I guess it's Galts Gulch, although eventually I'm hoping to rename it Aaronopolis. Floyd will most likely head over to my place (if you fall in the Grand Canyon you've gone too far) after dodging Injuns', Mad Max dudes on dirt bikes and the obligatory mutated and giant Gila monsters that inevitably appear across the landscape after any apocalyptic nightmare. I'll swap out his burlap sack for some Justins and canvas britches and he can be my Overseer, riding herd over my (eventual) 11 acre agave empire and toilet paper factory.
But about that 5 acres...
House is on a knoll, a grassy knoll, and has stone walls for 3 of the 4 walls on the first floor. I got's me a well and pressure tanks. Mature tress surround the house, some fruit, mostly pine. Barn with 4 horse stalls, chicken coop. Big flat area fenced off from the bigger, less flat area with house on another flat area above. It's been fenced and gated with an electric top wire for horses. I have a few neighbors and they mostly have the same or much bigger sized lots and homes. The Ruger manufacturing plant is right down the road and Chino Valley is packed cheek to jowl with gun shops, smiths, specialists, hand loaders, training facilities and guide services. Please believe me when I say that obtaining gunz n' ammo won't be an issue. Hhhmm. If bullets become currency, I may find myself living in quite a cosmopolitan setting after all.
I think the town library was originally constructed out of spare ammunition and saltpeter.
Saltpeter, was that not what the US Army gave to the troops in WW1.? Seems like I have a vague memory of my grandmother telling me that she was amazed when she went to NM. [ Demming] got married and became pregnant as my Grandpa was being fed this stuff everyday on base.
Who is that woman, the evangelist, she has a large following and all live in cement underground bunkers. Sara Christian something.? I wonder if her group still has goats feeding on the roofs of the homes.?
One must throw out anything with an electric cord, forget the public water works, find someone with an artesian well. Dig a 3 holler out back, no sewage treatment -----Lord who will collect the trash.? No electric curlers for woman's hair, time to rip up rags and make curls as woman have done for 5,000 years.
As mentioned before by a poster the Fox Fire books are the top of the survival manuals, step by step on how to do most anything and survive following the lives of those who built America 200 years ago.
If for instance I could see into a Chrystal ball and see disaster in the next year, first thing I would do is to search the country for a Singer Treadle sewing machine. Owning one of these machines would be a gold mine for barter. A peck of potatoes in exchange for doing a repair job that takes 5 minutes on a garmet that would take 4 hours to do by hand.
I do believe I would scour the shops for used bicycles, tires and frames. Nails ,screws ,bolts and all manual tools, would be great to find a peddle driven wet stone to sharpen knives and saws that have gone dull. Old tools, manual planes and 2 man saws.
It will take a very long time before we would have to relearn how to card and turn wool into cloth.
We will have to go back to the old time distrust of strangers, anyone different could carry plague and contagion. New ideas that could transform the comunity. Throw them out, they may have radiation poisoning and raise a family of 3 eyed kids.
Possible trading items=====
Pencils, old fashion with eraser.
Tweezers and tongs.
A few thousand yards of cheese cloth------For drying meat and vegetables. also used for medical emergency's.
For Cats, I would advise him to take all his bugout gear and rent beg buy or steal a big Haul. No one is going to come looking for the truck in an all out disaster.
Drive until you run out of gas and hope there is good water to access. The tent can be pitched inside the truck, no worry about high winds or bears. The body of the truck will be dry and a better shelter then a cave.
Drain the oil from the engine, it may be usefull for oiling weapons or getting rid of head lice.
There are those old time pot wood burners still for sale that with a small hole in the roof of the truck for ventilation heat up the shebang at 40 below outside and 80 degrees inside safely.
Heading out with a tent and ammo is crazy, one cannot carry a years worth of freeze dried food on their back-----
OK Cats, say I have 5 acres up north to head to for safety. I as an old lady am going to walk 150 miles to get to a place that has nothing but a roof and walls.?
Get real, we never or seldom do gets the heads up warning. You may be at work 25 miles from home, you can have $2,000 worth of bug out equipment but what does that do for you at the place you are when the SHTF.
Everything depends on the timing, if at home and hear that a large city has been KA_BOOMED or 25 miles from home.
Me at my age I hope to heck I am directly under the BOOM-----I do not want to give a thought to my family much younger then I and the horrors they will face.
Remember the old movie where the pilot of a plane road down the the atom bomb.
If you are at the dentists getting a root canal and the staff run in to say a city 80 miles away have been nuked, all electricity goes out , now what do you do,?????