Do you have an emergency kit in your car? I used to carry an extensive collection of things when I commuted, and my wife still carries enough stuff in her car that she could survive a day or two should she be stranded by weather, earthquake or whatever. A guy on the radio today said people who have been in Alaska a while always have an emergency kit in their vehicle even just to drive to the grocery store.
We have a large 100% wool blanket in a plastic bag that we keep in our trunk so that we wouldn't freeze if we were to break down or otherwise get stuck somewhere in the winter, but we aren't carrying anything else other than the standard jack, spare tire, and so on. Years ago, I'd carry more but I would regularly drive off into the wilderness on logging roads then. I can't imagine anywhere that we would drive these days where someone wouldn't come along before we starved to death.
I have so much stuff in my car I probably could not find the emergency kit or the spare. bags of feed, salt blocks, cat food, tools...I don't have room in the cans in the barn and I don't want the rodents eating the feed.
If things don't change here I may be joining that club. Both our autos on broke down and I ain't feeling too good myself. Teresa do you have a way to go?
yes...we do so far...my husband's truck just got out of the shop for part of the wire harness...2 1/2 months to get part and all done...guy was sooo nice...plus ...his name is Josiah...luv that name...should cost more than he charged us...we told him to not worry how long it was taking...during heat wave...his garage temps were in 100's... we have a 2006 honda...crv...so far we can go...i just never want to... and we have a little dog that cannot be left alone..she panics
I was perusing this thread, wondering if any folks have taken any further steps in preparedness. We could make do here for a while, probably longer than most in our neighborhood, but we don’t bother with trying to be survivalists. If it’s bad enough that we need to think about growing our own and living off the land to survive, that most likely means it got very messy well before that. I think those catastrophic situations are beyond the ability to cope for most. We would just hunker down here as long as we could, see if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. No where else to go.
@Thomas Windom I am angry at myself for not getting my garden together. I had deer problems (ate everything down to the nub) and erected a 6' electric fence that they quickly leapt over. Then it sat, got overgrown, and I had to take the fence down because of vine entanglement. In part, I was not that motivated because the Total Garden Cost was not worth it (especially for a single guy.) But as you said, it may become a necessity. I've dehydrated, put stuff in mylar bags, things like that. I've bought canned goods & such that have been nice to have since prices have gone up. Covering the likely life events (job loss, flood & weather catastrophes, financial issues, inflation, supply chain issues) is what 95% of prepping is all about. But as you said, if we get into a TEOTWAWKI situation, scant few will be in a good place.
To be a "survivalist", you need a group that is trustworthy, as most people do not have the complete set of skills needed to maintain themselves. I don't know how many here know of Carol Deppe, but I was just rereading one of her books recently and came upon her rules for surviving adversity: "You need to be able to walk, run, stand, and crawl. You can read, write, do basic arithmetic, and type. You can drive, swim, perform first aid, use contraception, deliver a baby, tend the old or ill, and comfort the dying. You are able to support yourself. You wash your hands. You are courteous. You function at least adequately in an emergency, perhaps excellently, and you know the difference between an emergency and an inconvenience. You can give orders, take orders, lead, or follow, and you know when to do which. You know when to speak and when to be silent. You know how to listen. You know how to say 'I'm sorry' and mean it And 'I was wrong' and mean that too. You can cook a delicious meal from simple basic ingredients. And you can garden." @Faye Fox may know of this lady, as she is a famous gardening figure from her neck of the woods.
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this elsewhere here. There’s a pretty good novel put out some time ago called “Lucifer’s Hammer”. It describes an extreme event and the lengths people went to in order to survive. I thought it was a pretty exciting book and it had some interesting perspectives on surviving and rebuilding. I see Amazon has it for Kindle for about $6+. https://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Larry-Niven-ebook/dp/B004478DOU
Absolute prepping would have to involve multiple people, and then there's always the danger that not everyone who might be involved will prove to be reliable. Prepping doesn't have to be absolute, however. Individuals can and should prepare to survive prolonged periods of want, such as the loss of electrical power, food distribution problems, and so on. Being able to produce as much of what you need yourself is a big plus. But the truth is that even if you have made extensive preparations, unless you are either hidden from the rest of the world or able to defend what you have, someone who hasn't prepared is simply going to take it from you, and that's if the government doesn't take it from you first, which is the more likely scenario. Where a true emergency exists, and the majority are without some necessary thing that you have, your local or state government is going to accuse you of hoarding and they'll simply take your stuff and direct you to the FEMA camp. We have enough food, with long-term expiration dates, stored to comfortably get us through several months, and probably even a year or more. We have not made arrangements for water. We had water put away once, but in plastic gallon containers, and some of them began leaking. During Dr. Fauci's toilet paper shortage, we had plenty of toilet paper and paper towels stored away so this shortage didn't bother us at all. We didn't store paper products as a way of prepping; we simply bought it in bulk when good deals came up because it was not like it was going to expire. The more elaborate or complete your prepping is, the more likely it is that someone is going to want to take it away from you in a true emergency. It's easy to say that a part of your preparation will be to be well-stocked with weapons and ammunition, but are you really prepared to hold off your local SWAT team when they come for your stuff? I have a camp and a hundred acres of land. I could probably stash a bunch of stuff there and, given that it's a couple of miles off of a real road, I might be able to hide out there for a while. But if people get really hungry, someone is going to notice the smoke from our chimney at some point, since this is Maine and we're not going to be without heat in the winter. If we got lucky and that didn't happen, I don't know how well I'll do once I run out of Levothyroxine, and my wife is taking other medications. It's not as easy as ordering a bunch of survival stuff on Amazon, but you should be prepared to make it through a temporary shortage, and perhaps even a prolonged one.
It's an interesting topic. People talk about bartering with gold, silver, ammo, food, etc., but every time you trade with something, that's one more stranger who knows what you've got. I would not just take some stranger in to help because they might rightly decide that they (and their friends) can survive longer on my preps if I were no longer around to consume any...and in these conditions there won't be any cops to get in the way. I live alone. I gotta sleep sometime. If it looked like things were really header for the crapper, I'd get a dog to have as an alarm system and maybe as a means of defense against violence. But then there are the health issues...
That is in part why you should have a few friends or family that you can trust. We have to be somewhat prepared here since we don't know where the next natural disaster could come from. Putting aside the government collapse stuff for the moment, we have earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and volcanic eruptions, and each requires a different set of preps. Wildfire is the one I fear the most, and the most likely to occur. We went through a fire in 1996 when we had poultry, goats, and sled dogs and a newborn baby (<6 months old). Fortunately, we had friends and older children who could help to shoulder the load. One daughter and one son went with the dog team, my wife, baby and 5 year old son went with the goat herd to another location, and one son and I stayed home to defend the property from marauders and defend from the fire as best we could. The property didn't burn as firefighters stopped the flames a few hundred yards from our place. We finally evacuated as the firetrucks were coming down the driveway. We have tried to distribute food and necessities around the place because of earthquakes, but fire would take everything and one of our caches was raided by a homeless guy whom we believed to be a property owner nearby. Volcanoes can make it impossible to breathe and cars don't run well on volcanic ash, so we would be stuck out here for a while. If you barter, John, you cannot barter from your own home. You have to choose a neutral location, because the person you are bartering with won't want you to know about his/her location either.