Email a copy of 'A Memoir On One Family’s Move To The American Redoubt- Part 4, by X. Liberal & China Doll' to a friend
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Sure this is nice house. He’s had teams of workers crawling over the place plus he’s left records all over (lumber yard, roofing vendor, etc). Let’s not kid ourselves this a secure retreat location. Just horrible OPSEC.Everyone in the county will know about this place.
Sour grapes? Look, I’m no contractor, and the last 2 installments have had my eyes glazing over, but, to me, your comment comes across as wanting to criticize that which you’ve failed to achieve yourself. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, find reasons to criticize those who can on the internet.
I tend to agree with your comments here, Jason. I think OPSEC is a bit of a over-hyped idea and is taken to extremes. As an example, in the context of this story and OPSEC as it is typically discussed, this suggests that a couple from CA has moved to the redoubt and they need to maintain 100% OPSEC because why? Because they think people in the redoubt are going to attack them in a crisis? Does not this idea directly conflict with the entire premise of the redoubt?
Further, prepping is a mainstream act. Many people from all walks of life seem to participate in some fashion. Complete and total OPSEC is only fooling one’s self. Go talk to your neighbor, they share similar concerns as you.
Cut him some slack, it’s not like the existence of a structure, absent any other info, is essential to keep totally secret.
Pretty much my view as well, I voiced it on day 1 when I asked about cost of land, … My reply didnt get posted,…. What people don’t realize is that large 18 wheeler trucks delivering excavating equipment and building materials to remote locations just screams ” Im building a home out here!” And thats ok.. but claiming OPSEC??.. City slickers moving here have a lot to learn about the redoubt area..
I believe Hugh answered your question succinctly. Also is in the Redoubt, we have neighbors as like minded as us and they too had trucks / maybe workers to enter their property in build phase. Unless you’re the Unabomber sneaking into BLM land in the night on Christmas Eve to erect a makeshift cabin you’re going to have some wake in your comings and goings. Yes people have to live their lives and all of us have been seen leaving and entering our properties. No one is total OPSEC. No one with a normal family life here.
They’re from California and as much of that state is rural as the midwestern states. We don’t know they’re “city slickers.” Just saying. Good post and waiting for tomorrow.
Anonymous, it’s a house not a nuclear bomb shelter. At this point it is just a rural house.
My wife and I were in our mid-60s when we did the same in Montana. We (like Jason) are what this old coot calls ‘AmeriCANS’ in a country full of ‘AmeriCANTS’.
Why not play up the great detail he provided the rest of us? No need to slam him for being thorough. If you think for a minute that any of us have privacy you’ve not been in the .gov world at all………….let’s keep things professional, civil and ‘nice’ in our forum here please. I continue to ask HJL and Jim to consider this article for the top three this round. It’s greatly detailed and offered to the rest of us humbly. Let’s reciprocate in grace please.
It’s quite apparent you have never been around building. From your description of how you did worked you did note plan ahead of time on the next phase. It’s sound like you did well for a green horn.
I spent over 30 years in Alaska building many types of homes and shops. I was fortunate to have grown up and worked for contractor as a young man in the building trades. Working in cold and windy place has it’s challenges. My last place I built we could get up to 8o mph winds in the winter. We screwed out metal roofing every 12in. along the edge of the roof to keep the wind from getting a chance of lifting an edge. It only take one time for the wind to lift it and the whole roof is gone. I wish you well on future projects as you have some experience under your belt.
Don’t worry to mutch about anonymous. We had the Arkansas National Guard stand up our timber framed basement wall !
“…… look like a 1500th century Catholic Church….”
Wow! That must be some futuristic design!! ((wink!))
Otherwise, sounds like an awesome house. Once you’re finished, I’m willing to wager it won’t take much to keep it warm in the winter. Congratulations!
Great article! I agree with Scott this should be in the top three articles this contest period. Where are the pictures that have been mentioned?
Just_AC
@Just_AC
Sadly, most of the pictures that were sent in with the article are too small to be used and have been left out.
First, I think the guy doing this is commendable. Second, no one here can judge whether I’m a wanna be with sour grapes or not. I may be the most prepped up person on the planet. My point is — unless he’s very careful — in a crisis people will be going “Remember that house we worked on for that prepper dude?” Especially if he puts in special elements like ballistic glass, large water tanks. If he does that it would be good to hire contractors from outside the area. Even without a crisis local no goodnicks will see a new house and think they have money.
This is wonderful, commendable, may more right minded people move to the Redoubt — and not saying if I’m there or not. G-d bless all of you.
I believe this article helps people understand the home building process from an inexperienced viewpoint which can be very helpful. Every one of us has knowledge and experience with some aspect of life and living. It seems few of us step outside that comfort zone. This shows all of us we can do it.
I have been a contractor for 40 years and built hundreds of homes in 3 different states. Many of them log structures. All of these processes I perform every day. So I can say there s much validity here. This article explains each stage in clear language. Also the time frames required for each stage may help others with planning. Good work. Love your home!
I have a question for all the individuals that have built similar structures.
Will your retreat be 100% self contained, meaning you produce everything you need.
In the belief of a total collapse of society than the transportation of goods and services will be a thing of the past.
How can anyone or even a group survive long term?
Lastly, these Outpost will be known to many when food runs out just like in the book Patriots. It will not be like the 1800’s farming but more like Mad Max
Hey Skip, I will jump in here and attempt to address your question. I have not attempted to build a structure like the one mentioned in this article. I have, however, been to several retreats/farms and bunkers that attempt to be “sustainable”. I have yet to meet a person that can meet 100% of their needs off grid. I have talked to people that come close, but mostly people like the idea of being 100% off grid. Few to none actually meet their own needs.
How can anyone or a group survive long term? The best way I have found is primitive skills and knowing your environment. What I mean by knowing your environment is when we think of resources, typically how that word is defined is by corporations through commodities that are more efficient to produce. So, the word resource has an economic component that the average joe misses. To understand your environment is to consider what types of “wild” foods are available in your region. Once you understand the abundance of food (depending on what region you live in) that is “wild,” nature will begin to take on a whole new meaning. This will also inform you to where animals frequent for hunting or trapping.
Also, Mad Max is a fictional movie. Resource conflict and research that critically understands resource scarcity shows that people are less violent during times of food shortages. The idea that people will become more violent is based of Malthusian narratives that have been used for political reasons since Thomas Malthus put forward his idea of resource scarcity. This may shock some of you, but there is more evidence that people come together during hard times than there is about a mad max world taking place. Sure, there are short term issues, I am not debating that. But, long term….there is no real evidence.
I have often thought the same. That people come together in rough times. You here many Depression Era stories of cooperation. I have read references stating that the Wild West actually had very little law enforcement and very little crime. Neighbors needed each other and feared being ostrosized for bad behavior more than actual violence.
The information out of Venezuela seems to indicate they have had a rise in crime during their troubles. I am not sure if that indicates that my theory of cooperation is bogus or just varies under different circumstances. I would say that we may only be hearing one side of the story. I suspect there is a fair amount of cooperation that is not reported. There may be differences between rural and urban areas. The government is actively preventing people from helping themselves in many cases. Hard to say.
Back to the Depression Era. When we entered the Depression it would appear we had a pretty firm set of Judeo-Christian values in this country. I say appears because the 20s were marked by a lot of debauchery and who knows for sure how deep those values ran. But if we assume they did dominate society more than today, would people today stay relatively peaceful like they did back then with all those values heavily challenged right now? Hard to say. Also the Depression though tough was not teotwawki. The economy still functioned and IMO without all the government help from Roosevelt would have recovered pretty quickly.
Just my random thoughts from reading your comment.
To JBH, the recent situation in Venezuela is tricky but certainly interesting. One thing about Venezuela that seems to mimic most civil unrest and society issues is that government policy plays the largest role. It is safe to say that crime is up in Venezuela, and most (not all) of the violence looks to be between the government and the populace. I have yet to see a story about the impacts of rural living in that country, other than just mentioning food issues. The American media is always framing the events in Venezuela as happening due to socialism and because of that I think it is important to be mindful of that framing for us survival minded people interested in watching how issues play out in other parts of the world. This is what I meant in my other comment about Malthusian narratives being used for political purposes.
Let us also consider how North Korea has been the bad guy for several decades, and it seems because there may be a possibility of Mcdonald’s and hotels entering the North Korean market, it will be interesting to see if North Korea starts to be framed as a friend in American media. I have seen a few articles that are already starting to paint this picture. Peace through Big Macs! Maybe we can expect the North Koreans to go from starvation and malnutrition to becoming obese diabetics? Great discussion and I really enjoyed your comments.
Some things you just can’t hide, so OPSEC on them you don’t worry about. I had to buy a 10′ tunnel boring machine for my bunker, so somebody’s going to know! The thing is, “where did I use it?” As long as that can’t be found, my OPSEC is fine. The only people that know are the stone company and concrete company, and they don’t know where the stone came from, and where all the gunnite went. All they did was pick it up, and drop it off.
If more than one person is invovled in your project opsec is a complete myth. About the best you are going to do is stop an internet troll or a common criminal from figuring you out on the internet.
You will not be able to stop the government from knowing exactly what you are doing ever. Hell the british were hunting down ships from france on the open ocean on the other side of the world long before technology we have now.
Our government records every phone call, every money transaction, every picture, your dna, your associates, your purchases, your intelligence level, your earning potential, all your internet traffic and the use cell phones to pattern where you go…. and where people that know you go and what they do…. Saddam could not hide with billions of dollars and 1000s of people helping him… they government can pattern your life and your families life and the can guess with great accuracy about your plans with the knowledge about you that they already have at the push of a button…
Yes and England had the mightiest military in the world. Yet they were beaten by AmeriCANS with muskets.
And the United States had the mightiest military in the world. Yet they failed to win the war in Iraq (and every other small country) for the last 73 years.
Never forget retired career Army officer Bill Buppert’s Law of Military Topography: “Mountainous terrain held by riflemen who know what they are about cannot be militarily defeated”.
Question. Looking at the time required for this project. Could the author indicate at least roughly (understand his OPSEC concerns) what he and his wife were doing to make a living during this time? Did they have money saved and devoted full time to this project? I had a neighbor who took a year off from his house painting business and worked full time building a house while his wife continued working as a nurse. Did this gentleman do something like that? Did he work at his regular job in spurts and work the house in spurts. Do these times reflect working in evenings an weekend while working full time?
One thing about ‘Preppers’ as presented in current media and literature is that they tend to be upper middle class with sufficient disposable income to purchase new materials, purchase raw land and pay the cost of construction. By the time many of us get to the point in our lives where we can locate to RD or other similar locales we are at a life stage where we have maintained homes for decades and are not eager to take on that type of responsibility over again. As a retired urban planner from southern California I would be more inclined to buy a lot of about 1 acre to have a family garden, be located in a town or close to a state road and would purchase a modern (not older than 15 years) modular pre-fab home. Security is a concern, but you can only do so much in the age of drones that can see, hear and destroy from miles high in the sky. OPSEC is obsolete in my view. I also don’t care for snow and long winters so the desert southwest is where I will be.