As you wander through the great miasma of life you suddenly feel a compulsion to prepare yourself for hard times, or disaster. How this realization, or epiphany, came upon you is a matter of discussion. No one set of circumstances fits all. It is just a matter of your mental alarm clock going off and waking you up. It is just a matter of a ray of light coming through the clouds of mental debris that covers our globe. And if your moment arrives, I say welcome. You have a lot of ground to cover and no one can give you an exact time frame as to when you have to have completed your mission. How's that for an exact science!
But prepare in earnest, because things don't look too good right now. There are so many catastrophies hanging over our heads at the moment that it boggles the mind to even try to explain them all. You just pick up on an item here and an item there and all of a sudden you realize that we are in deep shit and our shovel ain't too big.
I was reading a website this morning that made the statement that when the mainstream starts prepping no one will be able to afford to prep anymore. And I thought about what it would be like if a couple hundred million people were all trying to buy rice and beans in this country in preparation for hard times. Would rice go to $3 a pound? Probably. Would beans go to $7 a pound? Probably. If I was wealthy I would go out and buy 10 tons of rice and 10 tons of beans. Wouldn't that raise a stink! I can see the headlines now: MAN IN MIDDLE AMERICA BUYS HUGE AMOUNT OF FOOD COMMODITIES. The whole nation would gaze in wonderment. And start to worry. Does the crazy SOB know something we don't know? What it going on? Well, I don't have the money and I ain't gonna do such a thing, so don't worry about it. Besides, it might make things tough for my friends out in the countryside trying to get ready. And most of them have it tough enough as it is.
So I want to make your education a little quicker so that you might not suffer from lack of time. Anything to help a prepper.
First thing to handle is security. This usually entails guns and ammo and maybe a relocation of your living quarters. Anything worth having is worth protecting. If it ain't worth protecting then throw it away! Protect yourself and your loved ones and friends with shotguns and rifles. Have a good supply of ammo. A thousand rounds per gun ain't a bad start. And ammo is expensive right now. Just bear the cost and go on. If you ain't got enough money then save it or earn it or sell something that will make it for you. IF IT IS WORTH HAVING IT IS WORTH PROTECTING. Start your prepping from a position of strength, not the level of a begger. If you don't have square one occupied what the hell is the sense of going to square two? And there are a hundred different ideas of what kind of armaments to have so I go along with Ayoob and say to get what you can use. It doesn't matter if you shoot a 22LR or a Barrett .50 caliber. If you have it and you can hit with it then you have come a long way down the road. I generally urge folks to get 22LR, 12 gauge pump shot guns, and some kind of longer range, bigger caliber, heavier rifle for deer and whatever. Whatever is what tries to take your food and rape your wife and burn you out.
After you have this little situation solved then you can get on to building up your supply of food and water. It's mighty tough to make it without food and water. Some of us fat asses can go quite a while without food but water seems to be the common thing we all have to have. If you have a good well or a good spring on your land then you are okay, as long as your well has a handpump and not an electric pump. Things that work off of electricity can be shut off and you will not be able to turn it back on until the powers that be decide to do it. How's that for personal independence? Maybe the public utility guys will turn it back on if they get tens times the amount of monery they are charging you now. Does that seem preposterous? Looked at the price at the gas pump lately?
Your food is where you can get it. As ChinaMart takes over more and more of the nations business, it would seem that you will get the most for your dollar at these fine establishments. Buy lots of food and big containers to hold it all. Beans and rice are not talked ahout just to be flippant. Served together they just happen to be very nutritious. They will keep you alive. I eat them all the time. My system is used to them. We just had a two day convention and it took me FOUR days to get my system back in order after it was over. Processed food just don't get it. My wife is a forager and I eat straight from Nature's bounty. It doesn't get any better than that. She is down visiting the Amish right now, buying milk and eggs and butter and whatever. It sure would be nice to duplicate their off-grid living. I sure don't want to fool with their closed gene pool, however. Too many problems are gonna come from that. Just another case of religion trumping good sense. I ain't got much for religions.
After you get your security and your food and water under control, then you can get to tools. Have you got anything that will run without oil-based fuel to cut your wood so you can cook and purify your water? You can make or buy all the firestarters you want but if you have no fuel it ain't gonna do much for you. Get an axe and some Bow Saws stored away. Some good files wouldn't hurt either. Dull axes and saws are mighty wearing. Shovels and rakes and push plows won't hurt you any either, at least not in the area of capability. Splitting mauls are nice. Extra stuff to do repairs around the homestead won't hurt to have either.
Growing food is a big advantage over the stores. You don't have to take cash when you go to your garden. And if you plant non-hybrid seed you won't have to have cash the next year either. What you do is Google Saving Garden Seed. I just ran the search myself and it brought up all kinds of stuff. And it is good to have the ability to save seed. Not having that ability leaves you a slave to a seed company like Monsanto who likes to splice in their Terminator gene to keep you hooked. But having your own seed and keeping it from year to year is a soul satisfying deed. Don't be deprived of it. Keep your independance as best you can. Part of being a survivalist is keeping your independance, your personal freedom, intact as best you see fit to accomplish. Yeah, it will cost you time and some extra labor, but it is damn well worth it.
And what about your clothing and creature comforts? Bought any good wool blankets for next Winter? Could get mighty cold if the power is out and the power might well be out. Heat with oil? Lord have mercy. I can't even imagine such a thing. Get warm sleeping gear and warm, tough clothes for the cold weather. Got extra boots? Better get 'em before the Chinese start buying all the catttle hides and taking them to Asia. Got extra belts and gloves and hats? Better get 'em! The cost of getting them now might be high, but later on it could be prohibitive, if not impossible.
Got a place out of towns and cities where you can hole up in times of trouble? Not a bad idea to have such a place. Go in with some people you trust and buy a piece of dirt if nothing else. Go squat on a friends farm. He can probably use the extra help anyhow. And it could teach you something about the production of food and the health of your family. Hamburgers are not magically formed in a back room at McDonalds. You can learn to grow and harvest your own meat. I have done a lot of it. All the way from killing the critter to cooking it, and all the steps in between. I have stayed up many nights as a young man roasting a whole hog on a spit and turning it occasionally so it doesn't burn. Good training for survivalists. And training counts. Your brain is the best survial tool you have and the more it can learn the better off you are.
In the days ahead the person you can trust the most is another prepper. And his skills can become your skills too. But the non-prepping society is not to be trusted at all. And especially your government. I laugh at those who say they don't want any money from the government. I paid money to those self-serving clowns all my working life and I will take every bit of it back that I can get my grubby hands on. Stimulous checks, Social Security checks, any kind of check. I'll be very happy to accept their money, as long as it spends. If it won't spend, don't bother me with it. And don't make taking a check an agreement that I will serve or obligate myself to the government. Ain't gonna happen. See what an independant attitude you get when you are prepared for hard times? You start being able to look around and make decisions and judgements about things with the good sense God gave you instead of via some goddamn propaganda fed to you buy the tracherous media. A survivalist will give you better info than the media. Any day of the week.
There are many things to get prepared with. As many things as you can imagine or someone else can imagine. I could spend a million dollars so easy it's ridiculous. But I don't have to spend that much, at least not now. But I can get ready. And that is important. And remember, prepping is NOT self indulgence. It is survival.
Stay alive!
Michael
mboone@rtccom.net
Showing posts with label gardens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardens. Show all posts
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
SAME OLD STUFF
I just got through looking at the market results for the day and it is the same old story. No one knows what to do about a damn thing. So be it! I am tired of watching the dumb bunnies in their struggle to fight the inevitable.
Maybery and somne others are making great strides in their prepping routines. I am enjoying their works. These guys have a crack at surviving the coming bad times.
I am still going for beans and corn from my garden. I am admonishing others to do the same or something close to it.
I do see a lot of money being spent on pistols that I would never buy. If I have to go out and the area is not secure I will go with a shotgun. I can go get my mail with a shotgun in my hands. I can go with a lookout also. I ain't paying $700 for a pistol to handle the job.
A couple guys are doing the camping trailer thing. Dragon is doing a Yurt. People are using their imaginations and their personal talents to handle their need for shelter in case of hard times.
The real good news is that people are prepping. And they are doing a prety good job of it. There are people who are helping other people and you don't find that at the bank or at Walmart. Help from people is a great step down the road of survival. The way things look right now I am going to keep going along with my prediction of food riots this Summer.
Not only do I have the inside track on the weather, courtesy of Dragon, but I now have the knowledge of floods in the corn belt. The floods are going to raise hell with our food production this year and the USA doesn't produce much of anything anymore BUT food. If we can't produce food then we are sunk. Face it.
Our landmark buildings in Nu Yawk Sity are being sold. So long, America. The Chrysler Building and the Flatiron Building have been sold. "Good morning America, how are ya'? Don't you know that I'm your native son. I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans and I'll be gone 500 miles when the day is done." Man. This country really used to be something. But we had progress, you see. And our country has been sold out from under us. And I am saddened by that. We were the country with broad shoulders. We had the steel from our mills and the steel of our souls. I hate to see some of it go. But, it's a new class and the blackboard has to be completely cleaned. Let's see know...the East and West coast will be sold off piece meal. That leaves the middle where I live. I'll hold out as long as God allows. And I think he will allow.
*********
HERE'S A POST FROM WOLVERINE
*************
One Cheap Dinner
This story starts back a couple months. My youngest son had taken a load of scrap down to the yard for a little extra cash. While he was at the non-ferrous yard a guy comes in trying to scrap out a pair of case iron frying pans. The man is told those go across the road to the ferrous yard and he says screw it, he will toss them in the dumpster if that is ok. My son, being that same quiet, shy, type that his father is, asks the guy if he can have them. Number Two son tosses the nine inch fry pans into his truck and brings them home. We put them out in the barn in the barter stuff.
Ok, today I get home from work and find Number One son here. He came up to use my computer and print out some stuff and to get some food. After we chat for a while he decides to go to a neighboring town and do some dumpster diving. He has always had good luck there for some reason and figures, WTF, he had the time. I ride along for moral support and to act as a lookout I guess.
We pull around back of the store and the dumpsters a brimming with stuff. We find sweet corn, potatoes, blueberries, raspberries, bananas, melons, tomatoes, mushrooms, bread, donuts and a load of meat. Some stuff is cool to the touch and some is the temps as the 80 degree ambient air. We are selective and gather the stuff that we feel is still safe to eat. We both lamented the fact that the meat was hot to the touch. We also left the tomatoes since there is a national recall because of the salmonella outbreak. They are probably fine, but why…..
Number One grabs some chicken out of the freezer from an earlier raid on the same dumpster and we start dinner. Number One likes to cook, is good at it, and can make a great meal out of almost nothing. He makes a Lebanese sauce for the chicken and starts grilling them. I dice up a couple potatoes and toss them in the only frying pan in the house. I then cut up a package of mushrooms and realize that we only brought one frying pan with us when we moved back to the farm. I ran out to the barn and spotted the two barter pans. I took them over to a sand pile and scrubbed them out, washed them up in the sink and set them on the store to warm. A coating of oil and they were ready to go. (Yes, I know I needed to bake them and all that but I didn’t have the time. Besides, you would be surprised what you can sometimes do and it still works.) The mushrooms went in a pan and those were cooking away.
Number One son come back in from the grill and puts a handful of backpacking French onion soup in the spuds. He adds some spices and juices to the mushrooms and spuds and then we wash the fruit and make up three fruit bowls to go with dinner. The wife comes home from work just as we are setting the last of the food on the table.
Dinner was grilled Lebanese chicken, browned potatoes with French onion soup sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and three fruit salad in a bowl. Pumpernickel bread and butter were served as well, but no one ate that. Every single item on the table except the butter came out of a dumpster. Our only cost was the spices and ingredients that we used for the cooking. Even one of the fry pans came out of a dumpster as it were. More meals or at least parts of meals will come from the items we still haven’t used up yet.
One cheap meal a week and how much money could you save? I know we saved a fair amount on the grocery bill today. These times call for some non-traditional thinking. My wife laughed when we told her where her dinner came from, but we still can’t tell her until after she has eaten or she won’t eat. Still she has come a long way. If my wife can learn to laugh at a dumpster dinner then there is hope for all your spouses. As for Number One son and I; we are always on the lookout for one cheap dinner.
Wolverine
********
HERE IS A REPLY FROM RANGERMAN
*********
. . interesting.
My father runs the transfer station for a small town. I don't know how much stuff I've scored through him, but it's a lot. I have a nice Echo weed wacker that I've been using for 5 years that came from the transfer station. A woman was throwing it out, my father was helping her, he set the weed wacker to the side, she left, he tried it, and it fired right up. I've had no problems with it for 5 years, and I still use it.
We recently replaced our small, old television with a larger, old television from the transfer - works great. Lumber, I've scored tons of lumber from the transfer station, salvaged concrete blocks, etc. I've even received a soldier's kevlar helmet and nice camo netting that a game warden was throwing out. This doesn't count the numerous old Nintendo game systems, and misc. other tons of stuff that he's given me to place on eBay where I've sold stuff for big money. I sold an old cast iron kids John Deere tractor for $200+ on eBay - from the transfer station. An old set of brass horse stirrups for $150+. I sold an older marine Garmin GPS from the transfer station for $100. The list goes on. I split the eBay profits with him.
Talk about scrap metal, he and his co-worker salvage all of the gas grill covers, copper, electrical wire, etc. until they have a pickup load, and they usually score about $700 - each! It takes 8-10 months to get that much, but still. People throw out old doors all the time, and he has a guy that makes signs, gives my father $5 for each old door. There was a cedar swingset maker that would throw out 4x4 and 4x6 scrap pieces of cedar up to 4' long. I use them for container gardening. I use salvaged metal fence posts to hold up the fencing that keeps the deer out.
You'll particularly like this one. This one woman came to the transfer station a few years ago, my father was helping her unload her trash, he tossed one bag into the compactor and heard an abnormal *ting* sound. She left and he went to investigate, opened up the trash bag and found - I'm not kidding - a 9mm Astra handgun. The barrel was removed and sawed in half with a hacksaw, and the recoil spring was toast. My father, having retired from the law enforcement field years ago, had a past co-worker of his run the serial number - no problems. This was just their way of getting rid of it. He gave it to me, and I called all over God's creation before I finally found a replacement barrel and recoil spring for 90-some bucks.
I presently have a variety of items including an old stereo sound mixer, another Nintendo, and a really old electric massage . . thingy . . that I'm waiting to list on eBay, probably in November as people gear up for the holidays.
I've yet to eat any of the food, though . . .
- RM
********
Stay alive!
Michael
mboone@rtccom.net
Maybery and somne others are making great strides in their prepping routines. I am enjoying their works. These guys have a crack at surviving the coming bad times.
I am still going for beans and corn from my garden. I am admonishing others to do the same or something close to it.
I do see a lot of money being spent on pistols that I would never buy. If I have to go out and the area is not secure I will go with a shotgun. I can go get my mail with a shotgun in my hands. I can go with a lookout also. I ain't paying $700 for a pistol to handle the job.
A couple guys are doing the camping trailer thing. Dragon is doing a Yurt. People are using their imaginations and their personal talents to handle their need for shelter in case of hard times.
The real good news is that people are prepping. And they are doing a prety good job of it. There are people who are helping other people and you don't find that at the bank or at Walmart. Help from people is a great step down the road of survival. The way things look right now I am going to keep going along with my prediction of food riots this Summer.
Not only do I have the inside track on the weather, courtesy of Dragon, but I now have the knowledge of floods in the corn belt. The floods are going to raise hell with our food production this year and the USA doesn't produce much of anything anymore BUT food. If we can't produce food then we are sunk. Face it.
Our landmark buildings in Nu Yawk Sity are being sold. So long, America. The Chrysler Building and the Flatiron Building have been sold. "Good morning America, how are ya'? Don't you know that I'm your native son. I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans and I'll be gone 500 miles when the day is done." Man. This country really used to be something. But we had progress, you see. And our country has been sold out from under us. And I am saddened by that. We were the country with broad shoulders. We had the steel from our mills and the steel of our souls. I hate to see some of it go. But, it's a new class and the blackboard has to be completely cleaned. Let's see know...the East and West coast will be sold off piece meal. That leaves the middle where I live. I'll hold out as long as God allows. And I think he will allow.
*********
HERE'S A POST FROM WOLVERINE
*************
One Cheap Dinner
This story starts back a couple months. My youngest son had taken a load of scrap down to the yard for a little extra cash. While he was at the non-ferrous yard a guy comes in trying to scrap out a pair of case iron frying pans. The man is told those go across the road to the ferrous yard and he says screw it, he will toss them in the dumpster if that is ok. My son, being that same quiet, shy, type that his father is, asks the guy if he can have them. Number Two son tosses the nine inch fry pans into his truck and brings them home. We put them out in the barn in the barter stuff.
Ok, today I get home from work and find Number One son here. He came up to use my computer and print out some stuff and to get some food. After we chat for a while he decides to go to a neighboring town and do some dumpster diving. He has always had good luck there for some reason and figures, WTF, he had the time. I ride along for moral support and to act as a lookout I guess.
We pull around back of the store and the dumpsters a brimming with stuff. We find sweet corn, potatoes, blueberries, raspberries, bananas, melons, tomatoes, mushrooms, bread, donuts and a load of meat. Some stuff is cool to the touch and some is the temps as the 80 degree ambient air. We are selective and gather the stuff that we feel is still safe to eat. We both lamented the fact that the meat was hot to the touch. We also left the tomatoes since there is a national recall because of the salmonella outbreak. They are probably fine, but why…..
Number One grabs some chicken out of the freezer from an earlier raid on the same dumpster and we start dinner. Number One likes to cook, is good at it, and can make a great meal out of almost nothing. He makes a Lebanese sauce for the chicken and starts grilling them. I dice up a couple potatoes and toss them in the only frying pan in the house. I then cut up a package of mushrooms and realize that we only brought one frying pan with us when we moved back to the farm. I ran out to the barn and spotted the two barter pans. I took them over to a sand pile and scrubbed them out, washed them up in the sink and set them on the store to warm. A coating of oil and they were ready to go. (Yes, I know I needed to bake them and all that but I didn’t have the time. Besides, you would be surprised what you can sometimes do and it still works.) The mushrooms went in a pan and those were cooking away.
Number One son come back in from the grill and puts a handful of backpacking French onion soup in the spuds. He adds some spices and juices to the mushrooms and spuds and then we wash the fruit and make up three fruit bowls to go with dinner. The wife comes home from work just as we are setting the last of the food on the table.
Dinner was grilled Lebanese chicken, browned potatoes with French onion soup sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and three fruit salad in a bowl. Pumpernickel bread and butter were served as well, but no one ate that. Every single item on the table except the butter came out of a dumpster. Our only cost was the spices and ingredients that we used for the cooking. Even one of the fry pans came out of a dumpster as it were. More meals or at least parts of meals will come from the items we still haven’t used up yet.
One cheap meal a week and how much money could you save? I know we saved a fair amount on the grocery bill today. These times call for some non-traditional thinking. My wife laughed when we told her where her dinner came from, but we still can’t tell her until after she has eaten or she won’t eat. Still she has come a long way. If my wife can learn to laugh at a dumpster dinner then there is hope for all your spouses. As for Number One son and I; we are always on the lookout for one cheap dinner.
Wolverine
********
HERE IS A REPLY FROM RANGERMAN
*********
. . interesting.
My father runs the transfer station for a small town. I don't know how much stuff I've scored through him, but it's a lot. I have a nice Echo weed wacker that I've been using for 5 years that came from the transfer station. A woman was throwing it out, my father was helping her, he set the weed wacker to the side, she left, he tried it, and it fired right up. I've had no problems with it for 5 years, and I still use it.
We recently replaced our small, old television with a larger, old television from the transfer - works great. Lumber, I've scored tons of lumber from the transfer station, salvaged concrete blocks, etc. I've even received a soldier's kevlar helmet and nice camo netting that a game warden was throwing out. This doesn't count the numerous old Nintendo game systems, and misc. other tons of stuff that he's given me to place on eBay where I've sold stuff for big money. I sold an old cast iron kids John Deere tractor for $200+ on eBay - from the transfer station. An old set of brass horse stirrups for $150+. I sold an older marine Garmin GPS from the transfer station for $100. The list goes on. I split the eBay profits with him.
Talk about scrap metal, he and his co-worker salvage all of the gas grill covers, copper, electrical wire, etc. until they have a pickup load, and they usually score about $700 - each! It takes 8-10 months to get that much, but still. People throw out old doors all the time, and he has a guy that makes signs, gives my father $5 for each old door. There was a cedar swingset maker that would throw out 4x4 and 4x6 scrap pieces of cedar up to 4' long. I use them for container gardening. I use salvaged metal fence posts to hold up the fencing that keeps the deer out.
You'll particularly like this one. This one woman came to the transfer station a few years ago, my father was helping her unload her trash, he tossed one bag into the compactor and heard an abnormal *ting* sound. She left and he went to investigate, opened up the trash bag and found - I'm not kidding - a 9mm Astra handgun. The barrel was removed and sawed in half with a hacksaw, and the recoil spring was toast. My father, having retired from the law enforcement field years ago, had a past co-worker of his run the serial number - no problems. This was just their way of getting rid of it. He gave it to me, and I called all over God's creation before I finally found a replacement barrel and recoil spring for 90-some bucks.
I presently have a variety of items including an old stereo sound mixer, another Nintendo, and a really old electric massage . . thingy . . that I'm waiting to list on eBay, probably in November as people gear up for the holidays.
I've yet to eat any of the food, though . . .
- RM
********
Stay alive!
Michael
mboone@rtccom.net
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