survive « Robin Writes

This is an old WWI reference for, well, SHTF. I was doing a search last week because sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s happening or what might happen, and naturally I want to be prepared. Duh, right?

My husband and I have discussed this a lot—no one really wants to leave his home if it’s not necessary. It’s not just leaving your home and your “stuff,” even though we’re actually prepared for that, but it’s also leaving your lifestyle and all the other things that comprise it. Things like school and work and business and friends and even family.

One of the first hits on my search was Survival Mom’s blog, one which I frequently read anyway, and she provided some great insight and a list of GOOD reasons:

Empty store shelves

Banking issues

Looters

Overloaded emergency services

Utility problems

Increased violence

Power grid failure

30% drop in the Dow

War

Rioting in three or more major cities

Pandemic

Martial law

Any of these, let alone more than one, could be a good time to GOOD, if you get my meaning. And honestly, this list helps—go read her blog for more details and a few additional reasons.

Some of these things are or could be related. For instance, if the market takes a dive, there could be a run on banks; if the grid, any of the three in the US, fails, there are going to be massive power outages.

The problem is that any of these things could happen, and some, particularly lately, are much more likely. This is why you have to pay attention and keep an eye on things. No more of that “I don’t watch the news, it’s too depressing.”

You’ll be a sight more depressed if you’re clueless about what may or may not be happening.

Of course, some of this depends on your location. We live in a large metro area, suburban, and it takes nearly 30 minutes to actually get out of “town.” We might leave a tad sooner than others, plus, we have somewhere to actually go.

So I’ll leave you with this:

Pay attention

Have a bug out location to go to—one that you have permission to use, one that you’re prepared to use and able to get to.

Leave if you have to; you can always come back if things aren’t so bad after all, and anyway, it could be good practice for the real thing.

With the start of the school year, we’ve changed to only working at the farm on weekends; that means approximately 48 days, weather depending, to get everything ready for the spring move.

Last weekend, we spent the entire time—except for a little gardening and a little shopping—inside the house.

The gardening resulted in fewer weeds, cucumber and yellow squash harvesting, a little burning, and one less damn copperhead.

The shopping nearly filled our supply unit and added some drywall to our collection.

And then we worked our butts off.

The living room/kitchen dividing wall frame has been drywalled and painted! Actually, we finished the second coat on the ceiling in that half of the house and almost all the painting.

We still need to get paint for the doors on that side, which is the same for the bedroom/office/bath-side walls, and we need to hang the door to the lean-to. And of course, the kitchen remodel/rearrange/additions.

But this coming weekend, we’ll be moving the bedroom/office into the living room and finishing drywall, ceiling repair, and more painting.

After, of course, the skim coating. Ick. So tired of that, but the alternative is worse . . .

And yes, we’ve started moving. To a point.

Originally, I wanted to wait to move just about everything so we wouldn’t have to do it twice, once to the barn and then again to the house. In light of certain economic issues—the world, not ours—we’ve started the process a little early.

Pretty much anything that we won’t need or use between now and spring is headed out the door.

Extreme? Perhaps. But it needs to be done sooner or later and I hate to drive a few hours down there with an empty truck. And we have to LIAH, there would be items that I couldn’t take but would miss.