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In addition to guns and ammo...

3K views 24 replies 12 participants last post by  FyredUp 
#1 ·
There is 100% agreement that we all need to have weapons to protect ourselves in the event of unrest or collapse, and that we need to stockpile food and water. But how many of you garden or raise lifestock?

My wife and I have gardened for a few years now. So far we have eaten our produce as it ripened and frozen tomatoes, peppers, shredded zucchini (for zucchini bread and muffins), as well as blueberries and strawberries. Yes I know the weak link is freezing and we recognize that fact and will ty our had at canning next year. We dry store onions and potatoes.

We are also looking at raising chickens and cattle for beef next year. We have a 10 acre field that is perfect for pasture.

So tell me what you do in this regard...
 
#3 ·
In truth? Not enough. Here in Kalifornia, I have just over 7,000 Sq. Ft. of property, and my house sucks up more than 1/3 of that.

I grow herbs, zucchini, and tomatoes in pots. If we had to survive on that, we would starve after a day. I am re-learning a lot of lessons my Dad tried to teach me. We are going to invest in a Wriggley Ranch (worm powered composting contraption) to provide the fertilizer and "tea" to power up the pot-grown stuff.

You might want to look into goats. Good Meat, and they will eat damn near anything. You can grow a number of "easy" root crops to feed them.

I know a lot more than I really know in this regard, but when we lived in Saudi Arabia, we grew lots of carrots, turnips, parsnips and some kind of bitter potatoes that were the size of an orange to feed to the goats. We had about an acre of land to feed 6 goats. They gave good milk, and made more than a few baby goats.

10 Acres! I can only dream of that. Maybe someday. Count your blessings, and make good use of your bounty. Canning is not half as hard as it looks at first. Get a good canning Pressure vessel. Spend the extra $50. You will thank me later.

Just my $0.02.

Regards,
 
#5 ·
Bellson,

My wife and I have it pretty good where we live. We have 14 total acres, a pond that is normally about 150 by 100, but now is damn near dried up. A small patch of woods with what I call bird drop black raspberries. Bird drop because the only way they could have ended up where they did was from some bird eating berries somewhere else and crapping the seeds out in that location.

We have a older home that we are remodeling, an unattached garage converted into an office/family room, and a 36 by 56 pole barn. By next winter the pole barn and the house will be heated, or at least partially heated with wood. I have probably 10 pick up loads of wood stacked already.

Our garden is roughly 50 by 100 with raised bed boxes for tomatoes, peppers, and onions. My wife is going to plant lettuce and hebs in the boxes too. We regular garden yellow squash, zucchini, watermelon, pumpkins, and potatoes. We are trying our hand at strawberries and hoping next year will be better.

We know we have it pretty good and are thankful every day for what we have.
 
#6 ·
Beer..

I can go days without eating..
Six pack of beer and a potato..
Irish 7 course meal..
If I run out of beer, you will see a insane zombie on the hunt.
 
#7 ·
Got about 30 acres (8 acres wooded) with high mountain stream/creek. No garden because I am never in one place long enough. Have lots of fish and game and a multiyear supply of freeze-dried, canned and dry bulk food. kind of set and have no problems - ready to "Go Galt" and let the idiots run the asylum into the dirt.
 
#8 ·
In Asia..

Most places I have visited, meat is a luxury, not a staple..
Not speaking of the city folk now..
Electricity nah, well some if their lucky.
If they read Black Blades survival forum, they would say..
"What are they talking about, does not everyone live like that. What are these survivalists?" :)
Yes yes they go too the the markets and pick up kilo's of rice.
Usually have 6 months supply on hand..
All in the countryside have a garden in their back yard..
Lost my damn picts. of Cambodia.. My Bro has them, I will get them back..
Water.. Use the stream..
Very clean healthy people..
One heavy gauge electric wire "on the ground" be careful kids. :)
Went too 8 village houses.. One light for each home.
Power loss, who cares, light the candle..
Cooking was woks, very small fuel consumption..
All owned chickens, a few village hogs..
Are they happy, hell yes..
Very very family and community oriented..
Hunt with crossbows.. Legal there..
So who will suffer the most, with a world wide meltdown?
They do not have to study survival-ism, they are natural survivalists and they would not know what we were talking about..
 
#11 ·
Most places I have visited, meat is a luxury, not a staple..
Not speaking of the city folk now..
Electricity nah, well some if their lucky.
If they read Black Blades survival forum, they would say..
"What are they talking about, does not everyone live like that. What are these survivalists?" :)
Yes yes they go too the the markets and pick up kilo's of rice.
Usually have 6 months supply on hand..
All in the countryside have a garden in their back yard..
Lost my damn picts. of Cambodia.. My Bro has them, I will get them back..
Water.. Use the stream..
Very clean healthy people..
One heavy gauge electric wire "on the ground" be careful kids. :)
Went too 8 village houses.. One light for each home.
Power loss, who cares, light the candle..
Cooking was woks, very small fuel consumption..
All owned chickens, a few village hogs..
Are they happy, hell yes..
Very very family and community oriented..
Hunt with crossbows.. Legal there..
So who will suffer the most, with a world wide meltdown?
They do not have to study survival-ism, they are natural survivalists and they would not know what we were talking about..
Yep, same as life in northern Myanmar. No electricity to speak of (maybe a light bulb), and dinner is whatever you can catch and throw in the pot. There people are stocked up with rice and often have chickens and even a pig under the house.



Village supermarket at the crack of dawn:



Myanmar Taxi:



We are definitely spoiled here in the US. I doubt most here could make it without their remote control to watch Dancing With The Stars and American Idol. Somehow, I actually loved it in Myanmar without all the conveniences of modern life in spite of the occasional wild elephant charge, spitting cobra (or any of the other 74 species of deadly snakes), asian tiger, sun bear, wild water buffalo, boar or whatever. Then the leeches! Bouts of Dengue Fever and Malaria. Otherwise - I really had lots of fun. WTSHTF here in the US most will be at a complete loss as they hope and await "help" from the government.
 
#9 · (Edited)
It's funny, I tell my kids and my step daughters, kiddingly of course, that they will be among the first to die if the power goes out permanently. They always look at me quizzically, and then I say when you can't text or call on your cell phone, your laptop, your iPOD, your kindle, and your tv are all dead you will wander aimlessly until you starve to death.

Look I love my electronics as much as the next guy but to depend on them for every element of my life simply does not happen. I have plenty of carpenter tools and hand tools that do not count on electricity or batteries if the power goes out. I have things to entertain myself and my family that do not count on power, otherr than the power of the mind and the body.

Am I a mountain man? Nope, but neither am I a helpless city slicker. Moving towards more indepedence every day.
 
#10 ·
Every kid in America should spend a summer with the Asian friends I met in my travels...
Very humble nice people..
School in the morning, then work when you are old enough to help support the family unit. Or..
Small kids, help Mom work the garden..
Garden fails, no veggies, that simple..
Wash clothes by hand.. Clean all around good people.
Catch frogs, fish, dinner..
X box, T.V.. :rofl:
Guess who is going to survive when the SHTF.?????????
 
#14 ·
Gardens are only good if your in one place which I doubt will be the case if SHTF. You're more than likely going to be on the move unless you're already in a remote location and set up. Better know your wild edibles first and worry about gardens later. You'll want non- GMO seeds too, stick with
the old style seeds , so I've been told.

The third world country's will hardly notice a difference, and it will be bussness as usual for them. I'm not loosing any sleep over it, what happens ,,,, happens,, and hopefully I have enough preps in place to get by.
 
#15 ·
Would someone please let the moderators know that my PNS and my ability to start new posts is broken.

Thank you.
 
#16 ·
Hi FyredUp,

Try clearing cache or deleting cookies. I had one that was corrupt a few month ago, and it caused me no end of issues on Gunco.

I will send a request to the mods to have them communicate your status to you.

Just my $0.02
 
#18 ·
Had the same thing, I ended up doing a reformat and still had something imbedded, don't know if it's part of a root program, but it was still there after. It hasn't caused any issues so far, and doing what I did took care of the issues,, for now. Good to see ya back on Bellson,,, all still well on the western front?
 
#19 ·
I had to reformat my computer yesterday to get rid of a nasty Trojan I picked up.It keep rederecting my search and changing web pages on me.I tryed to send a member a PM today and Im not sure it got thru.Popup message said text to short,add more words or something.
 
#22 ·
Norton power eraser, free and it wacks the redirect virus.
If you have the redirect, open in "safe mode with networking" and google it. Run it and it will reboot, and then reboot again.
You'll get the redirect again sooner or later, trust me and go with the power eraser. I bet I do 3 PC's a month with a redirect, or the really cool FBI virus. Easy to kill but hard to believe people pay to have it removed.
 
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