Remember predicting the pandemic? What about WWIII?

[Melissa Louise]

3 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

That’s what DH always says. If you’re serious about prepping for genuine disaster, better buy lots of guns. (Our friends who lean this direction are decidedly not gonna buy guns, given their political persuasion. He’s just making the same point you are.)

And cigarettes and alcohol to trade!

[Ting Tang]

I think after the pandemic, I learned it’s nice to have extras for short term emergencies. My husband was good about this. However, it’s expensive! And that’s nowhere near being like one of those doomsday prepper people they make shows about…   I don’t want to spend my life preparing for the apocalypse. Maybe that’s my privilege as an American talking, at least for now. 

[ktgrok]

15 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

That sounds very interesting. I suffered through about three years of my parents being in a doomsday prepper cult. We had food insecurity, lack of health care, you name it during that time because of the amount of money my dad spent on prepper stuff. At one point, we had $1500 worth of dehydrated foods in a bunker, my brother and I were going hungry and losing weight, but dad wouldn't let us eat any of it. My grandparents took us away from my folks for a while, and losing us was the wake up call...well for my mom. She was so distraught that she threatened to divorce my dad, and that was the wake up call for him. The prepper, doomsday, armeggedon groups can be very dangerous, much like Sciencetology and other more well known cults. I might read this book. But, I have to decide if emotionally I want to go down that rabbit hole. 

If it helps, the book takes place after she is an adult, and out of that lifestyle for the most part. However, she still has unresolved anxiety/issues related to it and has found a way to sort of balance that ingrained need to prepare with a more logical and realistic world view. Other potential trigger would be she has been cut off by her family for joining the FBI, aka the government, but throughout the series does make inroads with various family members. 

[AnotherNewName]

FWIW if you are really worried about a future collapse, stockpiling heirloom seeds and bulk quantities of seasoning (along with guns and ammo) would give you more flexibility in a world of scarcity.

[prairiewindmomma]

49 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

FWIW if you are really worried about a future collapse, stockpiling heirloom seeds and bulk quantities of seasoning (along with guns and ammo) would give you more flexibility in a world of scarcity.

Only if you have 5 acres to plant traditionally, sufficient water and fertilizers ( or more acreage + cows to get fertilizer), time to weed and can, etc. and the ability to store the harvest. To be wholly self sufficient for food/subsistence living is a ton of work and late frosts/insect or fungal plagues/a bad hailstorm can wipe out your dinner plate. I grew up on a ranch, and our family was about 80-90% independent in its production, and it took the collective work of many adults over 150 acres (cattle/wheat/alfalfa/hay/orchards/garden) to keep us all fed. We still had to buy sugar, vinegar, spices, and vet supplies and other things to keep it going. It was hard, hard work with 20 hour days during peak harvest. We lost animals to lightening strikes, rattlesnake bites, difficult births, and so on. It was hard with a functional society around us and mechanical labor to aid us, established fencing and barns, etc.

We live in a place that can be highly productive for domestic food production. We export food, as a country. There’s no need for us to have victory gardens, and for a large chunk of the population, there’s no ability to. 
 

This whole seeds and guns narrative drives me nuts. It tells us that rugged individualism is what will save us…and the reality is that humanity has always thrived in communities, with specialization of labor, and with mutual aid. The stories we should be telling ourselves are ones in which we strengthen community ties, share, and acknowledge the reality we live in rather than fairy tales.

Most of us cant grow sufficient calories to survive.

Most of us will need some sort of healthcare at some point—stitches, mending a broken bone, dealing with an infection, etc.

Saying we just need seeds and guns absolves us of our anxiety about the future we are staring at without doing any of the work to really resolve the actual challenges we are facing.

Bread and circus.

[prairiewindmomma]

I am not in any way trying to pick on Melissa specifically…just want to springboard off of her idea.

Let’s say that you decide to buy 500 cartons of cigarettes and 100 bottles of whiskey as your zombie apocalypse strategy. Who are you trading with? What do you receive? What is a fair trade? How does that meet your basic needs? Do you still have running water? Do you have cooking fuel? Where is your food coming from? What happens when your kid gets a bad cold from the cold and damp of winter or needs new shoes? Kick that can down the road ten years. Now what? Do you think you still have whiskey and cigarettes? 
 

The reality is that there are chunks of the world already living in collapse and the weird stuff we somehow dream up as our survival plans arent the actual things that people are doing in collapse. Pakistan post-flood, Haiti, Afghanistan, Venezuela….pick any place with electricity under three hours a day and limited clean water and *still* people are going to work, making purchases where they can, and so on.

[Lecka]

I talked about this with my husband when we were discussing not keeping any guns in our home.  
 

The fact is that it’s so dangerous to store guns at home.  
 

Edit:  like many other people we got rid of guns and do not keep guns in our home.  
 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by Lecka

[Hyacinth]

This thread reminds me of The Road. 

[Pawz4me]

As far as booze and cigarettes--I have an elderly person in my life who thinks having extra cash on hand is the insurance needed for the end of the world as we know it. I've told them over and over that if anything remotely resembling the scenario they envision* happened their money would be good for nothing more than TP or starting fires, and that they'd be better off hoarding some booze and cigarettes for trading. But they don't get that, mostly because they don't drink or smoke and can't think in a big picture way.

*ETA: My rambling point (LOL) was supposed to be that there are a number of different scenarios people may fear and be inclined to try to prepare for. And that may look quite different depending on the specific scenario envisioned.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Pawz4me

[Corraleno]

I definitely think there will be major food shortages in the future, for all the reasons listed in the okdoomer post linked upthread: extended droughts and heatwaves, massive storms and floods, loss of topsoil, fertilizer shortages, loss of bees, intensive agricultural practices and lack of diversity making both plants and animals more susceptible to disease, severe water shortages, etc. But with the exception of water shortages, which is already a serious issue in the southwestern US, I think the rest of those issues are going to play out gradually over the next few decades and there's no point in stockpiling several years worth of food, and building an arsenal to defend it, right now in 2023.

When I lived in the UK I watched a show on US preppers in rural Idaho, who had stockpiled years of food and had amassed huge caches of weapons to defend their fortified bunkers, and they would have drills where they'd go running into the house, batten down the hatches, grab their weapons, and pretend that people were coming out of the woods to steal their food. One of the families had a little girl who was 6 or 7 and I always wondered what effect it had on her to grow up thinking everyone outside the family wanted to kill them and steal their food, and the idea of killing your neighbors and/or letting them starve was just normal. That was 25 years ago, so that girl would be in her 30s now, and I wonder if she thinks her parents were nuts or if she's now a prepper herself, doing drills with her own kids.  I also wonder what happened to the thousands and thousands of dollars worth of freeze-fried foods and MREs those families stockpiled that were never needed!

I do think food is going to continue to get more and more expensive, and take up more and more of most families' budget, so it's not a bad idea for people to start learning how to cook cheap healthy plant-based meals and keep a reasonable stock of things like rice, beans, pasta, and canned goods to get through short-term supply chain issues and help buffer price increases. And although it's not realistic for most people to think they can become self-sufficient with home gardening, for those who have the space and inclination, a garden can supplement pantry staples with fresh produce during shortages, and after the initial investment to get it going, it can be pretty cost effective (and will be even more so as food prices rise).

 

[Carol in Cal.]

I think that full on prepper is OTT, and that not having anything around is short sighted.  So I aim between those two.  One thing I focus on is making sure that anything I stockpile to eat is something that we really do WANT to eat, IYKWIM.  Seems like MREs are not going to be in that category.

[Carrie12345]

11 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

do think food is going to continue to get more and more expensive, and take up more and more of most families' budget, so it's not a bad idea for people to start learning how to cook cheap healthy plant-based meals and keep a reasonable stock of things like rice, beans, pasta, and canned goods to get through short-term supply chain issues and help buffer price increases. And although it's not realistic for most people to think they can become self-sufficient with home gardening, for those who have the space and inclination, a garden can supplement pantry staples with fresh produce during shortages, and after the initial investment to get it going, it can be pretty cost effective (and will be even more so as food prices rise).

Combining this with @prairiewindmomma,

Most people don’t have enough space for extensive crop/animal production, but can be a resource for those who do.  
As an example, we’re well acquainted with a large family farm (kids have worked there), connected to an additional farm by other relationships, and have several friends with a lot of land in various types of use at the moment. Do I worry about cost of food? Yes. Do I worry about contributing for access to certain foods? Nope.

[Corraleno]

I don't understand why people think booze and cigarettes would be the most valuable thing for trading.  I would think that folks addicted to booze and/or cigarettes who failed to stockpile those for their own use are equally unlikely to have planned ahead enough to stockpile food or other valuable goods that they can trade for it. It also seems kind of cynical to plan to take advantage of people with addictions who are so desperate they will give up their limited food to avoid withdrawal. Plus the money spent stockpiling booze and cigarettes could buy a lot of beans and rice, so then you don't have to trade for food to begin with.

Shelf-stable food (especially things that need to be imported like coffee and sugar), medication and first aid supplies, candles, small solar chargers, water filters, seeds, firewood/charcoal, propane cylinders, etc. seem like they'd be more in demand than booze and cigarettes if the shit really hits the fan.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Corraleno

[prairiewindmomma]

FWIW, I do highly recommend having a couple of week's worth of food on hand. That's basic emergency preparedness.  I further recommend at least once in your life actually eating said foods using no electricity and nothing else for two weeks and see how you feel about it and what gaps you discover.  Being stuck with two weeks worth of only ramen, rice, and canned peaches does not make for a happy state of existence. Campers and off-grid living people may not find it to be much of a stretch, but for people like my neighbor who door dashes supper in nightly, it's a bit of a shock. 

[Pawz4me]

3 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I don't understand why people think booze and cigarettes would be the most valuable thing for trading.  I would think that folks addicted to booze and/or cigarettes who failed to stockpile those for their own use are equally unlikely to have planned ahead enough to stockpile food or other valuable goods that they can trade for it. It also seems kind of cynical to plan to take advantage of people with addictions who are so desperate they will give up their limited food to avoid withdrawal. Plus the money spent stockpiling booze and cigarettes could buy a lot of beans and rice, so then you don't have to trade for food to begin with.

Shelf-stable food (especially things that need to be imported like coffee and sugar), medication and first aid supplies, candles, small solar chargers, water filters, seeds, firewood/charcoal, propane cylinders, etc. seem like they'd be more in demand than booze and cigarettes if the shit really hits the fan.

It's not just food, water and medicine that people would need. There would be a market for labor and other services. If it's winter and you're elderly/frail/disabled you might need to trade for firewood, or trade for the labor required to cut or haul it. If you have livestock (goats or cows for dairy, etc.) they need hay that not only would have to be bought/bartered for, but would require some physical strength to deliver. And on and on. Lots of people like their booze and cigarettes but aren't addicted (that's a bit of a straw man). But they're the type of creature comforts (like chocolate or coffee) that the right person might be willing to barter their services for.

[regentrude]

58 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I don't understand why people think booze and cigarettes would be the most valuable thing for trading.  I would think that folks addicted to booze and/or cigarettes who failed to stockpile those for their own use are equally unlikely to have planned ahead enough to stockpile food or other valuable goods that they can trade for it. It also seems kind of cynical to plan to take advantage of people with addictions who are so desperate they will give up their limited food to avoid withdrawal. Plus the money spent stockpiling booze and cigarettes could buy a lot of beans and rice, so then you don't have to trade for food to begin with.

Shelf-stable food (especially things that need to be imported like coffee and sugar), medication and first aid supplies, candles, small solar chargers, water filters, seeds, firewood/charcoal, propane cylinders, etc. seem like they'd be more in demand than booze and cigarettes if the shit really hits the fan.

I am from the Eastern block before the fall of the wall and have traveled in a Communist country with severe shortages of basic necessities. You could not purchase needed goods for (worthless Eastern) money.
The items that were the best currency for trading were cigarettes, sugar, and spices (pepper!).
Sugar was heavy and not an option to carry around. Spices depended on individual taste. Cigarettes were by far the most versatile and coveted item you could trade for pretty much anything, for example transportation. 

ETA: In times of hardship, people cling to their little luxuries. Cigarettes are one of those for many people. 

Edited October 11, 2023 by regentrude

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, Corraleno said:

 

I do think food is going to continue to get more and more expensive, and take up more and more of most families' budget, so it's not a bad idea for people to start learning how to cook cheap healthy plant-based meals and keep a reasonable stock of things like rice, beans, pasta, and canned goods to get through short-term supply chain issues and help buffer price increases. And although it's not realistic for most people to think they can become self-sufficient with home gardening, for those who have the space and inclination, a garden can supplement pantry staples with fresh produce during shortages, and after the initial investment to get it going, it can be pretty cost effective (and will be even more so as food prices rise).

 

This is why I garden. It is for my family, to share, to give to people in need.

The reality is we are seeing a lot of grocery inflation coinciding with the insane increase in housing costs. The Ukraine War brought us rising prices on wheat, and increasing exports of wheat from the USA to countries who relied on Ukraine and Russian wheat. Now we have the Israel/Palestinian war, and the bombing if farmland/crops in that area. Already a lot has been lost and the left olive harvest is going to be very poor along with a village that farmed 2000 acres of fruits and vegetables utterly decimated. Even if the U.S. experiences exactly nothing causing us shortages, not only will we export more to the region causing a rise of prices here, but Big Ag will use it as a pretty big excuse go raise prices while NOT paying producers more. So more folks at home feeling the grocery squeeze.

I have two adult kids who have medical issues, one is very medically underweight and can not afford to cut back on groceries, and yet neither of them are experiencing any increase in wages. So far this year they have received fresh produce, canned tomatoes (a huge amount), several quart jars of dehydrated apples, numerous pints of taco/enchilada sauce, numerous jars of salsa, frozen broccoli and carrots, frozen raspberries and blueberries which they eat frozen as snacks and on top of oatmeal, tons of herbs, and because I got a deal of $1.57 a lb for chicken breast if I bought 80 lbs, they also received 48 pint jars of home canned chicken for soup/stews and sandwiches. They have small apartment freezers, so canning the chicken made it closer storage friendly. I can also buy grains and produce cheaper here than in the cities where they live, and so we can supplement them.

This year I had so much produce, that twice I had a banquet table out front with a sign for neighbors to help themselves. Cucumbers, eggplant, tomatoes, basil, courtland apples, and red chilis. People were so happy to come by and grab items. Some of them are pretty hard up financially. It isn't a lot, yet it is something. At a time when civility and neighborliness is at an all time low or so it feels, it is this tiny thing I can do that maybe makes someone else smile. I don't expect people other folks to do that, and certainly not just because there is war in the world.

But I also thing it is a little snarky to pick on everyone who does look at rising grocery prices and unrest, climate change, and then mock their efforts.

The other thing that no one ever brings up is that if you grow your own, at least you have control over whether or not it is sprayed with Round Up and all manner of carcinogenic pesticides and herbicides. My produce didn't get anything except some organic vegetable fertilizer, diatomaceous earth on some insects that were going after the eggplant, and my own compost.

As for other things, every square foot of lawn torn out and planted to anything at all that pollinators like which includes vegetables and fruit is a win for the environment because short groomed grass is not a climate win.

And for sure if you don't like to do it, don't want to do it, or don't have the resources to allocate to it, then by all means take care of yourself and don't do it. I get joy from it, and I feel better contributing to my adult children's households by doing it. I could of course just as easily give them more money. But I like the look on their faces when they get my home canned tomatoes.

[Melissa Louise]

4 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I am not in any way trying to pick on Melissa specifically…just want to springboard off of her idea.

Let’s say that you decide to buy 500 cartons of cigarettes and 100 bottles of whiskey as your zombie apocalypse strategy. Who are you trading with? What do you receive? What is a fair trade? How does that meet your basic needs? Do you still have running water? Do you have cooking fuel? Where is your food coming from? What happens when your kid gets a bad cold from the cold and damp of winter or needs new shoes? Kick that can down the road ten years. Now what? Do you think you still have whiskey and cigarettes? 
 

The reality is that there are chunks of the world already living in collapse and the weird stuff we somehow dream up as our survival plans arent the actual things that people are doing in collapse. Pakistan post-flood, Haiti, Afghanistan, Venezuela….pick any place with electricity under three hours a day and limited clean water and *still* people are going to work, making purchases where they can, and so on.

Lol, ciggies and booze are just a strategy in dystopian fiction, I don't suggest anyone takes it seriously!

[Melissa Louise]

I think there's immense financial privilege in being able to do large scale prep.

Good on you if you can, but it's a method of preparing for WW3 not available to most. 

[AnotherNewName]

4 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Only if you have 5 acres to plant traditionally, sufficient water and fertilizers ( or more acreage + cows to get fertilizer), time to weed and can, etc. and the ability to store the harvest. To be wholly self sufficient for food/subsistence living is a ton of work and late frosts/insect or fungal plagues/a bad hailstorm can wipe out your dinner plate. I grew up on a ranch, and our family was about 80-90% independent in its production, and it took the collective work of many adults over 150 acres (cattle/wheat/alfalfa/hay/orchards/garden) to keep us all fed. We still had to buy sugar, vinegar, spices, and vet supplies and other things to keep it going. It was hard, hard work with 20 hour days during peak harvest. We lost animals to lightening strikes, rattlesnake bites, difficult births, and so on. It was hard with a functional society around us and mechanical labor to aid us, established fencing and barns, etc.

We live in a place that can be highly productive for domestic food production. We export food, as a country. There’s no need for us to have victory gardens, and for a large chunk of the population, there’s no ability to. 
 

This whole seeds and guns narrative drives me nuts. It tells us that rugged individualism is what will save us…and the reality is that humanity has always thrived in communities, with specialization of labor, and with mutual aid. The stories we should be telling ourselves are ones in which we strengthen community ties, share, and acknowledge the reality we live in rather than fairy tales.

Most of us cant grow sufficient calories to survive.

Most of us will need some sort of healthcare at some point—stitches, mending a broken bone, dealing with an infection, etc.

Saying we just need seeds and guns absolves us of our anxiety about the future we are staring at without doing any of the work to really resolve the actual challenges we are facing.

Bread and circus.

Incorrect. Seeds are a valuable trade good and take relatively little storage space relative to future value. Same with the spices.  Guns and ammo are dual purpose - protection and trade. 

[AnotherNewName]

1 hour ago, Pawz4me said:

It's not just food, water and medicine that people would need. There would be a market for labor and other services. If it's winter and you're elderly/frail/disabled you might need to trade for firewood, or trade for the labor required to cut or haul it. If you have livestock (goats or cows for dairy, etc.) they need hay that not only would have to be bought/bartered for, but would require some physical strength to deliver. And on and on. Lots of people like their booze and cigarettes but aren't addicted (that's a bit of a straw man). But they're the type of creature comforts (like chocolate or coffee) that the right person might be willing to barter their services for.

Correct. In a world where resources are suddenly severely limited, those small comforts would carry a high value relative to their initial cost/storage space.

[Idalou]

Well, from my reading of Alas, Babylon in junior high I'd store tons of coffee. And from my extensive hours spent playing Oregon Trail I'd also stock up on whiskey and bullets, but forget the chickens, they're not worth it.

[ktgrok]

5 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

 

This whole seeds and guns narrative drives me nuts. It tells us that rugged individualism is what will save us…and the reality is that humanity has always thrived in communities, with specialization of labor, and with mutual aid. The stories we should be telling ourselves are ones in which we strengthen community ties, share, and acknowledge the reality we live in rather than fairy tales.

 

still talking about the fiction because I honestly have little to add otherwise, lol. But yes, that was something that the main character pointed out, the difference between wannabe preppers and the "real" ones where that her family and the serious ones stockpiled relationships with skilled people as much as they did food and supplies - they had a community based on this mindset that included a midwife, veterinary, etc etc. 

2 hours ago, Corraleno said:

When I lived in the UK I watched a show on US preppers in rural Idaho, who had stockpiled years of food and had amassed huge caches of weapons to defend their fortified bunkers, and they would have drills where they'd go running into the house, batten down the hatches, grab their weapons, and pretend that people were coming out of the woods to steal their food. One of the families had a little girl who was 6 or 7 and I always wondered what effect it had on her to grow up thinking everyone outside the family wanted to kill them and steal their food, and the idea of killing your neighbors and/or letting them starve was just normal. That was 25 years ago, so that girl would be in her 30s now, and I wonder if she thinks her parents were nuts or if she's now a prepper herself, doing drills with her own kids.  I also wonder what happened to the thousands and thousands of dollars worth of freeze-fried foods and MREs those families stockpiled that were never needed!

That is basically the premise of the books series - a woman in her 30s who was that kid but left...but some deep parts of her can't quite kick all of it. 

[prairiewindmomma]

56 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

Incorrect. Seeds are a valuable trade good and take relatively little storage space relative to future value. Same with the spices.  Guns and ammo are dual purpose - protection and trade. 

Have you ever sprouted 5+ year old heirloom seeds? My germination rate has been <10% once they hit that age, even with scarification and some of the other methods of trying to reinvigorate them. Freezing them in my house freezer didn’t boost germination compared to cool, dark storage either. Even seed banks continually regrow their seeds and reharvest in order to have fresh and viable storage.

[Heartstrings]

5 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

 

This whole seeds and guns narrative drives me nuts. It tells us that rugged individualism is what will save us…and the reality is that humanity has always thrived in communities, with specialization of labor, and with mutual aid. The stories we should be telling ourselves are ones in which we strengthen community ties, share, and acknowledge the reality we live in rather than fairy tales.

But someone in the community needs to have saved the seeds, in order for the community to work together to grow food.  Someone needs the knowledge on how to even do such a thing.  Community is the cornerstone but it’s helpful to have things to contribute to that community and better for everyone if the community isn’t starting from total scratch.   

[Carol in Cal.]

52 minutes ago, Idalou said:

Well, from my reading of Alas, Babylon in junior high I'd store tons of coffee. And from my extensive hours spent playing Oregon Trail I'd also stock up on whiskey and bullets, but forget the chickens, they're not worth it.

I do need to attend to my coffee stockpiling system.  It’s flawed.

I buy coffee from Costco in 10 lb bags of beans.  I keep some ground coffee in the back of the freezer (hidden) for in case the power goes out and I can’t grind up the beans, and also some bottled Frappuccino in the fridge as a back up.  But really I think I need to inventory the Costco coffee and never have less than 2-3 bags around.  I would be in a world of hurt without coffee.

[Heartstrings]

1 minute ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I do need to attend to my coffee stockpiling system.  It’s flawed.

I buy coffee from Costco in 10 lb bags of beans.  I keep some ground coffee in the back of the freezer (hidden) for in case the power goes out and I can’t grind up the beans, and also some bottled Frappuccino in the fridge as a back up.  But really I think I need to inventory the Costco coffee and never have less than 2-3 bags around.  I would be in a world of hurt without coffee.

I keep a jar of instant around just in case.  

[Spryte]

12 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I do need to attend to my coffee stockpiling system.  It’s flawed.

I buy coffee from Costco in 10 lb bags of beans.  I keep some ground coffee in the back of the freezer (hidden) for in case the power goes out and I can’t grind up the beans, and also some bottled Frappuccino in the fridge as a back up.  But really I think I need to inventory the Costco coffee and never have less than 2-3 bags around.  I would be in a world of hurt without coffee.

Yes. Thank you. I needed this reminder. Time to inventory.

We keep a hand grinder on hand, near the French press, just in case, but I prefer to have some ground in advance. Coffee emergencies are real.

[Eos]

In idle moments of prepper fantasies, I've found that there's a bog rosemary plant that grows all around me that is mildly caffeinated and there's plenty to share.

[Ausmumof3]

7 hours ago, AnotherNewName said:

FWIW if you are really worried about a future collapse, stockpiling heirloom seeds and bulk quantities of seasoning (along with guns and ammo) would give you more flexibility in a world of scarcity.

The issue with this is soil contamination. I learned during our bushfire - I thought we didn’t need to store bottled water thanks to our rain water tanks, but once fire fighting foam has been used on your roof none of the water in the tanks is drinkable any more. Same with nuclear weapons etc if your plan is gardening.

Gardening is great for many reasons but I’m not sure that surviving the next major world war is one of them.

[Carrie12345]

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

I think there's immense financial privilege in being able to do large scale prep.

Good on you if you can, but it's a method of preparing for WW3 not available to most. 

Yes. That is why anyone who CAN prepare for whatever SHOULD, to their greatest reasonable ability; it leaves neighborly, local, state, and federal resources for the people who need them the most. Hurricanes, power outages, fires… response for 1,000 vs. 2,000 (made up numbers) is a huge difference with meaningfully different outcomes. 

[prairiewindmomma]

17 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

But someone in the community needs to have saved the seeds, in order for the community to work together to grow food.  Someone needs the knowledge on how to even do such a thing.  Community is the cornerstone but it’s helpful to have things to contribute to that community and better for everyone if the community isn’t starting from total scratch.   

I am not saying people shouldn’t garden. I am saying that buying seeds from seed armory to shove in your basement and then driving your Ford F-150 Supercrew cab 30 miles to pick a gallon of milk and 30 boxes of armour piercing bullets all while complaining about the high cost of gasoline is perhaps not the optimal solution to the problems before our world.

[Faith-manor]

21 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I do need to attend to my coffee stockpiling system.  It’s flawed.

I buy coffee from Costco in 10 lb bags of beans.  I keep some ground coffee in the back of the freezer (hidden) for in case the power goes out and I can’t grind up the beans, and also some bottled Frappuccino in the fridge as a back up.  But really I think I need to inventory the Costco coffee and never have less than 2-3 bags around.  I would be in a world of hurt without coffee.

Being without coffee is my personal, zombie apocalypse nightmare! 😱😱😱💀

[prairiewindmomma]

No worries, guys, IKEA sells coffee plants! (For real, I have one.) 😂

[Heartstrings]

1 minute ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I am not saying people shouldn’t garden. I am saying that buying seeds from seed armory to shove in your basement and then driving your Ford F-150 Supercrew cab 30 miles to pick a gallon of milk and 30 boxes of armour piercing bullets all while complaining about the high cost of gasoline is perhaps not the optimal solution to the problems before our world.

I’m not sure that approaching anyone who wants to put back an extra gallon of water with that sort of stereotype in mind is helpful.  

[prairiewindmomma]

8 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

The issue with this is soil contamination. I learned during our bushfire - I thought we didn’t need to store bottled water thanks to our rain water tanks, but once fire fighting foam has been used on your roof none of the water in the tanks is drinkable any more. Same with nuclear weapons etc if your plan is gardening.

Gardening is great for many reasons but I’m not sure that surviving the next major world war is one of them.

Even if your garden doesn’t burn down, our plants really struggled with heavy smoke cover. They don’t get adequate sunlight, ash has to be washed off so the plant can transpire, and high ozone and other things burn the leaves. We can usually bounce back from a week or two of continuous heavy smoke cover but not much more than that. 

[Faith-manor]

8 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

No worries, guys, IKEA sells coffee plants! (For real, I have one.) 😂

My next dream. A greenhouse coffee plantation in Michigan!!! 😂😂😂😂😂

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Even if your garden doesn’t burn down, our plants really struggled with heavy smoke cover. They don’t get adequate sunlight, ash has to be washed off so the plant can transpire, and high ozone and other things burn the leaves. We can usually bounce back from a week or two of continuous heavy smoke cover but not much more than that. 

We had ash and smoke from the Canadian wildfires, and I had to wash it all off the plants every couple of days. It was pretty awful, and we didn't have it nearly as bad as other place like NYC.

[prairiewindmomma]

Just now, Faith-manor said:

My next dream. A greenhouse coffee plantation in Michigan!!! 😂😂😂😂😂

In all sincerity, I will probably never harvest off this since coffee is so particular about temperature and humidity.

There is a real life tea plantation south of me, though, and vineyards and hops farms and cider presses and distilleries are close by, so I think I have a zombie apocalypse plan going for quality living. 

[Melissa Louise]

28 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

Yes. That is why anyone who CAN prepare for whatever SHOULD, to their greatest reasonable ability; it leaves neighborly, local, state, and federal resources for the people who need them the most. Hurricanes, power outages, fires… response for 1,000 vs. 2,000 (made up numbers) is a huge difference with meaningfully different outcomes. 

I honestly don't know.

I think if ppl are actually preparing for calamity ( and not the usual), there's a good chance that the significant energy and cash expended would be better spent on action to help avoid the calamity. 

[catz]

Anyone else just planning on volunteering as tribute during the zombie apocolypse?  Just me?  Zero desire to try guessing what is going to be valuable currency if the world blows up.

We buy in bulk and could always piece together 1-2 months of food if we had to.  I actually just rolled a bunch of stuff from early covid out to food shelves.  But I really don't think too hard about this stuff.  I will say we order coffee in 5 pounds bags!  ☕ 10 lbs are on the way right now!  #priorities

[fairfarmhand]

14 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

In all sincerity, I will probably never harvest off this since coffee is so particular about temperature and humidity.

There is a real life tea plantation south of me, though, and vineyards and hops farms and cider presses and distilleries are close by, so I think I have a zombie apocalypse plan going for quality living. 

Chicory?

[prairiewindmomma]

15 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

Chicory?

Makes me gassy. Roasted dandelion root is a decent substitute.

My continued journey in life  is dependent on modern medicine. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by prairiewindmomma

[Ausmumof3]

12 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I honestly don't know.

I think if ppl are actually preparing for calamity ( and not the usual), there's a good chance that the significant energy and cash expended would be better spent on action to help avoid the calamity. 

I think prepping for two weeks to a month is good, but maybe beyond that not so much. That’s about how long it took for the worst Covid hiccoughs to be worked through and it will get you through a bushfire etc. 
Then I think if my parents who’d probably survive on their preserved produce for six months or so and realise everyone used to live that way. Amazing! 

[Terabith]

[Condessa]

For those who have the space for gardening but lack the green thumb or time commitment,  you might consider something like a fruit tree or strawberry bed.  Less work to establish than a vegetable garden, and then has decreasing maintenance as it matures but produces large harvests for many years.  I like the idea of gardening and have tried to have a traditional vegetable garden many times, with results ranging between poor and mixed.  But I wanted to replace the strip of grass to the side of the driveway with something that wouldn't require mowing, and put in strawberry starts--after lots of weeding the first few months, they now produce like crazy and have out competed most of the weeds.  The kids love them, and they need very little attention.  We also have an apricot tree in our yard that was planted by a prior owner that produces a massive crop of apricots every year, despite complete neglect from us (most members of my family don't care for apricots, so these wind up largely going to the animals).

[Shoeless]

4 minutes ago, catz said:

Anyone else just planning on volunteering as tribute during the zombie apocolypse?  Just me?  Zero desire to try guessing what is going to be valuable currency if the world blows up.

We buy in bulk and could always piece together 1-2 months of food if we had to.  I actually just rolled a bunch of stuff from early covid out to food shelves.  But I really don't think too hard about this stuff.  I will say we order coffee in 5 pounds bags!  ☕ 10 lbs are on the way right now!  #priorities

I'm not even going to try to optimize. I'm just going to keep doing what I do: grow and store what makes sense for my family without turning into a greedy jerk. 

I can't get caught up in whataboutism , (what about the poor? What about the elderly? What about people who depend on meds to live? What about wildfires? What about guns? What about contaminated water? What about contaminated soil? What about the power grid? Growing food is too hard, what about that? What about ciggies and booze? What about...), because then I become paralyzed from anxiety and do nothing. 

Do what makes sense for you. Share resources with friends, neighbors, family when you can. 

[Eos]

6 minutes ago, Shoeless said:

What about people who depend on meds to live?

In my apocalypse visions, my daughter with type 1 diabetes runs out of insulin and dies in a coma.  I never get much farther than that.

[Not_a_Number]

If I stop being snarky (although I genuinely think weapons are a good idea if one is serious about this!), I think the greatest asset one would have in the event of a societal collapse is the ability to adjust to circumstances. 

Most catastrophes are relatively slow moving. What you want is to be the person who finds allies/leaves before things are dire/otherwise adapts.

People are TERRIBLE at adapting. I saw people going to birthday parties and to work when the pandemic started in NYC, when everything was already abundantly clear even if you weren't following the international news (which I stupidly was not.) You can always get a serious leg up by not just moving forward like an automaton. 

ETA: You see this very well during world wars and other catastrophes, too. People don't evacuate until it's too late. They don't want to leave their lives behind. 

Edited October 11, 2023 by Not_a_Number

[WildflowerMom]

8 minutes ago, Eos said:

In my apocalypse visions, my daughter with type 1 diabetes runs out of insulin and dies in a coma.  I never get much farther than that.

Same here.   If my kid can’t survive it, why should I even try to?   
 

eta: I have only one kid… 

Edited October 11, 2023 by WildflowerMom