Any "preparedness enthusiasts" on the board?

Kinda, but in a different sense? 

I keep a year's supply of flour and sugarat a minimum. I like to keep my freezers full and could probably go a month living out of them exclusively. 

City water could potentially be a problem, but I don't drink it anyway, so there's always at least 2 cases of spring water on hand. If needed, the river is about a mile away and I know how to boil and filter water. 

Always one full propane tank along side the one in use, but I still have all the hand tools and materials to build another stick burning smoker/cooker/oven and plenty of wood around. 

Generator is full with stabil and I always keep a full can of gas for the tractor so there's that too, even though we're on a priority electric line.

The chickens are a constant source of eggs for at least 2 years, if I added a rooster, they'd also a consistent supply of meat after about a year. 

There's a pretty healthy ammo cache, but that's just because they aren't getting any cheaper.

I'm more prepared to live on reduced or no money than "disaster" but there is a good amount of overlap between the two. 

Still, if things go really bad, there's a 106 acre farm on the top of my driveway run by old people whose kids have mostly moved to the city, and the neighbors are all pretty friendly with each other. 

I have a certain amount of construction related stuff, gas, water and a generator, and that's it. I live in a town that's statistically dangerous (Oakland, CA)  almost directly on an earthquake fault, and nuclear annihilation has been a possibility since the 1950s. I will admit to occasionally considering the purchase of a handgun for home defense.

Oh well.

No insult meant to those in this thread, but I think that there's a large amount of crisis fetishization nowadays. From the popular media to the internet, and what bothers me as much as anything is object fixation as applied to the social space. All these so-and-sos on each side of the spectrum calling each other fascists and talking of overthrowing the government. I wish that people would calm the f--k down and learn to live together. 

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

Its less and less likely to happen. People are becoming more and more polarized as we go along. 

Opti said:

Also have a family whiskey source.

 

I'm gonna need to know more...

This thread is a great reminder that I need to get a generator.  I could live comfortably for a few weeks just the addition of a generator. 

We have chickens that are laying eggs, keep our freezers full of at least a month's worth of food.  We have connections for fresh raw milk and beef if needed.  We grow almost all of our produce in the summer and plan to scale that up this year and preserve more.  We have a quiet wooded lot full of wildlife and a small collection of boomsticks and freedom seeds if push came to shove on the food front. 

I keep wanting to move back south, buy a few acres with a small house, add a solar panel array, grow my food year round and just pull the ripcord.

bobzilla said:

People are becoming more and more polarized as we go along. 

We all get to choose whether we are a part of the problem, or a part of the solution. You always have the choice to stop letting yourself continue being so polarized and emotionally sensitized that you once again self-victimize and lash out at any perceived slight you encounter, without first taking the time to understand what is actually being said. It's hypocritical to say you want people to treat each other better and meet in the middle, when you've demonstrated little to no willingness to do so yourself.

calteg said:

Opti said:

Also have a family whiskey source.

 

I'm gonna need to know more...

I wish I could find a family source for rum....

In reply to bobzilla :

I'm sorry that's your choice.

We live in the country, so I have 1500 gallon propane tank, Generac whole house generator, 150 gallons of diesel for the skidsteer, numerous firearms and 1000's of rounds of ammo. If the world goes it crap I figure I could hold out until those items run out and when they're out, so am I. No need to live with nothing to live for............

In Florida, its just called "hurricane season". 

Hand operated can opener......

I just have too much food in the house , when something I like is on sale I just buy extra , 

And enough Soda and water to last a week or more......

a Big Earthquake is probably the disaster that will be the problem  here and not much you can do but making sure stuff does not fall on your head !

TJL (Forum Supporter) said:

In Florida, its just called "hurricane season". 

I wish my mom would be more prepared.  I tend to worry about it.  Her plan is usually GTFO at the last minute.  It's worked out so far, but I can't help but wonder if someday she's going to wait too long.

RacetruckRon said:

This thread is a great reminder that I need to get a generator.  I could live comfortably for a few weeks just the addition of a generator. 

We have chickens that are laying eggs, keep our freezers full of at least a month's worth of food.  We have connections for fresh raw milk and beef if needed.  We grow almost all of our produce in the summer and plan to scale that up this year and preserve more.  We have a quiet wooded lot full of wildlife and a small collection of boomsticks and freedom seeds if push came to shove on the food front. 

I keep wanting to move back south, buy a few acres with a small house, add a solar panel array, grow my food year round and just pull the ripcord.

We got our generator years ago on a black friday sale through Sam's Club. At the time, our service provider hadn't replaced the lines in a couple decades. You could drive down the "main road" and see multiple splices/patches between poles for miles on end. Since we ALWAYS have a lot of wind, just a good spring breeze would knock them down in multiple places and we could be out for hours or days. 

The straw that broke the camels back for us was being snowed in, all roads around us closed and the power flickering and going off every few minutes. House is total electric, so heat and well and we had no supplemental heat. That following year we got the generator and two years later a LP gas fireplace large enough to heat the house on its own if needed.

I go the store and buy all the eggs, milk, and bread the day before it snows.  If I get snowed in, I'm making french toast for every meal.

ProDarwin said:

I go the store and buy all the eggs, milk, and bread the day before it snows.  If I get snowed in, I'm making french toast for every meal.

I never understood why all of the South has decided milk and eggs are the best things to buy when there's impending snow/ice storms. These are the most perishable items aside for seafood you can buy at a grocery store.

I have two motorcycles that are magneto fired, and a car that still has points (and two more that can be converted back).

Does that count?

Or is everyone forgetting about EMPs?

aircooled said:

I have two motorcycles that are magneto fired, and a car that still has points (and two more that can be converted back).

Does that count?

Or is everyone forgetting about EMPs?

Maybe things have changed, but the last time I seriously looked into EMPs, any pulse strong enough to destroy automotive electronics (not just force an involuntary reboot, and maybe blow a fuse or two), was going to come from a nuclear explosion close enough that my car not starting was going to be the least of my worries.

In reply to aircooled :

Less worried about that than a CME. As I understand the US military is fairly hardened against an EMP, so a strike like that would result is some serious retaliation strikes and I really don't think anyone wants to put the entire world back to the stone age. A CME is a natural phenomena that could cause similar results.

eastsideTim said:

aircooled said:

I have two motorcycles that are magneto fired, and a car that still has points (and two more that can be converted back).

Does that count?

Or is everyone forgetting about EMPs?

Maybe things have changed, but the last time I seriously looked into EMPs, any pulse strong enough to destroy automotive electronics (not just force an involuntary reboot, and maybe blow a fuse or two), was going to come from a nuclear explosion close enough that my car not starting was going to be the least of my worries.

Yeah, as Bob noted, you are forgetting about that ongoing nuke explosion in the sky!

RacetruckRon said:

ProDarwin said:

I go the store and buy all the eggs, milk, and bread the day before it snows.  If I get snowed in, I'm making french toast for every meal.

I never understood why all of the South has decided milk and eggs are the best things to buy when there's impending snow/ice storms. These are the most perishable items aside for seafood you can buy at a grocery store.

I was about to say, sounds like Oklahoma. Impending snow storm buy all the eggs, milk, bread, and TP. 

Tornado sirens go off? We stand outside with a beer looking for which direction it's coming from. 

I ain't sayin' nothin'!  Clearly the OP is just gathering intel for when the SHTF.

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Opti :

It seems like you put a lot of thought into this and have some cool stuff going. 

Do you also prepare for possible futures with things like insurance policies, political involvement, business development, personal skill/knowledge building, something else?

My personality makes me a "here and now" problem solver but some people are really good at thinking about the future. Would love to hear some ideas.

I havent put much thought into it at all. Truthfully in my personal life im not very proactive Im pretty reactive. My wife is the planner. If I have to fix something the goal is to fix it for good if possible.

We finally bought a place we planned to stay in for a while and then we just started addressing things as they came up. I do pay close attention to politics and im not a big fan of where things are headed so we decided to insulate ourselves from things we have a little control over as much as possible.

We had a bad freeze down here in TX and lost power. So I went and bought a generator.

The gas company after the freeze said going forward if it happens again we can cut off your gas. So I got a tank

We had a bad drought last year and everyone was on water restriction. I lost most of my yard (i take really good care of my yard) and a couple trees. Some friends worried about keeping their livestock watered because of dropping well levels. Luckily I live in a very old home and found the original well and put it back in service and we started water reclamation. Now if we have another drought the city cant tell me how much water I can use. I am a conservationist so I wont be blowing through water or anything but my crops and trees will survive.

Food prices started skyrocketing and randomly I couldnt get chicken, beef, pork, or jalapenos. Ive always hunted so Ive always had a freezer full of venison, but I thought berkeley it with a little bit of work I have access to all of this stuff. I found a processor and  I shoot deer, and buy pigs, goats, and cows with friends and family. Sometimes from local ranchers but if the time is right I like to buy from the high school kids at the local stock show to support the community. I currently have a steer and pig at the processor. For fruits and nuts I started with year round stuff so I dont have to replant every year. Currently have limes, peaches, pears, apples, black berries, asian persimmons, grapes and pecans. I do the yard work so I just incorporated maintenance into my normal yard/property routine. I built my wife a greenhouse and she deals with the vegetables and she started canning

I have a huge pear harvest every year and Im not a big fan of pears. Was talking to my neighbor about it and he told me a bunch of the neighborhood does similar stuff and they trade with each other, so he told me I could give away all my excess stuff for things I dont have. I was staring at all the pears and realized I wouldnt use them, and another buddy told me he had a still he had moved to a bigger one, so he sold it to me real cheap and this year I plan to distill a bunch of it and just see if I can find a use for alcohol. Wife wants it as an antiseptic. I want to try and run my lawnmower off of it. The family has made whiskey for generations, so ill probably try and make a batch of hooch out  of it.

A friend was talking about they used to keep bees and it was easy, so we are going to try that. If i can get some honey, I dont need sugar, so its one more thing I dont have to buy.

The house is close to needing a roof, so probably this year we will go to a metal roof (one more thing not to worry about) and then put solar on. Im not a fan of solar on a macro level, but with a little work and some Tesla batteries, I should be able to run the whole house off of it, and at least if this inflation keeps up Ill be able to buy my energy at todays dollars and lock in a price for the foreseeable future.

I dont think about it much, most of my solutions came from talking to people. I was talking to my neighbor about  the schools around here and he said he is a part of an education coop (?). A couple of parents got together and hired a couple of teachers leaving the public school system, so the students get more time with the teacher and its a better situation for the teacher. I talked to another friend and hes got an in at a local private school.

I was doing some repairs on a rental property and the house across the street had recently sold but never put on the market, and most of the neighbors had been eyeing it trying to buy it. I saw the new owner working on it, so I went over helped a little bit and talked to it, by the end of it we had talked about our real estate strategies and his was much better than mine. He had purchased 18 homes in the last 4 years and maintained renters well and got a good price per sq/ft. 

What im getting at is people are much smarter than me and have solved all of my issues already and my experience is they are more than willing to share them or help.

For insurance, my experience is it will rarely make you whole, so i have insurance where it is required and I have insurance to protect my wife if something happens to me. She is more than capable without me though and will be just fine.

I do business development consulting for a living.

My personal skill development has largely come from me being too cheap to pay people to do things or deal with shoddy work. I worked in automotive for a while, and developed my automotive skills there. My first house was cheap and old, and my whole family is in construction so with a little direction and youtube I renovated the entire thing myself.

I really spend most of my time talking about cars and politics or trading favors or work with friends, neighbors or family.

We have the summation of human knowledge at our fingertips, Im always surprised about the random things I can learn about while my wife is watching TV or reading a book

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

I get what you are saying, but there is also a large amount of actual crisis nowadays, and even more so if you take a wider look at history. We have normalcy bias since in our lives we have pretty much largely only known peace and stability, but that doesnt mean it will stay that way, or you wont be one of the unlucky few that gets hit by a natural disaster. Preparedness was a human requirement up until just recently in our history. I spend very little time working on it, and in many cases I will be more prepared than the vast majority of the country. A nuke might fall on my head and I cant prepare for that, but I can definitely prepare for a bad storm that knocks out services. Around here its been happening every year.

 I also dont do it for just me, in crisis I help anyone I can. After the tornado a week ago I spent the next few days helping people around me with clean up, repair, and I even let my neighbor use my place since I had power. I like to think it helps build commuity (which we are largely losing) and I like to think I do a little good for others to repay all the good done for me.

Funny the timing on this thread.  Just FYI I got an email from HF for a big parking lot sale on generators.  Coupons and everything!  If I had any money I'd think really, really hard about buying a generator.  No sense having thousands of dollars of food in my chest freezer and having it all go bad days after the power goes off...