prep « Robin Writes

Let’s assume you live out “in the middle of nowhere,” which is where I like to say we are now. We’re about 15 miles from a little stop on a highway, and about 25 miles from a town of under 5000. Basically, we have all the conveniences nearby—in country miles—but we’re pretty isolated once you make the drive.

In fact, our county road is a dead end, with just one family living beyond us.

As I make the drive on the blacktop, either direction, I can’t help but notice all the farms and homes between here and either town.

What does this mean? Well, if you were living in a small town and hadn’t prepared for SHFT, and perhaps weren’t even passing familiar with the outdoors and/or the area, where would you go for more supplies and help?

Most, I think, would head up the highway to the interstate and towns of 10-50K or more. Some, I suspect, those who hunt and fish on the weekends, might spread out into the countryside.

And here’s our advantage: to get to us, someone would have to travel quite a few miles on blacktop before the county road turn-off; after that, it’s a couple miles of turns and twists.

But see, all along that blacktop are fields and crops and woods and houses and barns and livestock. Most homes, too, are right on the road. Easy pickings.

Sure, a person could set off cross-country, but how many are going to go this far, overland, through woods and hills and creeks and fences, just to find a meal? Too many easier ways to go, and besides, if this person is that familiar with the territory, he’s more likely to quickly find what he needs and stay put.

There are several more homes along the gravel, long before anyone would get back here.

Now, let’s assume that someone does find his way. Remember the dead end road? We block it off. And yes, the neighbors are aware, and yes, they’d be on board with this. Sure, people can work their way around a roadblock, but it takes time and isn’t going to be stealthily done.

Particularly if the roadblock doesn’t appear to be deliberate and man-made.

And oh, yeah. We have ammo.

But let’s say someone wanders down here, and comes along the road. What do they see?

If, at your place, they see fancy gates that welcome them and a manicured lawn or pasture, and can gaze along a paved driveway or pretty gravel one right on up to your large home, you’re probably going to have trouble.

Unless you have a lot of money—a lot—you won’t have the time or resources to build and maintain a fancy bug-out location or homestead. Your purpose, your goal, is to be self-sufficient, learn to live with less, and not strive to out-do the Joneses.

You need to get your priorities straight. If you don’t, you’re setting out the welcome mat to all the stragglers from a 10- or 20-mile radius.

I’m not saying that you can’t have nice things, or keep your place well-maintained and neat; I’m not saying that you should live in a run-down shack with your below-ground bunker.

But when people drive by here, they see an old fallen-down house—still being demolished—and an older, but large, barn. Not much I can do about the barn, but it’s not very close to the house itself, which can’t be seen from the road.

There’s a lot of brush and trees and weeds, a new gate, yes, but it won’t look that way for long; old, sparse gravel on the drive, and rusted wire fencing.

Speaking of, you don’t need a big rock wall to keep out the riff-raff—how many people want to work their way through rusty barbed wire and poison ivy and stickers? Especially if it doesn’t look as though there’s anything worthwhile on the other side? Except, of course, that ammo…

If you’re looking to buy a place, first find the right location—a buffer between you and population centers. Or several buffers. Dead end roads are very good, although I’ll admit that was an accident; but I was very happy to discover it. Okay, really, the entire purchase was an accident!

Check to see if your neighbors are on board. Do they hunt? Do they raise what they eat? Do they live on an estate or a farm/homestead? Don’t bet that because they live out in the country they don’t commute for an hour or more, or have no clue what to do in the woods, or anything else.

Of course, be subtle. I don’t recommend outright asking if they prep—if they do, they aren’t going to tell you, a stranger and a newcomer.

What do you want to avoid? Planned communities. A concentration of several or more homes near each other. Junkyards. And by “junkyards” I mean crappy houses and with piles of stuff in the yard and 14 kids running around, as well as the regular types.

Google or use other sites like court records and assessors’ websites to learn all you can about those neighbors. Creepy? Could be. Too stalkerish? Perhaps. But you need to know. Maybe the only court records are loan defaults—nothing major. But if they’re recent, it could spell trouble for you as they likely aren’t prepared and haven’t stocked up. I’m not bashing poor people, Lord knows I have a few of those from way back and we’re not living on Easy Street right now, either. But it’s a factor. Just like criminal records.

Learn, too, what those neighbors do for a living. When SHTF, an accountant isn’t going to be much help, from an accounting standpoint. But a guy who works as a mechanic probably will. Or a veterinarian, or the one with tools and machinery, or the hunter.

Being prepared isn’t just about stocking up on food and supplies.

So here’s your question: do you work all the time, or take time to have fun? Is there time available?

See, living on a farm, or a homestead, or whatever you want to call it, is a lot of work. I’ve touched on this before, and it really can’t be said often enough. People visit and say, oh, we’d like to live out here, and maybe we’ll do that in ten years or so. When we retire. So we can sit on the porch and relax.

Relax? Well, maybe. But let’s look at a couple scenarios:

First, it depends on what you buy. You can build from the ground up, you can find a place that’s “perfect” already and just move in and keep doing what the previous owners did, or you can buy something that needs some work.

For us, because our plan was to purchase as much land as possible, paying cash, we opted for the last one. We could have gotten more land, maybe, but would have had less money to work with; we perhaps could have bought less land and had less work, but it probably wouldn’t have been what we needed or wanted.

We looked for six months, after all, across a wide area. Some properties had cabins or homes that we didn’t like or were beyond fixing up; some had bad layouts. Some of the land was so covered in brush that we couldn’t even walk through it—it would have taken a lot of time and money just to clear it out a little. Some were just in bad locations.

For four months now, we’ve been working on our farm. Everything takes longer than you plan, and sometimes plans get changed. Keep in mind, you have to be flexible. Always.

Another “always” is the work. Now, ideally, everything will be finished for our move next spring—everything necessary, that is. One thing I consider necessary is the interior of the house, including the kitchen. The bathroom, I’m not too concerned about. I can work around that, but I can’t work around a kitchen that’s under construction.

Okay, I can, I just don’t want to!

My point is that, even after you move in, there’s still work to be done. You’ll have daily chores, if you’re truly living on a working farm or homestead. Of course, if you just want to sit on the porch and look at the scenery, that’s fine. You’re done. Enjoy.

But if/when SHTF, you’ll be wishing you’d maybe spent less time sitting.

First, every day, you’ll have to take care of the animals. And your garden, aka your food supply. Every day. You don’t get to skip because it’s too hot or too cold or too windy or whatever. You have to do it. Period. And in the summer, like now, you have to do it before the sun starts blazing down on you.

Funny. Here in STL, I get up about 6:00 and work in my office, drinking coffee, until at least 9:00 a.m. At the farm, I’m up a bit earlier, but by 7:00 or so, I’m heading out to the garden, after cooking breakfast! Which I also don’t do in STL.

There’s always going to be wood to chop, plants and animals to tend, repairs to make, things to add and things to take down. Just like where you live now, there are things to do, right? If you have a job when you move to your new place, you’ll have to add in the extra commute; if you get to retire, or work online or at home or even build up your farm and sell produce or other products, you’ll at least avoid that part.

But you still probably have to have some kind of income, especially if you also have a mortgage on this farm. Or if you buy equipment or anything on credit. And even if you have minimal bills, things can always go wrong and eat up your savings.

As always, be prepared.

But it’s not all gloom and doom—do you spend every waking moment, now, doing chores or working at your job? Of course not! Even on a farm, there can be downtime and time to have fun or relax. You’ll likely have more time during the winter, the off-season for farming and gardening. Animals, of course, never stop needing care, and there are always repairs and other chores, but you really do have to take time now and again for yourself and your family.

Go play in the creek, take a day trip, set up games in the yard. We play a lot of cards. Never thought I’d say that, but it’s true. We spend a lot of time, now in the summer, outside. So in the evening, after the porch-sitting when the sun sets, we play cards. Sometimes we’ll take half a day off and drive around the area, usually after lunch when it’s hotter than hell. Sometimes I’ll write and my husband will fish.

At least take one day a week, when the necessary stuff is done, to relax a little. Enjoy your farm. It’s not easy, because, looking around here, sometimes all I see is more work to be done!

Just remember, it’s not all roses—you need a little manure. Or a lot. And please do keep in mind your own limitations. If you’re not ready to make that move now, then when? And will you be physically able when the time comes, to do more than sit on the porch.