I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5655 Location: Body in OK, Heart in TX
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:19 pm Post subject: Re: Preparation nearly impossible
jdumars wrote:
I started with alarm in 2002, bought extremely well-suited land for hunter-gatherer living, had to give up on that because my wife didn't want it, and we had to somehow pay taxes on the land or lose it.
I had always wondered why you didn't keep that place; it was awesome. I would have bought it if a few circumstances were different. Now it makes sense - your wife didn't want that life.
Is your wife willing to reconsider now that you've tried the farming in TN deal, or not? The main disadvantage I see for that place is the social isolation. For us, with a young child, that's a deal breaker. It's possible to survive alone in the right location, but to really live most of us need a community or tribe of some kind.
If you could live within bugout distance of that place, it seems to me like a nearly perfect setup. _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:56 pm Post subject: Re: Preparation nearly impossible
TT, yes I did most of the things mentioned, but you veggie garden is a tiny fraction of what you eat every day, especially if you count it in calories, or look you must eat fat and proteins. We feed our chooks with bought grain.
I understand my husband fully that he does not want to give up his career, as it was too hard fought for.
What I'm trying to do is paying our mortgage back in record speed (not spending much money) and then buying a piece of maybe cheap land elsewhere.
WEre are you in Australia?
However I still think that we must plant trees etc. which are adaptable to a broad spectrum of climate. E.G elderberry (yuck!). And then our houses are not cyclone proofed..
Joined: Sep 12, 2005 Posts: 289 Location: Victoria, Australia
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:21 pm Post subject: Re: Preparation nearly impossible
alokin, I think that you're thinking that you need to be completely self sufficient. I don't believe that. Although food prices might be very expensive, I don't believe you won't be able to buy anything. The vegetables you grow will help take the edge off the price of your groceries.
I don't know if you read the pieces by Dimitri Orlov about the fall of the USSR and how the Russians supplemented their food supply from their garden which allowed their survival during those turbulent times. They still received bread which Dimitri said was delivered daily by train. If you also have planted some fruit or nut trees, you are a lot further ahead than most. A little stored food and Bob's your uncle.
On GW, I think that most trees and plants are a lot more resiliant that we think. If GW is slow plants might have the capacity to adapt. I do not foresee cyclones in the immediate future in my neck of the woods. Anyway, I've decided not to worry. I am continuing with my preps. We just put in a solar hot water system as well as a 2kw solar array. The hot house is completed and most plants are about an inch high. The chickens have just come back on the lay after an unduly long moult (GW). The caulis and cabbages and beetroot are going great guns and will all be frozen or bottled as they ripen. Hubby will be killing one of our sheep next week to restock the freezer.
Maybe I'm wasting my time, and maybe either or both PO or GW will get me, but I'm giving it my best shot and hopefully giving my daughter and little grandson a chance too. In the meantime this is the good life.
Joined: May 25, 2008 Posts: 158 Location: North Idaho
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 9:37 am Post subject: Re: Preparation nearly impossible
It has little do with what you think.... will happen. It has everything to do with planning, prepping and securing for the very worst case situation. Situations where...there is NO expensive food because...there just is no food for sale in any market place form.
Planning for 100% self sustaining life while things begin to come back to some form of previous living conditions is the only way for a true prepper to act. Playing the mind game that if something happens it will not exceed your visualized expectations is for...fools. Hoping and wishing upon a star it will only go so far...because that is all I am willing to accept and believe....
Prep for the very very worst and anything less down to nothing happening will be much more doable. We refer to those than under perp as victims...
Talking heads ranting about what the limits of any disaster will reach... is for those who have done so little trying to justify their actions.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13065 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 11:17 am Post subject: Re: Preparation nearly impossible
TT wrote:
They still received bread which Dimitri said was delivered daily by train.
Those of us in the country will not be receiving bread delivered daily by train. If you want food deliveries, you'll need to be in town or have some means of getting to town. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
I may not agree with all of what Chris Lisle wrote ( "Prepare for Peak Oil on a Budget")...but one thing stands out ATTITUDE.
Why is a country home not FUN anymore????
Why can't people sell FUN to their spouses??
Why cant they sell it to themselves!!!
Let the Good times roll...
_________________ With Love to all, and Malice to none.
"A people is conquered not when they lose a war, but when they adopt the song and customs of the enemy"
-Chacham S
Is prepare fopr PO on budget a book or a thread or what?
I don't know about it.
I really do not think that a self sufficient country living without oil id fun, you only have to look in history, it's simply backbreaking work.
And if you put climate change on top of it you will have bad or no harvests at all. city living is not better then.
There is a good book "The great warming" it's about how natural climate changes in the past triggered the raise or fall of civilizations, kingdoms etc.. He draws away the focus of most that cliate change means flooding hurricanes and tells that drought or heavy rainfalls can be worse for humanity. Man made climate change may be much more disruptive than the old patterns.
My experience in life has generally been that luck drives us more than we wish. On the other hand you need to prepare to accept the luck when it happens. If you say "Oh well, nothing can be done." then you do nothing and if you do get a lucky break it goes for naught.
On the other hand if you say "I don't know how this will work out but these things will increase my chances, if I get lucky." then you may have a chance.
The likely hood is that you are screwed. It's just that in one mind set you screw yourself and in the other you hope and plan for some good luck.
I prefer to go down fighting and therefore prepare, knowing full well it may not help. What else can you do? _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
It's maybe more like this: you prepare because it is the lifestyle you want anyway. Or how people prepare is different not why the needs will be so much different but the what they wish is different, maybe some love to be armed, others try to prepare the community ...
I think we prepare because we like gardening and such things, not because we think that we will have much more chance to survive, it's more about combining the fun with something useful.
Quote:
Planning for 100% self sustaining life while things begin to come back to some form of previous living conditions is the only way for a true prepper to act.
I really don't believe in a 100% self sustainable live, this is dreadful and we still live together with others and the bloke next door can do things better than we and we are able to do other things better. Imagine you get up, eat breakfast (after heating a wood stove with wood you collected and chopped) in earthern dishes you made yourself, brush you teeth with some twigs, dress yourself with something not only sewn yourself but you made the thread wove and so on. One would need heaps of tools and knowledge. This is certainly not the way to go. I think one should try to plant as much food as you can and then develop some knowledge which you can use after the big oil crash, like repairing shoes, making tools etc.
As for the food it's maybe wise plant some lesser palatable things (like Queensland Arrowroot) which are tough and stand a great variability of climate, for example trees which survive water logging and drought or salty conditions.
Why is a country home not FUN anymore???? Why can't people sell FUN to their spouses?? Why cant they sell it to themselves!!! Let the Good times roll...
Why is juggling an infant in one hand and a loaded and unlocked semi-automatic in the other not fun to their spouses??? _________________ As long as I am around, there are no worries we have reached "Peak Words"
Why is juggling an infant in one hand and a loaded and unlocked semi-automatic in the other not fun to their spouses???
Yeah my wife hates that... Everyone knows you need to put the baby in a backpack to free up your other hand so you can chamber and reload... Geeez. Oh and make sure the baby has earplugs in.
-G _________________ I Have and will continue to vote against ANY politician who supports the various bailouts. Curse you for selling out our future for status quo now!
Prepping for the unknown the (lack of it) is best found to be related to..lack of drive or self motivation. Trying to get a community of neighbors to do squat is a waste of time.
It is not much differant than if you all share the same private road and a few try on get the rest to chip in equaly to upgrade it. Most say no...hoping the rest will do it anyway and then they will get to drive on it for nothing.
Spreading around the neighbors that you wish to organize for a long term hardship by all saving together only causes most to say no...banking on partaking of the others stores later, if needed.
Those knid of leaches just think the group of prepped folks would never turn them away at gun point... because after all we are your neigbors..right? Well around here that is exactly what will happen. No food or help at gunpoint. Not one remote neighbor out here seems to want to lay up the needed stores for an extended emergancy or crisis.
Old fables and sayings are based on wisdom. One I apply is the busy ants working all summer to lay up for the cold winter. The grasshopper laughs at them and plays while the summer drags on. Finally at the end of the summer it turns cold...the hopper runs to the ants asking to stay with them, stay warm and eat their food...Guess what, they say no and the hopper dies out in the cold. I bet they dragged it body inside to eat later
Prepping for the unknown the (lack of it) is best found to be related to..lack of drive or self motivation. Trying to get a community of neighbors to do squat is a waste of time.
It is not much differant than if you all share the same private road and a few try on get the rest to chip in equaly to upgrade it. Most say no...hoping the rest will do it anyway and then they will get to drive on it for nothing.
Spreading around the neighbors that you wish to organize for a long term hardship by all saving together only causes most to say no...banking on partaking of the others stores later, if needed.
Those knid of leaches just think the group of prepped folks would never turn them away at gun point... because after all we are your neigbors..right? Well around here that is exactly what will happen. No food or help at gunpoint. Not one remote neighbor out here seems to want to lay up the needed stores for an extended emergancy or crisis.
Old fables and sayings are based on wisdom. One I apply is the busy ants working all summer to lay up for the cold winter. The grasshopper laughs at them and plays while the summer drags on. Finally at the end of the summer it turns cold...the hopper runs to the ants asking to stay with them, stay warm and eat their food...Guess what, they say no and the hopper dies out in the cold. I bet they dragged it body inside to eat later
You are describing the Tragedy of the Commons.
Preparations, such as can be identified, are best done on a single basis or for a very small community. IMO preparations include increasing your intellectual wealth and staying nimble. We can never count on being sure where the next crisis will erupt.
And, in the mean time, try to enjoy what we have.
From Wiki:
The Tragedy of the Commons is the title of an influential article written by Garrett Hardin, first published in the journal Science in 1968.[1] The article describes a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared resource even where it is clear that it is not in anyone's long term interest for this to happen.
Central to Hardin's article is a metaphor of herders sharing a common parcel of land (the commons) on which they are all entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's view it is in each herder’s interest to put as many cows as possible onto the land even if the commons is damaged as a result. The herder receives all the benefits from the additional cows but the damage to the commons is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational decision, however, the commons is destroyed and all herders suffer. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
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