TEOTWAWKI, Two Years Later

We first became familiar with the term TEOTWAWKI when we read James Wesley Rawles book How to Survive the End of the World As We Know It. Mr. Rawles is over at SurvivalBlog. If you haven't been over there, check out his site. It is full of information and resources.
 

It’s TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it). The SHTF (stuff hit the fan) and now you are on your own. Are you prepared? Do you have the spiritual, mental, emotional, psychological and physical tenacity to survive?

What have you done to prepare? Okay, let’s look at the list. We all have lists and some even have lists of lists. Most of them include the following basic categories: Food, Water, Shelter, Protection and Tools. This is not an inclusive list. There are other facets of survival that are not addressed here, such as medications and pre-existing health conditions.

Food

What do you have that will maintain your health and vigor for an extended period of time? Staple goods stored correctly will last for an extended length of time. These goods could include: wheat, flour, rice, beans, sugar, honey, cereals, oatmeal, pasta, powdered milk, cornmeal, powdered eggs, freeze dried meals, freeze dried meat and/or vegetables, shortening, and salt. Canned goods, either from the store or pressure canned at home will include a variety of items such as: green beans, corn, soups, stews, tomatoes, fruit, juices, broth, olives, salmon, pickles, and relish. Condiments and flavorings that will make meals more appealing: spices, mustard, mayonnaise, salsa and dressings. Dried or canned meat with a healthy fat content is a very desirable commodity. Seeds, nuts and dried fruits add many different vitamins and minerals that would otherwise be lacking in a survival diet. Vitamin and mineral supplements can also provide some nutritional needs that may be in short supply. A quality multi-vitamin is a good thing to have on hand.

Now that you have acquired an adequate food supply what is your next step? What are you going to do when your supply runs out and there is nothing left? Are you going to be able to provide new food to your store of goods in a great enough quantity to maintain health and vigor for your family? Are there too many people to feed? Are there enough people to do the work necessary?

New food. Where will it come from? I have heard many people say they will just go out in the woods and hunt. Okay. That will work for…maybe, one week, because you and 5000 other people have the same idea and in a very short period of time all game will be hunted out….everywhere. Now what? I have also read about people who claim they will just go out in the country and find a farmer and become their friends so the farmer can feed them. I’m sorry, but what a laugh. About the only thing I know that a farmer will let ‘someone from a town or city’ shake hands with in TEOTWAWKI situation will be their shotgun. So that rules that out. Next? Will you turn to a life of crime to feed your family? If you are watching your loved one starve, to what lengths will you go? Have you thought about this? Are you prepared for it? So, back to new food and where or how to obtain it, much of which will depend upon where you live when the SHTF. There are a couple of different scenarios that will happen.

First, if you live in a town or city and have only been able to make preparations there, this will greatly limit your options of obtaining new food supplies. Many, many people have prepared a way to G.O.O.D. (get out of dodge) when the time comes. Some have a destination planned, but many don’t. Some have stocked a retreat that they hope to get to when the time comes, some have made arrangements to go to another family member’s or friend’s place. I can only say my prayers are with everyone in this situation. It must be very difficult to know that at some point you will have to flee and try to beat the odds in successfully leaving a highly populated area before it is too late and end up in a safe, survival place and not a starving refugee.

If you are already at your retreat, then I would imagine you are doing everything you can to obtain the things you need should we experience TEOTWAWKI. In that case, what are you doing to insure that you will be able to produce a new food supply? Another thing I have heard some people say is that they will eat their cows, or even their neighbor’s cows. Do you know how much meat is on a cow? How will you preserve it so the vast majority of it will not just rot? Do you have enough salt to preserve it? Do you have the means to dry it and make jerky? Do you have a way to store it and keep insects and varmints out of it? I would recommend a smaller animal – goat, sheep, chicken, etc. – smaller carcass, less waste, less fuel/time/energy to preserve/can/dry. Smaller livestock have lower feed requirements and will provide more offspring in less amount of time. Chickens will also provide eggs and can be fairly hardy at scavenging food for themselves. Sheep and goats do well on just about any type of forage. The goats may not produce as much milk if that is one of your plans, but they will produce some. If you do have any kind of livestock how are you going to maintain them so that someone else doesn’t steal or eat them? Are you able to protect your retreat, the people and animals that are there? Livestock guardian dogs are a great asset, but they need to eat too. What are you going to feed them?

Ok, that takes care of meat. What about vegetables or fruit? Wherever you are, you can practice growing something to eat. Grow tomatoes on the porch or balcony in a pot, spinach in the window sill, just practice with whatever you can. If you are at your retreat, preparing a garden, enriching the soil and learning what grows and produces successfully in your area is critical. Those cans on the shelf are only going to last so long and unless you are expecting Uncle Sam, mom and dad, your children, neighbor or friends to feed you and take care of you when the chips are down, then you had better learn everything you possibly can while there is still time. Buy gardening books – how to, what to do when the bugs eat it up, companion planting, seed starting and saving, if you don’t know it, buy a book about it. Even if you don’t have time to learn it all and read all of them now, you will have them for references. Seeds – how many do you have? You know the saying to never plant your last seed, right? What if there is a late frost? What if there is a hail storm? What if the bugs decimate everything? You can never have too many seeds. Some will keep their viability for years and some barely last a season. Again, know what grows and produces well in your area and stock up on enough seeds to last your life time and then some. In my opinion, they will be worth much more than gold. 

I hope this has given you something to think about pertaining to your food supply. Re-evaluate what you have, what you need, how to obtain it and store it. Food for thought, right?

Water – the most precious commodity

We all know we can’t live without water. Wherever you live try to have a variety of sources for water that are easily accessible. There has been much written about how to purify and store water. If you are planning to bug out, try to take as much pure water with you as you can. Make sure you have more than one easily portable means of filtering and purifying water. If you are trying to make time, don’t plan on boiling any. Think through your water supply very carefully.

At a retreat there are many different options for water supply. If your location allows for it, drill one or two water wells. Install a hand pump on one and a 12 volt pump on the other powered with a solar panel and battery. Have well buckets, pulleys and rope on hand in case you need it. Devise a rain catchment system using guttering and water storage tanks. Make sure the tanks you use are opaque and will help prevent the growth of algae in the system. Dig a pond and plan for a feasible way to transport the water to your home. Gravity flow systems work well. You will need a way to filter the water. The Katadyn Gravidyn or Big Berky filters work well and last a long time. Buy extra filters. 

Along with water, think about sanitation. All of that water is going to go somewhere. When you are no longer relying on a toilet, what will you do then? Do you know how to dig a latrine or outhouse? This item is very important. Sanitation will keep you healthy or lack of will kill you. So make plans to safely dispose of all waste whether you are in an apartment in town or at your retreat.

Shelter

Where will you live when TEOTWAWKI happens? Most of us reading this post already have some distinct ideas or plans where we will live. If you don’t, you need to make plans now before something happens and forces you in a direction not of your choosing. 

The climate and surrounding population will impact your living conditions when the SHTF. Again, if you plan to bug out have a destination in mind. Don’t go blindly driving out of town hoping to run across some place you can stay. I don’t think that place will ever materialize. Have a plan. Don’t head to a place that everyone else you know is going. It will not be survivable.

If you have or are preparing a retreat, plan everything around a total grid down situation forever. If the power ever does come back on it will just be an added bonus, but don’t count on it. With that said your shelter needs to be livable in the summer and winter. If you live in an area that gets hot in the summer, what are you going to do to maintain shelter and stay cool enough to manage? If you live in an area that is very cold in the winter, how will you stay warm enough? Wood burning stoves or fireplaces are wonderful and have the bonus of a place to cook meals. Do you have enough firewood? Is there more available close by? Are you in the physical condition to obtain the needed supply for as long as you live? A large stock of fuel – propane, heating oil, kerosene, gasoline, etc. – will eventually run out and probably won’t be replaced. Then what? Make a plan. It may not work out, but it will give you the chance to carefully consider what is needed in your location.

Do you have enough beds, bedding, towels, clothing, shoes, shoestrings, socks, underwear, coats, gloves……etc. for everyone that will be living with you? Your clothing will often be your number one line of shelter. What will you do when your last pair of jeans wears out? When your last pair of shoes is nothing but holes? Have you looked that far down the road? If you have children, do you have clothes for them to grow into? It’s hard to contemplate or imagine the types and quantity of clothing you and your family will need for the foreseeable future. Can you sew? Do you have material, needles, thread, buttons, zippers, and a treadle sewing machine? Can you mend what you have so it will last as long as possible? How are you going to keep your home and clothing clean? Do you have an extra broom or two? Do you have soap? How much and how long will it last? What are you going to do when it runs out? I really don’t see ever going to the store to buy soap if we really have TEOTWAWKI. How will we keep clean and healthy and able to work hard enough to survive? That goes back to an adequate water supply. Where will you bathe? How often? How will you heat the water to bathe, wash your clothes and wash dishes? Think. Think hard. How much do you need and what will you do when everything you have been able to store and produce yourself is gone. What will you do next?

Protection

We all see difficult times in the initial phase of TEOTWAWKI. Do you have an adequate way to protect you and yours? Innumerable articles have been written about the best forms of protection, be it gun, knife or self. What you need is what works best for you, your family and your situation.

The most important means of protection, bar none, is your mind. This is one area that you have to be able to wrap your mind around or it doesn’t matter what gun or training you have had. If there are people coming to take everything you own or harm your family you have to be ready to do the unthinkable. Period. Otherwise, you will lose everything. Then all the preparations you have made will come to naught. Spend time thinking, role playing in your mind a plethora of scenarios that may come to pass when the SHTF. See yourself protecting your family and home. See yourself successfully dealing with whatever threat may come your way. Practice it over and over and over. Then practice it some more. Mental preparation will provide you the opportunity to react in a more effective manner. Throwing your hands up in the air in total surprise with “Oh! No! What do we do now?” coming out of your mouth will only get everyone captured, hurt or killed. This is a very important part of your plans and preparations.

So, now some time has passed and most of the ‘bad guys’ have come and gone. You will still need to be ready to protect your family and home. What about those that have given up on the place they were staying because they have run out of everything they had stored and are starving? What do you do when they come straggling up to your gate begging? What do you do when you turn them away and they become angry? What do you do if you give them food and a few days later some not-so-friendly people show up demanding food since you fed the folks a few days ago? Then what? You need to decide ahead of time how you are going to handle these situations. What if you turn away the angry people and they come back later with 20 more angry people? Can you handle that?

Let’s say you have several firearms that you can use for protection and hunting. Do you have enough ammunition? What will you do when you run out? Then what? We all know the current state of ammunition supplies. If you don’t have what you want or need now, you may never get it. If you are in this condition, what are you going to do for protection? Think long and hard about how you will handle the safety and security of your family.

Tools

There are so many tools that will be useful in the case of TEOTWAWKI. I will break them down by categories and hope this list stimulates many ideas and the creation of more lists for your situation.

Kitchen/Food

These will be tools you need every day to prepare your food and many of them will depend on if you have any food to prepare. That thought goes back to the first section on food. Daily food preparation will include items like silverware, plates, bowls, cups, cooking utensils (spatula, large spoons, etc.), pots, skillets, bake ware, can opener (for all of those canned goods you have stocked up on), pressure canner, water bath canner, jars (which are great drinking glasses), lids, rings, tongs, percolator (if you have stored any coffee), dishpan/bucket for wash water and drain water (take the goose neck off of the drain under your kitchen sink and catch the water in a five gallon bucket – use it to water the garden), wash cloths, towels, soap (what are you going to use when you run out?), table and chairs for both inside and outside. That list will get you started.

Gardening

I consider gardening to be a must. If you are going to survive past what food you have stored then you are going to have to be able to generate more food. So – gardening tools – always have more than one. Is one person going to grow everything? I hope not. So store as many of each item as you can – they will also be great for bartering. I don’t think we are going to be forging new shovel blades. Tools – shovels, rakes, hoes, buckets for water and produce, dishpans/bus tubs (are handy for storing and washing produce or dishes or clothes or…) , galvanized washtubs and watering cans, gloves (hard work will be easier if your hands are protected), wide brimmed hats (you will be out in the hot sun growing your food), bandanas (you will be sweating), wagon (for toting all kinds of things – mulch, dirt, tools – get one that doesn’t have tires that need to be aired up), sturdy shoes (and extra pairs – these will wear out), scissors, knives, outdoor chairs and tables to process the garden produce, something to save seeds in, something to dry seeds and produce (window screens will work, have extra screening material – it comes in large rolls at the hardware store) and gumption (you can’t buy this but you will need to be able to produce it in large quantities).

Repair and Production

You know all of those great tools we have? Drills, chainsaws, skill saws, etc. that run on AC or batteries that charge off of AC? Unless you have a solar system that has the capability of running and/or charging these tools, they will be great paper weights. Hand tools and the knowledge to use them will be critical. Don’t make do with one set of screw drivers, pliers, wrenches, hammers, files, brace and bits, drill bits, chisels, heavy snips, bolt cutters, chains, ropes, pulleys, carabineers, eye hooks, screws, nails, duct tape (which, unfortunately, will run out one day), wire, cable, fencing staples, barbed wire, t-posts, extra fencing, stock panels, lumber, plywood, concrete blocks, PVC pipe with connectors and valves, and books about things you don’t know how to do – have redundant sets of everything if possible. This is one of those lists that could fill a book. There are few of us that know how to build a grist mill or a blacksmith shop. But there is information on the internet and out there in books that explain how. Even if we did have the knowledge would we have the tools and materials needed to construct/produce the needed item or machine to accomplish the task? Think beyond what you have now to what may need to be produced in the future and then plan accordingly.

All of this is written to help us think beyond the preparations we are now making. When TEOTWAWKI arrives, there will be a time of incomprehensible shock and denial. Then a time of desperation and despair will come. Be ready for it and be ready to mourn and lament your lack of preparedness in some facet of life. There is no human way that we can all be prepared for every eventuality – it is humanly impossible. Deal with it when it comes. Be ready to be able to survive and thrive beyond your ‘preps’. Be ready to make it on your own when the time of TEOTWAWKI has passed and a brave new world has come. God will still be ‘Our Father who art in Heaven’ who leads and guides us along the way.

Blessings to you all,

Fern