Thinking of bugging out to the country? Think again.

I left out the live traps of differing sizes for raccoons, possum, foxes, squirrels that live on the property.

There are some deer as well that come through.

We have frogs and turtles.

But those would be tapped out eventually.

We'd have to drive or hike, not far though, for fish, more turtles, alligators.
Which the more you go away from the digs, the more you expose yourself to problems from others, and the more you expose your digs to problems from others while you are away.

Have to really think through much.

Cuy solves a lot of that.
It tastes great as well.

People who lived out in the country, whether farmfolk or not, used to help their neighbours, knowing that their strength was in their banding together (like in barn raising) rather than in fighting. OP -- your post is repugnant, as are many responses here.

There are people that just want to be out of the cities as tensions gets worse, they aren't necessarily dreaming of running a farm. Just want to put some distance between the city and themselves, i.e., not be trapped in the city in a bad situation.

You don't necessarily need to farm to live away from the cities if you prep, have a well on the property (can get a frost free hand pump). Can get a coal/wood burning stove (coal lasts a long time). 5-10 acres is good, if you have jobs, you won't want to maintain much more.

Then stockpile food/meat. Put that little mini-mart in the basement. Just make sure you have access to a well/water (without electricity) and to heat (without electricity). A lot of older farmhouses had coal rooms...for a purpose. You can still buy coal to heat with.

It doesn't have to be complicated.

There are compromises, there are middle-of-the-road options. You don't have to go full blown into farming and give up the "day" job. KEEP the day job, just make sure your semi-rural area has a good well and heat source that doesn't require electricity, and stockpile food. Preferably you buy the land/house outright (no mortgage).

Will this last forever? No, but it may get you through the worst of it. That's all we plan on doing, i.e., get through a year, hopefully the worst of it. I can't see society here in the U.S. going through more than 4-6 months without complete anarchy and in that case...well, all bets are off.

Then, Plan B ... still in progress :)

It is spiraling out of control and cities will burn as EBT cards become frozen


Even if urbanites ad land, they have no understanding of the work that will be required to survive...while the biGbother nappies and govt wipes are awaited for.


The majority cannot grow anything, or hae any clue, to preserve,to can, to smoke, to grow...


and conditions to do so are decreasing,with all the Frankenscience applied to the earth...it is becoming sterile across the fields, withsuper weeds, and unmet needs

Some of my neighbors and I do a fair bit of trading labor. But, as you allude to, the television generation has been inculcated into thinking that it is all for one; and none for all. I've tried to involve all but been met with some pretty weird responses ranging from silence to borderline hostility. Still, you can barely get a person in the city to call 911 when witnessing someone dying at their feet. That kind of isolation is repugnant.

First thread in awhile that I found interesting and worth reading through.
Alot of wisdom here. Alot of foolishness too.
I came to the sticks 4 years ago. It ain't easy by any means. Gardening for food? Two or three times the energy/labor expended as apposed to a job and buying your food. Whole lot healthier eating though.
Critters will eat it all. 10 possums, 2 raccoons last year in traps. This year it was 3 raccoons, 5 ground hawgs.
Planted late this year, out of town working.
For the labor expended and fuel burned, I'd say more than $1 per ear of corn, per tomato, per squash.
Oh and bugs.......they'll destroy your whole garden, if the critters leave you anything. Poison the bugs you poison yourself. I've had raccoons eat 10 cantelope in one night....
Firewood? I've been close to smashed/flattened cutting trees down. The backbreaking work cutting it up/loading/unloading/splitting/stacking/ lugging it into the house.
Up every 2/3 or 4 hours to stock the wood burner?
Fukk me. My back hurts, literally.
I'm burning propane for now, furnace. going to the chiropractor shortly. Being old sukks. Used to say GETTING OLD, beyond that I geuss.
On the upside, I've outlived most assholes I've ever known and most of my old freinds. I ain't giving up, not without a painful fight.
Compost, concubine, slave.......if you come out here and can't make your own way you're going to have problems with the locals.
I work too hard to have canned venison and garden veggies stashed to let anyone take from me.
Be prepared to work harder than you ever have, to have any chance to survive out here.

you are spot on.

The whole reason cities grew, even with their attendant risks and problems was that city living was far easier than farming.

Self sufficiency leaves little time for luxuries and comforts, nature never takes a holiday and neither will you

Probably because all the city dwellers are weak and stupid.

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I live in a rural area. I don't think it is that scary OP. However you are 100% right about competition for jobs. We don't have enough for us and most businesses that do exist hire locally preferentially.

"Bugging out" is not the go about relocating anyway. If you are convinced that an urban center is not the place to be consider moving now. Join a community, and get accustomed to a new pace and way of thinking. OP's scenario is very accurate if there is some kind of mass migration after a disaster, I am originally from Louisiana and when all the refugees came in from New Orleans there was a lot of bad blood.

Anyway, I think folks from urban areas are better off modifying their environments to be more resilient. Start making changes now. Learn new skills like growing, or sewing. Most importantly go meet your neighbors. Community is more important than hoarded gold and guns. Although having some of those isn't a bad idea either.

Cheers. :)

I live in the city - just outside of Detroit. I don't feel that I live in a bad area, but you might say otherwise. I have a job in an office and drive a fancy sports car. So I'm dead in what? 2-3 weeks, tops?

Why not make some more amazing generalizations and demonstrate how truly unintelligent you are, OP.

Last Edited by ifSHTF on 11/26/2012 11:34 AM

Many people who live in cities grew up in the country, and still travel between the two, and are adept at living in either situation. A lot of country folk are bitter because they didn't ever leave the ranch to get out and do or see anything interesting so they cop this anti-city people attitude to mask their inferiority complex about being a hick.

Protein sources are the #1 food issue for someone bugging out. Oak tree's are a magnet for deer, hogs, squirel. If I want to bag a deer I head out to the oak grove.

If your not close to a forest you best have a lot of supplies in tow.

You're right. It takes a lot of energy and time to cultivate land such as the size you have. And you're also right about the grazing for the animals - It takes many acres for just 5 or 6 cattle and I know farmers that still supplement with hay.

It's true that anything over 5 acres owns you, not the other way around.

But I do disagree with the statement that people from the suburban areas are not cut out for this type of life - I do agree that the city folk (think Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, etc.) are not probably going to be able to cut it. They are far too used to getting everything they need and want by just handing a salesperson money. There are exceptions to the rule, as in anything else, but for the most part, they are woefuly inequipped to do what needs to be done to survive.

Dirt is also a good alternative. It's full of minerals and the Chinese ate it for survival. Might try topping it off with catsup, LOL!

It REALLY doesn't matter because everyone will eventually be fedghetto sheep. The gvment is buying or forcing everyone off rural property anyway (regulation violations, taxation increases, etc.) and soon for YOUR SAFETY.
YOU WILL ALL BECOME Robert Duval and Pedro Don Colley of the movie "THX1138". You will take your attitude adjustment drugs. You will build the robots/drones who enslave you. You will marry whoever they tell you (some dude/gal whatever). And YOU WILL OBEY! Now how dat sound!!
You are being herded into the defensed cities. Remember it's peace and safety everyone, so smile.

What I'm really trying to say is that no matter where any of us live, there are many alternatives we can all use to our advantage. We all have the internet for now, where any problem we encounter, we can find solutions.

Every day, I find all kinds of problems being worked out. So the bottom line is, give up scarcity mentality and don't feel the solutions you need are to be handed to you on a silver platter. Improvise. Use the best of several ideas.

What I fail to see happening in this thread is working together to figure out solutions. What I mostly see is everyone saying why something can't be done.

If a person is determined that a food forest will not work in their area, try doing it on a small scale. Pots on the patio, a garden plot with 4 layers, sprouting grass and other seeds in the kitchen....it's endless.

And, in the meantime, look for solutions to the other problems you perceive in your grand plan.

Some think water is a problem. In the meantime, other have come up with resourceful ideas:

There are people turning their greenhouses into water distillers with plants. You can also dig a hole, put a jug in the hole, cover it with plastic and wait however long and when you dig the jug out, viola'...water. (needs filtering.) This guy is pulling water from the air with things he got from a regular hardware store: [link to droughtmasters.net]

Seriously, I can't believe GLP'ers aren't reporting they are doing these things themselves and letting us know about it. So quit saying no it can't be done and figure out how it can be done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just sayin'

Last Edited by ERE3 on 11/26/2012 01:23 PM

If you live in the country, you must be VERY VERY careful. This is about "bugging out", and the process a total collapse actually takes in a highly industrialized society. When it happens, it will not happen as you think it will. Not at all. Read and learn.

First, cities will fall apart. They will riot and kill. The suburbanites will not move at first. Only the strongest, cruelest, well armed, most organized groups will survive and flourish in the cities. Eventually these groups will be forced out into the suburbs. Since they produce nothing, they must expand outwards like locusts into the surrounding area.

Second, the suburbs will fall apart when the city finally stabilizes, but there will be nothing left to eat in the cities. The suburbanites will be fighting one another AND those battle hardened groups expanding from the cities. Some suburban groups will survive, some city groups will survive, and all will have a mix of both as groups band together out of necessity to crush smaller groups. Now you have distilled millions of the weak and unorganized into thousands of well organized, well armed groups fanning out from the suburbs.

Now these battle hardened individuals that produce nothing, but are professionals in the art of guerrilla war, horror, and theft, have been distilled from literally millions down to a few thousand - now it's your turn. The "country tough guy".

Third. This is where you come in "country tough guy". Sadly, your view of reality is as pathetic of those you make fun and deride that live in the cities and suburbs. You have no idea what awaits you. The only experience you have had up until now are the suburban and city traveler groups with their families trying to escape the impending doom. Instead of opening your arms (for humane AND selfish reasons) to the willing workers and defenders of your country survival, you have either killed or chased them away. As time passes, you realize what a fool you and your neighbors were.

Now, one morning you find yourself severely outgunned. Outmatched in equipment at every turn. Gangs of armed para-military personnel that have cherry picked the best weapons from National Guard and Police lockers with unlimited munitions. Out-manned and out-led in experience as a cohesive fighting force. The people coming at you in large numbers have had months or years of experience in real world tactics on how exactly to take what they want. From you. They will have small mobile reconnaissance forces of their fittest troops with the fastest heavily armored vehicles and best weapons. All of this with practically unlimited fuel from previous conquests and millions of derelict vehicles under their control and at their disposal. An intact and fully functional supply line.

THAT, unfortunately, is the ultimate reality. It is not pretty, but that it how the world really works at this level.

If you are lucky, in the end you may convince those that have come in overwhelming force that you and those you know are worth saving. After they have killed anyone that may cause trouble or do not have the skills they need, of course.

Then, YOU, since you grew up in the "country", will finally understand what the correct mindset is to truly make it. Only then will you realize that you never had "the mindset", but fooled yourself that you did.

Unfortunately, to your masters, you have the mindset of a producer, a cog, a slave... and that is what you shall be.

If everyone is in the ghetto, who is producing the food they eat?

people can and will adapt. Its human nature. go back far enough, we all came from 'the country'...still a funny thread though

Gave the house in the city back to the bank and have scarcely looked back.... love the country... left the EBT foodstamp section 8 junkies behind. Neighbors help and barter too where we live and have taught us. BABYLON IS COMING DOWN FAST.

I have a suggestion for you....

But first, I agree with everything you said. It's likely more than true that city slicker can't turn into a country bumpkin overnight that's for sure. I don't think I'd give up city living as I'm just too use to it. Just visit the country once in a while instead.

Okay the suggestion.... If you have a big farm why don't you set it up so that you can sell time shares to your property. maybe it would work something like this....

In case the SHTF some rich people could buy time share to a small bit of your land. You'd have to figure out how many people could be sustained at your location or how much land you could divide up. Then people could pay you to reserve that spot. So if the SHTF they could bug out to you farm to the location they resevered on it.

You might even be able to set it up as a RV storage spot with that as the cover for g==v purposes. But then the underlying thing you sell the public is that this would be there bug out location that they're paying to reserve. Almost like a timeshare. Something they can gift to there kids as well. Anyway just a thought.

I dunno how many of you have actually tried going to the "bush", living in the wilderness, but he's so right it makes me spit up my for-granted poison, coca-cola. Most of you, myself included, are addicted hopelessly to sugar, likely many other things as well, and don't know it. Your first attempt will be absolute hell for that fact alone as the withdrawals of your habits ravage your body, and you will have not a clue to why it's happening unless you heed this. We are all whores addicted to the drugs they push on us, that keep us squandering our souls for their ends. I've gone the hard road, traveled with hippies and lived by fires, and even then very controlled by the good will of strangers and reliant on civilization, yet even so nearly found my end.Life totally is an illusion, at least life as we have been taught. Lucky are those who grew up simply, who lived with little and who has family raised likewise. All of your skills, well most of them, will do little if nothing in a post-apocalyptic situation. The longer you have been in the system plays a vital role as well, as change alone can be so dramatic as to cause shock, and will do so to much worse effect in those who are older and more complacent/content with the life they knew.

Here has been the experience of our family, who have been farmers since the beginning of time. Those rich people who paid for a chunk of land, bug out or not, will do the following:

1- drive through your fields when they are muddy, tear them up,get stuck and then come knocking for you to pull them out

2 - leave all your gates open as they tear through in their brand new Dodge Ram (in the west) or Ford F-250 (in the east)

3 - cut your fences if they decide they want to go through

4 - plant some exotic grass or vine which is known to be loaded with antioxidants, which it will gladly share with your crops as it tears through them like kudzu

5 - bring a bunch of ill behaved dogs which will chase your stock and your chickens

6 - leave for a 3 week vacation and give you a call the night before they leave instructing you how to feed their horses and pets

7 - complain about the dust, noise, crop spray that go along with modern agriculture

8 - work feverishly with the county commisioners to get the dust, noise, and crop spray banned as not in line with Agenda 21 guidelines for particulates, herbicide, whatever

9 - suggest that you bond with the wolves which are killing your stock, instead of shooting at them, maybe take some sensitivity training

10 - go hysterical when they see the guys who have been hunting on your land for decades go walking by with guns

and on and on and on.

Worst part of it would be, if they bugged to your place, there is a 99% chance they would be unprepared, and end up as your dependents.

People have NO IDEA how much food a family consumes, or how to grow and preserve it. To can just 1 quart of food for each day of the year means that you will need to can over 50 canner loads. That in itself is a LOT of work.

No offense intended, that is just the way it is.

If you think you might want to bug out to the country, go now and buy some land and get your homestead started right now. Do not expect to just go there and start living off the land when SHTF.

So..

That is why we just keep our city friends as friends, they are much more valuable to us that way than on our property.

Anybody who is thinking about getting land in the country should check out county building and zoning codes too. We have a little land in Idaho and I was thinking maybe put a little cabin there, until I talked to the people at the county courthouse. Those immigrants from the cities have infiltrated and now two nearby counties I know of have implemented the Agenda 21 UN Uniform Building Code. Insane!! You have to hook up to electricity if it is near. You have to have a heater that will keep the place 60 degrees year round unattended and wood heat will SPECIFICALLY not fit the requirement. You have to have a fan in the bathroom! And on and on.

When I mentioned that people might want to just put in a little hunting cabin, the guy was so upset. "We can't have people just putting up cabins all over the place!" Well, knowing when to chose my battles, I did not ask him why the heck not.

So if you wait until SHTF they will not bother you, but then it will be too late then anyway.

The world has gone nuts.

I was hoping that the cold winters would discourage a lot of them, but they seem to be adapting....

the plains indians lived on corn, beans and squash;