What are YOU prepping for?

I found myself too easily overwhelmed with the idea of prepping for TEOTWAWKI. Only started to make headway by breaking it down into smaller pieces. we are "prepping" for immediate; (i.e.local); short and mid term breakdown of services..food, water, heat,power, law and order.

I backpack and find a challenge in minimizing equipment.


(Caution, I feel a bit of a pointless rant coming on)..

I 've been looking into various discussion on "woods " guns recently for personal entertainment and found it easy to find board discussions where folks advocated carrying hundreds of center fire rounds or even lyman tong type reloading tools/dies and components in their packs( maybe they'd be better off with a tactical wheelbarrow???). It is laughable (imho)...

I don't know what carefully scripted situation these folks are .planning for, but it would seem to be highly unlikely for them to find themselves in that exact scenario.
For example: One "gentleman" advocated his choice in sidearm based on "an encounter with 5 badguys, one armed ( the with a gold capped tooth) . And "He KNEW" they were gonna kill him, the others were going to rape his wife and kids then kill them."How he "knew" all this he never went into. Obviously he wrote this script in his mind to justify his choices...
Anyway I try to base "prepping"on what I consider most likely..and try to recognize "mack bolan" thinking.( Of course you must agree how smugly superior my pov is?)

I notice guys like Bear Gryyls (ex-SAS survival expert on "man vs. wild" ) does just fine finding his way out of some pretty challenging "Wilderness survival" situations without an ak47 and 500 rounds(that's 400 for the "firefight" and 100 left over to :get back to camp" as the keyboard rambo put it)...on his person...although I find my 4" air weight .38 reassuring in its holster, it has been by no means necessary.

I am working on being able to walk into my favorite patch of woods with swiss army knife, magnesium fire starter, canteen and cup and be able to spend a few "comfortable",days staying fed warm and dry. I am not prepared for an ecomomic crash (*i.e. I am not buying gold or other "safe" investments. but am investing in what I ( in my world view )consider practical skills and knowledge).
Not to offend anybody here with semi truck loads of munitions and looking to purchase more "because you never can tell when that 10,001 st round will save your bacon).

Flame on, I'm gonna take shower...

 

I am trying to prepare for a little bit of everything, but not exactly TEOTWAWKI. Everything I use I buy extra of. Ammo, load up. .45's and AR's, give me more. Fuel, canned food, flour, sugar, salt, etc. etc. sure buy extra every time we go to the store. Every day life stuff. Now sure I have quite a bit of camping gear, a generator, water filter, and stuff like that. Things that I have used or will use. If something catastrophic did happen I like to think I would be in a lot better shape than most folks, but there is no doubt it would be a struggle. I am not planning on it happening though. I prepare more for things that I think likely. A week without power, weather related disasters, family having to stay with us, medical emergencies, things of that nature. Now if the L.A. Riots were to happen in my tiny little part of Texas, or if the Zombie start coming, we will plow them down before they get to the door.

 

Personally, I think that we ALL are "prepping" on a daily basis by exercising our brains! Many of us read the newspapers, many watch the TV news or listen to the radio news, some read books, and the internet is a veritable wealth of information.

As far as stockpiling goods, I have enough food and water for at least 6 months....if not longer. I have many "dual purpose" items, too, such as camping equipment and guns. I have numerous plans for both bugging IN and bugging OUT.

Of course, if Al Gore has his way, "global warming" will eventually get ALL of us....unless you start buying "green off-sets"! Oh, Al Gore OWNS one of those "off-set" companies, that uses the money to plant trees? I guess that's his way of "prepping", while living in an estate-sized home that uses 20x more power than the average home! HMM! Do they make escargot, Caviar or Cordon Bleu in MRE's?

 

Now, now, big Al had to "pledge" to do more personally to stop "glob-al gorming" at the Live Earth concert last`week. Seems he got caught with his hypocritical fingers in the "do as I say cookie jar"...and not fooling too many ..

 

To the Hot Place with Al the Bore. Carbon Offests don't feed the belly or warm the body.

I began small - what do I need to get thru a few days without power?
Then, prepping for a major hurricane event.
Then, a full month totally independent.
So on . . .

Barring the sudden and total destruction of my home, I can get by on my own for nearly a year now.
Certain massive events would require 'relocating'.

I can't prep for EVERTHING . . . just do the best I can in general terms.

 

My prep is for a local event, 5 minutes ago we had a hell of a storm blow through, power went out only for a second, but if any longer I'm ready for it.
If I can't get out of my house for a few days, (weeks) I'm ready for it. If my house burns down, I get out the tent and we camp until we get it built again (although my garage is bigger than my house) so maybe just move in there.
If local law enforcements fails I'm also ready. Am I ready for a TEOTWAWKI? Won't know that until the day comes. I'm ready for the other events which means I am closer to being ready than many, but not as ready as others.
Just hope I never have to test it.

I have a good local network, very good friends, so if the day ever comes, either local, regional, or national, we will all work together as a group to get by.

 

Living in rural New Hampshire, I can count on losing power for a day of two at least once a year and have lost it for a week with a bad ice storm. With wood heat, a generator, battery backup and floursent light circuits in the house, and LED lamps, I hardly ever even light a kerosine lamp any more. Lose TV and computer, but that may be a blessing. Happy on the short time preps, have food for 3 months and three sources of water and 500 yards from a small flood control pond. Have wood for 3 to 5 years for heat and cooking. Fuel for the generators for about 3 weeks and propane for lights and cooking for a couple months. My bigest preperations are in trying to limit the SHTF situation that I face in the next year of two called loss of income due to retirement. Have no faith in banks, stock market, value of the dollar or social security. That leaves wood heat, good garden, eating as healthy as possible, and staying active. Personaly trying to get another hole to hide in a lot farther out and a cache for real bad times. I think that Dillon said it all "the times they are a changing." Oil is in the high $70's a barrel and everyone ignores it. The main stream press talks about 5 years to crunch time on oil and it is ignored. My son, in his 40's, works for a company that does solar. Their big customers now are the medium rich who are buying land in Maine and Vermont for Summer cabins, with solar heat, power and food for 3 plus years. Sounds like a hideout to me. Some put in solar panels and cover them with wooden panels with shingles to "protect them until they are needed". Thus you can drive up to the place and still not know that they have solar panels. The super rich are buying places in Euorpe. I have guns and reload, but reguard that as a hobby and as trade goods or "price of admission" is things fall apart and I need help. For long term survival, I don't think you can beat yard sales and all the stuff that is sold for pennies. Garden tools, wood stoves, farm hand tools such as forks and rakes etc, axes, saws, ice harvesting tools, blacksmithing tools etc. Then there are sleeping bags, tarps and such. People move from the city and buy all the good stuff, quality and use wise, never use it and sell a few years later.

 

I for one am still "new" to prepping. As such I am getting my family ready for the short term emergency (weather or other nat. disaster). But I also keep a watch on local and global events as one may never know when the SHTF.

That being said, I think that may not be definite time when we say "The SHHTF", but rather a gradual process where before we know what's going on, we are sunk.

For long term problems, well I'd be SOL right now. For the short term, I have that covered and every day/week/month I work on improving my skills and supplies.

 

I don't waste time or energy trying to prep for the huge worldwide global disaster - anything that affects me directly will be in my region or AO.
So, I prepare locally - but try to cover myself as well as possible.
I'll bug in, no long distance travel concerns. I don't have the land to be farming or ranching.
So, while my options are limited, it also frees me from trying to cover too much. I can tailor my preps to what I need here and now.

 

While Ghrit has a valid point in the fact that more people seem to be looking at a complete world wide break down than for a single local catastrophic event, I also believe that one local event can be a world ending thing.

Back in May Greensburg Ks had a tornado go thru that destroyed over 95 percent of the town. Of the remaining 5 percent most of it had to be torn down at a later date. To me that would qualify as pretty much a TSHTF.

To me what it comes down to you prepare locally and look globally at some point you will come full circle.

Take care Be safe Poacher.

 

We got a really good preview when hurricane Rita came to town two years ago. I learned two things: that I was on the right track, and that my plans needed "tweaking".

 

you forgot one major thing:


ZOMBIES!

 

You realy hit a nerve with the talk of Global warming!
The Earth's has been losing it's Magnetic field for the past 150 years, and that field is what protects us from the Solar Winds. The Solar Winds will some day do to us what it has done to other planets that do not have a strong Magnetic field!
IT'S NOT my SUV!

Your Bud!

 

I am preparing to raid the Memphis Zoo and train the elephants for battle. Armor and mini-guns! Might take a few Rhinos too. And monkeys, lots of monkeys and give them grenades.

 

Not to mention all the cape buuffalo, kudu and zebra meat and all that other tastey meat running around in furry wrappers.

 

Let me know when and I'll join ya. I've been there enough that I have the layout just about memorized - at least until they change it again.