Thinking about needs and getting them met (spinoff) - Page 2

[mamadelbosque]

How would you feed your family if all the grocery stores (i.e. the just-in-time food supply) suddenly shut down? In the short term? In the long term?

We have a pretty good stock of food, that I *think* would easily last us 3-6 months if we were eating off it exclusively. This time of year, we're starting plants for our gardens, so here shortly (2-4 months) we'll be having fresh stuff that I'll be starting to put up for next year (freezing broccoli, peppers, green beans, peas, fruit; canning tomatoes, apple sauce, apple cider, apple butter, various jams & jellies, pickling cucumbers & peppers, etc). As we live out in the country, we have chickens, and will be raising another 25ish for meat this year, and we have meat goats, and we hunt deer for much of our meat, as well as buying a couple lambs from our neighbors. I know first thing if SHTF ever really happend, I'd be looking for a milk goat ASAP... as it is, atm, I just don't really care to be tied to milking a goat 2x a day, every day, yk??

How would you provide drinkable water for your family if your current water supply became contaminated or inaccessible?

We have a well, and for backup we have a handpump (just installed a few months ago). Its a fantastic feeling, knowing we'll always have water, irregardless of whatever else happens in the world

What would you do if your toilet(s) became unflushable/unusable for more than half a day?

We actually have an old outhouse that my parents used when they first moved down here 28 years ago, so we'd just go back to using that again.

How would you manage your trash/garbage if your town's municipal services ended (or your dump closed)?

We'd burn absolutely everything we could, and feed scraps of everything to the chickens (which would probably be mostly free-ranging, along with the goats. The few things that can't be burnt or fed to the chickens we'd just have to find a spot for somewhere around here. Wouldn't be pretty, but I'm sure we'd manage.

How would you heat or cool your home if your current system stopped working for an extended period of time? Could you manage without those systems, or would you need a backup solution?

We heat more-or-less exclusively with heat as it is (we do have electric heaters for when we go away to keep stuff from freezing. Mostly works out OK.) In the summer, we just use fans and retreat to the basement.

How would you cook if you had no gas/electricity?

We'd cook on our woodstoves and/or be building camp fires (in the summer). Short term, we have an outdoor propane stove which I cooked on for a week last summer when we were otherwise out of power. I'd actually like to have a smallish stock pile of propane tanks (like 3-5) just for this

If you lost your home to foreclosure or eviction, where would your family be able to live?

We currently live with my dad, and the house I grew up in is totally paid off, so I can't quite picture that happening to us while we're here... in the future if SHTF ever really happend and we WEREN'T living here? We'd probably move back

[annethcz]

Originally Posted by amyamanda

Wellllllll...this is one area where I think we need improvement. We have about 25 gallons of stored water. I want to make one of those $20 gizmos that lets you pump water out of your well by hand in an emergency (our well pump runs on electricity and there is no hand pump).

Amanda, do you have any more info or links about this? I'm very interested in this.

[amyamanda]

Originally Posted by annethcz

Amanda, do you have any more info or links about this? I'm very interested in this.

http://www.countrysidemag.com/issues..._Belanger.html

[velochic]

I didn't answer the questions, but will now. I guess I thought they were rhetorical, but if the answers help someone to think about it...

How would you feed your family if all the grocery stores (i.e. the just-in-time food supply) suddenly shut down? In the short term? In the long term?

In the short term, we have a stockpile of food that will last us for a year, rationed, and 9 months eating abundantly. I also have seeds in my stockpile and a good-sized garden. In the long term, we would ramp up our gardening effort. We would go to work at our friends cattle farm to barter for meat. We would get chickens. If it looked like life as we know it has changed completely, we have over 100 acres that are cash rented along with land other people in my family own. As a family total, we have about 1300 acres. I would work with my family to farm that land and support ourselves. It's all in crops, so we'd have to think about farm animals for sustainability.

How would you provide drinkable water for your family if your current water supply became contaminated or inaccessible?

Big Berkey and a water source nearby. In the short term, I store EMPTY gallon water jugs. For just about anything that would occur where I live (except a nuclear strike, I guess) we'd have ample notice. I have about 50 of those that I would fill.

What would you do if your toilet(s) became unflushable/unusable for more than half a day?

Sawdust toilet.

How would you manage your trash/garbage if your town's municipal services ended (or your dump closed)?

Compost, burn, feed to the chickens if we had them. In fact, growing up we burned our trash because we didn't even have a dump nearby. I know that's not very environmentally friendly, but then neither is rotting trash.

How would you heat or cool your home if your current system stopped working for an extended period of time? Could you manage without those systems, or would you need a backup solution?

Heat - wood burning stove. In the summer, for the short term, we'd use our generator to run fans, medium term, we'd use it for our whole house fan (assuming gasoline is available). Otherwise, we'd spend a lot of time in the basement. We can go without cooling, but not heating. If we had to harvest wood, we could get it from our land. Right now we buy it from an arborist that only chops what is downed naturally.


How would you cook if you had no gas/electricity?

I already cook on my woodburning stove a lot. We'd use our solar oven, our grill and also I have all that you need to cook over open fire. We have back-up propane for our grill (mainly if the current canister runs out and we're in the middle of grilling), Coleman propane canisters and a camping stove.

If you lost your home to foreclosure or eviction, where would your family be able to live?

I don't think this would happen. I bought our home over a decade ago before getting married. Our current mortgage, including taxes and insurance is only 7% of our income. If absolutely had to, we could take the loss on our taxable investments (boy would that hurt!) and pay off the house in a lump sum. We've already figured that we could live off of our emergency fund for 2 years if we trimmed ALL the fat (private school for dd, satellite TV, cell phones, internet, living off of stockpile and garden, etc.). I've mentioned before that dh's job is about as recession-proof as they get (tenured professor). Most likely if the country fell into a Depression, my family would be coming here, not the other way around.

[mamadelbosque]

Hey there, just wanted to say that we have a well bucket and it did work to get out water... but it wasn't ideal. I'm not sure if its just because our well is SO old, or if its just the way wells are, but everytime we lowerd and raised the bucket, it invariably bumped into the sides and mucked the water all up with the crap that was clinging to the sides of the well (mostly rust it seemed). Which meant that to drink it, you had to either let it settle for a few hours and then dip off the top and/or filter it (which was preferable either way, really). But, it did work OK! Though, I can't quite imagine hauling it up out of a couple hundred foot well (ours is only like 55-60' deep)... you'd sure build muscles that way!!

[annethcz]

Originally Posted by amyamanda

http://www.countrysidemag.com/issues..._Belanger.html

Thank you!
Looks interesting. I'll have to send the link to DH and see what he thinks. I wonder if this is feasable to use in the winter...

[Jyotsna]

How would you feed your family if all the grocery stores (i.e. the just-in-time food supply) suddenly shut down? In the short term? In the long term?

At this point, I have 3 1/2 months of food storage. It is a little spotty here and there, but if I was able to be very thrifty, I could get it to last 3 1/2 months. By March (after I shop for groceries, do bulk purchases) I'll have near 5 months worth of food.

As for long term, we are gathering seeds (I'd like to learn more about saving seeds) and plan a garden for this summer as well as year round. My dad has ordered a Famer's Almanac for all three of us kids (siblings) and we are all growing a garden this summer at our individual homes.

How would you provide drinkable water for your family if your current water supply became contaminated or inaccessible?

I'm planning to set aside water each week, but don't have the amount planned yet. This is a serious concern. I want build a water catchment system so I can save rain water and water the garden with it.

What would you do if your toilet(s) became unflushable/unusable for more than half a day?

I plan to use collected/rain water to flush the toilet. If that doesn't work, we are going to use the same plan as others - sawdust, bucket, seat attached.

How would you manage your trash/garbage if your town's municipal services ended (or your dump closed)?

Like others have said, we will compost more closely, will reduce waste more than already, and we will definately consider burning trash before leaving raw trash on the ground.

How would you heat or cool your home if your current system stopped working for an extended period of time? Could you manage without those systems, or would you need a backup solution?

It is very cold in the winter, and hot in the summer here. I am more concerned about the winter, as we presently don't have an alternative heating source. I'm looking for a wood stove to keep here, although my present day landlord will not allow me to hook it up. And for summer, the heat (and we have massive amounts of humidity) can be an issue for elderly, infants and the ill. We will likely just make do.

How would you cook if you had no gas/electricity?

I plan to purchase a solar cooker, and use the wood stove for back up emergency cooking in the summer. Also, I have a cook stove. I need to store some of the small fuel tanks for it.

If you lost your home to foreclosure or eviction, where would your family be able to live?

This is very, very hard. We rent. My landlord was planning to sell the house this year, but when the economy went sour in the fall, he told me "you can stay as long as we are trying to sell the house". What he meant was, he couldn't sell the house and had no particular time planned to sell due to the economy. If he did sell, or we were evicted, then I would be very worried. I have lived with my parents as an adult, and it was very hard. I believe if we were living in the type of times you are talking about, my parents would tell us to come live with them, and we would do it, but I think I would think all of this through as much as I could, given the time I may have. I just read an article in TIME today about this very thing, and it has been on my mind to mention it here at MDC.

Multigenerational living has gone up according to Laura Koss-Feder, who wrote, "Bunking in With Mom and Dad". In 2000, about 5 million adults and their families live with an elderly parent or both. In 2008, 6.2 million are now living in with mom and dad (with their partners and children).

Advice for couples who have to move in with parents is:

Talk about expectations
Build in privacy for everyone
Share household expenses
Grandparents rule (childrearing differences ruled by elderly parents)
Be Realistic (this could last a while)

[amyamanda]

Originally Posted by velochic

I didn't answer the questions, but will now. I guess I thought they were rhetorical, but if the answers help someone to think about it...

Yep, I hadn't expected people would post their answers, but I think it is great to see the responses. Food for thought! And it keeps the thread bumped, so more people can see it. I am happy to see that this thread has been helpful to people.

[LilyGrace]

I think seeing these questions make me very grateful to be where I am.

I live on an island in the middle of the ocean. The people that have lived here for centuries remain so with life little changed over the years, at least not in many noticable ways. There is still an aura of self sufficiency, a need to keep prices low by producing as much as possible here.

I don't have to worry about my food. We live in a small place where most people grow their own and wouldn't hesitate to share if needed. I have year round growing seasons so I can stagger gardens if need be.

Water comes from a fresh water spring that is then filtered. If necessary, if the spring ran out and couldn't supply the 3000 people it does right now, I have the tools and have been taught how to get fresh water from the ocean and the many rains that come our way. If all else fails, the local wine is cheap and yummy.

If it came to it for garbage disposal, well we don't buy much anyway. Most of what we do buy is shipped to us in cardboard boxes - easily compostable. Plastic is drastically reduced by buying bulk and using my own reusable bags.

Many homes here don't have heaters or air conditioners, and can be prohibitively expensive to run. It stays about 60-70 degrees year round, so most days the windows are wide open. Colder days they're shut. We've run our heating system only a handful of times - it's just not necessary.

I've made solar cookers in the past and have the basic tools to do it again with no problem.

If we got evicted...I don't know. I can't see that happening. It's the one area where I would have to think long and hard, I guess.