[Location] Urban vs. Rural

mikeb · Guest

I agree I am from small town saskatchewan and the population has stayed the same for 70 years ie before modern agriculture. It will be possible to sustain our population but more farm help will be needed to be relocated from the major cities

Hawkcreek · Expert Joined: Aug 15, 2004 Posts: 967

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NevadaGhosts · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 20, 2004 Posts: 752

I have read that some people here live on farms or are planning on living on a farm so they can grow their own food. But I see a problem. Who is going to protect the farm from looters if there are millions of hungry people roaming around looting and stealing food. How will one protect their fields and crops from all of these desperate and hungry people? This is a question based on the theory that society will break down in post peak.

KiddieKorral · Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 3:24 pm Post subject:

It's been said here before that, in a SHTF scenario, refugees will follow highways out of the cities. It's highly unlikely that a farm far from a highway will be found. If the farm is near a highway, however, it'll probably be found and stripped bare. So all y'all who are planning to buy a farm in preparation, make sure it'll be passed by- avoid land that's easily accessible from a highway.
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Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 5085

Specop_007 · Expert Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 6235

Terran · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 12:13 am Post subject:

Even if you have a gun, you still have to sleep at night. You could put up a fence but that's going to be expensive. Imagine the amount of fence that would be needed to surround your property.
A good alarm for that will be a dog.
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Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 5085

Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 5085

wzx · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:57 am Post subject:

MarkL · Moderator Joined: Sep 13, 2004 Posts: 280 Location: US

cyotha

skateari · Intermediate Crude Joined: Sep 26, 2004 Posts: 548

Does anyone know of any folks trying to organize, buy a farm, and get a survivalist commune going?

MarkL · Moderator Joined: Sep 13, 2004 Posts: 280 Location: US

Jenab · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 1:32 pm Post subject: Here's what I'm doing.

In 1998, I moved from Alabama to Hillsboro, West Virginia. I saw something like Peak Oil coming, and I wanted to be further away from a certain demographic group that is often noted for having an elevated statistical propensity for causing violent crimes. Pardon the circumlocution.

Most of the native timber is various hardwoods: hickory, red & white oak, black locust, black birch, ash, maple. There are a few prominent softwood species too, especially buckeye and yellow poplar. Evergreens are scarce, but people have planted them around their homes for color in the winter months: hemlock, pine, spruce, cedar, fir.

I have, therefore, a ready supply of firewood. I hope to scavenge the surrounding woodland for fallen limbs and deadwood, rather than ever cut any of the trees close to my house. (They're pretty.)

Of course, my house is heated only by woodstove. And I've bought lots of cheap cigarette lighters - over 1000 of them - to light my stove fires and use as trade-goods for barter after the hooting and hollaring has, uh, died down some.

On my lot, I am growing two dozen apple trees, several trees for pitted fruits (peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines), two pear trees, eight walnut trees, two pecan trees, five butternut trees, three almond trees. While Federal Reserve Notes don't grow on trees, food can do so, and food will be a form of money in the future.

I have a solar oven and, so far, 320 pint Mason canning jars. I'll preserve fruits and nuts this way, and so have food year-round.

Of course, I do have a certain amount of food socked away on the assumption that there will be unforeseen difficulties in creating a sustainable microeconomy near my house. My 1000 pounds of wheat, 200 pounds of dry rice, 200 pounds of legumes, 150 pounds of sugar, 50 boxes of salt, bushel sized tub of baking powder, hand-operated wheat mill, 100 jars of peanut butter, etc., will, I hope, tide me over until I can get the kinks worked out of my food-production system.

(By the way, don't overlook the local Animal Feed Store as a source of affordable food for yourself. I got all my wheat from there, and I've made some very tasty cupcakes from it.)

My water supply has two parts: a thousand-gallon underground cistern and three 110-gallon UV-stabilized plastic rainbarrels. Both are fed by rainwater runoff from my house roof. Free water, in other words. Each heavy rain recharges the supply. A rainfall in the amount of four inches can take me from empty to full with some to spare.

I have mechanical (hand-operated) pumps to get the water up from the cistern to the house. That is, I have the one presently connected and a spare. Without those pumps, I could still trail a siphoning hose downhill (down the driveway) and fill a bucket with cistern-water, and then carry it back up to the house.

But cisterns get algae in them, and can be hard to clean. I chlorinate my cistern periodically and use the water in it mainly for bathing, washing the laundry and doing the dishes. Oh, and flushing the toilet. My drinking water comes from the rainbarrels.

The rainbarrels are set in a row on concrete masonry blocks with a 3/8" waferboard shield between the top of the blocks and the bottom of the barrel. Each barrel holds 110 gallons, has a faucet near the bottom, and has two overflow drains near the top of the cylindrical siding.

The first barrel is positioned under the rain-gutter where it overflows during a moderately heavy rain. (I narrowed the downspout opening on this side of the roof to cause this overflowing to occur.) The falling water lands in a clean 5-gallon wide rubber bucket on one side of the top of the rainbarrel. The rubber bucket is tilted by having a broken shovel handle slid under it, so that when full the bucket empties into the screenmesh covered aperture in the barrel's top surface.

The reason I use the bucket, instead of letting the rain just hit the rainbarrel directly, is to reduce loss from splash.

When rainbarrel #1 is full, it overflows into rainbarrel #2 through a short hose connecting their mutually nearest top overflow drains. And, likewise, when rainbarrel #2 is full, it overflows into rainbarrel #3. Any of my rain barrels can be drained into the underground cistern, if I want to do it, through yet other hoses of an appropriate length attached to the faucet fittings at the bottom of each rainbarrel.

Rainwater falling in the West Virginia Alleghenies doesn't pass through any significant city pollution. Thus it retains a delightful taste that you'd have to experience to understand. Water can taste very good.

I've collected an assortment of hand tools for use when TSHTF. The main ones that someone would need around here are: axes, mauls, hatchets, hand saws, files to keep the aforementioned nicely sharp, hammers (and nails), and spares for everything.

While you can get it, you might want to pack away maybe 50 gallons of kerosene and 100 gallons of gasoline treated with STA-BIL or some other fuel stabilizer. Along with a sufficient amount of 2-cycle engine oil, the gasoline can permit you to operate a chainsaw for the rest of your life. A chainsaw makes getting firewood much easier than with axes and hand saws.

You might want some good backpacks - the big kind that mountain climbers use - for carrying loads across miles. I use a North Face Perseverance when I hike into Hillsboro (four miles one-way), and I've carried home 40 pounds of books from the post office and foodstuffs from McCoy's or Tailor's grocery.

Books are another fine thing to have. I have about 700 fantasy novels that I haven't yet read. They will be something to do in between shooting apple poachers, I expect.

Jerry Abbott