OT: I have questions

[mikeo80]

I was sitting here in the house, trying to wrap my mind around the idea that my wife was not here any more. A strange thought crept in.

After a quick verification of my thoughts, I realized that I had managed to aquire 60 days of food and water for the both of us. Granted, we would not be eating at the Ritz, but more than enough to keep body and soul together and have enough calories for hard work. (Digging latrines, scouting neighborhood, etc.)

My thought during the aquisition of my stash, was that if I could keep her alive during a SHTF scenario, we could plant some food in the back yard (about 1/2 acre). I know that the specific SHTF would play into this decision. She had a GREEN thumb. Me, I kill cactus. I had bought non engineered seed for corn, sweet potatoes, beans, and several herbs. I figured that with 60 days of supplies, there would be enough early crops to feed us while we waited for other things to mature.

Now come the questions. What the hell do I do now? Continue building stash? Hold in place? Diversify? Into what? Am I missing a step?

This is such a diverse group with so many experiences and opinions, I could not think of a better place to bring my questions.

My $0.02

Mike

[Grimace]

I've put some thought into this, as I live in the country and have wondered how I'd go about things in a SHTF scenario.

Acquire a steady supply of water -- I've got a well. That's great compared to someone who depends on the city for water. The problem being, if the power does go out, my well (with all of its water) just sits there waiting for me to pull the water out. I could get a generator to power my well pump, but eventually I'll run out of gas. So I've got to figure out another way to convert my current well system into a manual pump system so I have a steady supply of water that isn't dependent on electricity.

Then, a variety of nutrition is needed.
Gardens are great...I have one every year. Canning works to have your veggies last much longer than fresh, and doesn't really require refrigeration. But the flavoring can be off-putting after a while of eating canned goods. So you want frozen. Well, that requires refrigeration.
Again, unless you have a generator, you're going to need some sort of power source to work refrigeration. You can sort-of fake it with a root cellar, but that's still not cold enough for true refrigeration in areas. So you need some sort of passive power generation. Solar, Wind, or Geothermal are possibilities. Expensive to do, but if you can figure out a way to collect power in a less expensive manner, you can use it for refrigeration. Then you can do frozen goods as well as dried and canned goods.

Then you need meat.
We have chickens, which gives us eggs and can give us meat in extreme emergencies. But without a semi-regular supply of meat, you're going to experience some malnutrition in a diet (during the long-run) consisting of only garden veggies. So you either need to figure out how/where to hunt, or you need to acquire animals to provide you with food and continuance.

1 cow can be good. It can provide milk, but requires a fair bit of feed. The cow also provides good fertilizer for your garden. But once you eat it for meat, your done with it. No more milk, no more fertilizer.
So you need 2 cows (male and female) that can give you a new cow each year. The new cow can provide the meat, while the 2 cows provide milk and manure for your garden.
Goats can also substitute for cows, but obviously the quantity of meat changes.

Finally, you need a hobby suitable for the SHTF scenario. Learn to sew/mend clothes. Collect data for storage purposes. Learn to reload bullets. Learn to blacksmith. Learn to build things with wood using hand tools. Learn leather crafting. Things are going to wear out, so they're going to need replacing. If you get a hobby that can produce new material that is useful, it'll help out you and your friends, and could conceivably be used for barter for things in other towns (assuming money becomes worthless).

That's about all I've got.

[The Rifleman]

The poster above me made some good points about meat, however sustaining animals for a long time means being able to grow or feed them. If you are working on a 60 day supply of food, then you probably aren't ready for that.

I agree completely with his suggestions on having a water supply and canning. You need to have water or you're all done and you need to be able to save the food you grow.

Here is an easy way to build up a cheap food supply:

Go to walmart and buy a pressure canner and BALL company quart mason jars. Google recepies on the ball company site. For me, I found that I like the chili, beef stew, and chicken noodle soup the best. Go to your farmers market and load up on cheap veggies. You can also sometimes find mason jars in the classifieds used for cheap. Boil them in a large pot (I toss in a couple of McCormick's season packets as they greatly improve taste). Then poor them into the mason jars and load into the pressure canner. One and a half hours later, boom, 7 quarts of meals, ready to eat.

I am a lousy cook, but by watching some youtube videos and doing some reading, I was able to produce some fantastic home made meals just by boiling and canning. I even got into canning milk and butter. I now buy only things on sale at the store and it saves me a bundle. It takes me about 3 hours to prepare and can 7 quarts (plus a make a little extra for dinner for the night). I can get 2 meals out of a quart. So if you are prepping for 1 person, then you can have a whole weeks worth of food ready in just 3 hours. These cans are good for at least 2-3 years, but I rotate (eat) my stock faster then that.

With canning, if you are doing meat you MUST have a pressure canner, not a water bath canner, and meat must be proccessed for at least 1 and a half hours at ten lbs of pressure. Don't just trust me, read the recipies and do some youtube watching too. If you want some of my recipies I'd be happy to share.

If you want to add to your food supply even faster, my grocery store sells 20lb bags of rice for 15.99, For one person, thats the base for 20 meals for less then $1 each. Can't beat that. Then, with your mason jars meals, you can add a little rice and strech it out even cheaper.

[dragoon500ly]

one of the problems with canning is the rubber seal rings on the jars. You can buy them in bulk from Ball or use bicycle inner tubes, be sure to clean throughly before use but they are a decent replacement.

Water is important, but of even more importance is water that you can drink. If you are on well water, most likely you have a filter set-up of some kind. You need to store replacement filters, or filter material but this is a short term fix. An old standby is to get several one liter plastic bottles (soda is good), pour the water into the bottle and place the bottle out in direct sunlight, over the course of a day, any solid material settles to the bottom and the sunlight heats the water up and kills any bacteria. Then you just pour the water into a container, taking care not to stir up the sediment and you have drinkable water. Of course, this only works during the spring/summer months.

Otherwise, you need to rig up a makeshift filter, the best ones use a mix of layers of sand and charcoal, these are usually good for a gallon or two of water and then the material has to be replaced.

Mention has been made of wind and solar power, but have you considered bicycle? You would need several car batteries rigged up "in gang" and a bicycle on a frame or a stationary bike. You will need to rig a take-off to a gennie, but a couple of hours of work to top off the batteries and thenyou can use the juice to run a pump or a small camping fridge.

JUst some thoughts from the old guy in the corner!

[StainlessSteelCynic]

In regards to batteries of any type, it really pays to do a little research.

The store bought batteries you get for your flashlight etc. etc. have a limited lifespan and this is diminished (admittedly by a very small amount) in hotter weather. Store them in a cold place and they'll last just that little bit longer.

In regards to using and recharging car batteries, you want to read up about the benefits and penalties of using serial versus parallel battery connections for your specific energy requirements.
I've found this site (Battery University) to be helpful in regard to both things mentioned above.
Specifically: -
How to store batteries
Battery configurations
What causes car batteries to fail

And for those who want to get a bit more involved in energy requirements, this page could be useful for T2k