Life as you know it !

How about it ? Are any more of you out there as prepared as Alpha Dog is ? If not, why aren't you jumping in here to offer your questions or answers ? I think that the need to be really prepared is now, not next week or even next month. Right now, water is fairly easy to get and store, next week, maybe not. Food is about the same.

If the economy goes down, do you think the farmer will be taking his crops to market for you to buy or the rancher will take his cattle to the local meat processing plants ? They won't and have no intentions of donating their products to wally world or any other entity. Where will you get your food.

 

Wow; what possibilities? First thing I would is get all my Tommy-Tacticool **** out and put it on; you never know when you might need a night-vision M-4 with a 37mm flare launcher and an ipod sight. I could blow the bridges at each end with a chicken-poop bomb or a spray-can grenade.
on second thought, I'd probably just roll over and go back to sleep. Sooner or later, I might move around and ask the neighbors what is going on?Car won't start? maybe ride my bike down to our Shore-base and see whats going on on the radio station. Information gathering networks would be checked for function and I would meander on back to the domicile and figure out how low I will have to hunker-down before assessing just how serious this change of life event is? Assessment is were most will spend the initial time.

 

I am prepared. My group is prepared. It is really not that complicated. My post clearly states what I would be doing in the events/scenarios described. OPSEC prevents me from going into too many details about my BoL, but the BoL has approximately 30 adults headed to it, with plenty of water (both surface water and wells - manually pumped wells). There is livestock and working medium scale agriculture at the BoL. We have been planning and preparing for a huge step back into the 1800's for years. No electricity, no modern conveniences. And before you ask, yes we have horses, manual plows, all the equipment including harnesses, chains etc. And yes, we know how to use them.

The reasoning behind this is simple. It does not take an EMP/solar event to knock the grid offline for years, decades even.

All it takes is a significant enough SHTF/TEOTWAWKI event. Be that hyperinflation, economic collapse, pandemic, limited nuclear exchange, full out nuclear war, large enough celestial body strike. If anyone seriously thinks that America's infrastructure will be back up and running in a couple of months, years maybe, you need to seriously reconsider your position.

If you are prepared for TEOTWAWKI, you are prepared for just about anything up to an extinction event. The end of the world as we know it is inclusive of electrical power becoming rare or so scarse as to be a novelty. Same goes for gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and every other thing produced by a refinery.

It is about mindset, knowledge, skills, and the proper tools to do what needs to be done.

It is not about gear. It is not about self generating power. It is about being able to not just survive, but THRIVE in a world without electricity, fuel, mass produced goods. How many folks here can say they can take a chunk of iron and make a nail, or make a tool like a spade or even a chisel? We have a guy in our group who is a trained blacksmith. I myself can tan leather using animal brains or eggs. I am also a fair hand at leather working. My wife can weave and sew. That is just three examples of useful skills out of 30 adults in my group. Everyone in our group can care for and ride horses.

We have the hand powered tools we need. We are continually building skills and expanding our knowledge base. We are ready today for TEOTWAWKI. Are you?

 

Nadja - You mention protecting the garden from thieves. This is one big problem I will have, for sure, and I am completely at a loss as to what to do about it. There are several ideas in my head but none of them is fool(thief)proof by any means. And the best idea I have (to plant a surrounding hedge of rosa rugosa) would take too long to grow to the necessary height and density to act as a deterrent, not to mention being a HUGE amount of work to put in, in the first place. My property is rural as I have mentioned before, but a footpath, from the rest of the village to the post office and school, runs alongside my land, making everything we do highly visible. There are no secrets in my yard, lol.

I will be growing a lot of container stuff on my deck and that at least is fairly easy to keep an eye on....the dogs would alert us to trespassers so close to the house but that food is a drop in the bucket compared to the actual veg garden.

We owned 100 acres of bush, with a lake and a woodlot, 50 miles north of here but it has been expropriated for a highway, so our bug out place has gone. My son is thinking about getting another acreage but vandalism is very bad (his dad's and his sister's summer properties have been completely trashed in spite of being barricaded from one end to the other). It's all very discouraging - damned if you do, damned if you don't. No easy answers anywhere. My brain is beginning to hurt from thinking about all the angles! And getting nowhere. Thank goodness, stocking up on tea, sugar and beans doesn't take any brain power.

Re the comments about "days of our lives" postings...I am probably guilty of that more than most. However, although this is not my site and I am just a humble member who is happy to be a Monkey, surely moral support, encouragement and sharing of life is just as important as high-tech firearms and how to store mousetraps (lol). Prepping is a pretty lonely business at the best of times and this site provides a togetherness and cameraderie for all of us. I hope people will not feel they should stop posting because their thoughts, ideas, troubles or whatever are not acceptable and only "hard" prepping is. Just sayin'

 

I was talking to some of the older guys the other day and this one strikes me as a hard core prepper but you guy's know how it is you don't talk to others about what you have or are capble of. Anyway he gave me his number and told me if I ran across any small deer where the doe has been killed on the highway or anyone having problems with turkey or deer tearing up their property call him and he would come and get them. I didn't say anything at the time I didn't want to call the guy down infront of everyone and tell him that was illegal then come off as the smart a$$ with the badge so I took the number. Later I seen the guy loading wood on the side of the road and stopped to talk to him for a few. So I told him to becareful who he made the statment about the deer and turkey because the game wardens looked at things different. The guy said I know thats why I came to you and I ask why me a friend and fellow prepper had told him to talk to me. Anyway the guy has a couple hundred acres of land on top of a mountain and what he was doing was stocking it with game that was a burden to others would be food to him and his when the SHTF. After talking to him a for awhile people has given him several horse, a mule around 45 chickens and some cattle they couldnt feed anymore or didn't have time to keep them up. After I left I got to thinking as for the deer and game that is one of the best ideas Ive heard in a while if you had the land. To prepare your BOL with very little up keep.

 

We got about all the game that this place will cover.I did notice that at the stock sale horses and donkeys were going for under $100 a piece ,now that is not normal for around here. Goats were bring more money than usual as well.
Rabbits were over $10 and didn't see many chickens at all for sale . People are getting ready and just keeping what they know they can feed or bread fairly easy !!

 

I have been here:

 

Didn't ford start using the Duraspark system in 75? Why would the plug wires go bad they run 40,000+ volts under normal conditions and most are resister type? Also why would the master cylinder need replacement?

What about the alternator and external voltage regulator?

Not trying to be a smart a**, I am really looking for answers. Most American cars went to electronic ignitions in 75, mopar went in 73. The average car did not have antilock breaking until the early 90s so with the exception of the warning light most at that time were all mechanical.

 

Another Senerio.........
You go one afternoon to deposit your payroll or business checks and get some cash, as you pull up to the bank a big hand painted sigh says COLSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. The grocery store accross the street is in total chaos with police cars flashing lights everywhere. So you go home turn on the news and its Obama talking, you think this might be one time to listen to the zebra. He says dont panic the banks will open in the near future and you money is safe.
This senearo give anyone a chance to start preparing to be self sufficent because theres no other option.

The people that will not survive the inital shock are the people who depend on goovernment for survival.

 

The body is a 78. The motor is a '74. We swapped down, fearing issues with the ignition system. Spare plug wires are a just in case thing. Better safe than sorry. It was my mistake speaking about the master cylinder (brake system). It intended to type in coil and capacitor. As for the alternator, I have spares (2), and would swap it out - it is a matter of 5 minutes of work. Same with the voltage regulator. We have upgraded and updated the braking system. It required us to cut into the fender wall.

The reason I would want to change out the spark wires is just in case. Again, better safe than sorry and the work is all of 5 minutes, if that.

 

Nothing wrong with extra spare parts. Also I think your system has a ballast resister so you should have a spare one of those also. They are not that fragile, but old ones seem to fail if you talk mean to them

 

Did the old military jeeps have deisel?

 

No they didn't. All of them from the original MB/GPW to the M151 used gas. They did start building some disel M151s late in the game but they are far and few between and most never made it out of the DRMO in one piece.

All the HMMWV (Humvee) are diesel, but used ones in good shape start at about 40K.

 

Newer deisels will have alot of electronics. Guess I drive to town on the old farm tractor

 

Well, I started prepping my BOL about 15 years ago... And then moved to it full time about 10 years ago.. Sure am glad to have gotten out of the city when I did.. I live in Northern Michigan, so if it were to happen tomorrow morning:
I would get up, throw another log into the wood stove, it's damn cold out.. Then go try to make coffee, hmmm.. No power.. Put the old percolator on top of the wood stove, ya know priorities, gotta have the coffee... Sit down and drink some coffee, whilst watching the deer in the back yard.. I would make a mental note of how much I do enjoy the peace and quiet of not having the damn TV blaring away.. After a little while I'd go get my trusty battery powered AM radio to catch some news.. Huh.. Awful quiet on the radio... Now that's strange.. Guess maybe in a little while I'll see if the neighbor is up.. For now, not too much to worry about.. Got enough wood cut & split to last well through the rest of the winter. I'm set on food. I draw my own water from the ground - yes by hand when needed.. I'll be turning 40 next year, so I'm still young enough to take care of my business on the homestead.. So I don't HAVE to leave my property for months.. Lets just hope it's a short enough event that things are back to normal by then.. A nationwide or World wide blackout at this point would be just what the Gooberment would need to implement full-on martial law.. There would be curfews, to try to avoid what would certainly happen if it lasted more than 48 hours.. Detroit, Chicago, L.A., and many other cities would burn in the riots and looting when the natives get restless - which is almost guaranteed.. Those cities are powder kegs as it is, and when the riots do start, and it's just a matter of time, the riots of the late 60's will look like a weekend holiday.. -- Did I mention that I'm glad to be out of the city...

 

Aint nothing wrong with a ride to town on a tractor been there done that nothing like the sound of a deseil winding out down an old dirt road. It just shakes your beer a little thats why I try to ride around half a can. Just a country thang!!!! Born country and I will die country!!

 

About martial law. Honestly, I don't think that would last to long if there was a complete colapse of the economy or the entire grid were to crash. After all, even the military needs money ? to pay bills and eat ? Although not much , still better then nothing. After a few weeks with no pay or posibility of future payment, they would I think get back home. Put another log on the fire and fire up another pot of coffee !

 

However, you need to road one with a bent axle. Now that will give you a what for ! LOL

 

Military is government. They can pay with food, shelter, security. The government has stockpiles of fuel, food, medical supplies, heck everything. As long as soldiers and their families are being fed and cared for, what reason would they have to abandon the military? Bills? The military provides the power, water, and food on the base. There are far more single persons serving than married.