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Practical Prepping

paterfamilias

paterfamilias

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I fancy myself a bit of a prepper, not as much as I would like but still making strides. So the end result is that it is something that I think about a fair amount and all the more so with what I see as an upcoming cultural collapse on the way. I am curious though how many other families are prepping and what sort of steps you are taking.

Just to kick it off, what we are doing in a thumbnail sketch is boogie bags in the cars, alternative electricity is in process, spare room with a goodly amount of supplies, goodly amount of food, firearms and ammo.
Needs to be addressed though is communications, finish up the electricity issues, alternate water, building security rachetted up significantly... additional fire suppression and ability to produce food.

I am limited to a suburban environment and everyone's circumstances are different but it is a topic worth discussing whether you are one a farm, in the suburbs or in an urban apartment. Let's exchange some ideas.
 
We have some uber preppers among us. I'm more mild about it, probably similar overall to your state of being, @paterfamilias, but one of my most common admonitions to people is to assert that everyone needs to be prepared. I pray that things don't go all the way toward where they're clearly headed, but in a sense I've been oriented toward preparing for the worst ever since joining the Boy Scouts at age 11.

Personally, my orientation is to have some significant materials on hand to be able to get through a long crisis, but my orientation is much more toward being on the move in the case of a SHTF event than to create a shelter-in-place fortress, but I may end up gravitating in the direction of buying property that qualifies as being far enough off the beaten path to be safe due to lack of likelihood that anyone would ever cross its paths. For now, though, a tremendous brother in Christ and his family have agreed to let my family travel to live with them if it's SHTF time.

In the meantime, we have bug-out packs fully ready that contain water-purification equipment, a minimalist 4-week food supply for 4 people (or 2 weeks for 8 people), hand-cranked radio, handgun, ammunition, the 1960s B.S. manual that features sage advice on readily-available edible plant life, space for a couple changes of clothes, psychedelics, ponchos/tents, knives, minimal cookware, numerous versions of decades-old maps that emphasize the original U.S. highways and side roads (to be effective in making tracks while avoiding the main arteries where panic is likely to be ensuing), and junk silver. I also have a nondescript 16-foot box truck (currently being used in our mood) and will be acquiring multiple safe-storage gasoline canisters and two car-tire ramps set to its floor height to be able to drive up our Honda Fit into it in the event that chaos ensues. We will then drive the truck as far as we can with the gasoline supply, then abandon it for the full-gas-tank Honda Fit to take that as far as we can go (the last 250 miles).

Our family always has a basic plan in place. Currently, based on residences, everyone would head to the current home of one daughter and one son and his wife (if he doesn't make alternate plans) -- then head to our eventual destination.
 
Wow @Keith Martin
I feel very ill-prepared in comparison :oops:

Your choice of mandatory pharmaceuticals in a minimalist backpack makes me smile. :):D
 
Both FEMA and the Mormon Church have very good guidelines on things you need for emergencies and they are a great place to start for designing your own emergency back up plan.

Our own adaptation is we keep roughly a year of staples in storage and we use the oldest items first to keep them in rotation. I also do home canning of berries and apples, I make marmalade for the Vitamin C, and we have a root cellar with cold storage apples and potatoes for the winter.

We have similar arrangements for diesel and gasoline.
 
I have been 'prepping' since I learned in the run-up to Y2k how fragile our societies basic support systems are. It's less about this or that individual solution as about orienting our whole life to be as non-dependent on the system as possible.

The sagest advice I learned early on: live your preparation. Preparations of food you won't normally eat, bugging out to communities you don't live in, systems of survival you don't normally use are all bound to fail; if for no other reason than they are unpracticed.
 
We’re preppers. We live on 2.4 acres and are fairly advanced in basic calorie production which at the end of the day is all that matters. Everything else is simply to protect that, make it more efficient and pass it on to our children.

We are standing up a solar panel system as we speak. We have a fairly well formed MAG with a significant start on our food stores. Obviously guns and ammunition are my favorite part but my ammo stocks are fairly pathetic. Always most important is people you can trust who are well prepared themselves and in that I am extremely well prepared.
 
Not sure where to put this so I'm sharing it where the few of you who will read this thread will see it:

We arrived in Texas today and tomorrow will check out the two apartments on which we have deposits. One is in Azle, the other in Keller. From there we will begin looking for our permanent home as of 2022. If my investments pay off, maybe we'll buy land along the Llano River . . .

For the moment, though, I'm just glad we got out of Pennsylvania and survived the drive down here (much of this morning and afternoon was spent east of Shreveport having the undergirding of our box truck repaired so it wouldn't rip apart another tire like it did yesterday!; this was all my fault, because I over-loaded it, but it will continue to provide service through our 2022 move, especially if I refrain from packing it to the gills and give in to the need to make multiple trips -- it is now apparent to me, though, that I won't be buying car ramps to transport our car in the aging moving truck, so our prepping will now shift back to depending on walking long distances after running out of gas in the event of a SHTF event).

Looking forward to mini-gatherings of like-minded Bib Fam fellow Texans.
 
Keith Martin said:
it is now apparent to me, though, that I won't be buying car ramps to transport our car in the aging moving truck, so our prepping will now shift back to depending on walking long distances after running out of gas in the event of a SHTF event
Click to expand...
Wouldn't it be simpler to just plan to have several 40 gallon drums of fuel on the truck, and then just drive all the way to wherever you're going? The fuel drums would then also be your reserve supply for milder events where you don't have to leave town.
 
FollowingHim said:
Wouldn't it be simpler to just plan to have several 40 gallon drums of fuel on the truck, and then just drive all the way to wherever you're going? The fuel drums would then also be your reserve supply for milder events where you don't have to leave town.
Click to expand...
The truck is now no longer serviceable for carrying that heavy a load.

And I'd be afraid I'd end up hauling a tremendous fireball!
 
Keith Martin said:
The truck is now no longer serviceable for carrying that heavy a load.
Click to expand...
I meant leave the car behind. Fuel for the truck is lighter, you'll be able to carry that.
Or get an A-frame for the car and tow it, taking both vehicles.
 
Keith Martin said:
Not sure where to put this so I'm sharing it where the few of you who will read this thread will see it:

We arrived in Texas today and tomorrow will check out the two apartments on which we have deposits. One is in Azle, the other in Keller. From there we will begin looking for our permanent home as of 2022. If my investments pay off, maybe we'll buy land along the Llano River . . .

For the moment, though, I'm just glad we got out of Pennsylvania and survived the drive down here (much of this morning and afternoon was spent east of Shreveport having the undergirding of our box truck repaired so it wouldn't rip apart another tire like it did yesterday!; this was all my fault, because I over-loaded it, but it will continue to provide service through our 2022 move, especially if I refrain from packing it to the gills and give in to the need to make multiple trips -- it is now apparent to me, though, that I won't be buying car ramps to transport our car in the aging moving truck, so our prepping will now shift back to depending on walking long distances after running out of gas in the event of a SHTF event).

Looking forward to mini-gatherings of like-minded Bib Fam fellow Texans.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the area. Neither of those towns are in my specific neck of the woods metroplex wise or I might be able to offer some advice. What prompted the move? Have a suspicion based on your dropping it in the prepper post.
 
Pennsylvania is too cold, completely business-unfriendly, stuck in a union mentality, and the people don't mind electing governors who act like gestapo tyrants. Formerly lived in Texas twice in my life (graduated from Grapevine High School before DFW was finished; also lived 5 years in the 80s in Nacogdoches), and it seems more like home. Has changed a lot but is still more respectful of Freedom than most states.
 
I would avoid Dallas proper like the plague and the more near in suburbs. Parts of Tarrant county is ok still but it is rather piece meal. If your work situation allows for it I would be as far out as possible. There are still some small to medium towns within an hour of the metroplex that are perfectly pleasant.
 
We're going to be looking at Nemo and Llano and other points in between.
 
That far from the city you are probably in very good shape. Will take the zombies a while to shuffle down your way
 
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