Saturday, July 6, 2019

farm costs 2-article 1 of 2 today


FARMS COSTS 2
( article one of two today )
One day, Survival Prepping For Normal People did a video on how many people are preparing. He was in Houston ( I believe-one of the urban hives down there ) where he had agreed to do a presentation for a Prepping Seminar. The event was advertised, and organized by someone who had done all this before, and there were door prizes AND free admittance. Remember, FREE, advertised, prizes, huge city. And not one damn person showed up. The last Survivalist Expo I showed up at ( before I got way too gun shy about visiting the city ) was in relatively small Tulsa, and it was buttholes to elbows.
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My theory is that perhaps a lot of people like the idea of prepping, but almost nobody has the disposable income to practice that Black Art. Not that it takes much money, but nobody realizes that because they don't know Frugal. Hell, I think more people studied that in the 90's when living was much cheaper, versus now. I suppose in the 90's people thought they could be middle class AND be preppers, following the Rawles Model. Now? You can't afford to be JUST middle class.
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But, really, ZERO people show up? Let us take a rare moment for an optimistic thought, shall we? Could we perhaps hope the smart money has all moved out of the huge cities, leaving them to rot with the Blue Stater idiots in charge? Perhaps all the real preppers aren't in big cities anymore ( too big. Obviously most of us need to be in some kind of city if working ), and won't visit one for a Prepper Expo. That is the Unicorn Brigade hopium take. The pessimistic take would be, nobody is prepping. Nobody, as in “those left are an uber-niche”.
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I know what you are all thinking. Gee, if folks know what is coming, wouldn't they make funds available somehow? Well, no. That isn't how human nature works. Humans don't like change. There is a reason for this. Except for the last few hundred years, scarcity was normal. When resources are scarce, you don't deviate from tried and true methods of food production ( or any cultural norm which was accumulated wisdom on how to survive local conditions ). You do NOT change. That is what almost always works, except in those rare bottleneck events where evolution surges ahead with an up until then deviant mutation.
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The inability to change is also a way to cleanse the herd after it overgrazes the resource base. By almost everyone refusing to change during an unprecedented upheaval ( and, surprise Spanky- shrinking resources are new compared to the last 500 years, hence unprecedented for us ), not too many are saved which allows the base to recover. All these idiots who are counted as preppers are the Natural Disaster Preppers, the “72 hour kit” preppers. They don't have the inclination to REALLY prepare. And they certainly do not have the money.
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An expo is merely an advertising forum, right? Why go if you are broke? And you already have your three days to two weeks of supplies. You need more like you need a hole in your head. Because true change means believing in true collapse, and ain't nobody got time for that! So, real preppers are a lot thinner on the ground than is thought, I contend. Those that even know about prepping merely half ass it and then actually believe they are prepared, because, no change means you still buy into the Oil Age 'Murican Dream.
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Hell, even my beloved Loyal Minions still stubbornly cling to their cars. Okay, geez, relax already Francis. As long as you have a solid Plan B, fine. I understand I myself take it to absurd philosophical levels. My only point is that not being normal is so very abnormal. Almost no prepper is doing the collapse of civilization thing. Which means that almost none are prepping at tribal levels. They don't even have enough for themselves, let alone neighbors. You will almost every single time be obligated to provide for prospective tribal members. They don't think they need much food and they certainly don't have enough ammunition.
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Let me go through this one more time. People lie to you ( “yeah, I'm ready and supplied. Let's take on those commies! Team America!” ). People lie to themselves, worse. They do NOT prep towards what they NEED, they prep towards what they can afford. Two different things. What they do is then justify exactly what they have. “I'm smart, I'm too sexy for this shirt, I am exactly as prepared as I need to be”. You had better bet your life on that. I don't get exasperated when folks argue with me because I want to be right.
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Hell, I want to be WRONG! About everything. No, I get peeved when folks argue with me because they are convincing themselves that their preps are Goldilocks levels of Just Right. “Why, posh, that Jim fellow is gay over Peak Oil. I are Fracking Fag, hear me roar!”. Look, I don't think I'm smarter than you. I'm going to be dying right alongside you. The difference is, I choose to do so. Your death will be the result of your self-delusion. I actually am trying to help here. I do have a pathological need to be loved.
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You think I'm joking, with my record of hate and discontent. Nah. I try to get along with everyone and seek their approval because I'm more of a social creature than I want to admit. I'm non-confrontational, which is why I semi-hermit. I realize the danger in this, nowadays. Plus, I don't like me very much when I attempt to socialize. I'm a little pathetic. Nerd boy without Social Grace one. And I KNOW I over-analyze every encounter while the other party quickly forgets me as I'm irrelevant to them. Despite my hair, I'd advise against wishing to be me.
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The most important survivalist tool isn't FLIR scopes. Nor is it skills. Or intelligence. It is being able to identify your self delusions. And you thinking you'll be able to Tribe Up is definitely a delusion. Because no one, probably not even you, is a real survivalist. Almost every one is a Pretty Princess Prepper. People are lying to themselves and lying to you. If you can be the one eyed man in the valley of the blind, you just might stand a chance. Sorry, an almost complete detour today. I'll get back on track with the logistics of farming tomorrow. But you did need to know how much worse it is because you'll be stocking for all those that don't.
( .Y. )
( today's related Amazon link click here )
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note: the fiction I just mentioned?  From Eaton Rapids Joe.  If you go to the beginning ( click HERE ) at the end of each article is a link to the next installment.  An easier way to read ( I didn't mention prior-it is an Ebola outbreak story ).  I can't believe I missed every one of those.  How embarrassing-Sad Panda :( 
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note: a minion turned me on to these stone Victoria/Corona mill inserts to get an easy fine flour grinder.  More expensive than the mill itself, but still half the price of other mills out there ( I'm not thrilled about it being stone, and need to do more research on it which I'll pass on.  This is just a heads up rather than an endorsement ) click HERE .
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23 comments:

  1. The closest thing to fellow survivalists/preppers I meet are usually guys that are interested in guns. You know, the fun part.
    Forget food production, sanitation, alternative energy, and what happens if you catch a bullet instead of just heroically dispensing them to deserving mobs.

    I always think that there are not 2 people in a five mile radius of me that have a grain grinder, scythe, trading silver, water filters, etc.

    I have worked in peoples homes for 30 years. I see a wide variety of people. I enjoy talking to 95% of them. But the trend over time is that hardly anyone is interested in much outside of their personal comfort and entertainment. Years ago I saw more guys with tools hanging near a work bench in the garage. Now the guys are usually just the number 2 housewife.
    No libraries, no tools, no gardens, no chickens or rabbits, no sewing or woodworking projects, no bubbling fermentation crocks. Sterile. As long as they have a place to plug their screen in I guess everything is fine.


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    1. Yep, the LED Screen Of Oblivion. Drug of choice to go quietly into the good night.

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  2. re:
    'it cannot happen to me' normal bias

    a)
    Mrs Rawlesville mentions she hopes to see many more fireworks displays.

    I hope she does, too.

    b)
    Just south of us, the village of Creswell Oregon included a fireworks insert in their Creswell Chronicle weekly. They talked about the family-owned pyrotechnics company, trenches for launching, burn rates for fuses, sequence of launching.

    The way I understand it, Somebody-In-Charge authorized us$$150,000 for sparkily things... gone in an instant? For a village of 5,000? Amazing!

    c)
    On a serious note:
    Please. Watch the videos about drowning. Drowning doesn't look anything like you see in Hollywood.

    Please. Learn to recognize a drowning person.

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    Replies
    1. Someone authorized $150k for fireworks, true, but it was probably a low 3% loan so the thirty years of monthly payments will be really low! You'll always have the memory of the show-priceless!

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  3. “Hell, I think more people studied that in the 90's when living was much cheaper, versus now.”


    I get the impression that a lot of people, both preppers and commoners alike, don’t really grasp the concept of frugal survivalism. For example, whenever I bring up the topic of food storage, my brother, butthole (not his real name :D ) comes back with some nonsense about how you can buy a 6 month supply of food from one of Glenn Beck’s advertisers, for $2k. I tried explaining to him the impracticality of that option, but it falls on deaf ears.

    The Mormons (Recall that Beck is a Mormon) seem to be, or at least used to be, pretty good about this. But they have other problems now. (They’ve liberated their women folk a little too much, which will be their eventual undoing. That, and the deviants among them have reared their ugly penis heads, and are now clamoring for their “rights” as well)

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    1. Remember Dean Ing's book series from the 80's? The LDS became a power post-apocalypse. Darn good series. Probably wouldn't happen now, after Diversity in Utah.

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    2. Here are the books:
      https://amzn.to/2Jlo256
      I'm surprised they aren't in Kindle. But, like all good classics, paper is better anyway.

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    3. Yeah, the LDS were some bad asses in the 19th century, but then again, so was everyone else. I’m non-religious (Though I used to be LDS) but the main church has strayed away from the original teachings considerably, and the old timey Mormons would put the modern version to shame. Two of the biggest man-hating feminists that I ever came across were in that institution. That should tell you everything you need to know :D

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    4. I married two of the biggest man haters I ever knew :) Everyone used to be bad asses, and relied more on private institutions for survival, true. The LDS just had a better institution that grew and prospered. The religion was probably irrelevant, secondary to the organization.

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  4. Kurt Saxon called it "the opium of the masses" and "the big eye"

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  5. Here you go Jim. For the survivalist that wants it all. The off road moped :D Honestly, I never knew that such an animal existed? They’re undeniably cool though, that I cannot deny!

    Dual Sport Moped

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amstar+rocky+49cc+50cc+scooter+motorcycle+for+sale&t=hb&atb=v78-4_b&iax=images&ia=images

    Off-Road survivalist moped. Is that an AR rack on the back?

    https://gas2.org/2014/09/06/motoped-launches-off-road-moped/

    Not practical for my needs and income, but I might just pick up an older beater motorcycle, and modify it by equipping it with some knobbies and luggage racks, and paint it olive drab. Something really simple and low tech to work on (Single cylinder, no fuel injection, complicated electronics, etc)

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  6. "Let's take on those commies! TEAM AMERICA!"
    You crack me up. True though.

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    1. I loved that movie. I should think about getting the DVD

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    2. "Damn it Gary. This isn't about sex. It's about trust"

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    3. See, only watched it twice so I'm not remembering the line. I already ordered a used DVD-that should fix the problem I I ordered a copy of Dumb And Dumber some time ago, just because I couldn't remember the line in one scene. "The Survivors" also. Then, of course, they all went to Amazon to nullify my efforts. Sad Panda.

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  7. You see, there you go again....glass half empty. Damn!
    Nobody at the Houston survival seminar because we're stuffed to gills with food and gear.
    The only money we lack is to buy bigger storage facilities (plural). Quite a jump in magnitude to go up an add'l 2000 sq ft of 9 ft high 8 inch thick concrete walls.
    Also, all the CQB classes we're attending with our "plastic poodle shooters" & 5,000 rounds.
    Can't catch a break from you, Lord Bison.

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    1. Remember, your lens in life is "optimist". Mine is "pessimist". Neither is right or wrong, we can't help ourselves. It's programmed. I'm only confused by how any optimists are preppers. Thoughts? Perhaps the difference is that we both get scared and take steps to alleviate that fear. I think I'll die anyway and the preps are on the off chance I survive. You think the preps will definitely assure your survival and you'll use them. Tell me what you think-its just my current theory. I could be missing something.

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    2. Unless you live in a Kansas prairie town pop. 794 with 8 grain elevators chock full of hard red winter wheat I don't think you can "hermit" yourself post Apoc. Even if you did then what?
      What's the game plan for when the last handful of wheat is eaten and the 2nd to last .303 cartridge is fired (we know what last .303 is for 😞)?

      Me, I look back to own family history...ups & downs of ancestors. What mattered was family ("tribe"), skills & guns. Here's why I'm an optimist.

      From slaughter of Huguenots leading to decades of uneasy exile in Holland to eventually couple generations later serving in Dutch West Indies Company (WIC) in Manhattan.

      https://www.britannica.com/event/Massacre-of-Saint-Bartholomews-Day

      Continuing on to a teen boy from a Royalist West Country family being packed off to wild & wooly Virginia for safety.
      Luckily, that teen knew a bit about navigation, had a few coins in his purse and had a couple of extended family connections.
      He was smart too....he married the grand daughter of the "soldier"/administrator for WIC.
      He made a small fortune later bringing English yeomen (refugees) to Carolinas from Barbados. Open ocean navigation SKILLS, don't ya know!
      Original English yeoman settlers were supplanted/driven out by huge sugar plantations & a slave population.
      Let see...any parallels to current border crisis, hmmm?
      Kinda like....population replacement, if ya think on it.

      Story moves on to savage Colonial Era Indian Wars, Revolutinary War, migration westward, War Between States etc, etc...

      I was amazed reading a will from 19th C. Land? Nope, not much, no vast acres (fyi...open range days). No romantic antebellum mansions, no long lists of furniture or pricey linens/clothes.
      But lots of horses, cattle, mules, hogs.
      All that and lots more guns, knives,swords, axes. Probably weighed more than combined family members, no joke. Steel heavy family.

      Sound like Border Scots "Reivers"

      Ancestors were prepped but never to the point of having any one thing like... multi year's worth of wheat weighing them down like an anchor!!
      After all, no telling when some crazed Catholic French Queen (a de Medici spawn, no less) wants to decapitate & burn every Calvinist she could find.
      Run, Forrest...Run !!
      Drop the anvil, leave the loom and mount up. Time to "di di" outta here most ricki tick !!

      Come to think of it, Hilary Clinton is a lot like Catherine de Medici minus the sectarinism. Remember "Irredeemable" & "Deplorables"?
      Yeah, I remember, too.
      Can you say "weaponized yute flash mobs"?

      For comparison...During '80s US forces in frontline Germany had designated fighting position #1, then couple hundred metres back they had position #2, finally position #3, also called DIP.
      As in, "Die In Place".

      Praying that enough A-10s remained to chew up the 10,000 Soviet tanks running through Fulda Gap is pretty thin gruel. (Cue up laugh track).
      Sorry, hunkering in a DIP, lugging an anvil or loading a loom into wagon ain't no way to live. Literally.

      I'm an optimist Jim. You have to be to play offense. Run and gun. Shoot, move, communicate. You've heard the sayings.
      Bunkers, fortresses, bug outs are just graves waiting to be filled in.

      Recall those tall, prairie town grain elevators. They are the tombstones upon which someday will be scrawled...
      "Here lay Cain and a scattering of grain. His Offering despoiled, plundered and taken away.
      Score settled.
      Signed, Abel"








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    3. Very good points. Fixed positions blow. And the alternative sucks worse. No wilderness to feed us out there, past the very few Bottleneck Event survivors. The difference back then was a New World to feed agriculturists. We've added a few billion since then. If I'm burdened down with wheat, wouldn't you be the same, with ammo, for your offensive? No, you still have a home base you deploy from, working the offense. You still need your base stockpile. The whole point of the article was the cost you must pay to be a farmer. And offense takes a lot more resources ( even if it is the correct strategy, it still has a high cost ). Reading your comment, I grew LESS optimistic. Still not sure how you retain the faith :)

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    4. Should've been clearer and tied the idea of SKILLS and mobility into something more coherent.
      Didn't mean to imply a Mongol horde.

      Most folk spend on STUFF. ARs, ammo, wheat, plate carriers, etc etc. It satisfies Americans consumption brainwashing. But then you're stuck guarding your 2 tons of wheat and gun safes with 12 ARs and ammo when SHTF.
      You've planned for one type of shitstorm.

      Die in place.

      I'm thinking you gotta be able to bail. Live to fight another day. "Oui, mon chéri!, holiday in Holland sounds nice right about now".
      Spend good amount of prep money on skills (EMT class, armorer class, distilling booze etc).
      Your experience with solar panels is a good blending of both stuff and niche skills.

      I devote more time and money on social networks and skills development. Never know when some "black swan" event like Hilary "de Medici" Clinton could win or an earthquake wipes out my stuff or I gotta scoot outta town, NOW!

      My long time biggest concern is disease/blight affecting human, livestock and or crop (famine)
      Leaving bad ju ju in rear mirror is my goal.

      I'm an acolyte of the Aesop school of survival, "Did you say...Ebola? I'm blowing this mutha' ".

      I don't want to have to 'get on the train' or show up somewhere "hat in hand" with no skills to leverage or no mobility (social & physical). You'll never get on someone else's "team" if your unknown socially or no skills. Bringing only food/supplies is double edged.

      I think you're OK w/ bare bones load out of gun, 2000 rounds, month of food/water and gear in rear of your high stylin' Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Expedition.
      You can scrounge everthing else. It's the Apocalypse. Like...going out of business sales, everywhere.

      "Family/tribe" has to take you in. Thats what the Hallmark movies say, right?
      Been working for mine since....1572.

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    5. Were you around when we talked about modern skills being over rated and with no food, even the most vital skill cannot be purchased? It isn't that I disagree with optimal strategies, it is my belief that they aren't feasible. Mobility works if you ARE a Mongol horde. Or is that Hoard? Because the food production system goes with you. The rest is tied to the land. Brigands will have short shelf lives.

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