by JarHeadTed
February 29, 2012 09:12
Shelter, water, food, and clothing are commonly said to be the 4 requirements for life. The retreat is well on it's way to providing just that. This week we drilled a water well and construction on the cabin is now officially underway. The PSP will be a wonderful weekend getaway but if anything drastic ever happened, we would be able to live there if we had to for a period of time. All of this, of course makes it so much more comfortable on the weekends when we are there.
See the pictures below to check the progress:
One wall up (at least the frame).
Another angle.
Water drilling equipment.
In progress.
And we have water. Not a ton, but it stabilized at about 4 gallons a minute.
by JarHeadTed
March 30, 2011 12:23
Every since I went to Boy Scout summer camp for the first time, I have always been aware of the need for being self sufficent in case something ever went "bad wrong" with society. A long time ago I figured out that if something ever happened, I'd just head to my old camp. There is fresh water there. There is a kitchen that runs on propane. There is really no need to electricity. They even had stores of tents, tools, rope and everything else needed to live if you had to. Being along a river bottom, there is plenty of cleared fertile land for crops and wildlife is abundant.
Today's modern version of a survivalist is not what it was in the 1980s. Back then a survivalist was basically a militia enthusiast who was interested in fighting a tyranical and overbearing government. The term survivalist still brings about thoughts of that type of person when first mentioned.
I think that Y2K brought about a modern definition of survivalist. At that time there were people who started stockpiling food and learning to live with minimal reliance on outside sources. Once you couple those food stockpilers with the idea of urban homesteading, you get what is a modern survivalist. The idea is not to separate from a tryanny, but to be able to support yourself and your family in case of any number of disasters, from losing a job or being hit by a tornado up to and including a flu pandemic or full economic collapse/depression.
So basically there are many areas where self sufficiency and survivalism overlap. So why is "vs." included in the title? What is the difference? Self suffiency doesn't include the basic planning for disaster. Survivalism when taken all the way to it's full planning conclusions has to allow for a fully self sufficient lifestyle.
So that brings up another point. What role would society have on a post disaster survivalist. That will have to be a post for another time.