by government then you will really struggle, because everybody will be fighting for those jobs and the minimum wage will barely give you enough money for food.

Thanks for the alternate perspective, very interesting!

What you posted sounds exactly what I heard from a friend who went to work in Joberg for a while. The description of an affluent, white-collar neighborhood was spot on with the guards, dogs, guns, panic buttons etc.

He also said that the locals, the ones with at least half a brain and some spare change, had bugout plans. Usually, if it was an option, they would have arrangements to run to extended family living elsewhere in the anglosphere, and even had cash and clothes etc. in place as to not be totally SOL on arrival.

I can relate to your point of view on the apartment complex. Since I have been seriously considering indebting myself for a single-family dwelling, the idea of securing such a place (even a modest one) seems much more complex than a 1 door dwelling several stories up (at least living alone). But then again, in an apartment you are not the only one with a key to your place. Tradeoffs...

Thanks,

Yes definitely a lot had a bugout plan in place, especially during the 1994 elections. (The first democratic elections in the country.) One of the African parties favourite chant was 'one settler, one bullet'. (A young American girl. Amy Biehl, who was ironically an anti-apartheid activist was pulled from her car and beaten to death by a mob chanting these slogans at the time.)

It's one of the reasons why my parents and I never got a South African passport even though we qualified for dual nationality. Because if there were any problems, full British nationals had fully embassy protection. (They would have flown in as many planes and armed forces as needed to get British people out) but people with dual nationality did not have the same benefits.

(Regards keys, no-one else has keys to your place in the South African complexes.)

I don't think of myself "out here" as anything like a "soft target" - but then this isn't SA, and we don't have the strife already in place, with a large group having an axe to grind with those who are "well off" by comparison.

I have heard stories from a friend I have who is from there that bear you out, however - it's the natives, not the animals, that are the crop pests, and he has had to deal with them violently on occasion.

What concerns me now as I become known as a "prepper" - even though I don't carry the political baggage most do - I'm merely a successful homesteader, which amounts to nearly the same set of preps (we do have bad crop years, so store food, and so forth) - is that as this becomes known, a ton of people I consider losers are asking me if they can come here if TSHTF. How to respond to that?

There are some people I'd say "sure, you'd be welcome, and bring your stuff too - I've got the resources, but need help to use them". But those aren't the ones asking at this point - they already know for one thing, and for another, anyone would be dumb to turn them down and they know that - they are skilled, independent, resourceful.

For example, of some of the people here were to show up with a smile - they're in, no question at all. I'll keep the lights on for ya.

I'm writing this because just last night, a guy I was vid chatting with from Canada who appears to be utterly dependent on their medical care system, has no skills I could discover, is in bad shape, knows almost nothing about anything - begged me for a "ticket". I did not say yes. I didn't say no (something about Canadian politeness is catching) - but I sure thought it. Why would anyone want his sorry ass?
I couldn't come up with a reason.

I mean, friends are friends, but the basis is some sort of equality on some level, I don't exist to make so they can take - even if I have it to give, I might decide to be choosy (Elitist? So be it). I *earned* what I have...and it took decades to build, and that with help from others. They are of course at the top of the list should they need my help - but it's not likely they will - they were the ones who taught me how to live in the woods in the first place, and helped me build this place to what it is.

/**********************/

I saw a mention about the Volt above. Actually, the Volt's super-neat transmission can use the engine directly to drive the wheels, with one of the electric motors used as a generator to run the other motor to give the right gear ratio (it's a two input shaft design, with two electric and one gasoline source, and some computer controlled clutches). The two input shafts are to different parts of a ring/planet/sun gear system, parts of which can also be clutched to "ground" when required to keep some input shaft in a good rpm range for whatever is driving it - or whatever it is driving. The motors can even spin backwards while going forwards to set up desireable net gear ratios for driving the car - it's very very clever design.

The prius has a tiny battery - maybe 100 yards worth...it's not in the running for this kind of work, and can't charge its battery while parked. The Volt, I can turn on in the drive way, parked, and if I run down its battery (with the inverter I put on it to provide emergency backup power) - the engine kicks on in generator mode to keep it up - in tests here, it comes on about every 20 min for about 90 seconds, to provide roughly 700w of output power (what my house battery charger draws). It takes over a day to use a gallon of gas doing that. Far better than even the expensive honda inverter-generator I also have.

Shit, what most call prepping is how most small farmer live normally. You plan for a bad year now and then - so you store food. You probably don't have much money you didn't spend on tools. Of course you have a gun (or a few) since those are tools of the trade - varmints. You are, by nature, trying to be more than self-sufficient - else there's no profit. Strangely, it leads to all the same stuff. They kind of feel like the world is nuts for calling them preppers - we just call it "living" around here.
If it's really true that having a lot of food stashed, and those other things, makes you a terrorist suspect - well, we're the guys who feed the rest - some terrorism, eh?

I think the world has already gone crazy.

DC,
You hit the nail directly on the head my man, I think I even saw a spark. Down here in Florida, I have a number of friends and acquaintances that have mentioned in passing that if the shit ever hit the fan, they would be knocking on my door. I always let them know in a very nice and humorous way that indeed I have some preps, but they are for my family and a very few friends who had the foresight to prep for themselves. In addition, I let them know there is still time for them to exact some preps for themselves and perhaps get involved with a local group of like mind. when I say local, I mean within a very few miles, not thirty miles, since fuel will be dear and travel will likely be dangerous.

One guy in particular took a bit of offense and said, "Really? I will have to knock your door down then and just help myself". I couldn't believe the temerity of that statement, but believe him nonetheless. My response was, "I hope you can outrun a 5.56 fusillade of bullets, because to get my shit will take more than your usual bullying my friend.

The other two folks with us at the time are hard core preppers and good friends that I would never hesitate to pop in if they needed to because they have valuable skill sets and valuable preps, but the bullying muscle-head simply announced his intention to become part of the golden horde, which is good information to have. I recommend that folks keep a list of individuals you believe would not hesitate to steal from you or to harm you to get at your preps. It never hurts to be ready.

The entitled class is not limited to the very poor. It includes tens of millions of civil servants and federal workers who believe themselves to be entitled to the very best. These people will be the first ones to demand that residents surrender all their food and supplies "for the common good" to be redistributed "equally" among all eligible residents.

ancona said:

... I recommend that folks keep a list of individuals you believe would not hesitate to steal from you or to harm you to get at your preps. ...

Click to expand...

Here's my list:

Everyone but immediate family.

PMBug said:

Here's my list:

Everyone but immediate family.

Click to expand...

and they would be the FIRST to try to rob us... (except the ones living in this house)

Step one: Move out of the urban areas

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130613/DA6SKU0G0.html

"...15 percent of the U.S. population, reside in rural counties, which spread across 72 percent of the nation's land area. From 2011 to 2012, those non-metro areas lost more than 40,000 people, a 0.1 percent drop."

I send links to my friends whenever Costco.com has a sale on dehydrated emergency food. I usually try to time these messages whenever North Korea is in the news planning another nuclear test or missile launch. I am slowly getting a few of them to buy a couple of days worth of food to keep in an emergency, but I usually get several responses along the lines of "we're just coming over to your house if anything bad happens"...lol. I have made it a personal cause to remind people that food does not just magically appear on the shelves and that in an emergency (i.e. like in New Orleans when it took days before the authorities got back in there) that it's not crazy to have a "Plan B" because most of us are not used to starving.

However, in reality it's hard to plan for every type of disaster (do I really need radiation protective clothing and gas masks?) and I don't have the skills. I think I could deal with two types of problems. The first would some kind of disruption that resolves itself in a month or two where I just need to hunker down in my home and wait it out. (hurricane, earthquake, flu outbreak, Michele Obama becomes president). The second would be the South Africa experience where neighborhoods band together to provide common security because our economy just goes off the rails and can't get itself back on again, but the smarter people in general don't lose their cool, so we just have to find a different economic model. Our neighborhood could be secured and we have some very skillful people here and I am sure we would be able to keep functioning in some way.

If we get anything more serious than that I am not going to be able to cope with it for very long because I am not prepared to be that mean. If my neighbors did knock on my door I wouldn't have the heart to turn them away, and so we would quickly run out of resources and be swept away with the rest. I don't really believe in my heart that that would ever happen, so for me at least I feel good about having a rational plan for emergencies, and a large group of friends that would band together to help each other if the South African experience started here. It was very reassuring to read Unbeatables account of how they coped (thank -you!).

:agree:I've been harping on that one for awhile, Benjamin. Anyone who thinks a last minute bugout is going to get it done is delusional. By the time people get off their ass - because it's so bad where they are - things will have also changed elsewhere and that plan probably won't fly in reality, though it might make some feel a little less fear, for now.

If you really think somewhere else is better, or going to be better - I think it's dumb not to just get there now and get established. It was hard for me as a much younger guy...a lot of people here will find it impossible, but won't believe what I'm saying till they find out. Better to find out now, while things are basically "not that bad" than when it's "do or die", or so I think. The place I already bugged out to IS better, but it wasn't at first, it took a ton of work to get there, and get that all-important community set up and working smoothly - even in a very sparse human population, that issue is super-important.

Ancona, I tried NiCd batteries (similar to nickel-iron, but better) from a locomotive, at first. The trouble is, nearly all modern solar systems can't be adjusted to the weird voltages and much wider range of them that Ni-? batteries are - you can't just set up a 12 or 24 system of them that has the same characteristics everything is programmed for - This is not to say they aren't intrinsically better (though they do have some other issues with the hydroxide electrolyte getting contaminated with CO2 from the air - and it does penetrate that special oil they float on top to prevent this, and it more or less ruins them permanently), but just that you can't make modern "impedance matching, multi-stage charge" solar controllers work well with them, and no commercial (read - affordable) inverters will work over that wide a range and give reasonably regulated output AC. Been there, done that.
I was able to make that work for awhile, with constant adjusting (manual) of all the inputs and outputs. I didn't need that extra work.

So I'm using what amount to submarine batteries - same as the military - who has their choice of anything whatever, including custom everything with no concern for price (and you know - even surplus, NiCd's cost many times what lead acid do). These have a 25 year warranty, so I'm not worried - they will probably outlive me.

benjamen said:

Step one: Move out of the urban areas

Click to expand...

I think it's better to be in a suburban area than a rural area IMHO.. I think well hidden preps are better to have than an entire farm. Having an obvious food source means you are going to have to constantly defend it. The more visible resources you have, the more likely someone is going to try to get it from you. People aren't going to be jumping fences and breaking into your home, risking their lives over 3 chickens. They will be searching rural areas where they can get more for risking their own skin. At least, that's how i'd expect it to go down..

I'm kind of on the fence about bug-out locations, but agree with some of what DSA says about constant vigilance in a remote or rural farm. We can adequately defend out couple of acres from interlopers and it produces enough using intensive growing techniques to supply far more food than anyone could ever anticipate. while we are on the edge of semi-rural, my street is the last of the cut out lots [1/4 acre] which border "residential agricultural" lots of 10 or more acres. We like it here because we have a number of like minded folks who will network with us in the event that the balloon goes up.

I don't think DSA is seeing this right (cognitive bias based on where he is now?). I've lived in suburbia. Anyone who thinks someone won't kill you for a can of soup, much less a few chickens hasn't missed enough meals to know - and then they move on to the next easy pickings. And in suburbia, the supply of thieves is more or less unlimited, and it's also where a lot of "entitled mentality" types live.

Whereas, out here on my farm, to even get to me, they'd have to travel more miles from the nearest city than most would have gas to go - and some can't find me with a map and GPS (just forget by accident), and they have to pass a ton of other farms on the way to me - and those guys are also prepped and will pick most of them off before I even know about it - then call me on radio to warn me. I not only don't have to worry about them - I can count on *all* of them for help.

It's easy with modern tech to surveil one's borders, and I've got that set up - and so do the neighbors. Just crossing my border means it's still many minutes to where I and most of my stashes are by any conceivable transport they'd have along - unless you come right up my driveway with a technical - and then I give you only a 20% chance at me at most - I know where my walls are bulletproof, you'd better bring artillery - what starving zombie has that? I know every tree, bottom, blade of grass - and how to move in the woods without detection, even from FLIR.

Want to take me on? You won't do well unless you're a hollywood grade sniper with nothing better to do than wait in the woods for a week on a very slow stalk - I kind of doubt that situation arises. And certainly without warning. Reality ain't hollywood, and a starving person can't (or won't) wait. You'd do lots better knocking on the door with a smile - and live longer.

I'm not a jerk, I'll share what I have showing (but not all - reserves are just that, and I have no trouble saying, look, you can see I'm out of what you want.).

But attack me or my extended family - I'll make a mother bear defending her cubs look like a gentle creature. I know, I've "seen the elephant" - been there, done that.
I truly doubt it comes to anything like that - but as they say, plan for the worst while hoping for the best.

I get the protect the family at all costs concept (and agree), however, the weak link in trying to plan for the end of the world is that we get some pretty good benefits from advanced technology, medical for one (MRI's, advanced antibiotics, surgical techniques, cancer drugs) that would be very difficult to find if everybody is running around shooting each other over food. I still kind of lean towards thinking that the worst case scenario is also the least likely possibility because people always seem to organize themselves into some kind of social and economic group. Most people are by nature social creatures. I mean sure a few people might get shot or summarily executed in order to calm down the mob, but once everyone is sitting quietly back in their seats the guy at the podium is going to explain how things are going to operate, and he's going to have an army behind him, so I think we're going to have to listen. I am not sure there will ever be a good enough hiding place to stay out of the way forever, and even if you can, eventually you might just find yourself needing a surgeon or antibiotic (for somebody you love) and then you'll be part of the "system" again because you will be trading with the new guys in town, and they are going to want something back. So round and round we go and end up back where we started.

So I think prepping and having an emergency plan is smart, but I think if you're stacking and storing for the end of the world you're going to be depressed if it really happens. In other words it's almost like why bother if it's going to be some version of "Mad Max"?