As a firearms enthusiast, I have spent far too much time reading gun-related forums. The collective knowledge of the larger forums is amazing and far outweighs the poorly thought-out words of the few ignorant posters who have nothing to add. Often, after catching up on my favorite firearm sections, I find myself checking out the survival/preparedness sub-forums that the major firearms forums all seem to have. Limited on the depth of their information, I usually hop over and research a topic on survival-specific forums and blogs where the levels of knowledge and experience are at much higher standards.
The topics at theses survival postings are often well thought out and useful. I have learned much about preparing and have taken steps to insulate my family from TEOTWAWKI. However, I often laugh at the subjects and the false sense of security that some posters think they have once they pack a simple Bug-Out Bag stocked with a weapon, 72 hours of food, and a first aid kit. Often posters brag about their hunting prowess or talk about the seeds they have that will apparently grow with Jack and the Beanstalk fervor. They also usually have a ‘spot’ somewhere in the woods near a creek where they can hunt, fish, and get fresh water. Although this sounds somewhat utopian, especially considering the hypothetical civilization meltdown that is happening elsewhere, I can only muse at the serous lack of thought that many put into their survival plans.
I may hurt some feelings with this, but, in the event of a major emergency, I believe many those who think they have prepared for a TEOTWAWKI event will be sadly mistaken. If your plan is to hop in your vehicle with your Bug-Out Bag and head to your spot on a creek and live out the rest of your life happily hunting and living off the land, your logic may be fatally flawed. More than likely, you will soon die next to that creek and the only thing that will be well-fed and thriving will be buzzards as they consume your carcass. Do you think I’m being too harsh? Compared to trying to feed yourself in the woods, I’m being pretty easy on you.
First off, thinking you can hunt enough animals to eat is a fantasy steeped in self-delusion. Just because you can routinely bag your limit every hunting season does not mean you can do this year-round. In reality, how many animals are in an area? How many will you kill before they move elsewhere? Besides, meat spoils quickly. Unless you smoke the meat, how long will a 100-pound deer carcass lay around before it poisons you? In summer heat, how long will it last? A day or two at the most? In the warmer months can you harvest an animal every two days? Even rodents and squirrels will get scarce soon and your snares will hang empty. The animals are smart, they will quickly move out of your range. What then?
Another subject that is often brought up is a garden. Bags of survival seeds are bought with the idea that a garden is as simple as tossing out some seeds and watching them grow. The last gun show I attended had a booth with a guy selling raw wheat by the pound. The simple fact is, if the garden isn’t growing right now, or last year’s harvest isn’t in cans in a dark closet somewhere, you will starve as you wait for the seeds to germinate. A garden will only work when you are working a year ahead. Even if a garden is growing now, harvest seasons are quick and usually simultaneous. Will you be ready to reap it all when everything matures at the same time, or will it spoil before you can store it properly? Thinking a simple garden is your means of survival is another losing proposal.
Running a close second to Bug-Out Bag discussions are the ever-popular Bug-Out Vehicle threads. They are usually the escape pod of an urbanite and typically take the form of a pickup or sport utility, with big V-8s, knobby tires, and enough cans of fuel to get to the previously-mentioned ‘spot’ next to the creek. I used to have this same mentality: something bad happens, urban chaos erupts, I load the SUV with my family and supplies and head out of town.
This all changed by a freak ice storm that struck the Raleigh area a few years ago. The meteorologists had all said a slight precipitation event was coming through, but don’t worry, it was not cold enough to freeze. Unfortunately, they were off by a few degrees. The unexpected layer of ice formed quickly in the middle a workday. Sensing the impending traffic nightmare, I left work a few minutes after the icy drizzle began. Working only five miles from my wife, I called her and told her I was coming by to pick her up so she wouldn’t have to drive her sports car in the worsening conditions. By the time I was a mile away from my work, the highways formed a thin but slippery layer of ice. I can still vividly recall a FedEx truck sliding down at me from an off ramp and bouncing off a few cars before it slid off the ice-covered pavement.
Oddly, within a few minutes the temperature had risen and the ice on the road melted, but not before they cancelled all the schools and everyone left their workplaces at the exact same time. The gridlock that ensued was epic. Overloaded cell phone networks shut down and all callers could hear was a busy signal. It took me four hours to travel five miles to my wife’s work. To save fuel, I turned off my car until I could move at least fifty yards, which only happened every few minutes. The guy behind me didn’t like my technique and honked his horn and angrily passed me on the sidewalk just to gain a few more inches. Panicked parents, trying to pick up their kids at schools, drove on the sidewalks, knocking down signs and bouncing off light poles. Impatient people honked horns and began bumping the cars ahead of them. I saw dozens of people abandon their car and start walking. The guy who angrily passed me later ran out of gas and someone helped him push his car up on the sidewalk.
Figuring that the traffic would clear within a few hours, my wife and I walked over to a restaurant and watched the clogged mass of cars crawl by at a glacier’s pace. At midnight, we decided to begin our trip home. Usually the eight-mile commute took less than fifteen minutes. Seven hours after our journey began the rising sun greeted us the next morning as we finally pulled into our driveway. Vehicles of every type, stacked bumper-to-bumper littered the shoulders of the roads. With their cars out of gas, people had to knock on the doors of a stranger to ask them for a place to stay. It was amazing how such a minor event has completely shut down an entire region. What if something really bad happened? What if they were running from a deadly threat? How much worse would the panic have been? Do you now see the fallacy of a Bug-Out Vehicle, especially if you live in a populated area? Raleigh is pretty small, after all. What would it have been like in a major metro area like Atlanta or Chicago.
Right about now you are probably wondering what the point of this article is. Why do I seem so fatalistic and seem to make light of preparedness? Let me assure you that I have put a lot of time into the above thoughts. Yes, I have a well-stocked Bug-Out Bag that will sustain my family for 72 hours. I also have firearms, ammo, med supplies, food, water, etc. I even have a decent Bug-Out Vehicle. I am far from labeling survival items as useless and encourage my non-prepared friends to acquire the requisite survival basics. What I am advocating, however, is to take an honest look at not only the relatively narrow focus on survival, but the broader view of a decent quality of life for you and your loved ones. How is this done? I’m glad you asked.
My dad is one of the best-prepared people I know. If TEOTWAWKI happens, he’s in good shape. Does he have a Bug-Out Bag? No. Does he have a ‘spot’ near the creek? Close, but no. A large population of deer? Used to, until the coyote population exploded. How about a Bug-Out Vehicle? Nope, just an old pickup truck. Assault rifles and stockpiles of ammo? Not really, a few guns and some ammo. I’ll bet you are wondering why I consider him so well-prepared. Well, let me tell you a little about him.
My dad is a grain farmer in coastal North Carolina. On average he produces 1,500 tons of grain every year. At any given time, he has 10,000 bushels of corn or soybeans stored (right now he has his grain bins full of soybeans that he will sell before mid-August when he begins harvesting his corn). He keeps a 1,000 gallon tank of diesel full year-round. Across the road from his farm is a 25,000-head pig farm. On the other side is a seven-pond fish farm with hundreds of thousands of fish. His closest neighbor, who lives a mere mile away, raises goats and chickens. Dad has a capped water well in his backyard and a pitcher pump in storage. His house was built as the centerpiece of a plantation in 1834 and has four fireplaces and a winter’s supply of firewood. The house sits in the middle of a square-mile block (640 acre) of farmland. [Some deleted, for OPSEC.] He collects and uses primitive hand and farm tools as a hobby.
Most importantly, my Dad has a network of friends that range from doctors to diesel mechanics to manual laborers and police officers. All of whom are armed and can act as a manual labor and defensive force. Without trying, he has prepared for a myriad of society-changing events. His simple agrarian lifestyle harkens back to the society of 200 years ago. If everything in our society falls apart, his farm would be the center of a small, agrarian community working together to both feed and defend itself, as well as having the social interactions that would give a decent quality of life. It would not be a modern life that we are accustomed to, one would tire of eating fish, pork, and soybeans, after all, but it would far better than starving to death next to your ‘spot.’ So, after long discussions with my wife, we have decided to get out of the city and move back to the farm. I will be taking over the family farm this spring and I already have a small plot set aside for long-term, storable foods like dry beans and open pollinating corn. Of course, career options will be a bit limited living in a rural area, but actually living as simply as possible should offset any loss in income. I think it is worth it.
I have already begun networking in my new community, expanding the circle of people my dad has already established. Growing up in the community gives me an advantage when it comes to navigation and personal connections. My new house is within walking distance of two of my best friends from high school who already have a good grasp on the survivor’s mentality.
One of them is the son of the goat and chicken farmer I mentioned earlier. He has agreed to trade me a couple of goats and chickens for a supply of shelled corn. He also has a broad skill set that includes carpentry and wiring. I have seen him repair electrical devices that all others had given up hope on. He also keeps horses in his pastures that could theoretically be used to pull some of the antique farm machinery my dad has collected over the years, but I really hope it never comes to that. His skill with an AK-47 is rather well-honed too.
My other friend lives a bit further away but the distance is still less than an hour’s walk through the woods from my house. He was awakened to how fragile our society is many years ago and began preparing back then. He moved into a hundred and fifty-year-old cottage complete with a working fireplace, several old barns, and a very fertile one-acre garden, all of which cost him less than fifty thousand dollars.
Since moving there, he has constructed a greenhouse and is in the process of growing exotic (for North Carolina) fruits such as papayas and mangoes. His first greenhouse is doing so well he has another one ordered. (My love of guacamole has me trying to convince him to plant some dwarf avocado trees.) Next to his garden he drilled a well and attached a pitcher pump to it. He had set up one of the barns for storage and has a good amount of long-shelf-life food, including a large supply of canned food from last year’s garden harvest. This season I have agreed to raise a variety of dry beans and open pollinated corn in order to trade them to him for some of his fruit and vegetables.
Between the three of us, we can focus on our own specialties of dry grains, livestock, and fruits and vegetables, allowing us to barter and trade our goods without having to spread ourselves too thin by trying to individually produce a variety of food. Getting together for camping trips and frequent range sessions with a variety of weaponry is key to building both skills and friendship.
So, instead of theorizing about Bug-Outs or hunting and gathering skills, I suggest getting out of urban and suburban environments and move to a rural area that is far enough away from population concentrations to inhibit a visit from roaming hoards. Buy an old house with fireplaces and make sure it has enough land to plant a substantial garden. Along with a garden, learn to raise small numbers of livestock, especially something simple like egg-laying chickens. Living to see that first harvest will require a lot of stored food. Construct or convert easily-secured buildings to store substantial food and water supplies, especially since you will be staying put and not likely be bugging out to somewhere else. If you have a skill or produce something of value, let your neighbors know and barter your goods with them. If you don’t have marketable skills, learn one. Local community colleges often have classes of value in this respect. Once you learn a skill, have plenty of the supplies related to those skills on hand. Passing yourself off as a welder without having numerous cylinders of welding gasses and lots of welding and brazing rod would be a tough sale.
The most important thing is move to an area of like-minded people and make friends now. No one will trust you after a major event unless they knew you prior. Get to know the people in your community and network with them. Churches, hunt clubs, and small outreach organizations are a good place to meet people. Befriend a local family farmer and begin to barter with him. Typically, they are willing to trade dry grain for labor, services, and shiny things, specifically gold and silver.
From my experience the rural mindset is a lot more accepting of a survivalist mentality due to their isolated proximity and frequent interruptions in power and communication. Compared to most neighborhood home owner’s groups, they also seem to be a lot more tolerant of crowing roosters, manure-fed gardens, and unsightly windmills. Most importantly, stop fooling yourself with a false sense of preparation and make a plan to thrive with a community of like-minded people. It will likely take major changes and sacrifices in your life, but it sure beats starving to death alone in farming country.