S/O Off the Grid/ Homesteading... Do you think you could live in a post apocalyptic world with no technology?

[Anne in CA]

If and EMP went off, or something happened rendering modern technology useless would you be able to live? My BIL does not believe his family would survive if an EMP went off. His family has never planted a vegetable garden and none of his kids (four boys) have ever shot a gun outside of scout camp. They were also raised to help other people (LDS) and probably would be too trusting of others trying to take advantage of them.

 

Do you think this about your own kids? I don't. We live in the wilderness now, but we live in a restaurant full of food with a back up generator and my kids know how to use guns and are quite good with them. I planted veggie gardens every year when we lived in Oregon, and preserved my own food quite well. I think my kids would make it even without me, but if they were with me, absolutely I believe they would be fine. They are 15/ 19. The oldest, who is 26 would not be fine. Unless she was right next to dh and I when disaster struck, she would not adapt to a world without technology. She won't even watch The Walking Dead for that reason, lol.

 

I grew up on a working cattle ranch and we mostly ate food that my family had grown. My aunt and uncle had a dairy and a hog farm so we had a large variety of family food. Mostly I ate food that was really, really fresh. I remember eating canned veggies at school lunches and not quite understanding they were veggies, lol. I just cooked a wild turkey that a friend shot very successfully. He was surprised at how well I did, but I ate a lot of game growing up. Also, I was 18 before I ate chicken from a grocery store, so I knew how to prepare a whole bird.

[Anne in CA]

Given the popularity of post apocalyptic fiction I would guess most people think about it once in a while.

[Chris in VA]

I could survive, but I'd be way dependent on others with more knowledge.

 

I'd be the Frederick of the bunch, probably.

 

If they didn't value that, I'd get eaten.

 

Or something.

[MeaganS]

I'd survive. It would be tough going at first, but we'd probably be fine assuming no roaming killer gangs or such nonsense.

 

That is as long as I never got pregnant again. Modern medical practices have helped me deliver babies and I'm pretty sure I would be touch and go without them. Honestly, my "plan" is to meet up with family that live in better areas than we do for this and team up. Also, my Encyclopedia of Country Living would be my new best friend. :)

[chocolatechip]

I could make it, I think. Camping, gardening, limited farming, and cooking from scratch are all things I was raised to be familiar with. It would be an adjustment, to be sure, but I could do it!

[Guest]

Nope.

 

I rely on modern health care and a protective environment.

[SunnyDays]

I once watched my son being his city boy self, meandering along in the backyard with his iPod in hand... and thought about how I like being outdoorsy only in that I enjoy drinking wine on the deck...

 

And I told DH, "If the zombie apocalypse comes, you'll be on your own soon."

 

 

[Pawz4me]

Sure.  I have a solid plan.

 

If the end of the world as we know it happens the four of us are walking the six or seven miles to my brother's house.  He's a mechanical engineer.  He was building things and making non-working things work when he was four or five.  One of those MacGyver types.  He's one of those people who just naturally seems to know how to do all sorts of stuff.  And my nephew is a farmer who hunts.  He's working on a degree in soil conservation or some farming related field.  He knows all about growing things.  They'd take care of us.  They've been informed of my plan. ;)

[Cottonwood]

Yep I think all 4 of us would do.. ok, at least. We farm and hunt and camp.. The rough way..no RV. Both kids can start a fire with a flint, etc. Both target practice and have knife skills. They know how to purify water and ds knows how to skin animals. Although, ds at 12 is significantly more interested and better at this type of thing than did at 14 but she would be mostly ok. She just went through hunters safety classes and here in Montana it includes a lot about survival skills and she learned a lot. The loss of technology would actually be a welcomed loss for me lol. Its the one thing that might make the kids FEEL like they're dying but..they'd live lol

[Lang Syne Boardie]

I used to think I could do it, but some of my family members have joined the ranks of the millions being kept alive by modern medical technology.

 

So if we lost our hospitals, pharmacies, labs, and cadre of health care professionals, I wouldn't have time to even plant my garden. I'd be on a mission to track down purveyors of essential oils, as I've frequently been assured that EOs can take the place of western medicine...we'd probably all die of starvation and exposure while I searched in vain for those post-apocalyptic healers with their little miracle vials.

 

 

[mommymonster]

If it happened while we were visiting my family, we'd probably be fine. They are hugely independent farmers (raise 99% of their own food, etc). My concern would be my son with a brain tumor. Obviously not a good situation if the tumor were to regrow. 

 

If we were home, we'd be pretty much picked off within a week. Our yard isn't nearly big enough to support us. 

[PrincessMommy]

I think I could, but it would be hard.  I'm in pretty good health... can do a few things for myself and have some things that would help me survive at least at the outset.  I also have some good sets of friends who are resourceful and we could team up together.

 

[SKL]

We could survive if we had a little advance notice.  ;)  We don't currently have a garden growing food, but we could.  (Assuming the cause of the disaster didn't also destroy the environment for growing stuff.)  We could also fish and hunt if it came to that.

[MomtoCandJ]

Probably but I won't like it

[TeenagerMom]

Yes we could. Dh is ex - military and I grew up being taught self-sufficiency. I have 4 years hospital experience & a bro that is an EMS chief with access to life saving medical equipment. We stockpile medications. I have a decent garden & heirloom seeds. We also have family with acreage & a stocked pond though with my past life survivalist training, we could easily live off the land

[SunshineMom]

Yes, I think we could.  We have a large garden, fruit trees, berries, chickens, and basic domestic skills worth trading.  

 

What I am more afraid of is not being able to live with more technology, more entertainment, and consequently, more estrangement from others.

[JustEm]

Probably not. I mean I could grow a garden, start fires, learn to use a gun, etc but there would be too many people making just living unsafe that I wouldn't survive the travel to get to a safe location in which learning to survive would be a possibility.

[Farrar]

Dh and I hope that we're right in the city and it takes us down fast. No way are we going to make it. Probably not the kids either.

 

If by some miracle we made it and perhaps walked several hundreds of miles to my father's weird rural gated community and if it was still functioning and they let us in, they have their own water source, which would be something, I guess. But it's mostly older people. Though, on balance, older people with guns. Still, I don't think we'd make it.

 

I also think about this because of apocalyptic fiction. Sometimes I'll be wasting something and say, if this was after the apocalypse...

[Wheres Toto]

If Dh is here, we'll be fine.  If he's not, it's not as definite but I think we'd be okay.   I have thought about it before, I'm very interested in post-apocalyptic literature and movies.

 

We live on a river and have a deep well that we could convert to a hand pump, we have a large vegetable garden but we live in a zone where the growing season isn't that long so I'm not sure how helpful that will be.  Dh still has the bow that he used to hunt with, and since the kids are now into archery, we plan to get more newer bows.  We have a ton of squirrels, deer that come right up to our backyard, birds and of course, fish in that river.   We even caught a bunch of mourning doves in our trampoline when we threw a sheet over it to make a fort (we didn't eat them, we let them go).  We have a ton of camping equipment that could be useful.   I wouldn't be at all squeamish about eating whatever was available. Biggest problem would be ds, who has sensory issues and is very picky.

 

We also have both an indoor and an outdoor fireplace and a lot of wood (very wooded lot). 

 

I heard about an article that was in some men's magazine a few years ago about the things "real men" should know how to do.  It was all things like catch, clean and cook a fish, clean a rifle, shoot a bow and arrow, dig a well, set a snare, etc.  A lot of survival stuff.  Dh could do almost all of them, I can do a few of them.

[Melissa in Australia]

sure no problems at all.

 

We have lived for 2 years without electricity, one year when we were just married and one year when we had 2 children. We live pretty much as self sufficient  now. We collect rainwater and store it in huge water tanks. it gravity feeds to the house. We have solar hot water and a wood combustion stove that both heats the water and I cook on. We have a house cow that I milk every day, and grow our own meat. DH has a veggie garden bigger than a tennis court and we have an orchard fully netted that has over 40 trees in it. We do no and could not grow enough grain  to live off but we could adjust our diet.

 

The only bummer is we live a long way away from everything and if there was no fuel we would be very restricted, and electricity is very nice for the freezer- we could easily fix the second if we had to. We do have our roof covered in solar panels but at the moment we sell to the grid and do not have battery banks for storing the electricity.

[purplejackmama]

My husband would thrive. Me? Meh, I might last a week. Give or take a few days.

[umsami]

The umsami family is doomed....especially as I couldn't rely on Pinterest and MotherEarthNews.com  :)

 

 

[Joyofsixreboot]

I had a rural upbringing and could pull it together. My citified dh and kids? My kids might tough it out. Dh? No way, plus without his medications I don't know how he would fare. I would start heading to a better climate ASAP though. Longer growing season, better foraging and less need for heating fuel would matter.

[SproutMamaK]

Probably not. We know how to grow our own food, but we live on a tiny city lot and couldn't in a million years grow enough to sustain our family. And with so many people around, we'd have no way of stopping them from stealing from our garden anyway. Plus the winters are cold here... we could keep warm with fires and we're well prepared to camp, but we'd have no food source. Guns are rare-ish here; don't know how to shoot one, and wouldn't know how to use one to kill game, though I'm sure we could figure it out if we could get ours hands on one. We might make it til the winter, but probably no longer than that.

[creekland]

We'd do fine.  It wouldn't be my preference, but we'd do fine.

 

I would hope my boys either would be here or could make it here as they'd be far better off here than where they are.

 

We've been on oodles of long road trips and with 4 males in the car, this topic comes up fairly often.

 

We've also done primitive camping and they hunt, fish, etc, plus we have plenty of growing room on our farm.

 

If anyone is bringing useful skills, they'd be welcome here too.

[The Girls' Mom]

Yep.  We'd make it.  DDs would be pretty miserable for a while, but they'd figure out how to survive.  They can shoot.  They are aware of how food is grown, although they abhor gardening.  I can grow food and could hunt.  Dh can hunt and is very mechanically inclined.  We also know who to rig old fashioned work savers like pumps and mills.  We even have a library of books on living off the land.  We are also in an area that lends itself to survival.  There are food and water sources that are naturally occurring. When we lived IN the city in Fort Worth, we had plans to bug out as quickly as possible in the event of a disaster, as survival in such populated areas would be slim.  

[Guest]

Although I am not dependant on dialysis machines, pharmaceutical medications, etc. I am just too darned old. I wouldn't last a week if I were separated from my sons.

 

 

[The Girls' Mom]

I'd be on a mission to track down purveyors of essential oils, as I've frequently been assured that EOs can take the place of western medicine...we'd probably all die of starvation and exposure while I searched in vain for those post-apocalyptic healers with their little miracle vials.

 

:rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:

[Jean in Newcastle]

Skill wise we would do ok, I think.  We would be ok for shelter and food and possibly even clothing.  Medically, not so much.  Dh requires insulin so right there we'd be in big trouble.  I often require antibiotics.  Ds is terribly allergic to the outdoors and dd might be as well.  I've done the log cabin, off the grid thing for 3 or 4 months at a time and still remember some basics.  But that was before I got sick.  

[Gentlemommy]

Probably not. 😖 We'd starve and the zombies would get us.

[Mergath]

If it's an EMP that takes out civilization, all the gardening skills in the world aren't going to keep you alive. Other people will kill you long before starvation does. In that kind of world, with murder and cannibalism happening daily, I'd rather just die rather than live like that.

[bolt.]

I'd really rather not. I'd want to die soon, and quickly, preferably with my loved ones nearby, never knowing what hit us.

[Carrie12345]

We have some skills and we have some supplies, so we'd be better off than the average person.  But we do not have acreage, and that presents a problem.  I'm also not confident in my people skills, which puts long-term survival at real risk.

[Bluegoat]

As a family, we probably have some skills to make a go of it.  A lot would depend on the particular scenario and a bit of luck though.  Winters here can be hard, so if the apocalypse started in January, it would be hard to make it through.  We are in a sort of suburb but it could be viable, and if there was some notice we could move to a better spot easily enough. 

 

But there would be some serious potential hardships.  I would be seriously in trouble if anything happened to my glasses.  I'm also prone to UTIs - I would need to plant an orchard sO I could be swilling the apple cider vinegar regularly.  A pregnancy might be a problem even with a doctor around though I use NFP largely now so perhaps it wouldn't be an issue.

[Onceuponatime]

No, even if people didn't go crazy, the lack of water would be a big issue very quickly.

[ikslo]

DH plans on having a sailboat by then.  He and DS could live off seafood.  And it's about all DS is not allergic to.

 

Between motion sickness and not liking most seafood, I'd probably throw myself overboard.

[Desert Strawberry]

We are former field medic homesteaders. So yeah. We'd be ok.

I'd prefer it hit us in about a year, after we're settled on our new land. 

[Amira]

It probably depends on where we're living when it happens.  

[FaithManor]

Who knows? Something like a nuclear holocaust? then the chances of survival for even the most trained, resourceful person who isn't in a bunker is pretty low. That said dh knows how to build with hand tools, metalwork with out electricity, dig a shallow well, forage, etc. We know how to grow food and how to preserve it without electricity too. I have successfuly baked in a solar oven, and all kinds of other things as well. I can sew from repurposed material by hand if necessary though this alone might make me wish for an early demise, LOL. We do have some skills. On top of which,iiving out here in the sticks with a ton winter storms, we keep a stockpile of tools, wood, you name it, run our hot water and electronics for the wood boiler off solar, have a generator and quite a lot of fuel, put up the harvest (as the saying goes), dh fishes avidly, and the boys are learning basic hunting skills.

 

Possibly,we would have a shot. But if the fur hits the fan in a big way,survival isn't going to be easy regardles of skill.

[Guest]

I was a Marine. We improvise, adapt and overcome. So...yes :)

[Anne in CA]

I am pleasantly surprised by how many people could do well. Of course, there would be trouble from lawless people, and how much damage they could do would be anyone's guess. It would really depend on lots of variables. Melissa, I am amazed!

[The Girls' Mom]

If it's an EMP that takes out civilization, all the gardening skills in the world aren't going to keep you alive. Other people will kill you long before starvation does. In that kind of world, with murder and cannibalism happening daily, I'd rather just die rather than live like that.

 

Yep.  This would be our number one priority.  Defense.  

[catz]

LOL.  I don't really get prepping because in the case of zombie apocolypse, I just want to go down fast.  ;)

 

We are campers and have a garden.  But we do not own weaponry or hunt.  We do love our tech here, so that would be an adjustment.  I think we'd start a traveling snarky soap opera we'd perform in exchange for food!

 

In reality, fast death is what I'd want in a war torn, anarchy kind of world. 

[luuknam]

Yep.  This would be our number one priority.  Defense.  

 

And a good offense is the best defense, no?

 

My odds are probably about the same as the average person's odds. Which is to say, not good.

 

What about fixing the electrical grid? It would take time to rebuild to 21st century standards, but getting some early 20th century basics going again should be doable within a few months.

[The Girls' Mom]

We love apocalypse movies and books here, so we've had a lot of these talks.  The kids actually know the protocol for if "the zombies come" and the parents are dead or absent.   In reality, we'll be mostly ok until we get a paper cut and die from staph or something.

[kubiac]

In a proper overnight Apocalypse, we're dead meat, just because of lack of grit and suitable weaponry. We wouldn't even make it out of our gridlocked city, although I have a notion of robbing a pharmacy for medications and then heading north to somewhere with more reliable water.

 

In a slow-motion decline and fall situation, like the Great Depression, I think we'd have a shot. We have cash on hand, a stockpile of books and resources, an intentionally modest standard of living, strong community relationships and a small plot of land we can and do use for growing food.

[Jenny in Florida]

Of course I could, if I had to do so, as could my kids. We're all pretty resourceful people, and each of us has skills that could be adapted to survival needs. 

 

My son is a devoted tinkerer who can make all kinds of interesting and useful (although not always attractive) things out of whatever is lying about. He has some decent basic skills in woodworking/carpentry and can also sew.

 

My daughter and I are both really good at making do with the materials available and thinking creatively about how to re-purpose things. 

 

Although I don't have the time or space to do it these days, I like to garden. I am a decent no-frills seamstress, and I do a variety of crafts that can produce useful items. 

 

All three of us cook. And all three of us have absolute confidence that we can learn to do anything if we can read a book about it. Since books don't rely on power, and I'm assuming that libraries haven't been destroyed, we'd be all set.

 

And both of them sing, so we'd even have music.

 

We're vegans. So, hunting wouldn't be part of our plan. But, between the three of us, we could keep ourselves sheltered, clothed, fed and entertained.

 

 

[Remudamom]

I think everyone in my family would make it fine  but me.  I'd only last about six months without my meds.  If I don't have to run from zombies I might make it longer.

 

[musicianmom]

Nope. We'll be the first ones eaten. It's hopeless.

[Rosie_0801]

My new plan is to head to Melissa's farm.

 

I know where it is.  :sneaky2:

 

But I suspect if there was an apocalypse situation, she'd be a lot less pleased to see me than usual. :lol:

 

We'd have to bike ride the 60 ish km to my aunt's house. She's promised to be sitting on her hill shooting people she doesn't like with her crossbow and says she won't shoot us. :lol: We'd manage. She has water tanks and a few solar panels. I could even blog about it!