What's the perfect homestead for when s*&t hits the fan?

That's a great point. I think it's yet another illustration that it's nearly impossible to live in the wilderness by yourself for an extended period of time. That's why our ancestors had tribes. When your sick the tribe takes care of you and when your well you take care of the tribe. Also why a knowledge of medicinal plants is a must. But I would put that under primitive skills.

Another thing to realize is that life is just gonna be worse in the sense of medicine. I think this would be the one argument for staying up on wheather or not there was still a functioning hospital with surgical ability. Because otherwise we are going to have to deal with medical issues the old way which is I think the scariest part of living after the crunch aside from the evil desperate humans. I think there will be Cowboys and there will be Indians and then there will be the hordes. Damn I hope this doesn't happen for at least a generation.

Modern medicine, for all its flaws, is one of the things I would most regret losing in a decline and fall or collapse scenario. Having had some fairly nasty illnesses and injuries in remote situations (in the woods, in the desert, at sea), I would probably be dead if I had not been able to get back to civilization and its hospitals, so my attachment is pretty strong!

Medicinal plants are a good one. Decent wound care, if you can manage it, can do a lot, and medicinal plants can certainly help with that, too. Brushing up on my herbalism is on my to-do list for sure.

And in a more settled situation, sanitation is a huge live-saver, far more so than most people realize. And basic low tech medical treatments can do a lot. For instance, cholera is a disease that kills you via dehydration in the form of acute watery diarrhea. If untreated, it has about a 50% fatality rate--one in two people die. If treated with an oral rehydration solution, which is basically just salt and sugar dissolved in water, the fatality rate drops to less than one in one hundred, often as low as one in one thousand. From a 50% fatality rate to a .001% fatality rate, with no intervention other than feeding people sugar-salt water! It doesn't even have to be given intravenously. This kind of thing fascinates me.

A homemade oral rehydration solution for treating dehydration in cases of diarrheal disease:

1 liter boiled water
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 teaspoons sugar
some mashed banana for potassium if you can get it

In severe cases, monitor the amount of fluid being lost through diarrhea, and replace an equal volume. Rough and ready hospitals used "cholera cots" for this. It's a cot with a hole cut out of it that your butt hangs through with a bucket underneath; however much ends up in the bucket, the same volume of rehydration solution needs to go down their throat.

That's it. In cases of bloody or persistent diarrhea, such as schistosomiasis, this won't necessarily solve the problem (although it will help). But for diseases of acute watery diarrhea, such as cholera or rotavirus, which kill untold people (many of them children) every year, you can treat with the above and reduce the death toll to virtually nothing. And it's worthy of note that proper sanitation (no open defecation, no feces in the water supply, preferably no burying waste in places where people are going to be long term and/or where there are large numbers of people and/or where it can get into the water supply) can greatly reduce the incidence of these illnesses in the first place.

Another valuable but overlooked wilderness skill is learning to find and recognize salt deposits/salt licks. They can sometimes be located by observing animals and their trails. If you end up with a diarrheal disease in the wilderness and your electrolytes are out of balance, having or being able to find salt can make the difference between recovering and going into shock and dying (I have been in shock due to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance before, and ended up hospitalized for a week before my blood pressure and other vitals had stabilized enough to be released--I don't recommend it). Also knowing which wild foods are good sources of potassium is helpful, since potassium depletion often goes hand-in-hand with dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.

Well, The rain should be here some time in the next few days and I can invest some time to reply then. In the mean time....I KNOW you did not read the series of articles I presented.(LOL) Doing so would take several hours. Most people split it up over several days. Add the two additional post from MsPrepswPets and its a fare amount of personal time investment. It wont be my first Rodeo presenting this. I have received death threats, Personal verbal attacks and people leaving the forums where I have discussed this. The reasons it gets such strong responses from people is because "Its that it challenged a Belief, a part of the self identity. A central tenant of the prepping system" many people hold. Perhaps it best to start by talking about The First Nations. They are all very different from each other. Of the three regions of the continent where I have studied the lifestyles of First peoples there, only one was nomadic. Even so, there movement was very limited, moving between a winter region and a summer hunting ground that was plentiful only because of major modification to the environment buy regular intensional burning. There would be no plentiful prairies, full of life , if the first nations hadn't made it that way and maintained it. In that way, they were actually farmers. It ended along with the buffalo. Conservative estimates are that there were about 50 million people living here before disease killed off 90-95 % of the people. Some first nations argue that it was more like 75 million...Darn. Ive jumped The gun a bit and have to get to work.

I feel like Rowdy Rody Piper in They Live. "Put on the damn glasses". Read the article's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZmELa4RJ3g

It seems like you have a solid base of knowledge with the first people. Which nation are you talking about that was nomadic? Do you know any good book titles for some reading?

My feeling is that there will only be a few hundred thousand people that are skilled enough in the old ways to actually survive and that sadly the rest of the populAtion will sadly die off over time.
Keep in. Mind that in my mind this is apocalyptic scenario. There will be almost no nation untouched and therefor famine will cause most of the death. That's why the nomads must rely on the earth using nomadic techniques for a time until the culling is complete and then develop some more stationary lifestyle. But your right in the sense that the native Americans were reaching their carry capacity as well before the settler arrive. I think this is the inevitable arch of humanity that will never stop until we depart from this rock.

Ross Raven wrote:we could very easily be sent back to the stone age by a Coronal Mass Ejection. This is not a minor concern. Food don't move without computers nowdays. Its a when, not if. 16 thousand in solar panels suddenly becomes a sad write off

How does a coronal mass ejection write off solar panels?

Great book about emp called one second after

OK. I have a short window here so I'll see what I can do. Im not an expert on first nations but have had a keen interest based on their food systems. The one I know the best are The Coast Salish. They were fundamentally TOWN people living in very large shared houses. They kept slaves, had trade routs deep into the mountains and a complex political system. Food was very abundant to them...but even then, this was not a hand to mouth group of foragers. There most complex cultural skills were all based around FOOD STORAGE. Taking large quantities of food, and preserving it, so it lasts the ENTIRE YEAR and then some. This required infrastructure. This gave them an abundance for trade. So the sum up. Town people. Complex infrastructure. Stored Food production. Trade. Not hand to mouth nomadism.

Now for something completely different. The Siksika nation. You may know them as the Blackfoot. As I mentioned above, the rich praries only exist because they sculpted it that was. If not, it would all be scrub land. These were the nomadic people that you might picture from cowboy and indian films. Even still, they did not wander aimlessly. It was very specific and a circle, leading back to their very solid homes in the mountains to escape the winter winds, hauling with them the food they had been drying all year. Their lifestyle of complex food production ended with the buffalo.

Now I live with the Mi'Kmaq nation all the way over on the other coast. Another coastal nation. You might picture them as nomadic as well but its a very short distance they travelled from their food source near the ocean to inland cabins to avoid the winter winds of the ocean. Most of the coastal food source is now gone along with the extinct passenger pigeon, a staple food source that used to blot out the skies. They did some very limited farming as the terrain isn't conducive to corn. As I well know. Im starting to have success with corn but only by starting them in the greenhouse and I will need a lot more animals for fertiliser.
My point here, is that the ones just south were involved in farming. The further you go south towards the Algonquin and you are back to a FARMING people...and a TOWN people.

OK. On last thought. The reason European colonists thought this land was given to them by god, because it Magically seemed perfect for farming and very similar to Europe....was because the First Nations had already spent a millennia....clearing, sculpting and FARMING it....before they were wiped out by disease.
The first nations saw it as a much better, food, health and culture producing option. Even those in more nominal lands were still involved in complex FOOD STORAGE systems. They did not wander aimlessly...and they wanted to be in a warm, solid home for the winter.

Next round, we will talk about a Slow Crash.

Dan Boone wrote:

Charley McDowell wrote:In this scenario you're 30 acre farm in the middle of a national Forest will eventually be overrun by hordes of people. And in less you have enough firepower to keep those hordes at bay for a very long period of time you're not going to survive being stationary. Remember it only takes one intruder to come into your camp or your ranch and take one of your kids or your wife hostage and it's an game. The land is going to be filled with roaming starving humans , very dangerous creatures.

Ross, I'm looking forward to your promised posts. Type!

Hopefully I don't have to type too much. I think I can cut and paist most of it. I wrote this in 2012. After that I mentally changed direction fully towards Permaculture. I've come along way, baby. One thing I would like to point out before you go read The Slow Crash. Prier wrote this in 2005. Some of you will know what an important year that was. Peak Conventional Oil. This was written before the 2008 financial crash so everything was already in play and cant be blamed on 2008. Also, He has updated it in 2012 with notes of him looking back on what he wrote.

My small post pointing out this obscure artical was titled The Slow Crash- TEOTWAWKI in Moderation

"Imagine the end of the world in moderation. It's hard"

Thus starts the 2005 article By Ran Prieur called The Slow Crash. http://www.ranprieur.com/essays/slowcrash.html

" the end of cheap energy, the decline of industrial agriculture, currency collapse, economic "depression," wars, famines, disease epidemics, infrastructure failures, and extreme unpredictable weather.
If that's all we get, the crash will be slower and more complex than the kind of people who predict crashes like to predict. It won't be like falling off a cliff, more like rolling down a rocky hill. There won't be any clear before, during, or after. Most people living during the decline and fall of Rome didn't even know it."

It would be one of the three most influential articles that have modified my prepping. The three articles I usually make mandatory reading to anyone that chooses to hang with me. By the way, The other two are... http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/10.08/tshtf1.html and... http://www.shtfplan.com/emergency-preparedness/a-survival-q-a-living-through-shtf-in-the-middle-of-a-war-zone_10252011 Save these to read latter as they are several pages long. Lets stick with The Slow Crash. You may notice that they all clash and contadict each other. Thats a good thing. Nothing is gospel. Never trust anyone that tells you what you want to hear. That person is either a cop or a con man.

Though not a spectacular essay, I think it was just Hearing the title " THE SLOW CRASH" that triggered something in the lizard part of the brain. The "Ah Ha" moment. The part that says, "This is what I have really been seeing since child hood. This is what I am watching happen and this is more of what I should expect to see more of as things get worse." A Red Pill moment. I suppose its also why I can say, "I don't feel comfortable with the majority of Prepper THEORY and the fairy tales that political and religious idealogs have spun like snake oil salesmen to Steal the prepper movement for themselves. All of the Cold War ara survival advice and Backwoods Boyscout Batmen, doesn't really apply anymore. In fact, It might be the complete opposite and guarantee to destroy your life."
Though the slow crash may seem less dramatic, Its effects are far more devastating. More, regional collapses and partial racoveries, ad nauseum. Less a mass die off. More, the little die offs don't really affect the locus swarm that strip everything.
With this, ALL prepping theory needs to be re evaluated. Yes, Argentina and Russia collapsed. They also REMANE. When the US "Collapses" I suspect it will also remane...inspite of local Bosnia like events or regional right wing Ruwandas. You will still have to go to your job in the morning. Now more than ever...for a tenth of the wage or less. You still go to jail if you shoot someone. The jails are just alot worse and your family may have to pay for your food wile there. If this is so, perhaps we need change the idea of preparing for COLLAPSE and start the more difficult process of preparing for DECLINE!

The truth is...I don't really have a fucking clue what that really looks like. The best I am coming up with is almost Permaculture solutions. Direct action Sustainability and localised...hum...Everything. But far less Hippified and almost Medieval in nature and group....and siege survivability. That's the best I can think up and its woefully inadequate. I've been preparing for Collapse for 35 years since I was 10 and realised the numbers were unsustainable. I'm not sure what preparing for Decline looks like. What bases have I been missing. Its like starting all of my preps from the ground up. Im thinking some of you will scratch your head and go "Hum" instead of going" Eh?!" Thus I bring this for your thought and consideration and hopefully some constructive advice."


Well, that should be enough reading for you. Glad I didn't have to re type it. Think of all this reading as going off to survivalist university. LOL. You are investing in yourself.

The next round will be a youtube series so you can give your reading glasses a rest. It will be almost 4 hours worth though. Ha

The "slow crash" issue is one I've thought about a lot (I also read a lot of JMG). I think that it can become a false dichotomy. And people hear "slow crash" or "the world ending in moderation" and use it as an excuse to be complacent, just as people hear "TEOTWAWKI" and use it as an excuse to indulge in Rambo fantasies. Also, depending on where you are or what sector of the economy or society you're talking about and what technologies you're personally dependent on for work or survival (such as medical tech), you may experience a localized "fast crash" in the midst of a "slow decline". For that matter, marauding hordes from the cities are not a common feature of collapsing societies, but mass migrations are, and so are rural banditry, warlordism, and plague, and if your local area happens to experience one of these, you may be in for a pretty apocalyptic experience by middle class American standards--and in most of those cases, especially if one would prefer to remove oneself to a more hospitable locale, recourse to primitive skills would be a valuable fall-back asset in the short-term, and one must survive the short-term to make it to the long-term, after all.

In any case, I think a diversity of skills is valuable. I have traditional homesteading skills because I grew up on a ranch and that's how I make my living, I have permaculture skills because that's what I enjoy and it's in line with my convictions, and I have wilderness skills because I spend a lot of time in the woods and deserts and a fair amount out on the Gulf and would have killed myself several times over without them. It is very easy to imagine using any and all of these skill sets in a relatively slow collapse as well as a quick one. I think it's a mistake to refuse to learn skills that are more toward the "civilized" end of the continuum because one assumes that there will be an immediate dog-eat-dog apocalyptic free-for-all, but I think it's equally short sighted to ignore wilderness or "primitive" skills because one assumes one will slide down the slope of decline and land, with a few scrapes and bruises, in the equivalent of a medieval village.

Anyway, the main thrust of my argument is that a "slow crash" or "decline and fall" scenario in broad terms does not negate the possibility of a "fast crash" or "collapse" scenario for certain groups and regions, nor does it necessarily devalue the possession of robust wilderness or "primitive" skills.

Well said!!!

Okay let me try to answers the original question.
The perfect homestead would be a group of people of let's say 30. That all live in the same rural town that has a resilient industry. All of those individuals are highly trained in every facet that would be helpful. Homesteading, permaculture, primitive skills, self defense, health care etc. then those individuals also have access to a large amount of wilderness and lots of resources. The group has already organized action plans and created retreats in the wilderness. They have the ability to stay in town or retreat to their mountain wilderness and back and fourth. Max preparations and max options.

I hate to be a voice of pessimism, but something that's not considered is nuclear power plants. When the shtf, the grid will fail, when the grid fails 200 some reactors will meltdown, game over.
Putting aside nuke plants, once fossil fuels and chemicals are done being spewed into the atmosphere, the earth will rapidly rise 2C, with the abruptly changing climate, it's going to near impossible to observe, learn, and interact. Again, game over.
I've found preparing for shtf scenario is so five min ago. Reconnect with plants, love your fellow man, do what you can to enjoy your life with the pursuit or excellence. Sorry to be such a bummer. Perhaps the next species that comes around in about 10 million years will do a better job.

To contribute something more on-topic to the original question, I thought I'd discuss a few observations from my own homestead about what does/doesn't (seem like it would) work well.

Make use of your native resources. Don't let yourself remain ignorant of the benefits of the plants and animals that exist around you naturally.

In terms of plants, our biggest and most reliable producers are our mature native oaks and pecans. Learn to love acorn flour. It is approximately 100000000000 times less trouble and more sustainable than wheat flour. Grinding it with a mortar and pestle sucks, but eating plain acorns mostly sucks too. Acorns from live oaks and white oaks in general tend to be the least bitter in my experience. Get yourself a Diamant grain mill for $1,000 bucks and you can grind all sorts of nut and grain flours and life is good. You can buy a cheaper grain mill but the Diamant is the crown prince of grain mills. Or you could do some sort of water wheel setup or something if you have the know-how and consistent running water (we don't). If you have large mature nut trees, consider composing a grateful paean to your lucky stars. If you don't, plant some. Your children (or somebody else's) will enjoy them. These often produce on alternate years depending on species so be aware of that.

If you have wild fruit trees or vines, they won't die as much, and they don't cost anything to plant, and they are less likely to all be eaten by critters before you get any, which is really great. Consider looking up fruit trees native to your area; here many of our natives have been exterminated or greatly reduced by pasture shredding and spraying and similar practices, but when reintroduced they grow and spread like wildfire. In my Dad's day they had persimmons, wild plums, crabapples, and red mulberries everywhere. Now there are none, so I'm replanting them.

If you can find a natural history of the Native peoples who inhabit(ed) your region and what plants they ate and used, it will be a treasure trove. I have discovered uses for many things that I never knew were good for anything. For instance, hackberries and redbuds are edible. Bloodweed is edible, medicinal, and makes good cordage. The list goes on. Many people within the last couple hundred years have stopped using/eating all but the tastiest and most attractive natives because there was no reason to do otherwise. Reverse this trend.

Learn how to hunt/trap intelligently, by which I mostly mean learn what animals of what genders to kill or not kill at certain times so as to deplete the population as little as possible, avoid parasites or nasty flavors, etc. Again, look into the things that most people don't hunt or eat. Around here, most people hunt deer, our invasive wild pigs, and waterfowl, plus they fish. I also eat turtles, bullfrogs, squirrels, wild crawfish (most people buy farmed ones), coons (not my favorite), rabbits, snakes, gators, insects, worms, and many other things. There are no non-edible North American mammals that I know of, although some you may not want to eat for one reason or another. We don't eat armadillos anymore because of people getting leprosy. Don't eat something that's obviously rabid or sick, etc. Obviously it is better to put more pressure on the least fragile populations (such as the invasive wild hogs). Don't eat brains unless you want a nasty prion disease.

Domestic Animals

Chickens are really great and it is way less trouble to gather eggs than to butcher anything. Yay eggs! With fifteen acres in a warm climate your chickens will feed themselves, if they don't get killed doing it. Start now and select for chickens that aren't so stupid and accident prone. It has paid off for me. Also involved in that process will be acquiring some hens that actually go broody and getting through that process. If you have not done this don't just assume it will work out; I have had more than one batch of twenty five or fifty hens from allegedly broody breeds with a nice ratio of roosters all of which lived out their laying years without hatching a single egg. Argh. So start selecting for broodiness as when you get the chance. Your goal is to get them reproducing faster than they get killed off by predators. If you have to keep them in Fort Knox and grow food for them which you have to haul out to their pen and they barely lay in the winter because you live in a cold climate, the pay off is not nearly as great, and possibly moves into negative territory, so your mileage may vary.

Rabbits are hard to beat for reliable meat production in little space, and if their cages are well constructed predator pressure is not as much of an issue. You have to kill adorable fluffy bunnies though. I'm not gonna lie, I don't like it, even though really rabbits do not have the best personalities. Also I don't like keeping things in cages. You can do rabbit colonies, but I haven't tried it. If SHTF though, such considerations will probably not weigh very heavily.

Fish are another favorite, so if you can have a pond that would be great. Preferably deep enough that it doesn't dry out and kill all your fish in a persistent drought. Fish are so easy to clean and cook. I don't know why, but I vastly prefer to clean a fish to a small animal.

Cattle are big and provide lots of meat and taste great, but they make attractive targets. I'm pretty sure our cattle would all be rustled within ten minutes of SHTF. Our cattle get rustled now, at a rate of probably 5% per year or so. And idiots who think they can hunt accidentally kill more of them, and I'm pretty sure more idiots will be out trying to hunt if SHTF, so cattle strike me as not the best option.

Goats are really great. They are the rabbits of the ruminant family. They reproduce amazingly fast, and taste great, and they make use of forage that other animals such as cattle won't thrive on. They taste especially great when they're young. Unfortunately they are ten times more adorable than the fluffy bunnies, and they are friendly and can do backflips and love to show off, and I flat quit eating them because it makes me sad. But I would definitely want some if SHTF; I would choose them over cattle any day. They do escape easily from less-than-meticulous fencing, though. Good for dairy, too. Not as tempting a target as cows.

Turkeys are pointless in my opinion, unless you just really love to eat turkey.

Ducks are pretty wonderful, their eggs taste strong to some people but they are less death-prone than chickens, less destructive (but also less helpful for tilling), and they will enjoy your pond.

Quail are okay but sort of pointless, although pickled quail eggs are a bonus.

Guineas are awful.

Peacocks are of dubious utility and would probably make you a prepper laughingstock, although I really enjoyed watching them and watching people's reactions to them.

In summary: Best options in my experience are chickens and/or ducks, rabbits, goats, and fish.

Miscellaneous

The perfect homestead in my opinion is one in which you have a long history and a thorough knowledge of the characters and predilections of your neighbors, as well as their capabilities. Knowing who's a thief, who's two-faced, who's very kind but also very naive, who's a rat, who caves easily under pressure, who can't follow through with things even though he's a really nice guy, who's reliable but does things on their own time, who's a freeloader, etc. are very good things to know. One of the benefits of living in a rural area where multiple generations of everyone's family have lived for years, as I do, is that you get a really good sense of how people react under what circumstances, and whom you can trust with what, and what the informal alliances are (so who all will end up knowing about whatever you tell Joe, or the fact that if you get Maria mad at you all the Thomases are going to give you the cold shoulder or whatever). You get a sense of how people react under pressure or poverty and how they present themselves versus who they really are, and if you don't know somebody you can make a pretty good guess at how they'll act based on how they fit into the local social schema.

You can figure most practical things out (except a good source of water; make sure you have a good source of water! and preferably some decent annual rainfall), but people will foul up your plans every time. The goal is not to interact only with trustworthy and upstanding and likeminded people and shut the rest out. Very few people are totally trustworthy under all circumstances. The idea is to manage relationships with a realistic view of people's strengths and weaknesses. In my experience, people in the country engage in low-level lying, cheating, and stealing all the freaking time. It's totally different from city neighbors. It's like a local sport, actually. You loan Frank your post hole digger. He keeps it for two months. You don't want to be rude, but you've got to dig some post holes. So next time you see him in the beer joint, you casually mention that you need to work on that fence. Frank hmmms and doesn't say anything. You ask him if he's still using it. Naw, he's finished with it. He's here every Wednesday, he'll bring it with him next week. Wednesday comes. No Frank. Wednesday after that, there's Frank but no post hole digger. Didn't see you last Wednesday, he says. Must have missed you. Don't have it with me this week. Two weeks later, you're at Bill's getting firewood and see a suspiciously familiar post hole digger. Oh yeah, got that from Frank, he says. Traded it for that extra towing chain of Buck's now that we had to put him in the home. A few days later you get stuck in somebody's rice field on an ill advised hunting trip. Nearest neighbor is Frank. You call him and he comes and pulls you out with the ill-gotten towing chain. You never mention the post hole digger again. You probably loan Frank the next thing he asks for, to maintain good relations, but you don't volunteer anything he doesn't ask for. Frank's grown son puts some stuff on Frank's ticket at the feed store and doesn't pay him back. Frank doesn't speak to his son for months over it. You wonder that Frank doesn't keel over and die of hypocrisy. Etcetera etcetera.

People have been busy while I have been sleeping. Lets see if I can get through each response.
A slow crash should not be an excuse to do nothing, It should simply change the direction of how you prep. Regional fast crashes happen pretty regularly...but they are regional and temporary. I suppose I should point out that I more than qualified in bushcraft and it has saved my life several times. Its a single tool in the toolshed....But plan A should not be to grab the bug out bag and embrace being a Refugee\Homeless person. Refugees haven't traditionally done that well. Might you have to bug out. Definitely. The refugee crisis happening at the moment in Turkey\ Greece\ Europe is an example. Having a passport, a thwack of cash and a friend in another country willing to take you in is an appropriate preparation. Or...Fleeing the forest fires in The West...but fleeing into the woods is probably a bad idea while its burning. LOL. Owning a motorhome or camper van is an appropriate preparation in this case. Like before, having a destination where they are willing to take you in is another appropriate response.

C5 Rule of survival- If you camp for a week, you are a Camper. If you camp for two weeks, You are an Outdoors Enthusiast. If You camp for three weeks, You are an Outdoor Adventurer. If you camp for a month or more, you are a Homeless Person or Refugee.

So, what might be a better survival skill to developed than flint knapping arrowheads and setting deadfall traps. How about small engine repair, either used or traded for cash, or developing a trade like becoming an electrician.
In all cases having a decent store of food can never hurt.

OK, Reactor meltdowns. Its not an excuse to do nothing. Do you choose to live by one? if not, It might take 10-30 years to develop cancer. Almost the lifespan of dark age Europeans. Your children will be pissed at you if you stop feeding them.
But you are correct. Surface temperature (not climate temp) did raise a full 2 degrees during 9-11 when all the planes were grounded. Have you made preparations to adjust to heat.

That's all for now. I do have other people I am communicating with to start an intentional community at my location. Ive only got so much 2 finger typing in me. lol

One last afterthought before I change directions.

Greece is a very good example of a slow crash that we are all watching. Since its a periphery nation, that means its heading towards us. So, what have people done there? Many used the passport option I mentioned above and are dispersed around the world. Others left the cities, returning to once abandoned family farms. Others joined intentional communities out of having no other options...and now feel trapped. But for many, it was a decent into homelessness. For many that could just not adapt mentally to that everything had changed over the last decade, Suicide has spiked. Many feel it is there only option. (Sort of like those in the post USSR that could not adapt so drank themselves to death). I'ld like to give people options so they don't find themselves having to make such decisions. It starts by making preparations and adaptions well in advance.

Ross Raven wrote: But for many, it was a decent into homelessness. For many that could just not adapt mentally to that everything had changed over the last decade, Suicide has spiked.e.

This thought touches on what i was thinking about: a persons mental flexibility and resiliency.

The perfect homestead in a shtf situation is one that at least has sane people on it. Before getting too carried away into scenarios, plans or details i think it is good to examine your own mentality and emotional investments. I do not mean one night of calm reflection and insight. I mean deeply examine yourself and take the search to the extreme, find out the things you have spent so much energy trying to hide from your conscious awareness. After you have faced the disgusting part of yourself and accepted it, you will be resilient on a deep level. Watching a reality bubble and break right before you will destroy you if you unknowingly are invested in it.

My own process was very intense for 2 years and involved writing down everything that happened to me in daily life, recapitulating every sexual encounter i could remember, and posting those things for scrutiny by others doing the same. I say this just to emphasize that i am not meaning something simple and easy.

Examining emotional investments goes directly to the content of shtf and conspiracy scenarios anyway. If the shtf on some level it would be a relief and that is the draw.
I personally have known many people who became obsessed with these topics and i was one of them. It was through examining why i felt an attraction to it that i realized how the content of end of days scenarios captivated a certain type of individual or a certain part of people.

I used to work at a deli counter with a young man who was very much entrenched in militant veganism. Despite his getting pissed and cursing someone every 15 minutes I liked the kid and saw potential in his energy and brain capacity. Usually i would just poke fun at his knife skills, but occasionally we would get in long intricate discussions where he wanted me to become an angry militant vegan and i wanted him to see how silly he acted when losing his head cursing people for being murderers. Neither of us budged no surprise, but i came to see that i was angry at the mistreatment of animals just like he was, but he could not stop from focusing on the emotional aspects of death and wrongness. So when he saw someone eating a turkey sandwich all he saw ws a dupe who supports murder and nothing else, so he felt personally wronged and angry.
I bring up this story because its important to be able to see past your nose if you want to observe. That goes for natural systems, societal systems, and systems of the self.

If i cannot handle common disruptions without acting a fool And losing my mind than why even plan for shtf? Im not going to make it anyway.

Great post Zach,
I think that it is important to think about why some people focus on doomsday and others focus on transition. I have spent a lot of my life learning how to grow food and medicinal plants. I feel that they make my life better today, and they also would help me in the case of a soft landing, a moderate collapse, or a sudden crisis. If I spent all of my energy on a sudden crisis, I don't think that I would be living my life very well today. It's like an investment portfolio. I might put 70 % of my energy into soft landing that makes my life better now, 25% into moderate collapse, and 5% into sudden crisis. Seems like a balanced thing to do.
John S
PDX OR

Zach Muller wrote:

This thought touches on what i was thinking about: a persons mental flexibility and resiliency.

The perfect homestead in a shtf situation is one that at least has sane people on it. Before getting too carried away into scenarios, plans or details i think it is good to examine your own mentality and emotional investments. I do not mean one night of calm reflection and insight. I mean deeply examine yourself and take the search to the extreme, find out the things you have spent so much energy trying to hide from your conscious awareness. After you have faced the disgusting part of yourself and accepted it, you will be resilient on a deep level. Watching a reality bubble and break right before you will destroy you if you unknowingly are invested in it.

My own process was very intense for 2 years and involved writing down everything that happened to me in daily life, recapitulating every sexual encounter i could remember, and posting those things for scrutiny by others doing the same. I say this just to emphasize that i am not meaning something simple and easy.

Examining emotional investments goes directly to the content of shtf and conspiracy scenarios anyway. If the shtf on some level it would be a relief and that is the draw.
I personally have known many people who became obsessed with these topics and i was one of them. It was through examining why i felt an attraction to it that i realized how the content of end of days scenarios captivated a certain type of individual or a certain part of people.

I used to work at a deli counter with a young man who was very much entrenched in militant veganism. Despite his getting pissed and cursing someone every 15 minutes I liked the kid and saw potential in his energy and brain capacity. Usually i would just poke fun at his knife skills, but occasionally we would get in long intricate discussions where he wanted me to become an angry militant vegan and i wanted him to see how silly he acted when losing his head cursing people for being murderers. Neither of us budged no surprise, but i came to see that i was angry at the mistreatment of animals just like he was, but he could not stop from focusing on the emotional aspects of death and wrongness. So when he saw someone eating a turkey sandwich all he saw ws a dupe who supports murder and nothing else, so he felt personally wronged and angry.
I bring up this story because its important to be able to see past your nose if you want to observe. That goes for natural systems, societal systems, and systems of the self.

If i cannot handle common disruptions without acting a fool And losing my mind than why even plan for shtf?

yes well said.
*the safest place you can be is in the center of your heart *
...is the abbrevation my mind conjures around similar musings.

i also have the metaphorical tug of war type thought...like basically constantly engaging in a tug of war with elements you can never "win" against gets pretty ridiculous.

having known various activist communities, circus freaks =), people involved heavily in social justice work, the infamous flakes and nuts of nor cal, the "hippie mafia" as one of my sister friends likes to call it, many new age ish spiritual people (paradoxically very disconnected and ungrounded) .....and a lot of other similar type groups...i have definitely noticed the large amount of mentally imbalanced people, the traps and burnout, types like this encounter..

also i think...theres something about sensitivity and awareness...the more sensitive and "awake" people start to get, the clearer they see things...at first can lead to very intense fears. thoughts about the end of the world, actually feeling the huge disconnection most people have from *real reality* - where you can feel the earth is freaking out and in trouble...al this can lead people into some intense "crazy" type experiences. these kinds of experiences would be considered unpleasant, unneccessary, and not desirable, being in crazy states of mind, exploring dark feelings and thoughts, maybe even having cathartic breakdowns/breakthroughs

i am not that into most of what modern psychology has to say, but this stuff intruiges me...i think there is a lot of truth in this man's theories and perspective.. ---> Dabrowski 's Theory of Positive Disintegration

When I said my final instalment was going to be about "Healthy" vrs "Unhealthy" prepping...I had a completely different directions in mind. LOL....But sure, I will bite.

I tell people, Prepping wont solve your Existential Angst. It is simply a Means. Not a Reason. For that you would have to head into spirituality and philosophy. After several millennia of navel gazing and blood letting, they haven't figure out how to solve it either...so in that way you are in good company.

Over in prepping world...I deal with more than my fair share of bug nuts, bat shit crazies. And they usually have a lot of weapons...so it keeps my life...interesting.
A few of the older, more experienced and well rounded preppers have recently come up with a term for a certain type of prepper that seem to show up and are generally disruptive. We call these folks, "The keepers of the secret knowledge". The first time someone said it, I realised "That's a keeper". These folks get their identity or "Meaning" by believing they have a secret knowledge of whats really happening that everyone else just doesn't know. They are a pain....but sometimes a good reflection with which to question yourself and make sure you didn't swallow the Kool-Aid yourself.

I'm sure you have similar versions of this personality type on this board. We are all out here on the Fringe so we should expect to meet other fringe people.

But that's a good set up for the next post which was my original intention. If you have a good working knowledge of the subject matter, you are far less likely to fall for the half truth's of the con men and "The Keepers of the Secret Knowledge. Scary things generally aren't so scary when you look at them in full sunlight. They are only scary in the shadows. Stay tuned for my next exiting instalment.

Jennifer Richardson wrote:

Another valuable but overlooked wilderness skill is learning to find and recognize salt deposits/salt licks. They can sometimes be located by observing animals and their trails. If you end up with a diarrheal disease in the wilderness and your electrolytes are out of balance, having or being able to find salt can make the difference between recovering and going into shock and dying (I have been in shock due to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance before, and ended up hospitalized for a week before my blood pressure and other vitals had stabilized enough to be released--I don't recommend it). Also knowing which wild foods are good sources of potassium is helpful, since potassium depletion often goes hand-in-hand with dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.

How does one find salt? Or perhaps post a source of knowledge on this front? I have wondered... what to do about salt.

i definitely think that people like their version of "crash and burn" type scenarios, its very strange, but i think it's true. many people subconciously push for them, like they secretly want things like this to happen. and maybe even weirder, most people hug their chains very tightly, even chains of their own making.

maybe it's just anything to break up the dull grind, or that people have become sensation junkies, people get attached to these very extreme scenarios, missing out on the simple miraculous beauty of subtle things. in relationships, in social settings, and in terms of this looming doomsday stuff in particular.

maybe sometimes it just feels like things are so messed up theres no way to fix them anymore. so this type of big crash and burn idea, is, in a weird backwards way, very appealing. like there could be some kind of clean slate.

Hi Joylynn,

Other people may be able to give you better advice, but in my experience locating salt licks can be pretty difficult if you don't already know where they are. The ideal is to research and extensively observe your local region or any region where you think you might be "bugging out" to or where you might be stuck for whatever reason without access to civilization, before you actually need access to the salt in an emergency, but that is not always possible. You can probably find maps that will give a generalized idea of where salt deposits are located, but often these are so broad as to be fairly useless on a local basis.

Animals (particularly herbivores) will often travel for miles to get to a salt lick, especially if the local vegetation is poor in salt and minerals. So if you see them moving or can locate a trail that they've worn, sometimes it will lead to a salt lick, but it's a fairly slim possibility that you will just happen to come across animals that happen to be going to a salt lick instead of the million other places they go right when you need it. But if you see an animal licking the ground or an eroded hillside or creek bank or something, you're in luck. Also, if you do find a salt lick, it can be a good place to lie in wait for hunting, as the animals are likely to come to you.

Sometimes harsh weather such as winds or runoff can expose salt deposits. In addition, there are human-made sources such as salt mines and salt blocks left out by ranchers for livestock, or by hunters to bait game. Obviously if you are near the ocean or a salt water lake you can just evaporate the water and use the salt (or dilute the water with fresh water and then boil and drink it--don't drink straight seawater).

I have also heard that you can extract salt from hickory roots, but never tried it. A quick Googling turned up this basic summary of the process:

http://www.survival-manual.com/hickory-salt.php

Some clays contain salt as well as minerals (you will see herbivores licking clay as well, quite often). But this is rarely a good source of salt, and there are issues (such as parasite eggs) with eating clay or dirt. If I was truly desperate and was going to try this, I'd probably dissolve the clay in water and boil it really well to kill any helminth eggs or other pathogens.

In addition, meat and vegetables contain naturally occurring salts, so it's always best if you can continue eating through an illness or period of extreme exertion in which you are likely to be losing fluids.

You might also try drinking animal blood for salt, but I'm not sure about the logistics of this or how good a source it would be, never having tried it.

Sorry for the delay. Ive ben distracted by Black Monday that is continuing into today. Since I put out a warning about this about a month back, I have been fielding responses on another network.

This is a good lead in. Because I have a clearheaded working knowledge of the subject matter, Im far less likely to be bamboozled by all the fear merchants about to crawl out of the woodwork in the coming months with an agenda or something to sell.

So far I have talked about...., Crashes probably wont look like what you picture, and,... Running out into the forest is a bad strategy as it is generally a monoculture and avoiding hypothermia is rather important.

Once again I will cut and paste a previous post from a few years ago...


-I'm Not Crazy!!! A Crash Course-

...well. maybe a little bit.

I'm sure you are wondering what this post is about with a title like that. Maybe C5 has finally snapped. Nope. Got you again.
A few weeks back, I was asked to tackle a more public prepper presentation. I was told, "I figured you would be a level headed person that could explain what we are about without all that crazy Doomsday stuff." I laughed because I am somewhat of a crazy doomsdayer. I'm not a moderate prepper preparing for storms. That's just a bonus that comes with what I am really prepping for.

This is all a dramatic lead up. What I really want to do is introduce the "New to prepping" visitors to THE CRASH COUSE.

http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse

I consider this, the single most important video series you can watch in your life. Many people on this site have watched it. Its all of the facts...without all the crazy.
If you have spent any time in the prepper world, searching for the necessary skills, you will quickly realize you have walked into a world of crazy. Its a mine field of every sort of paranoid, bipolar, and often quite dangerous....nut jobs. Full on, Kooko for Choco Puffs. All of them wanting to recruit you. Many of them succeeding.

Often, these snake oil, salesmen can get their foot in the door by explaining to people what Money really is or debt financing is to a population that generally doesn't know. With this deep revelation exposed and trust built, The MARK (you) is now ready to be sold any crazy position they want you to believe. Thus we have the Glen Becks and the Michael Mores. Peter Josef's Zeitgeist and Alex Jones Endgame. Right Sector, The Arian Brotherhood, Christian Patriots and anyone else that can tell a good campfire story.

One of the things I like about THE CRASH COURSE is that it can also act as an INOCUATION against all this crazy. Buy knowing the basic MATH of it all, you are just not going to be bamboozled by someone that reveals a part of it.

THE CRASH COUSE. Its three and a half hours of your life. Its dry and academic. No dramatic music. No flashy editing and enticing conspiracies. Don't skip around to the parts you like or do the short version. Watch the whole darned thing. Treat it like doing a college course. If you need to watch a part two or three times to get it, do it. You are investing in your own life.

So, Back to the crazies. As you walk this prepper path, its easy to ask yourself if any of this is real or have you just deluded your self. Are you just one of the gullible crazies? Did you waist your life in a fantacy?

I've been doing this Prepper thing for a LONG time now. It has cost me ALOT. In Money, In Time, In Reputation, In Family, In Suffering. I have a confession to make. When I first watched the series end to end, I sat dazed for a wile. I was finally not alone. I wasn't the only person seeing all these problems. I broke down and cried in heart broken relief . (Seriously a good cathartic balling like a baby for this big biker dude that went on for a while)

For the first time I knew and said to myself, "I'm Not Crazy".

I was just a little ahead of the curve.

(update- This is a new version since the original 2005production . So many things had happened since then that it required an update. Its almost an hour longer.
Also a shorter accelerated version is , now, available for those that cant invest the time. Still, I recommend the full version. http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse/accelerated )




Considering what I am watching happen on the news, You may want to watch this sooner than later.

Steve Farmer wrote:

Ross Raven wrote:we could very easily be sent back to the stone age by a Coronal Mass Ejection. This is not a minor concern. Food don't move without computers nowdays. Its a when, not if. 16 thousand in solar panels suddenly becomes a sad write off

How does a coronal mass ejection write off solar panels?

I thought I would send a quick note to say Im not avoiding the question. Im just waiting to hear back from someone more knowledgeable on the subject, electronics not being by strong suit. I'll try to get you better info than my own faulty memory.

Ross Raven wrote:

Steve Farmer wrote:

Ross Raven wrote:we could very easily be sent back to the stone age by a Coronal Mass Ejection. This is not a minor concern. Food don't move without computers nowdays. Its a when, not if. 16 thousand in solar panels suddenly becomes a sad write off

How does a coronal mass ejection write off solar panels?

I thought I would send a quick note to say Im not avoiding the question. Im just waiting to hear back from someone more knowledgeable on the subject, electronics not being by strong suit. I'll try to get you better info than my own faulty memory.

I was hoping to get you folks more specific info but here is the go to report- http://www.futurescience.com/emp/emp-protection.html

Those of us in the know wish William R. Forstchen had done better research before publishing One Second After. Solar panels will actually do pretty good, only having been damaged to a one third loss. Here is our personal problem though. We are still attached to the grid for battery charging in low sun times. We would need to install a heavy duty surge protector into the house to protect our complicated, charger/ inverter.

For those that consider this unlikely, 2012 produced a CME event that would have matched the Carrington event. Luckily, it wasn't earth facing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

Glenn Herbert wrote:

You said it all, my very intelligent friend. When talking about this subject with others, I point out, the USSR collapsed...but Russia still remains. Argentina collapsed but the storefronts are still open. Greece reached collapse point. 25%unemployment is no joke...but elections are still taking place.
I mentioned Ran Priers, The Slow Crash, above but I know when people just put up a postit like that, its often ignored. I really do have to recommend it again. http://www.ranprieur.com/essays/slowcrash.html
It starts with the lines "Imagine the end of the world in moderation. It's hard. We tend to imagine that either the "economy" will recover and we'll go on like 1999 forever, plus flying cars, or else one day "the apocalypse happens" and every component of the industrial system is utterly gone."
He wrote it in 2005. You know. The year of Peak Conventional Oil. Precursor to the 2008 financial crash. This version has edited subnotes as he looks back on it just short of 2013, with the lines, " I can see now that my timeline was still much too fast, my vision of the changes was too catastrophic, and I was too optimistic about popular adaptations"

"If that's all we get, the crash will be slower and more complex than the kind of people who predict crashes like to predict. It won't be like falling off a cliff, more like rolling down a rocky hill. There won't be any clear before, during, or after"

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

---T.S. Elliot