This SHTF of which you speak

The fictional Rambo had them neat guns that never run out of ammo. Gawd I wanna get me one of them things!

 

I also noticed that A. John Rambo got his silver star posthumously. That is a lesson right there.

KYHillChick's father won a silver star during The Bulge and got his ass shot off doing it. He lived in pain the rest of his life. It just so happened that Alvin York was a close relative, so KYHillChick had York and her Dad at the kitchen table commiserating together. She also had two uncles that died at Pearl Harbor. Heroes seem to run in her family.

On the other hand, I had a grandfather whose head was too big for a gas mask in WWI, and spent the war getting carted up to the front and promptly being sent back. Dad missed Okinawa by a matter of weeks and darn near ended up on the Puson Perimeter -- both near misses. When it comes to picking personal heroes, I lean towards the German side of the family. When da SHTF, I would find it preferable to be closer to the intake rather than the exhaust, or in some other room altogether.

 

I gave up trying to put a label on shtf. You didnt have the answer I would have chosen. to me and my wife? shtf is the day when the trucks stop running. The world grinds to a halt . The power goes out, the stores are empty. The slide into this can be fast or slow. The cause ? any number of things. I just know this, Im not going to make it with a knife , some para cord and fire starter. The Farm is the answer for the most part. life needs are as follows,,,,, water, food, shelter and security. Many will also need medicine.

In 2013 I was diagnosed with cancer. Skin cancer squamus cell carcinoma . We didnt have any insurance. We were getting a plan chosen about the time I was diagnosed. I ran up some huge debt. surgery went well and I am now clean. OUR Preps got us through the following year as we paid off those bills . We ate our canned veggies and pastas and stuff. Our freezer fed us. We are slowly building our preps back up. But that was a shtf event for us. I was unable to work, and those supplies we had just kept coming to the rescue week after week. Anything that pushes us into that place where we cant get the things we need is a shtf scenario. Power outages here after severe storms have left the power out for weeks. That would be a short term shtf. eotwawki is another story altogether. None of us have experienced this because it hasnt happened yet. All you can do is position yourself to outlast whatever comes at you. The end of the world is the end of the world. Only the best and strongest and best prepared will survive an end of the world event. the weak will all perish. My wife and I will not last real long as we both need modern medicine I may last a few years longer than her but once my insulin supplies run out I will have to control my blood sugar with exercise . If I lose weight that will help but then there are the lows to contend with. Not enough sugar? trouble. I heave enough insulin right now to carry me through 2018. My wife is on blood pressure meds, pain meds, Anti inflams, meds for Fibromyalga, and more. We stock piled tons of things like aspirin, Motrin, cold medicine, cough drops, liquid amoxicillin packs, antacids, tooth paste, denture adhesive, medical supplies of all sorts including blood pressure machines, pulseoximeter, surgical tools, Alcohol, sutures, Lidocaine, and other stuff I cant pronounce or spell. Her being a nurse makes her see shtf different than me. she sees kids with the flu, gunshot wounds, broken bones, serious virus problems and more. Antibiotics will be worth more than just about any other medical thing. Drugs like Penicillin vk which is a basic drug will be worth more than any other . Infections will kill millions because of lack of the right drugs. This month we have struggled with terrible virus problems due the early warming in Michigan. Our local schools have been shut down because of epidemics of Flu and upper respiratory infections. Nasty stuff going on here right now. We have been sick for over a week.

So while we all think about asteroids and North Korea blowing up the world there are life changing events going on every day. All we can do is our best to keep on keeping on , hoping , praying, and fighting the good fight. None of knows what tomorrow will bring. So we practice the art of preparedness in hopes we did enough.

 

Amen.
Sorry to hear about your troubles. You bring up really good points.

One of the thought games I like to mess with is how many times modern medicine has been responsible for putting and keeping me where I am today. The number is astonishing. I always bring that up when folks start talking to me about the Good Ol' Days, or how great it's going to be Post-SHTF.

I've been saved a couple of times personally, once at age 3 with a Strep infection. I also had all the childhood illnesses still running around in the Sixties (Mumps, Measles, Pertussis, etc.) Something in that mess would have kept me from breeding. Ditto for KYHillchick; she would not have seen her 4th birthday. Our son Angus has never been seriously ill in his life, but he still would not have existed if not for modern medicine.

If you start looking back. Mom and Dad both had their Appendix removed. That was not possible 100 years earlier. Grandpa's burst back before WWI. He spent most of his 12th year in bed. By the time you figure in impacted wisdom teeth and various surgeries, I don't think anyone would have been around to give birth to my folks, let alone me.

 

@shaman
“It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.”

― Charles M. Province

As a reward for their Service a grateful government screws them over.

 

It does not always work that way. One of the smartest things ever done in my family was believing a piece of war propaganda that promised acreage, chickens, a cow, and farm implements to any soldier that crossed the lines. Those flyers started hitting the lines sometime around the time of Saratoga. We knew a good deal when we saw it. About 5-6 thousand of us did just that, and ended up with some nice land up by Toledo Ohio and elsewhere in the Northwest Territory.

There is an account of the Battle of Saratoga. The British lines were failing, and the Hessian Jaegers in the center redoubt were taking the brunt of it. The Jaegers were mostly just big Hessian farm boys. They were all walking landforms that mostly wanted to farm and make beer.

The Hessian commander, Henrich Von Breymann, a first rate Saxon bastard, walked up and down the line using the flat of his sword to beat his men about the head, thinking that would inspire them. Finally one Jaeger had enough inspiration and took his bayonet and drove it through the chest of the commander. Every time I read the account, I imagine my grandfather, my father, even my sons having about the same reaction. My middle son even has a thing about having his head touched. Go figure. That unnamed Hessian, just left Von Breymann gurgling where he was and walked off the line. The rest of the Jaegers followed.

It took over 100 years to get Grandpa and his neck of the family over, but we recently discovered his grandmother's grave over in the next county; it turns out, after great -great grandpa died she just decided Ohio was on her bucket list and came over for a look. I don't think Gramps even knew his own grandmother's grave was so close. Go figure.

Anyhow, nice spot y'all got here. I think we'll stay.

 

BTW: Those Hessian farm boys made a pretty good show of it, even though the nascent US Government tried to screw them in the end. There's a place called the Great Black Swamp south of Toledo. That's what they gave them. Those Hessian farm boys drained the swamp in the 1800's and it's now endless fields of corn, soy beans and hay. Back then, it was a buffer zone between the Americans to the south and the Shawnee and the British operating out of Fort Detroit. Funny how these farm boys kept getting stuck like that, huh? When Michigan declared war on Ohio(look it up), they couldn't fight a decent war, because the swamp got in the way. That's how bad it was.

Not too many of them got to be famous. They mostly preferred a quite farming life, but maybe you've heard of one of them, Neil Armstrong. I knew him at University of Cincinnati. He was always walking around with a cast on his left arm, because he sheared off a finger when his wedding caught on his Dad's combine. He taught me an important lesson: don't try to do chores wearing a wedding ring.

 

When people bring up 'plagues' in a SHTF scenario, I wonder how accurate that would be. Because for example in a grid-down scenario, travel would basically be a no-go. So there wouldn't be risk of serious epidemics outside of localized groups. And any groups who survive the initial 'shock', will most likely be those who have prepared and have enough supplies to keep up proper diet and sanitation methods, which will further lessen risk.

 

@VHestin
Well said. I just can't see people with some type of plague roaming the county side.

 

It wholly depends on what kind of plague. For instance, Spanish Flu, the worst thing around here in recent memory attacked the strong and healthy more than the weak and infirm. The reason why was that the bug hijacked the immune system and turned it on itself. My grandmother recalled seeing a mother and children at the market one morning. The father came home from work that night with a sniffle. They carted out the bodies a day later.

Isolation can help. Take Cholera. My grandfather picked Mt Healthy, Ohio to build his wholly self-sufficient farm. Mt Healthy is just north of Cincinnati. It got its name from being the only place in the county that escaped the ravages of the 1850 Cholera epidemic. Cholera spreads from infected sewage in the drinking water, but once it gets going, it has all kinds of vectors.

 

. . . now if you're talking real plague, the vector is rats and a very few other mammals. Isolation helps to a degree, but once the rats run out of food where they are, they pick up and travel. As a result, you have stories of plague-free hamlets, estates, and abbeys that were spared for months and then devastated overnight.

I had a buddy who ran a private campground on his farm. There was an old outbuilding that he'd outfitted as a place for folks to do dishes and such. It started to get dilapidated, and so he abandoned it and built a new facility. The old building fell in during a storm. What he did not know was that rats had been multiplying in that old building. As soon as the weather turned cold, they started looking for a place to stay and the closest place was my buddy's house. Yikes! It was like Merry Olde Englande there for a while. I'd go to visit and you could hear rats everywhere at night in that house. It took all winter to get them exterminated.

Now imagine how that would have played out in a SHTF scenario. A family up the road dies of plague. The rats take over for a bit and eat everything they can find. Once that runs out, they're coming up the road to your place.

 

This is some very profound insight on the rats.
Regrettably they would devastate a garden as well so there is another area of perimeter defense I hadn't thought about.
I wouldn't want to be using up precious ammo on these vermin, but pellet guns and BB guns might be good for that.
I've tried using traps but the critters seem to be getting smarter.
Much as I hate the use of poisons, that too may actually be an important prep item .

 

I've used slingshots against rats, and the ammo is reusable. I use hexnuts, but lead slugs or even rocks work well enough.

 

@arleigh
"Adult precision" air rifles work well from raccoon size down.

Although I never went to extremes with testing; only plywood. A 22 caliber adult precision air rifle is very comparable to a 22 short fired from a 5.5" barrel.

 

Ah! But by the time they're on the property, it's too late. My point was that without control, in a SHTF , situation plague could get up and walk into your bunker from quite a distance. Furthermore, those buggers are nocturnal. You won't see them.

You'll need bait stations, traps, the works, and remember the fleas are on the rats and the fleas jump onto you when the rats die.

 

@shaman
No bunker here; however, there is NV.

With our open borders, plague is a threat. I read there is a TB that is incurable by any known treatment.

There is a vaccine for plague:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080730140829.htm
However, it would not be available after SHTF.

 

I'm not even sure Bubonic Plague would even be the worth worrying about. However, if it got loose, I could see that it could be devastating. Here's a SHTF topic no one discusses: rodent control post SHTF.

I'd be more worried about Influenza than anything else. Something like the 1919 Spanish Flu outbreak is common in a post-disaster environment. If you have access to clean water and keep your latrine tidy, a vast number of the really nasty ones stop being a problem since their primary means of infection is coming into contact with infected poop. However, it does take much and pretty soon everybody's have the rice-squirts.

The other one I'd be worrying about would be malaria and other insect-borne illness. You don't usually think of Malaria in a place like Cincinnati, but the pioneers were dropping like flies from various fevers that sound suspiciously like Malaria. Back then, they talked about Ague, swamp fever, and other maladies. Some low-lying settlements like Columbia were abandoned early on. Nowadays we have West Nile floating around Cincy. However, as soon as it crops up the health department springs into action and kills all the skeeters. If all of a sudden that breaks down, who knows?

My son Angus picked up this one and started to play it after we all came down with whooping cough a year ago:



" . . . just dig a hole if you start feeling ill."

 

****Pest Control | Survival Monkey Forums

 

We live on a mountain side as a result we have a 2 story garage. There were mice in the lower level. As it is storage; I threw a couple of boxes of moth balls in. No mice, no spiders, no nothing.

Just don't forget, breathing moth balls is a bad for us as it is them.