micro worries macro plans 2

MICRO WORRIES AND MACRO PLANS 2

Again, let me repeat, I do NOT advocate a mobile survival lifestyle.  The only thing this article is doing is giving you perspective on how easy it really is to survive, so you don’t sweat the small stuff.  And no, I do not agree with the saying, “don’t sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff”.  That trivializes people’s problems.  I know we have great fun laughing at White People Problems, as if not being able to afford an $800 I-Phone is even on this plane of existence as a real problem.

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And yet, when someone thinks they have a problem, it isn’t that we are dismissing their health robbing stress.  It is just that they need to mature and gain wisdom through perspective.  A LOT of preppers are suffering from White People Problem Anxiety Disorder Syndrome.  I dismissively call them Yuppie Survivalist Scum.  If they were to take one of the many pairs of shoes from their wife’s closet and beat her about the head and shoulders with it, and then insist they live within a budget, profound wisdom might be learned from that simple act.  Instead, they gaze wistfully at their testicles in the pickle jar.

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I expect you will still be stressing over real problems like overpopulation and energy contraction, the feral nature of ghetto residents bottle fed resentment all their lives, and etcetera.  I expect you to put a lot of effort into luxury continuation for post-apocalypse.  As long as you view it as a challenging hobby rather than something to stress over.  Because you only need a lot of food, a little ammunition and some rugged camping gear ( and a few extra tools ).  That is all you NEED.  The other stuff you just WANT.

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Not to say you shouldn’t get it, just that it is a THRIVE rather than a SURVIVE.  Our movement is not labeled “thrivalism”.  Thriving is gravy, not the meat.  So, what do you need?  Food, water, protection and shelter.  Water is either a pot to boil the stuff in, or a Sawyer water filter, and preferably both.  More than one, better one at every third food cache.  At the price Sawyers are selling for, you might as well get three or five of them.  Of all the canteen designs out there, I still think the military has the best one.

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I’m positive they did it by accident, given their track record of marginal equipment.  I’m not sure if they issue anything different today, but the old style belt canteen with the nestling cup on the bottom is pretty darn handy.  There isn’t much you can’t do with the thing.  You’ll always be able to boil water, but given the need for security sometimes, the Sawyer is also a nice addition.  And no, you don’t need to boil water for fifteen minutes at altitude.  As soon as bubbles start to rise, the nasties have been through enough heat.

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Don’t go all Gay Rambo on your defense.  It is defense, after all.  Not offense.  You want offense, set booby traps and ambush.  You don’t need too much tactical in your firearm.  Leave most of the ammo in caches and don’t attach everything and the kitchen sink.  If you are mobile, that rifle needs to stand up to abuse.  Just because it never leaves your side doesn’t mean you aren’t tripping and sliding and climbing and digging, etc.  Hyperthermia is a bigger danger than Blue Helmets so stock accordingly.  Better multiple dug-outs than multiple mags. 

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I can already hear you caterwauling.  My wife, my kids, they need a concrete bunker on a hilltop with a herd of sheep and a Fry Daddy to cook them up tastily.  Just exactly what did hunter gatherers do with their dependents lo all those hundreds of thousands of years?  The little humpers knew how to walk out in the cold.  No one is saying “live in a tent”.  You have multiple camps for security and for foraging different areas.  You can build comfortable shelters, you just can’t rely on only one.  If you must turn to farming, pick and stay in a spot. 

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In the meantime, this is how you survive on almost nothing.  It is the extreme frugal budget.  You don’t need to buy land and a house because you cache most everything and you rely on primitive shelters built with indigenous materials.  On your person is enough to get from cache to cache, shelter to shelter.  Even if you only travel five miles a day, you only need food cached every thirty miles and you have a weekly resupply.  A simple shelter and food every ten miles and it would be rare you couldn’t be comfortable every single night. 

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PVC pipe is a great cache system, but if you go above the four inch pipe the end caps rape your wallet.  I’m looking to bury half my rifles, and a six inch cap is $12 EACH ( online ).  Yet, the four inch pipe won’t hold all that much grain.  It might be better to bury five gallon buckets.  Just make sure they are Mylar lined to avoid a food smell for animals to chew for.  They are difficult to hike with for burial, but that also gives you practice hiking and camping so you test your gear and know what is and isn’t needed.

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One buried bucket for grain and another close by for the added cooking oil and vitamin pills and replacement items such as socks, underwear, long John’s, footwear, ammo, soap, blankets and the like.  Know your areas wild plants and plan on trapping and fishing for a much better diet.  BUT!  You need that cached wheat for a minimum diet, and the oil for surviving in the cold ( and the vitamins in case you can’t find plants ).  Thrift stores can supply a lot of your back-up items like used pots and pans and some clothing.

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That seems like a huge pain in the ass, but if you look at one bucket as a month’s minimum calories, that is only twelve camping trips to stash a year’s supply of food.  One a weekend for three months.  For the second bucket, place the empty one over the wheat filled, with the items to go inside loose in your pack around the wheat bucket.  You’ll need a large cargo pack built well, but it will come in handy for your post-apocalypse travels between caches.  An ax, a small shovel, good footwear and winter clothing and you are set.

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Obviously, needed details abound, such as sturdy water carriers besides just a canteen.  The best shovel.  How to stay clean, you and your clothing.  Your sleeping gear.  But that is easily solved by the camping trip you use to go cache.  You can easily test bugging in by turning off the utilities, and you can easily test bugging out with camping trips.  I would NOT go with light weight gear.  It won’t last past daily hard use.  Better to minimize gear, maximize caching and get sturdy bulletproof gear.  When you boil down your needs to REAL problems like eating, this stuff is basic.

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Even a kid on minimum wage part time, without a car, living in a big city, can prep like this.  The cost per bucket varies, $15 for a Mylar wrapped five gallon bucket of wheat.  On up with various items like ammo and shoes.  But even if the gun is only a shotgun, $100 at Wal-Mart, you don’t REALLY need more for hiding, shooting and scooting.  And I’ll wager that only eating grease soaked wheat at home will generate a lot of complaining but if you are camping, you get far more motivated to trap and fish. 

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There are a lot of disadvantages to mobile cache surviving, but it is super cheap AND mostly devoid of problematic people.  I don’t advise this course of action, but it does really simplify what you’ll need to survive.  Just planning this as a wargame and not doing it, proves how little matters when stockpiling and how unneeded stressing about how much stuff you think you need to survive all these problems facing us.  It simplifies the over complicated.  It can be like a Zen meditation technique, to peel away White People Prepping Problems.

( .Y. )

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