That's the round figure dad said. As sometimes we had to kill 250 & dress put on ice at one time to feed a lodge for their special doings. We had neighbors come help With dressing & hauling the guts to the pigs to eat. Dad had a special small ball bat he ould pick one up by the hind legs & hit it on top of the head to knock it out, hand it to a neighbor that cut the throat & hung it on wireline that went down to several women that skinned the hide real carefully & another neighbor that would lay out the hides to dry certain ways as there was $$$ in the rabbit fur back them. On down, the line was more neighbors that cut & gutted them. Then at the end were some kids that took them off the line & put them in ice in huge cattle troughs.so 5 thousand rabbits on Monday... how many by Friday ?
Preppers, could they be right?
- Thread starter mellowyellow
- Start date
After reading all this I realize I am inadequately prepped. I keep an old coat and a snow shovel in my car, and during tornado season I leave the cat carrier open near the door to the shelter (if I were to get the carrier out the cat would disappear, so the carrier has to be handy).
For Y2K my preparations were a couple packs of slim jims and some hot-hands hand warmers.
I am really not prepared for the electricity to go out, whenever it is out I have no water (on a well) or heat/air-conditioning. If there was a bad storm I'd probably have to be rescued and taken to an emergency shelter.
I guess in a way I am prepped just by living in a country that has plans for emergencies (tho the early covid pandemic showed some scary gaps in the govt actually doing what their plans say).
Supposedly the US govt (or some other agency, FEMA maybe) has stockpiles of food, insulin/meds, etc. And there is the Red Cross.
Maybe unemployment insurance and food banks are the most useful preparedness for the common problems.
At work for our computer systems we do disaster recovery exercises frequently, transferring operations from facilities in one state to another.
I never hear the Preppers talk about salt, I think it is interesting that toilet paper, which is not at all a necessity, is stockpiled but they don't mention salt.
For Y2K my preparations were a couple packs of slim jims and some hot-hands hand warmers.
I am really not prepared for the electricity to go out, whenever it is out I have no water (on a well) or heat/air-conditioning. If there was a bad storm I'd probably have to be rescued and taken to an emergency shelter.
I guess in a way I am prepped just by living in a country that has plans for emergencies (tho the early covid pandemic showed some scary gaps in the govt actually doing what their plans say).
Supposedly the US govt (or some other agency, FEMA maybe) has stockpiles of food, insulin/meds, etc. And there is the Red Cross.
Maybe unemployment insurance and food banks are the most useful preparedness for the common problems.
At work for our computer systems we do disaster recovery exercises frequently, transferring operations from facilities in one state to another.
I never hear the Preppers talk about salt, I think it is interesting that toilet paper, which is not at all a necessity, is stockpiled but they don't mention salt.
Irwin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
That reminds me, I need to go to the liquor store.
In case of this happening, your on your own as no help is coming. No working vehicles to bring help.
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) – What You Need to Know
The two most likely reasons for an EMP are a nuclear explosion or solar flare. This post discusses the damage an EMP may cause and actions that you can take to prevent or manage the results of the EMP. A large Electromagnetic Pulse EMP would cause widespread problems.
What could an EMP damage?
Depending on the power of the explosion or solar flare, an EMP could disable, damage or destroy:- TVs, radios and other broadcast equipment
- Power grid transformers and substations
- Telephones (land lines) and smartphones
- Vehicle and aircraft control systems
- Computers and all internet connected devices
- Refrigerators
- Generators
- Satellites potentially within the range of the EMP
More information at,
https://commonsensehome.com/electromagnetic-pulse-emp/
mellowyellow
Well-known Member
‘If something happens, I think there will be far too many people standing around with their jaws on the ground,’ says Jim Greer, a prepper based in Western Australia. Photograph: David Dare Parker/The Guardian
As a child, Greer learned to tie clove hitches and reef knots with the Scouts; as an adult he served in the navy. The motto Be Prepared is in his blood and he has been gathering survivalist skills for many years.
To better understand how to live off the land, he spent time with Aboriginal people who live traditionally. The Anangu Luritja people of central Australia taught him how to make weapons and hunt, and Greer can now make an Indigenous-style traditional spear. “The truck holds enough fuel that I could get 1,200km away,” he says. “I have a handful of friends that have also been prepping for a while and they know exactly where I am going.”
Mel, a geography teacher from West Perth, offers courses in prepping and has been reassuring panicked callers that there are a range of skills that are useful to have, apocalypse or no apocalypse. https://www.chillipreppers.com.au/
The thought of losing my electricity fills me with horror, so after reading all the above posts, I've devised a plan.
I shall buy a bicycle, connect it to a car alternator, then a transformer into the house mains supply , and for half an hour each day I'll pedal that bike like mad.........That should keep the freezer going and stop all my ice cream from melting.
I shall buy a bicycle, connect it to a car alternator, then a transformer into the house mains supply , and for half an hour each day I'll pedal that bike like mad.........That should keep the freezer going and stop all my ice cream from melting.
StarSong
Awkward is my Superpower
- Location
- Los Angeles Suburbs
Relying on a swift rescue by the government, neighbors or private agencies is a hope, not a plan. People who've lived through widespread regional disasters or supply disruptions have learned that organized help is spotty and slow to arrive. The wider the emergency, the spottier and slower the response. For people without stored food or water, 3-14 days without help is a hellish eternity.
If you're inadequately prepared for an emergency, now's the time to pull it together. What could be easier than buying some water during every grocery visit until you've accumulated 7-10 gallons per person, plus extra for your pets? (Humans need roughly a gallon of drinking water a day for comfortable survival. Toilet flushing and washing up requires more water.)
A reasonable stash of canned and shelf stable foods can likewise be built up slowly. Tuna, beans, veggies, chili, whatever. Enough to get through at least a couple of weeks. If you can't cook without help from the grid, skip foods that need anything more than a manual can opener, disposable cutlery and paper plates. (No sense wasting precious water on dishwashing.)
It doesn't take a prepper mentality to prepare for power outages during weather extremes and to have enough supplies to ride out short term supply disruptions. It merely requires a certain mindset and determination to do so.
Extreme preppers do include salt on their supply list. However, short of preserving meat, extra salt isn't necessary. Canned and packaged foods have all the salt humans need - and then some.
StarSong
Awkward is my Superpower
- Location
- Los Angeles Suburbs
Good info and very good website. A friend with a PhD in solar physics told me about five years ago that when there's another solar EMP similar to the one that occurred in 1859, life will change dramatically. He said it's a matter of when, not if. I admit to only half-believing it back then but the more I learn about EMPs, the scarier and more likely that eventuality feels.
Electricity has become the cornerstone of modern life. Heaven help us if all the grids, vehicles, and communications sectors fail in a large region, never mind nationwide or worldwide.
Imagine the chaos of modern prisons - all those electronic locks, cameras, etc., failing. Will the guards stay at work or will they go home to help their own families survive? How will the incarcerated people continue to be fed each day? Would they die in their cells or be released en masse? What of hospitals, nursing homes, emergency responders, etc?
Pretty scary stuff...
Jules
SF VIP
My ex was a prepper the last 6 years of our marriage. We lived off the grid - hauled water, no phone, 12 volt windmill (nearly took the roof off in a storm), stocked food, propane fridge, lots of guns, etc, etc. It wasn’t fun or worth it.
Many of his gun totting friends were preppers too. IMO, some were marginally sane.
Many of his gun totting friends were preppers too. IMO, some were marginally sane.
I think losing electricity is what I am unprepared for the most. I have bottled drinking water and food just due to being prepared for midwest snowstorms, but if the electricity goes out (my house only has electricity for everything), I don't know how I would survive if the weather was cold, I'd need some sort of battery powered heated blanket I guess. And it would have to be rechargeable by me pedaling or turning something. My best chance would be to get out of the countryside and find more people where there was fuel for generators etc, so I guess one of the red cross shelter type things that get done in emergencies. If the electro-magnetic disturbance (or zombie apocalype) were to happen in good weather I'd maybe survive.
I've realized that having buckets of water to flush the toilet would only work for a day or two because I have a septic tank and if the electricity were out the pump in that would not move the water out to the septic field. I guess then if it wasn't freezing weather I'd be reduced to digging a hole in the yard and making an outhouse.
I remember visiting my great-uncles farm when I was a kid. I know they had electricity in the house because there was a record player (I remember them playing the 'John-Marsha' song, ha ha), but I'm not sure how the well worked, the water source was outside and we had to pump the handle up and down, so maybe it was not electric. We carried water to the house in a bucket and there was a ceramic pan we'd scoop water from the bucket and pour it over our hands over the little pan. They had a windmill out in the cow pasture to fill the cattle water tank. I cannot imagine what they did in winter. There was an outhouse outside their house that we had to use to go to the bathroom. Their kitchen stove burned corncobs, we enjoyed putting cobs in for my great-aunt. Their life must have been kind of harsh, I don't remember ever visiting them in winter weather.
AnnieA
Well-known Member
- Location
- Down South
He bought a lot of those things but only had them a short time. He was filming the asteroid hit and waited too late to go home for his wife. By the time he made it home, his wife and dog were killed and all his supplies gone. The robbers with the truckload of stuff from his neighborhood were attacked and the van blew up with all the ammo and booze.
The aftermath of Lucifer's Hammer is probably more realistic than most post-apocalyptic fiction.
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StarSong
Awkward is my Superpower
- Location
- Los Angeles Suburbs
Wow! I wouldn't want to live the life of a prepper, obsessively waiting (hoping) for disaster to strike. I try to be aware and reasonably prepared. Beyond that, I hope for the best.
Gun toting friends? Eek. A terrifying thought.
AnnieA
Well-known Member
- Location
- Down South
That's what I think of as 'survivalists', not preppers. Prepping is shorter-term like @StarSong described above. I'm a prepper but not a survivalist. To use the lingo... if a SHTF (shit hits the fan) event goes into a long-term TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) WROL (without rule of law), I don't want to stick around. A lot of the 3Bs ...beans, bullets and bandages survivalists are living in some seriously weird head space.
StarSong
Awkward is my Superpower
- Location
- Los Angeles Suburbs
That's a helpful distinction. Some blogs and comments I've read through definitely support your assessment of some survivalists being in seriously weird head spaces.
Knight
Well-known Member
Since someone was arrested for mooning a mobile camera make sure you aren't seen peddling your a$$ so as not to be confused with a prostitute.The thought of losing my electricity fills me with horror, so after reading all the above posts, I've devised a plan.
I shall buy a bicycle, connect it to a car alternator, then a transformer into the house mains supply , and for half an hour each day I'll pedal that bike like mad.........That should keep the freezer going and stop all my ice cream from melting.
I got a whole house backup generator that when the power goes off it starts automatically after 20 seconds to make sure the power is actually off. It is shielded on the inside of the case with special aluminum foil to stop an EMP from getting to the generator. Cost a little more but was well worth it.The thought of losing my electricity fills me with horror, so after reading all the above posts, I've devised a plan.
I shall buy a bicycle, connect it to a car alternator, then a transformer into the house mains supply , and for half an hour each day I'll pedal that bike like mad.........That should keep the freezer going and stop all my ice cream from melting.
I have a 1,000 gallon LP tank that if I only run it sparingly & watch how much power I have on in the house I can go 3 months with no problem.
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
@Annie thanks!! It's been so long that I've read that book I don't really remember most of it just about the booze the ammo and the cigarettes. I don't even remember how it ended.
AnnieA
Well-known Member
- Location
- Down South
@Annie thanks!! It's been so long that I've read that book I don't really remember most of it just about the booze the ammo and the cigarettes. I don't even remember how it ended.
It's a good read with a great balance between characters and plot. It's also very well researched. Worth reading again!
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RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
Yes!
StarSong
Awkward is my Superpower
- Location
- Los Angeles Suburbs
I'll check it out. Thanks.
AnnieA
Well-known Member
- Location
- Down South
StarSong
Awkward is my Superpower
- Location
- Los Angeles Suburbs
That should make it even more relatable since I've lived in Los Angeles since the early 70s.The setting is late 70s Los Angeles.
AnnieA
Well-known Member
- Location
- Down South
I figured you'd like that. Didn't know when you made the move to LA but thought you were probably there in the late 70s The setting is very much a character in the story.
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Paco Dennis
SF VIP
- Location
- Mid-Missouri
I was active on a forum that was mainly about the collapsing economy, and global warming for years. There were survivalists, one living in the jungle somewhere with no electricity. Many doing all they can to find options to DYI for all their needs. I learned a lot of options and have adopted some. There were preppers also who were kinda half in and half out of obtaining their supplies.
The current effects of climate change and Covid seem to be the leading candidates to turn us into a third world. We seem to keep slipping further and further into a situation where no one wants to work, and inflation is going to keep going up. Not a good combo. The continued increase in shortages ( in most all sectors of our society ) is what has me concerned. I don't see a way for these trends to stop. I am preparing for this by buying as little as possible, and what I do buy I am applying to the theme that it will probably be scarce in the near future.
The current effects of climate change and Covid seem to be the leading candidates to turn us into a third world.
We seem to keep slipping further and further into a situation where no one wants to work, and inflation is going to keep going up. Not a good combo. The continued increase in shortages ( in most all sectors of our society ) is what has me concerned. I don't see a way for these trends to stop. I am preparing for this by buying as little as possible, and what I do buy I am applying to the theme that it will probably be scarce in the near future.
squatting dog
We don't have as far to go, as we've already been
- Location
- Arkansas, and also Florida
While I definitely have a prepper mindset, (dehydrated food, guns, ammo, barter materials, close friends with the same mindset etc.), I'm also a realist and since we're only here for a short time anyways and you never know when your time is up, I live with the motto "do it today, for nobody knows if there is a tomorrow". For that reason, I went out yesterday and bought the wife a Harley trike.
I chose to enjoy life, not sit in a hidden bunker and hope for an apocalypse.
I chose to enjoy life, not sit in a hidden bunker and hope for an apocalypse.