Posted: 11/26/2007 11:41:41 AM EDT
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My wife and I have been discussing things and both agree that we need to start preparing for bad times. That being said I've been reading through the forums and have found a lot of good info here. We (unfortunately) live in the Communist Republik of Kalifornia. I can't retire for about 5 years so I'm stuck until then. After that we are contemplating Texas. My situation is this. I have a wife and 3 small children (3-6 years), I am in Southern California, I live on 5.5 acres and and I live about 5 miles from a city of approximately 100,000. Our primary plan is to stay at our location if possible. For water we have (4) 30 gallon water drums stored and access to nearby wells. There is also a year round stream near the base of our property and I purchased a Katadyn water filter should it become needed. For food I have around 500-600 fruit trees on the property. About 400 of those are Avocado, 80 are Persimmon the rest are various types of citrus, apple, loquat, peach, plum, macadamia nut etc...We also grow a few bananas and we pretty much have fruit year round. We recently put in a pretty large garden and produced more vegetables than we could eat, we plan on expanding the garden and planting a much larger variety than we previously had. There is limited game around, but it would help in a pinch. We are begining to store long term items and we just purchased a dehydrator so that we can store excess fruit and vegetables. Weapons/ammo are not an issue, I have a solid grasp on what is needed and have most. I plan on selling a couple non-necessities and paying for more preps. I have talked to several of my friends and discussed this with them, due to the location of my residence it has been agreed that it would be the best place to go should things get really bad. They are also begining to prepare, though I recognize that I should probably expect them to have much less than they need. They will all be very well armed and are well trained, their assistance in the defense or in scavanging would be invaluable. We are contemplating getting some chickens for eggs and meat if necessary, is this a good idea or more trouble than it's worth? I'll have to build a shelter for them and a secure yard area, otherwise the coyotes and bobcats would have them decimated in a day or two. I also purchased an item that vaccuum seals bags of food. We have been using it to seal up dehydrated fruit. Can I use it to seal up bags of rice, beans, pasta etc..?? and if so, how long can I expect that to last? Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to give a little background before I got to the questions. Any suggestions are appreciated. Tom |
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chickens are a good idea but what are you going to feed them? i would look at a chain link fence with a top. the varmints will try to dig under it but you can ring the outside with a skirt of hog panel and nothing will be able to dig under it. have you thought about cattle and hogs? they eat grass and what you eat. move to TX as quick as you can. |
Man I love guacamole!  I assume you plan on doing canning? Lot's of it. I also get the impression you may find out taking care of those trees so they continue to bear fruit a tad more work than you expect but well worth it. You're well ahead of the ballgame. It sounds like your short falls will be starch and protein. A lot of this you can make up for in your garden. I can't go much further without discussing security. The problem with California is all the population is on the coast. If there is a mass exodus, they're all coming east. Even just in hard times, those trees will draw folks like a bee to honey. I mean what you can you do? Its not alike a reasonable person is going to shoot someone over a piece of fruit on a tree. What you do is you plan for it, which you are by canning and dehydrating. Another method I like is freezing. Its faster and good tasting. Of course, with any freezing survival plan it must be accompanied with two plans. How to deal with the food if there is no power long-term and how to deal with keeping frozen till you deal with the food. That's usually canning, dehydrating, curing, and generator with fuel. That also means a nice supply of empty mason jars. I wish you could buy chicken seeds and store them until needed but that's not happening. I grew up around chickens and it was Sunday dinner and eggs every morning, but I can think of no more file creature to raise than chickens. They're totally nasty and totally helpless. No matter how creative you get on your chicken coup like double wire and under the ground wire, you still end up spending many a night taking care of predators. Even snakes will wolf down their eggs and chicks. They make noise all day like saying, here I am come get me. I'm going to be brutal here, with all those trees, garden, and fruit to take care of, I would hold off on livestock until I retired and have more time then Katy bar the door. I would instead opt for a freezer addition to canning figuring any catastrophic economic event after things settle you can trade canned goods for livestock. Tj |
I could easily store a couple of months worth of food, but after that I would have to let them free range, eat bugs and chase them into the coop at night. I've thought about hogs, but man they stink, my wife is supportive right now, let the foul stench of some pigs blow into my house and that could all change! I would love to do the cattle, but my property is pretty hilly, some of it being outright steep, I don't know that I have enough flat area that isn't currently being utilized, the other problem is food for them, I don't have any weeds or grasses (other than lawn) growing so I would have to buy feed. Believe me I'll be out of this state as soon as possible, I just have to find some place warm, the weather here has spoiled me! Tom |
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The grapes of wrath, as well as other fictional accounts, had many people migrating to California during bad times. a solar dehydrator would be your best bet for fruit,you could feed excess avacados to chickens, the trick would be to grow chickens during the perishable fruit/bug season, and plant something to feed them when the windfall slows or stops, harvest what grain you can to feed your core flock and let the rest clean the field, timing and population control could make it work, I have no idea about your particulars though. you could survive hard times very well, but in bad times you would be overrun. |
Taking care of the trees is a major pain, finding buyers for the fruit has been a pain since they started importing from Mexico, it really dropped the price. Farmers have also started getting bug infestations that they don't normally get. Most blame the imported fruit. They get infested, quarantined and forced to burn their crops, builds more animosity toward Mexico. My wife and I have just started discussing canning, neither of us know anything about it so that's gonna be a whole new mess. As far as security goes in just an economic depression there will be major trouble keeping people out. Just as an example last week I got a buyer for my persimmons. I went down to harvest my trees and found that someone else already had. I leave for work in the morning it's dark. I get home it's dark so I hadn't checked on the fruit in a week. Someone stripped 75 trees of fruit, broke my sprinkler lines and left a bunch of Budweiser cans in my grove. So it begins....... Part of me is actually glad that I didn't catch the people in the act, I'm sure it would have ended badly. I grew up on a farm in Colorado but that was 20 years ago, I haven't had anything to do with farming until I bought this place 4 years ago. I raised chickens then, and I agree with you, they are stupid. The only thing that rivals them is domestic turkeys. I'm just trying to figure out a way to have protein available to the family in the event of a long term SHTF scenario. I'm not as concerned about economic problems (maybe I should be) but both my wife and I have pretty good jobs and I don't see our careers being drastically affected. I'm still learning about generators and such, but I would rather not spend large sums of cash on an item for this house when I don't plan on being here in only a few years. When I think of a generator large enough to run a freezer & refrigerator for long term I think of something large and assume it goes through a large amount of fuel? I don't want to buy something that I can't take with me. Again I plan on moving as soon as I can, I need to wait for about 5 years for my retirement, also hoping that the housing market improves. I have a lot more reading to do, but I do appreciate everyones comments and suggestions. Thanks, Tom |
Thanks for the tip, I had considered rabbits but was leaning toward the chickens because of the eggs. Maybe I'll do some more research on rabbits, they don't have any genetically altered ones that lay eggs do they? I did see an article awhile back on some rabbits that North Korea was buying from a farmer in Germany. Those suckers were huge, looked like they'd crossed'm with German shepards. Tom |
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The time to prepare is NOW! The amount of money & time needed is tremendous. Do not assume you will be able to buy anything with gold or silver for at least 180 days after TSHTF. Based on you description of your situation here's what I would recommend: (1) Obtain a bug out place or 'move away from there'. Choose a site at least 10, 25, 50, 100 miles from cities that have 15000, 50000, 250000, or 1000000 people respectively. Many people will walk 5 miles to take what you have when there's nothing left on the shelves at the supermarket. Find a location with only one vehicular access path that can be blocked quickly in multiple locations. Isolation is one prong of a good defense. (2) Develop a 180 day survival plan ASAP that addresses 3 levels of resources for water, food, shelter, energy, clothing, & security that are in addition to your normal sources. For example, water - (a) a water well, (b) 30 day storage tank, & (c) stream/pond with enough filtration equipment to get you through 6 months. (3) Cut your standard of living in half NOW and commit the excess funds to implementing the plan. Commit to doing as much as you can financially & physically do every day. Do not rest until you can say " I can lock my gate & wait for 30 days right now!" Then take a 24 hour break & start on the next 30 days. (4) Keep your preps secret from anyone who lives within 100 miles of you including relatives who will eat all you have in two weeks because hey would not trade their SUVs, soccer games, dance lessons, and $300k mortgage for a chance to live. (5) Read in your sleepless moments Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse: A Novel of the Turbulent Near Future and/or Lights Out for motivation. (6) Ignore the naysayers; be the ant and get prepared for hard times. |
| Since you are in So. Calif, you can buy vacuumed-packed rice at the Asian supermarkets, so this will save you the trouble to vacuum packing them yourself. My main concern would be to keep your stored food of rice, beans etc etc away from vermin such as rats and mice. I've heard that they can gnawl through aluminized/plastic MRE packaging. I store my food in ancient 100lb sheet metal lard cans. |
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Since water is even more important than food, it's good to hear you've got a stream nearby. Try to make friends with the neighbor(s) whose land it runs through. Also, you said you bought a Katadyn water filter. Very good idea, but that limited description covers a lot of ground--from about 100 gallons filtration capacity to maybe 13,000 gallons. Keeping in mind that a shortfall of good water will kill a lot sooner than a shortfall of food, it would be a good idea to have a higher capacity water filter so you can last for longer if all your friends (and their families?) actually showed up. Or even if they didn't. The Katadyn Pocket Filter is rated somewhere around 3000 gallons, and the Gravidyn/Ceridan [sp?] is rated somewhere around 13,000 gallons depending on the filter elements. I'm hoping you got one of those for your scenario, as opposed to a small capacity backpacking filter. I don't have any dogs or night vision, but if I lived in your home I probably would. Keep a few chickens just for bobcat bait. Nothing like a bit of 'cat shank roasted over the open coals... The 'cats don't produce eggs as well as the chickens, especially the males, but be persistant and they can be trained. They're not really happy about it, though, so you're gonna want to wear more than shorts and a T-shirt when you go get the eggs. Welcome to the forum. Please tell me you're in your 50s if you're planning to retire in five years. I feel inadequate when I hear about people in their 40s retiring. |
You get into the preserving your food, the freezer idea will come naturally. One step at a time is fine. You see the idea behind a freezer is not long-term if there is a long-term power outage but short-term. The idea is just long enough for you to get the food canned, dried, or cured. A small generator around 2,000 watts and 20 gallons of gas can keep both a freezer and fridge going long enough, about a week, to get all that done. You don't have to run the gen all the time just periodically to cool it back down again keeping it within a range. Personally and just me again, is I would go with the freezer concept, learn canning by doing just enough, and rely on the freezer. Canning takes a lot more time than freezing and easier for us who work. I for example do the same thing, keeping mason jars and curing salt around for just in case. Odds are there is an extended power outage, I won't be working and will have more time. Yeah, running folks out of your orchard is part of the game. I guess its always was. It was 50 years ago when I was a kid. People should have the decency to ask first but hey who said everyone is decent. Post your property, it probably won't help but puts you on more of legal footing, God forbid, it turns nasty. I've learned to just be polite, advise them that's your fruit, and ask them to leave. Mostly they act all innocent like, leave, and never come back. Being armed is good just not threatening. Open carry on your side on your property should be fine. BTW, One of the things I use to do when I was really into an agricultural lifestyle is what I couldn't market, take time to market, or put up, I would give away. Great way to know your neighbors and make allies. In a rural setting nothing is more important than your neighbors. They watch out for your place and everything I ever gave away I got back ten fold. Tj |
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Go into town and find a senior center or old folks home and advertise for an "old-tyme canning advisor" or some such. "will trade fresh fruit and eggs. transportation provided, etc." I'll bet you can get a couple old-school farmers wives to help you just for the fun and the company. |
Home canning is an art that I'm afraid won't be around another generation. My wife's grandparents did tons of canning from their garden. Now that they have passed away, nobody in the family knows how to can. Today's generation's idea of canned foods is what they see at the supermarket. If I had the land to grow my own vegies and such, I would defenately learn how to can before there's nobody left that can show you how. |
An excellent book on the subject. Canning is like reloading. Follow the directions explicitly and you'll do fine. In my previous house my wife and I had a great garden space. We canned the heck out of tomatoes, beans, peas, made pickles, the whole deal. Neither of us had prior experience. We also had a chest freezer we used. Sadly, we outgrew the place and moved to a house with too much shade. Great for the power bills but I sure miss the fresh corn picked and dropped into already boiling water.  Don't let it intimidate you. Study the procedure, get the equipment and get busy. |
I currently only have the Katadyn Pocket Filter, but I am looking into the Ceradyn Filter. I wanted to hear from someone who has some experience with them before I make the purchase. Trying to spend smart and not have to buy twice. That being said there are two versions of the Katadyn Ceradyn, which is best?? I have night vision capabilities, and a dog. Tom |
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m4gunfighter, you've received a lot of great advice to this point. here's my personal opinion on a couple of things. definitely get chickens, they are, in my experience fairly easy to care for. we let ours free range w/i a fenced off area during the day and they naturally go back into their coop at night. to ward off predators you can do a few things. we have bobcats, 'coons and coyotes all around our property and haven't lost a single animal to them. we placed our chicken coop inside a small fenced off area that we put our goats in. the goats make more than enough noise when a predator gets w/i 300' that we go check it out. you could also get a donkey, miniature donkey or llama to act as a watch dog over the chickens. we also have our dogs running in a large area that butts up against the area the chickens and goats are in. chickens are dumb animals and we lost, luckily, only one b/c it kept flying into the dog area. we have a nice size garden and to adequately store what you grow you need to learn to can, it's time consuming and as others have mentioned it's a lost art, good info in the recipe section here. my wife learned how to do it this year and i'm amazed at how much she's been able to put up. you mentioned that you have hilly property. skip the cattle and get goats. they don't mind the steep hills and there exist enough varieties that you can find some to fit your needs. the goats require less feed than do cattle and are generally easier to work w/. we let ours out to pasture during the day and they are screaming to get back into their smaller pen at night. goat milk is excellent vitamin wise. and you can always eat the goats, if need be. some varieties of goat are best for milk production, others are better meat goats, but they are an excellent resource. as others have touched on, b/c you are so close to such a large population center, you probably want to acquire a long term bug out location. some where you could go if things looked like they were going to be really bad for a real long time. this could be anything from a place farther out you plan to have temporarily or a place you plan to eventually retire to. |
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You mentioned pigs but don't want the smell. Well, when I was a kid we had a pig pen that had a covered section and a trough, two wheels on one end and and a handle on the other. We raised them three at a time and moved the pen a couple times per week. We had an A-frame chicken tractor that covered the same footprint that we pulled along behind. We rotated our field and used the fallow section for the pigs and chickens. I was just a kid and too small to move the pig pen but big enough to move the chickens. It didn't seem like too much work. Feed and water the pigs and chickens daily, collect the eggs from the nest boxes (they had little doors to the outside of the pen) and move them every so often. No smell, no predator problems and very nicely worked over and fertilized fields. Pigs are remarkably clean and make good company if you don't force them to stay in one place. And they taste great to boot. |
This is a great idea, but with the uneven terrain at my place I think it would be a huge pain. Something to think about at my future spot! Tom |
It's late and I'm on the way to bed, but... For your situation a drip filter would definitely be a good choice. Well, unless you got overrun on Day 5. Anyway, there are two companies to consider, and each of those companies has two variants. The two companies are Katadyn and Berkfield/Berkey/Daulton. I actually researched this a lot a year ago and ended up getting a Big Berkey drip filter with the Black Berkey filter elements (which have less capacity, maybe 3000 gallons, but they remove a lot more crap, organics, inorganics, VOCs, elements, I don't remember). I also got a couple or so of the Berkey white Sterasly [sp?] filter elements because they fit into the same water filter equally well and provide maybe 13,000 gallons of capacity, though they don't remove as much stuff. The two Katadyn models are similar in the sense that one filters out more crap but has a lower capacity (and shorter life, maybe 6 months, sort of, at least for the "more crap" thing) and the other has a higher capacity but, you guessed it, filters out less crap. It depends on the filter elements you select, and I think they all fit in whatever you buy. Sorry this is so short, normally I'd do better but I really do have to go to bed. |