How self sufficient are you ? Honestly ?

[charlz]

I like to think that I can always learn something from just about anybody. The chronically homeless people already living on the streets of NYC before Sandy hit are probably the most capable of coping with present conditions - there are at least a few lessons to be learned here, including for society as a whole.

Hmmm not so sure about that one, homeless people are not raising their own crops, storing food etc. they are extremely dependent on soup kitchens, food being in dumpsters, whatever. If nobody is eating in restaurants because of storm damage or lack of power etc. closed them there won't be any food in the dumpsters. Homeless people have learned to live on the edge of society is all.

Kinda like when you watch these prepper shows and the guy says "When the end of the world comes I am going to live off roadkill!" Where exactly is the roadkill going to come from if there is no fuel to power cars and nobody is driving around etc??

 

[Egon]

Definitely Evil Empire stuff. I'm not sure who will end up saving the world food supply, that vault of heritage seeds(can't remember the name) buried in the middle of nowhere, or "illegal" seed scroungers. My money is on the scroungers.


Savalbard, Norway

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

For the very low cost of seeds this time of year we try to buy them and store them away when I find the deals , each year I try a few different types to see which work best for us and we try to stick to the heritage seeds and have had beautiful small plot gardens for the last 5 years and we dry / freeze / can as much as possible with the kids gone and only coming home for the holidays (-26-28-31-) we find ourselves with 2 freezers full of vegetables and 1 of meat /fish. and are dependent on electricity and we know it I have a 10,000 watt generator and a few smaller ones and 2 - 5000 watt power inverters that run on 12 volt to make 110 ,Building out the property we are lucky to have a flowing steam from a spring and water tested good and being on a ridge we will be building a wind mill to pump additional water from the deep and provide 12 volt power , I have a steam jenny that was given to me and the water heating tower was in great shape so being that it was fired by a oil burning burner we knew we could salvage the water heating tower to place on a out door wood fired chimney and by doing this we will have hot water for the price of firewood , My neighbors in the subdivision we live in now comment almost daily about what comes home in the truck to be taken out to the property , I find deals on almost anything you can think of to build from craigslist and I have been GIVEN 10'S OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF MATERIALS , One man had a posting saying he had leftover bricks and they were a couple different colors , so I called his ad and it turned out he was a commercial brick layer and wanted someone to haul them off his property When I got there he GAVE ME THIRTY FULL WRAPPED PALLETS OF BRICKS IN TWO MATCHING COLORS AND LOADED THEM ON MY TANDUM TRAILER FOR FREE ! IT TOOK 15 TRIPS TO THE PROPERTY AND I UNLOADED THEM BY HAND "WHO NEEDS A GYM MEMBERSHIP ?" he also gave me about 4,000 feet of steel cable that someone had given him ( thoughts of a zip line for the kids ) ,Another man gave me 600 brand new landscape timbers wrapped and on the pallets for free he was getting divorced and was not even leaving her a light bulb in the house he said ! My neighbors cringed when the chickens come home but now they ask for eggs almost daily (watch "factory egg farming " on you tube and you will never buy chicken or eggs from a store again ) besides we like knowing where our food comes from . sometimes I catch myself being a severe pack rat but I have projects and plans for all of this "junk " and my girl will occasionally be amazed at what comes home for FREE ! I have another friend who works at a large glass plant (they make large custom windows for a frame cabins and such "heh heh heh ") , He gives me all the large glass packing crates and I have a huge stack of clean 2x8x14 and 2x12x16 lumber that came home for free ! they used to cut them up and throw them in the dumpster and pay to haul them away I built private jet and helicopter interiors for almost thirty years and now barter upholstery services for everything from cement mixers to 40 squares of shingles . Why buy it when it's out there for free ? Now I want to ensure you we are not building a shanty in the woods with a car on blocks in the yard ! All these things can be built and do not have to look like the Clampet"s moved in the main house will be 4,000 square foot 1 bedroom and we are building an apartment above the garage for the kids when they are home ,That should keep them out of my fridge and away from my ice cream !

 

[sandman2234]

i like apocalyptic books.. will have to look that one up.

I would think this would be a good reading for you then, especially as ACZLAN mentioned, it was based in Florida, but in reality, actually not far from where you are, as opposed to south Florida or over in the panhandle. Fictional names were given for the towns but locations listed put Orlando to the south and Jax over to the northeast. Puts you right in the spotlight, sorta. Good thing to know is that in case of an all out nuclear war, your area manages to survive, due to it's non-military and limited population. Written in the late 50's, before everybody retired and moved to Florida...
David from jax

Got any suggestions for good reading of your own?

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

:cool2::cool2:

 

[Rob-D]

I'm seeing a lot of good thinking here but I would expect that on TBN. Most of us have a bit of land for our tractors and people who buy tractors to manage their land usually have more going for them than the people who buy land and hire someone to work it for the most part... I know both types.

We are seeing a lot of local farm stands here now thanks to books by people like Barbara Kingsolver who stress eating seasonally and locally. I think the internet is changing the landscape also. 25 years ago there were no internet businesses to speak of. Today you can sell on Ebay out of your home and that means a low over head and cheaper prices for the customer. So essentially what we have is the return of the mom and pop store that was so integral to the health of this country. That also means that people don't have to put a store or shop in a high volume area like a city and they can spread out over the country. In fact when I needed some extra cash a few years back I started a web site and sold electronic designs and circuit boards.
Once a city gets over 100k or so things get proportionally larger to manage in my view.


ForgeBlast, I'd like to know the full names of those two books you mentioned on small scale grain and gardening when it counts. This area isn't the best for grain but I did see a local bread claiming locally grown wheat.

There's a really good book about growing food all year long from a guy in Maine who actually has made an art of it, I'll have to see if I can find it. Valuable stuff!

Diversification is the key to a country dealing with major events. When you have a fragile grid like ours all the people with interties make it stronger by spreading out the power. Corporations don't like that much, they want to control the masses by controlling the energy, food, water, etc. People growing gardens, using alternate energy, etc. mean less bucks in their pockets and less lobby money to spend controlling us. My PV arrays feed power back to the coop here and that means cheaper prices for everyone in the coop because now the coop doesn't have to buy power on an open market. My coop bent over back wards to help me install my system, my friend using NYSEG got resistance on every step of the install and a fee for feeding it back to them to boot!

 

[Rob-D]

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Nice!

 

[muddstopper]

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Looks like a couple of delaware's, golden comets, a black australope and production rhode island reds.
I'll have to get a few pic of my coop tractors. I have McCary strain buckeyes, Welsummers, Black Australopes and australope/maran cross. I usually sell 40 or more birds a year. Some for breeders and some for eating. I have sold eggs for as much as $30 dozen for rare breeds, but most I give away to family for eating.

I use 5 seperate tractors to keep my chickens seperated. I dont cross breed unless its intentional. We move our tractors every few days all over the pasture. I found this does wonder for building up soil fertility problems and also for getting rid of the unwanted weeds. Chickens love lespidezea which the state planted all over my field. The chickens have successfully eliminated this from the areas that they have grazed. Eventually I should have the entire pasture cleared of this problem. I cant free range because of the coyotes and other varmits, but keeping the birds on fresh grass yeilds the same results.

 

[bironacad]

When we had the ice storm in 98, it was rediculous how helpless MOST people were.

Ya there was a run on gens after that. We had a province wide black out a couple of years back and I didn't realize it till I was watching the news, lol. I get water from a well, wood from my property and generate my own electricity when needed. Our government has run quiet adds on the teli saying that people should have blah blah blah to survive up to a week, what is that all about, they seem to know something?

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

Ya there was a run on gens after that. We had a province wide black out a couple of years back and I didn't realize it till I was watching the news, lol. I get water from a well, wood from my property and generate my own electricity when needed. Our government has run quiet adds on the teli saying that people should have blah blah blah to survive up to a week, what is that all about, they seem to know something?

When you wait for the GOVERNMENT to tell you what you need to survive .....IT'S TOO LATE !