When I think of survival, I tend to think of my favorite SKS and how many spam cans of ammo, well minus the one I shot last week, but that was for practice of course and I have a bridge for sale too. The thread on gloves got me to thinking about the real survival tools that we must have and we may use often. Gloves, summer and winter, work and shooting are a good start. Would be hard to survive a tour of guard duty with a pair of gloves that you have to take off in order to fit your trigger finger into the trigger area and I know from experience that finger type mittens will not keep your hands warm if it is real cold. But a good axe is just as important if you are going to live in a rural area, then an axe it is for cutting and will not work well for splitting, for that you need a splitting maul. Then if you need to use wedges, to get you axe out of the wood, or split a hard piece of wood, you need something to drive it with. Using your axe will destroy it in a very short time. Then you need saws to cut up the wood, chainsaw now and bow saw and crosscut if you want to be stealthy or after TSHTF. Then you need to get the wood out of the woods and to your house. A wheelbarrow may not be a real "survival" tool, but it will let you take 10 times as much out in one trip and doesn't require gas. Now my favorite off road survival tool to get my wood in is my garden tractor with the deck removed. In the fall I take it off, sharpen the blades, check the belts, clean it up, paint it and grease it and store the deck for the winter. This leaves me with a good lawn mower in the spring and an off the road fuel efficient, low speed automatic transmission 20 horsepower vehicle to pull my 2 wheel trailer with a capacity to haul out 500 lbs of wood at my leisure. I have stored a new ignition, starting, and generating system for it in tinfoil and in ammo can for less than $250 and they are normal spares if I need them. The powers that be are never going to look at the mower as a survival tool and I can drive 5 to 10 miles on it if I have to in an hour or less, go through woods and fields to bypass obsticles and it doesn't frighten anyone. It is quiet and you need one to mow the grass. You can often buy the really large older ones for a $100 or two at yard sales and if you are using them for a woods tractor, you don't care if the mower deck is worn out. As long as the transmission and the engine are good, often better then the new cheap ones from Walleymart, they are a nice tool. If it has a belt output of power take off, you can add a generator if you wish and park it . Well the sme thing is true for gardening, jeeps, 4 wheelers, etc. What is your favorite "stealth" survival tool? I do include goats in that catogory, even if I don't have any.
Great post Duanet. True enough a garden tractor could really come in handy, especially when you consider it as a generator as well. Do they sell "ready made" generators for this? Just as a funny side note Duanet.... you have seen the ongoing "tactical wheelbarrow" joke, haven't you? Look it up if you haven't, it's worth several good laughs! Somebody could take it a step farther now and design a "tactical garden tractor" And snowbyrd is already on the "bug out goat" thing
In gander mtn today saw a battery charging pv panel 12v 1watt$ 160 figure that plus a couple of deepcycle batteries and an inverter could make life alot more comfortable in the basement shelter room. I too think simple garden tools will be necessary . a "tacbarrow", bicycletrailer or hand cart will make hauling water from the lake 2miles away alot easier and safer.if needed.
You hit the nail on the head and it didn't bend! Everything you do every day is survival. In the short run, going to work today, taking a shower, shaving, putting on your "work" clothes, driving to work, making the boss happy, and getting the paycheck is survival. If you don't do it they will throw you out of your house, disconnect the internet, and you will live on the gifts of others or die. Now that we have focused a bit, what can we think about that will let us live a little better today and hopefully prepare to live a better tomorrow if things change. Now for me this is not a theoritical question. I am 69 and while I am still working by the grace of God, I can not expect to continue forever. In the near future my health is going to deteriate, my income drop by at least 50 %, and many of my friends and companions are going to die. What can I do to maximize my comfort and minimize the stress on my life? Heating with wood is good example, it limits my expenses and I have enough for 3 years now at my present life style and perhaps 5 years if we minimize. If necessary that would include cooking. But the important thing is that I have "saved" in a physical sense $2,000 a year, in current dollars, for the next 3 years and as an added bonus it is inflation proof. The same thing is true of your garden, goats, energy saving or alternative energy projects, health care, or any other "survival" tools. Having a years supply of food is good, but eating good healthy food prepared at a relatively low price from the stored food today and modifing your storage to keep that years supply in things you know that you can eat and enjoy is even better. Most of the year 2000 year storage food has not been touched and most of it wasn't suited to eat in the first place. Mre's or wheat can get to be deadly dull, but fresh kale and spinich out of the garden are so good this time of the year. My idea of stealth survival is to use as many of the "long term survival" tools to make my life as pleasant as possible before TSHTF. I don't keep guns, reload ammo, shoot about once a week, and train to surrvive an attack of MZB's, I keep guns because it is one heck of a fine hobby and I enjoy the heck out of the people who are also into shooting, hunting and fishing. I find it a very good filter for removing the BSers in life who are trying to tell you how to lead your life or sell you something. As a slight bonus, I think that if the SHTF, having personal knowledge of 10 people with weapons, with skills to use them, and the ammo that they use, and knowing which ones are good guys and which are BSers that you wouldn't want to trust with your life may be pro survival. In Light Out, the "real" survivers were the old farmear and the hero with the martial arts training who had his head screded on straight and not the ones with a poorly planned million dollar survival site. Time to go to work, so I cn geat that paycheck and pay to connect to the internet and read some more good suggestions for today and tomorrow. God be with you all.
Amen brother. Survival is every day life, not some catastrophic event lurking around the corner in our imagination.
