How self sufficient are you ? Honestly ?

[Rob-D]

Being ready for a week-to-month long disruption is always a good goal, and we're there ourselves. However, true end-of-world survivalist preparations are not much use to the large part of the American population that now depends on monthly deliveries of critical medicines. Without delivery of insulin, cardiac medicines, etc., all else quickly becomes irrelevant. That was a quite discouraging revelation, when Hurricane Ike shut down most SE Texas pharmacies for a couple of weeks.

Personal health is a big part of survival and while anyone of us can get sick knowing how to take care of yourself, eat right, exercise and think right is the crux of survival. Pharmaceutical companies have a ring through everyone's nose just like energy and agri-business. Learning how to exist without those forces is true independence and freedom.
People should be thinking about those things regardless what happens with the world. People here are talking about meat but I'll tell you it's not the best food for health. Read a book called "The China Study". What you want to eat are green leafy vegetables and lots of them. Anyone here go to the doctor and get told to cut down on their fruits and vegetables? I'll bet not! That should be the core of your diet if you want to be healthy.

 

[charlz]

IMO, Street Guy has a bigger/better dataset to work with, than most Gucci clad urban cliff dwellers standing there clinging to a useless credit or ATM card. Just knowing what food can be scavenged, and what can't is pretty important.

Actually there is another good point in that analogy in that the homeless guy will have no qualms about picking through dumpsters or whatever where a Gucci-toting Urbanite would probably lose whatever they ate at their previous meal before eating something out of a dumpster

I draw on my own experience in the USMC for that... we always had 'substandard' housing compared to other branches, particularly the Air Force. If you are used to sleeping in the dirt then spending a night in the dirt doesn't look so bad. But if you used to living in the equivalent of a Hilton Hotel then a night in the dirt is a horrifying prospect.

 

[Egon]

Actually there is another good point in that analogy in that the homeless guy will have no qualms about picking through dumpsters or whatever where a Gucci-toting Urbanite would probably lose whatever they ate at their previous meal before eating something out of a dumpster

I draw on my own experience in the USMC for that... we always had 'substandard' housing compared to other branches, particularly the Air Force. If you are used to sleeping in the dirt then spending a night in the dirt doesn't look so bad. But if you used to living in the equivalent of a Hilton Hotel then a night in the dirt is a horrifying prospect.

Scavenging is fine if there is something to scavenge.

 

[forgeblast]

books that I have atm,
apocalypse chow: how to eat well when the power goes out by jon robertson
gardening when it counts: growing food in hard times by steve solomon
deerskins into buckskins by matt richards
small scale grain raising by gene logsdon
the traditional bowyers bible volume 1.
all the foxfire books and a few others when i get a chance ill post them.

 

[bcp]

Pharmaceutical companies have a ring through everyone's nose just like energy and agri-business. Learning how to exist without those forces is true independence and freedom.

Maybe they should make a disaster pill which would change a persons stomach chemistry so they could graze and browse.



Bruce

 

[Pharm]

I like to go backpacking for 1 to 2 weeks at a time. I think it helps you understand the essentials of what you need to survive, if your healthy, which is:

1. Shelter/warmth
2. Food
3. Water

One thing about backpacking is you have time to think about things you normally would not think about... like just how long you could survive without help from civilized society. My thoughts ... not very long.

Sure ... us self sufficient types would survive a few weeks better than most people. We can grow our own food, many of us that carry guns could hunt and defend ourselves. But after a few weeks, when fuel runs out, ammunition gets scarce, goods get stolen by bands of marauders, that's when things start to get dicey.

Ever see Cast Away with Tom Hanks?

 

[woodlandfarms]

I spend 50% of my life in a city environment, and 50% on our 40 acres. I was raised poor, and know how to live poor. That said, I have the basics. I can make it without power (although I have generators in both homes) and have sourced basic water and food (having survived the 94 earthquake we learned a lot about city survival). We have pools around us for water, the hot water heater for immediate use, and we have a weeks worth of food but beyond that, we are in trouble. I have no hunting skills, and no canning skills (although my wife can can, neither of us can hunt). I can grow things, but sourcing the seeds would be an issue.

I am not a survivalist, and at my weight, probably zombie food anyway, but on a lark my wife bought this book at costco.

How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times: James Wesley Rawles: 9780452295834: Amazon.com: Books

It was really eye opening, and a good read. While I have none of the suggestions in place, I feel I have a better understanding of social issues that will truly be the main issue for survival (wether or not you can grow food, or hunt, may be secondary to wether you can barter and defend). Solid trading skills will be the true test of a survival skills in my opinion, not wether you have gas for your generator.

 

[Pharm]

Solid trading skills will be the true test of a survival skills in my opinion, not wether you have gas for your generator.

Which of course is NOT self sufficiency.

 

[schweizer]

Back to the original question of this thread:

Self sufficient as much as possible in rural modern USA.
We are off-grid, 15 miles out of town, food reserves, fuel reserves, ammo reserves, gravity feed water, wood heat, communicate via a wireless internet service that also has off-grid backup, etc. We wouldn't even know if a drunk hit a power pole and knocked out power to our whole little valley, or even if a freak severe storm would close the freeways both north and south for a few days causing the store shelves to go bare.

Next year we hope to have a better garden than this year (deer got a lot of it), and we try to use heirloom seeds. I can't hunt (never tried), and I'm not the greatest fisherman (mostly vegetarian here), but we do our own canning. Does shooting deer in your yard count as hunting? (Yes, I know it's illegal, and I'm just scaring them not killing or wounding them.)

I guess you could call me a prepper, but mainly because I believe it is prudent to be prepared for lots of things, not because I think the gov't is out to get me.

That said, we don't live very primitively at all, and I work with multimillion $ electronics all day at work.

 

[woodlandfarms]

I am intrigued at the concept of self sufficiency that you suggest that exists and that bartering is not part of that equation. Total Self Sufficiency does not exist and has never existed. We can get existential on the issue, look at the human need to pro-create outside of blood lines, or the need for basic companionship. Or we can look at the hard truth. Someday you will not have something you need. Someday you will break a leg and can't hunt, or have your crops destroyed by nature. or a million other things you didn't plan for or ran out of. Thinking that you can go it alone as a survivalist is the surest way to your quick death. I don't suggest opening your arms to everyone, but having social skills to barter, trade and know when to defend and when to run will take those people to the top of the food chain, as it always has.