It is a old topic, but with the events in Cities since 2016 and those events really heating up over the course of 2020. It seems a good time to revisit that old dead horse and beat it some more. It is pretty obvious that I am Rural. I just don't function well for more than brief times in the Urban environment. In my war torn mind there are simply too many potential threats from too many directions to register and it is very exhausting. I am not a crystal licker but will say entering a City I can almost physically feel the negative energy pulsing outward from them. I could not imagine having to live in that kind of environment and constant number of potential threats. Then I see the riots, looting and violence disguised as peaceful protest and think to my self "How in the hell can people exist like that?" I am not knocking the Urban Dwellers and speaking only for myself and my thoughts and feelings on the matter. In my Rural world there are very few unknowns or wild cards that come into play. I know everyone in a 5 mile radius and know where everyone stands and who is a potential threat and who is a potential ally. The weather is the most unpredictable thing in my world. And well I have trust issues with anyone outside of my small tribe but rarely have to deal with anyone outside of that tribe, unless I go outside of my territory and choose to engage with them. In the Urban environment it seems you are constantly forced to engage with strangers who may or may not be a threat and expose yerself to potential danger at every turn. Not mention the risk of getting caught up in a violent peaceful protest and yer small business or place of employment looted and burned out. Again my own thoughts and perceptions. Which brings us to the Bug Out or Bug in Aspect. For me there is no bug out, where I live is my bug out location and I will live or die defending it, if that choice of fight or flee ever has to be made it will be a fight. I see many urban prepper types that plan to flee but have no end destination plan which by estimation would make them desperate refugees that are just a bit more stocked on essentials than the average Sheep. Ed comes to mind, yeah it is entertaining to poke some fun at Ed but he is not the Exception now days, he is the Rule. If nothing else he gives the impression that he wants to escape but can't cut the umbilical cord to the City. Is it even possible to Bug In when living in a Urban Environment for more than a short time period? Personally I can't see how it is possible as no matter how well stocked and prepared you are, yer going to run out of things sooner or later. Seems to me having the ability, natural resources and knowledge to produce or naturally have at hand in a isolated area is much better than holing up in 13th floor apartment with a bathtub and toilet being yer water option and a bucket of prepper food and whatever is rotting in the fridge yer food options. Of course even being very rural what you have and retaining it would be dependent on yer ability to conceal it or defend it. Call me radical but if it should ever come to it, I would make the cost so high in life to buy what I have that it would not be worth it. And if I was going to go down everything worth taking would go out with a big boom and blaze making the cost of lives to purchase it a totally wasted expense. A hard learned lesson in my life was........ Dead men can still kill you. I am honestly very interested in the Urban perspective and if it has changed with the escalating riots, burning, looting and violence in the Cities across the Nation. The whys and Who is the source of the upheaval really does not matter. It is here and it is what it is no matter the source and if there is a end in sight you need a telescope to see it.
Thunder5Ranch, it comes to taking care of the horses. Live in an area that was farms 50 years ago when I came here and is now 2 to 5 acre single family homes with most commuting to work. About 15 years ago a neighbor had a 14 year old daughter who was horse crazy and begged until she got a saddle horse. 2 years later she was 16 and the horse cost a lot to keep, he was taking her to horse shows, took a lot of time and money and he was getting upset. Told him that there were a lot worse things for a 16 year old to have between her legs than a horse and he decided he would keep up with the shows etc. If your kid has a horse, what does it teach them. .You have to get up every day and feed the horse, water it, exercise it, shovel the manure, take care of its feet, keep it warm and dry, it can't talk so you have to watch and see if it is limping, how it holds its head, back, ears, tail, how is eating, drinking, urinating, sweating, etc. They have to do it on their own, you can't do it for them. Then you to teach and control the horse, it out weighs you about 10 times and i much stronger than you. You have to control it and make it do what you want to do. That requires both training the horse and the rider, and the horse has to respect and obey you. If done right you don't even need a bit and bridle, can be done by shifting weight and knee pressure. You may class it urban vs rural, but it used to be two different lifestyles, I was raised on a farm and am 82 years old. Most 6 year olds when I was child had a well developed sense of OPSEC, chickens pecked but were harmless, bulls and pigs were dangerous and a cow with a calf was a different animal than one without, and if you wanted a 4 H calf, you had to start bridle training them when they were a week old. The horses and cows were dangerous, but were control able and were necessary to make a living so you learned the tricks of managing them as a part of growing up. When His daughter got her first summer job, her boss was amazed at her work ethic, she showed up every day on time, looked around and saw what need to be done and did it, noticed a lot of things, leaking water, low on supplies,and so and asked him about it, when it twas time for school, she was asked to stay on part time, and the next summer was a shift leader with people 30 years older than her working for her and had a rep, picked up from keeping a check rein on a horse, of being fair but putting up with no nonsense. She went to college, graduated, got a good job, picked up a husband, with a background quite like hers, in time had a kid, still has horse and daughter is learning how to take care of it. I not only can not see bugging in in an urban environment, but in many senses it is like the Sahara desert, you can live there only as long as everything is brought in and taken out. I expect the mindless mob of sheep fleeing the cities to be a pain but not nearly as dangerous as the prepper with guns and no food or end destination, the government, or the urban criminals, as they have both some training and supplies and some organizational skills and the ability to justify in their minds the right to take what is yours.
Having lived in both worlds, I have found some unique perspectives on life in each! In the Urbane setting, you are nobody, You are Sheep, plane and simple! People have expectations that things will always be in order, they can shop at the same stores day after day, and that life will be ordered and consistent within their little Utopia! They do not want change unless it benefits them directly in some way. Urban living is best described as living in a cage, one that isn't locked, but you can see the lock and the key and the warden! I spent the second half of my youth, and now the last 4 years in the Urban environment, and it is suffocating me! When I was a kid, I was always being watched, always scrutinized for everything, was I a rebel, was I trouble, was I non compliant? Didn't matter who was watching, that was just the way of it. People generally didn't care about each other, choosing to ignore bad behavior and all sorts of other things that shouldn't be ignored. Then there was life in the Military, you are NOT a person, you are a machine, there is no individual, only a collective. you live by the clock, and you live by the mission, nothing else, and nothing else matters! Rural is completely opposite of everything above! YOU are mostly on your own, in charge of your own success or failure, and it's nice to not have people watching you. Everything is up to you, and besides weather, you are the master of all you survey on your land!
I had a guy tell me today that he's been past my place a dozen times and didn't think I was home. (Just the way I want things to look. Grey, to say.) He (one of several) would have been more than welcome to come up the drive and beep, dern it, in someways I wish he had. All that said, the place looks occupied enough to discourage the unwelcome. That is NOT the way it was in the urban places my hat has hung, no woods to explore, roads without traffic lights to cruise, and noisy. Wild life here of the four legged variety, not the two legged vermin that seem to like the night watch.
I grew up in the suburbs of Northern Cal. Move to the woods at 34. I had always loved the woods and open country even if I had never lived there. Felt stifled in the city, and got a good dose of big city working in SF. Once I move to the woods I found out I slowed down, drove slower, wasn't hurried, or pushed as much. The whole mind set is so different. There is no place to run from here, just stay organize the neighbors and defend.
Same boat as all above ^^^ I see many have got the food on the hoof Update also , at least the Gent I was chatting with here . Im thinking Blackout curtains and such around the ranch . Sloth
i personally think most people are watching too much CNN and fox news... they are reporting riots in what... 7-8 major cities.. over, and Over, AND OVER.... adnausium..... so it helps to regain a bit of perspective by realizing there are 200 + major cities and rioting only in a few.... cities..... regugitated new is like eating vomit over and over..... some point you gotta stop and get some perspective.
I think you focus too much on the rural vs urban as they are both kind of extreme in environment, either large buildings and strip malls or pastures and woods. There are more suburban areas in the country that are a short distance away from both urban and rural. Suburban living provides most of the conveniences of big city living without most of the problems associated with it, like high crime, air pollution, small-expensive living areas, and high speed internet. Same for the problems of rural living-reliance on a thinly stretched Sheriff department or ambulance service, always last on utility priorities, crappy roads, and spotty or expensive internet.
Pretty sure I know the difference between Rural and Urban and lets be honest the suburbs are in reality Urban, that are as dependent for everything as the Big Cities they surround. A world of difference between a suburb of a City and any of the Stand alone 100-30,000 population rural towns. You did a fine job of explaining what we all already know but missed the primary question. Is it even possible to bug in long term in the Urban (and to be inclusive the suburban) areas? Well that would not include me as I have not looked at a TV other than TV land and the Hallmark Channel for the Gunsmoke, Mash, DR Quinn, Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie shows they carry. The Urban vs Rural Bug in Bug Out debate pre dates anything currently going on anyway. The only relevance Covid and the Riots disguised as peaceful protest have in this are examples of what can go wrong and is just under the surface in every dense population center. Just because the powder keg has not blown yet does not mean there is not a fuse stuck in it and someone with a match ready to light it.
Suburbs are a buffer and cannon fodder for us that are on the edge of mixed use/ag lands. While not completely rural i view the suburbanites as those that are going to be caught in the middle, not welcome this far out, but targets for the big city. I would prefer to be more rural but on the fringe is where i landed. I'm not going to venture into the suburbs after it starts and am darn smart enough not to venture out into the occupied rural land because i know what is here and pretty darn sure of what awaits me on the other side of that double strand. Yeah, I'll stick right here and ride it out if i can.
I am living in the city. Both of my parents lived pretty rurally in a different state (won’t say where because my Grandma still lives there). I was not raised on a farm though so never fully experienced rural living. I am pretty young (26) and was saving up to buy a small piece of land where I could build a tiny off grid house (this is my retirement plan- not to make more money but to spend less money). Then covid happened, and while I got some land (5 acres no HOA rural), the wood prices are out of this world right now. So I got land rurally but no house. I asked my family in the area if they would like to bug out and got a hard NO. So while I could bug out then I’d be ditching my family to the DFW area of Tx and if I stay then I’d probably have to fight to keep the little I have. I think living in an urban area = living in debt for a good majority of the population so a lot of them can’t leave even if they wanted to. The city also gives an illusion of being rich/smarter/prettier/better than living in a rural area...a lot of people believe in this illusion too. I’d like to live rurally someday too...I don’t make a lot of money though so I’ve tried to make due with what I have.
This is where I'll stay, on a dead end road off another dead end road. Three water sources here and lots of hidey holes. I'm not in shape to run. If anything, I'm underweight but still a bit wiry. I don't have lots of strength anymore, so I have to be smarter than when I did. So other than a natural disaster, this is where I'll stand.
Horses are a great judge of charactor... My wife's horse liked me so we got married. (Horse loved keep away and having scar on belly scratched). Did have to wait a year for her to graduate from high school (47years ago). Living on the coast south of a small town where we get localy grown veggies, fish from the boats and crabs off the dock. 15 minutes to the range where I'm an RSO and all the brass I can eat... No bugging out for us we will do just fine right here... Good line of sight and zeroed for 150yards with 25ft of elevation. Plan is now to buy a couple of electric bicycles and charge them with the solar array. Can get everywhere we need with those, no problem recharging. Yes life is good.
I'll be bugging in ,,, being an old Jarhead ,,, the Marine Corps never taught us to retreat ,, but to fight to the death ,,, all that plus ,,, I'm to damned old to give a shi,,,,,,,,,,
