How self sufficient are you ? Honestly ?

[Rob-D]

Thanks for the pictures Rob. You have a really nice thing going what with the solar, the sheep, and the chickens all running around. There is a lot of beauty there too in the landscape and the furnishings. Great job!

Thanks EE!

I want to show people this can be done, I know you're an engineer but some others who don't have expertize in several fields might be able to barter with those who do. I barter with my farmer neighbors for things like bedding hay for example. If we could just get to the mind set that we all are valuable assets to the community, not unlike the Amish, there's no reason we can't make it. This is why I have so much trouble with the, 'I'll make it on my own' Rambo philosophy, it's just not viable.

 

[Rob-D]

i see threads like this come up on a 'gun' forum i read.. and like this one.. many of the posters are kinda 'do it yourselfers'
I was going to post this also. People here are mostly Do'ers, instead of watchers.
Food I think a year would be good, the food we bought (superpails from emergency essentials) has a 30 year shelf life and we can always use it for camping or for just general cooking.
With us we would need enough food to get through a winter.
My grain mill is from homebrewing I can run it on a drill or hand crank. It is also adjustable for different grains. I have something similar to the MaltMill, grain mill malt mill.
I would really like to have a solar greenhouse built. I have seen some that will produce food all year long in Colorado. I would love to do an aquaponic set up also, using ibc totes and fish and plants.

I bought our grain mill many years ago from Country Living, it was a 'dent and scratch' so I got it for a lot less. It has a handle that goes with it in emergencies but so far we haven't needed it. Those of you who have not experienced fresh breads from just ground wheat berries you're really missing something!
This brings up another subject, bulk grains. We buy bulk grains here. For example I buy steel cut oats in 50# bags and of course we buy wheat berries in bulk too. This saves a lot of money.The first thing we do with grains is put them in the freezer for three weeks to make sure all the critters are wiped out. Grains in bulk are a lot cheaper than going to the chain store every week for stock.
Here's another thing you can do to see how really prepared you are. Do you shop every week for food? If you do than think about how tied to that system you are. We go every couple of months. In the summer we eat out of the gardens along with bulk grains and in the winter we eat from our stored and canned veggies from the garden so we are always relying on our own resources for our needs.
Think about getting together with friends and doing group buys, that saves a lot of money. Also processed foods like chips and twinkies (I heard they are out of business) will really waste funds, we make popcorn from bulk if we want snacks, dry our own fruit from bulk fruit we buy when it's in season and cheap.

Just a few pointers to consider.

 

[GolfAddict]

Thanks EE!

I want to show people this can be done, I know you're an engineer but some others who don't have expertize in several fields might be able to barter with those who do. I barter with my farmer neighbors for things like bedding hay for example. If we could just get to the mind set that we all are valuable assets to the community, not unlike the Amish, there's no reason we can't make it. This is why I have so much trouble with the, 'I'll make it on my own' Rambo philosophy, it's just not viable.

I seems to me that a group cooperating to "make it" would seem more viable, given your scenario of them all being valuable assets - or at least the ones that can be. Obviously if a couple in the group has an infant, or someone else has a very elderly grandparent with dementia or something I'm sure the group would consent to providing for them even though they are unable to contribute.

I wonder what the group reaction would be if any able-bodied one of the community became a non-contributor? Let's say the community is humming along pretty good and someones starts really kicking back and is no longer really an asset? I suppose they may need to be kicked out on their own at some point? Maybe not after the first one or two, but at some point you can't expect the community to support a fair number of non-contributors. You'd loose the ability to sustain the contributing community...

 

[forgeblast]

Rob-D is there a bulk grain place that you use? I saw that through sams club you could buy 5 gallon pails of hard winter wheat for ~20.00 (i think).
I agree with the freezing, we had weevils eat our pasta.
Many places on the net will recommend the mylar bags and Oxygen removers when storing food. You can buy some bags for cheap seal them up yourself and store what you need to. You can seal the bags with an iron.

 

[Rob-D]

I seems to me that a group cooperating to "make it" would seem more viable, given your scenario of them all being valuable assets - or at least the ones that can be. Obviously if a couple in the group has an infant, or someone else has a very elderly grandparent with dementia or something I'm sure the group would consent to providing for them even though they are unable to contribute.

I wonder what the group reaction would be if any able-bodied one of the community became a non-contributor? Let's say the community is humming along pretty good and someones starts really kicking back and is no longer really an asset? I suppose they may need to be kicked out on their own at some point? Maybe not after the first one or two, but at some point you can't expect the community to support a fair number of non-contributors. You'd loose the ability to sustain the contributing community...

That's a good question, I think the Amish 'shun' those who break from the flock. I don't know how effective it would be though. It seems to me that those things arise when groups get too large. We've never really experienced it with our group, everyone seems to naturally 'kick in' although when the group first started to work as a unit things were a little rough. Who does what and how much kind of thing. One person got cranky when she had to work in the garden, she new she needed to but didn't like gardening. As she saw the harvest come in and how valuable it was her attitude changed, especially now that she's living off it through the fall and this winter and her best friend loves gardening.

 

[Rob-D]

Rob-D is there a bulk grain place that you use? I saw that through sams club you could buy 5 gallon pails of hard winter wheat for ~20.00 (i think).
I agree with the freezing, we had weevils eat our pasta.
Many places on the net will recommend the mylar bags and Oxygen removers when storing food. You can buy some bags for cheap seal them up yourself and store what you need to. You can seal the bags with an iron.

We buy bulk from a couple of places. There's a local food coop that sells in 25 and 50# bags and also a Mennonite store that sells us wheat berries in bulk. By the way we use Prairie Gold wheat berries if anyone is interested. Another good wheat is King Arthur Flour but they don't have wheat berries, just flour for those of you without your own mills.
We also buy,corn and nuts in bulk, mostly walnuts. I like pumkin seeds but we grow our own hull-less pumkins and harvest the seeds. We barter or buy raw milk (NY is one of the few states that allows raw milk sales). The funny thing is that farmers here have been feeding raw milk to their families since farming began! Nancy swears by it and has known the farmer since they were kids in school, his barn is clean as a whistle!

Even without thinking about self sufficiency if you bulk you can save a lot of money. It may seem like the cost is high of the bulk but in the end you bypass a lot of the middle man cost.

ForgeBlast, we also use the mylar bags with the oxygen absorbers in the 5 gallon buckets. I just got one gallon mylar bags on Ebay. They are good for those items that you want to keep in smaller quantities or go through so fast that you don't want to keep breaking open the 5 gallon pails.

 

[GolfAddict]

Well, I have just read this thread from start to finish, and gone back over it to reread many of the posts again. It has taken over 3 hours. I have decided none of you will survive for too long because you will be attacked and killed in your homes by mobs from the towns with even bigger and better guns than you have. It seems everyone in the US owns several guns, and whilst you might kill the first 20 or so that attack, sheer numbers will overpower you. Sure they will take out your weaker neighbours first, and those on the road to your place, but they will find you. Maybe even your neighbours will turn on you before the mob finds you. It will happen. I consider myself a good shot, but I know I would have no hope against more than a few attackers with even similar weapons, and against big stuff the end would come quicker.

I'm coming late to the thread party here - it's been a fun read!

I see your point above a little differently. I honestly think, if you aren't located too close to a large population center, the most danger from roving bands will be from certain "Doomsday Preppers".

I think if you are as prepared as some of these folks here are, and are located in a fairly rural area that is a fair distance from any large population centers I think you would be in pretty good shape. I don't envision huge mobs of urban or suburbanites swarming your location with you fighting and defending until you run out of ammo.

I think you'd see urban masses sitting right where they are consuming what they have on hand - waiting for a while for rescue or salvation from somewhere, just like they can expect from the government today. Before too long they are roving around the city scavenging what they can and stealing from the weaker. After a while the closer food and supplies are gone and they start roaming around further and further. They're no doubt pretty violent with each other. They're is fewer of them, and they are getting physically weaker and weaker. As they roam they are satisfying their thirst and they are drinking out of rivers and ponds and streams.

I'm betting you won't have them in large mobs actually making it to your location - assuming again that you aren't sitting real close to a large population center. I'm thinking those that do actually make it to you would be too malnourished as well as sick from the water they've been drinking to muster up much of an offensive.

What scares me more is the "Doomsday Preppers" that are really not all that prepared - at least for long term self sufficiency. With their prep supplies running out I can see them start roaming once they realize they cannot make it long term. They have bug-out-bags, guns and ammo, ways to make water safe to drink, etc. Hopefully, if they get lucky enough to find you, they'd only come in smaller packs and could be overcome...

 

[OldMcDonald]

GA, You could well be right, but if you are on your own it only takes two or three to wear you down. In other, less gun-owning, countries I think it is unlikely to happen. I am planning that it will not happen, and there will be a gradual move away from present day living as a consumer society and time to form your group. As I have posted, ours is already worked out, although we do not live in the same areas, being split into two groups of four. Truthfully, I hope the whole scenario does not happen at all, but I still think it is wise of us all to make some move towards the possibility.

As you have seen, quite a few posters are part way there already. Like EE Bota, our stored food is not considered stockpiling, just a sensible year's supply whenever possible. Grow enough of a crop to last until the next harvest of that crop. In fact I only grow some crops every other year, putting away two years' supply. It does mean the need for deep freezers and some electric power, but whilst I am on the grid (connected before I bought, and actually on mains water supply for the first time in my life) power is not a problem, nor is water. Canning is not common outside the US. Drying and/or freezing is normal.

I agree with the grain in the freezer idea, my wife has done that since we moved to Australia in 1979. I also give home-saved pea and bean seeds the same treatment. We have enormous insect problems here in Portugal, and funguses too. It is so bad it is virtually impossible to be organic. I know several who have tried and failed. I have given up even on most of my own food crops despite not wanting to use chemicals on them, but when it comes to spraying or no crop, then I spray. Commercial crops (olives in my case) have to be sprayed to produce a good enough sample to sell.

 

[GolfAddict]

OMD, I agree. It's difficult to imagine a scenario where one solitary individual could really make it for a very extended time completely on their own. Reading through the thread, I noticed that some seem to indicate they could make it on their own. That caused a lot of controversy in the thread, but I think because it was read a bit too literally.

As I continued to read more of their posts, I believe I see that "on my own" means "me and my family" and maybe even with a few close friends or neighbors. I'm not sure anyone really believes they could truly make it all by themselves. Would they even want to? I better be careful speaking for others though.

Actually, now that I think about it, I guess Omega Man figured out how to... wait, I guess they did eventually get him.

 

[OldMcDonald]

GA, care to tell us what you would do - given a reasonable amount of time to get organised and law and order prevailing. How big a group, and what expertise. Not a wish list of people skills, just what you have available with the people you already know and are prepared to live with if you have no other choice. Would you stockpile food, guns and ammo, trade goods, anything else, or would you rely on producing food on a seasonal basis and live off what else is available for non-food needs?