Window Shopping

I test drove several cars today, and eliminated every one of them as potential future cars.

I really liked the Honda Element. A lot. Unfortunately, I didn’t fit into it. The seatbelt was not adjustable and it came across my face.It kept sliding up my neck,and over my chin and was stopped from its upward creep by my nose.

I can’t drive a car that won’t let me breathe.

Other than that, it was a nice car.

The Toyota Yaris has the speedometer sitting up high on top of the dashboard between the driver and passenger, creating a blindspot in front of the car.

The Toyota Matrix had the same seatbelt problem the Honda Element had. I didn’t even bother trying to drive it.

At the Toyota dealership, we saw [info]laughterdance’s brother. He was working. Actually, he left a couple in the middle of a sale to dash out for hugs and a bit of chatter.

The sales people at the dealerships we visited varied greatly. The Honda dealership, the salesman was nice. He went out into the lot and brought each car to us so I wouldn’t have to walk much. When we discovered the seatbelt issue, he knew that was a deal-breaker and didn’t even try to push the car on us. He did offer some alternatives, and I may go back to look at the CRV. That seatbelt was barely tolerable. I could probably fasten a hook to the seat that would make the seatbelt safe and tolerable.

I liked that salesman, and if I do decide to buy a Honda, I will let him be the one to earn the commission.

The salesman at the Toyota dealership was not very friendly, and he had me tromping all over the car lot. He seemed reluctant to let me test drive anything,and after I did drive the Yaris (which is how I discovered how awful that speedometer was), he said I had to fill out liability forms for having driven it. He kept trying to sell me something and was very pushy and reluctant to let us go without committing to buying.

We left anyway.

If I do decide to buy a Toyota, it won’t be from him.

His manager suggested the Scion, but they wouldn’t let me drive one, just sit in it. The seat seemed to be broken,the lever that adjusted the seat back was jammed and even the salesman couldn’t get it to move. I’m not sure I want to buy a vehicle that has parts breaking before it’s even sold.

Just because my last 2 cars were Hyundais, I want to give Hyundai a chance. I don’t really care for any of the models they have out, so I probably won’t buy one.

In fact, the more I look around,the more I want to keep the car I have.

Knees, Cars, Dogs

OK, the tibia bones have healed and knee pain continued with new bruises constantly surfacing. Not the fresh red and purple of new bruises, but the old green and yellows of fading bruises. Skin that was normal looking at one visit is old bruise colored at the next visit 2 days later. Pain seems to shift, and it’s in different places.

These old knees sustained multiple traumatic injuries. I have tears in the meniscus, quadriceps tendon,and iliotibial band, and chondromalacia from walking on the damaged knees,rubbing off the back of the kneecap. Physical therapy made them worse because we were doing therapy for bone strengthening. Apparently that’s bad for the soft tissues of the knees. This is why it’s important to not only get the right diagnosis, but to get the full and complete diagnosis.

Who knew?

I break bones – a lot. I know how to heal bones fast, and my bones often heal in half the time they should.

When I get soft tissue injuries, it’s always bruises, and my famous bruise juice takes care of those quickly, too. Maybe the reason I’m getting “old bruises” is because I’ve been using my bruise juice.

I’ve never had torn ligaments, cartilage, tendons, or muscles before. It’s a whole different style of treatment, and by doing the wrong treatments, we’ve made matters worse.

I haven’t been able to drive my car for 2 months and I’m going crazy. Since my right knee is better than my left, I can manage to drive an automatic for short times, and have occasionally driven my daughter’s car when I can’t stand it anymore, but my car is a manual. Of course, it’s still undrivable because it hasn’t been fixed yet. The other guy finally reported the accident to his insurance just when all the parts I’d ordered arrived, so I delayed getting it all put together so they could do an estimate – and I’m still waiting for their estimate – 5 weeks waiting. Even if I do get my car fixed, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to drive it.

MedFaire is the first weekend in April and I may not be able to work at it the way I normally do. I can’t walk long, stand long, and I certainly can’t dig post holes, put up or take down booths, or haul gear halfway across the park.

Gardening season is here, too, and I can’t do even a small part of what I’d like to do. The fence I started putting up I can’t finish because I can’t dig post holes or haul the stockade panels (which I haven’t bought yet because I’ve been putting the fence up one panel at a time). I can’t repaint the house outside because I can’t climb ladders. I can’t walk Beaners’ dogs because they’re big and they tug. I can’t demonstrate gardening techniques, although I can supervise them.

Itzl is doing well. He still has a small hole in his eardrum, but it’s closing up. Otherwise, he’s fully recovered from the accident. He gets his vaccines this month so he can go around with me to work and MedFair and all.

So, I’m royally frustrated all around and trying out various work-arounds and alternatives for getting done all the things I need to do. Some sort of work. The rest are still full of fail. That anguished “aaaarrrgggghhh” echoing through the neighborhood isn’t a gang of scurvy pirates. It’s me.

Edible Container Gardening

How to grow your edible garden in containers. You don’t have to use fancy expensive flower pots. The plastic tubs sold as wash basins work quite well and cheap plastic serving trays do well to catch drips.

First, drill or poke drainage holes in the bottoms of the plastic bowls/tubs with a drill or craft knife. Put down a layer of cheese cloth or window screening, then add about an inch of gravel (the large aquarium gravel is just fine), then fill the bowl nearly to the rim with a Mel’s Mix that’s half compost and ¼ vermiculite, ¼ peatmoss. Pat the soil down a bit. Sprinkle your seeds thinly on the surface of the soil, then take a small amount of compost in your hands and rub them over the seeds to lightly cover them. Water gently with a fine spray so as not to dislodge the seeds. Keep the soil moist and out of the sun for now. When the seedlings are 3 inches high, thin them out and place the bowls in sunlight or under grow lights. Harvest when ready.

You can reseed fast growing crops like radishes, basil, carrots, dill, and lettuces every couple of weeks and add a bit more compost when you harvest so you have salad gardens and herbs growing year round.

Basils, chervil, fennel, dill, coriander, summer savory, thyme, mint, radishes, carrots, lettuces, tomatoes, all thrive in pots. So do sage and rosemary, but they prefer a little sand in their compost.

For greater veggie adventures, you can grow bush beans, chard, cucumber, scallions, radicchio, arugula, broccolini, kale, spinach, Brussels sprouts, and mustard greens in pots with 3 hours of sunlight or grow lights. Beets, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and carrots need 4 hours of sunlight. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash, and cabbages need 6 hours of sunlight or time under a grow light. Melons can be grown up trellises with mesh slings to support the fruits – and with 7 – 8 hours of sunlight or grow lights. These require larger pots than the herbs and small veggies, of course, and many require trellises.

Combine large, slow growing crops with smaller, faster growing ones. Fill in the spaces between cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli and other large crops with scallions, radishes, cilantro, mesclun mix of lettuces, and plant trellised veggies in the back of the pot so it doesn’t block sunlight from the rest.

If you have your garden on your patio, you may need to protect the tender plants from wind and frost. Pretty room divider screens can block winds if they are placed so they don’t block precious sunlight. Screens with decorative holes in them large enough to allow sunlight through yet small enough to dampen the eager wind are good choices, and making wind screens of translucent fabrics can be pretty and effective. Cloche coverings are traditional to use to cover tender plants when the nights get frosty in early spring and late fall. These are usually made of clay or glass, but I find lampshades work every bit as well and add a touch of whimsy to the potted garden. Lampshades can be purchased at garage sales and flea markets in many sizes and recovered with old shower curtains. The bottoms of the shower curtains may be moldy and ragged, but the part up near the curtain rings is usually still in excellent condition – and it doesn’t matter if the holes are ripped out. Also, tomato cages can be trimmed to fit over pots (upside down!) and covered in bird netting or mesh to keep birds from harvesting your fruits. These are easy to lift off when you’re ready to harvest, allows the plants to get their sun, and keeps them safe from marauding feathered thieves. Me, I generally plant a few for the birds and then I don’t feel so bad about keeping the rest for myself.

Potted plants need more moisture because the wind dries them out more. I like to wrap the clay pots in peat moss to help hold in moisture, and set up low wind screens. Clustering pots close together helps reduce some of this, and using mulch on top also helps prevent drying out. Putting small birdbaths among them with water or setting up small fountains among them will help keep them moist, too. The “shower” or “mist” setting on a sprayer nozzle is best to use on container plants because it’s less likely to dislodge the soil or disturb the roots.

Mel’s mix, heavier on the compost in a ½ blended compost – ¼ vermiculite – ¼ peat moss blend is best for potted plants, and they will need diluted organic slow-release fertilizer throughout the growing season.

Potatoes are a special case. I like to grow mine in large 30 gallon yard clean up bags because the bags are sturdier. Just cut a couple of drainage holes in the bottom of the bags, roll the sides down so at least 2/3 of the bag is rolled, then fill the bottom third with about 4 inches of the modified for containers Mel’s Mix. Cut your seed potatoes so there’s one “eye” per piece, and let the cut bits (called chits) dry for at least 24 hours. Plant your cut potato chits eyes up in the bag – 5 chits per bag – 1 in the middle and 4 around. When the plants get to be 6 – 8 inches tall, roll the sides of the bag up enough to top the bag’s soil with either more soil or straw (I do soil for the first 2 roll up and sometimes first 2, then straw after that). Do this each time until your bag is filled up. Let the plants bloom and wither at this point, Once the leaves have turned brown, it’s time to harvest. Just slit the bag open and let your potatoes spill out. Brush off the dirt and remove the underground shoots, then let the potatoes air dry out of the sunlight for 2 – 3 days. Wash the potatoes only when you’re ready to use them.

You can also grow some plants “upside down” – tomatoes do well, as do cucumbers, peppers, nasturtiums, strawberries and any trailing herb. Peas and beans are interesting when grown “upside down”. You need special equipment to grow them this way. It’s really cheaper and easier to just buy the Topsy Turvey or Babylon Grow Bags because they come with all the hardware and special holding equipment that will keep the plants from falling out of the bottom of the bag. If you want a more permanent container and money is no object, you could use the Upside Down Garden. These all need lots and lots of water – a gallon a day each, and they are heavy so they will need very sturdy stands or supports from which to hang. Plywood and drywall are far too weak to support these plants so don’t even try to hang them from those. If you’re in an apartment where you can’t put in hooks, these deck stands work well.

Using hanging space as well as containers will give you more growing room in a smaller space. If the area is shady, light can be supplemented with grow lights. Leafy plants need at least 3 hours of sunlight a day, root plants need 4 – 5 hours of sunlight a day, and fruiting plants need 6 – 8 hours of sunlight a day. The more light they get, of course, the better they’ll grow, but you can get decent crops even from minimal light.

Remember, container grown plants will need more water and more fertilizer than plants grown in raised beds or the ground. They will need windbreaks and frost protection. If you have to move them for sunlight, they will need wheels of some sort. On the plus side, they will be less likely to have bugs, will be easier to harvest, will be less likely to have weeds, and you’ll have your own food supply close to hand.

Why Say “Thank You”

Language is an important survival skill. I know Mr. Spock never saw the logic of saying “please” and “thank you” even if he was half-human. Perhaps that’s because no one explained to him well enough to make sense. Even in a society of utterly practical, rational beings, these words, or words that fill their place, have a valid, functioning role in survival. That piece of information by itself isn’t enough to convince someone like Mr. Spock, so let me provide examples.

Let’s look at “thank you.”

The first most important reason to say “thank you” is to acknowledge that the other person has done something for you, or that you have received something they sent or gave you. I suppose a “yes”, or a nod, or something form of acknowledgement would work as well, but “thank you” is the most common and recognizable way to show this.

The second reason for saying “thank you” is to let the other person know you appreciate what they did, the effort they expended on your behalf, and the care they took to do it well.

The third reason for saying “thank you” is to reward the other person for the work done, paving the way for them to be more willing to do the work again, for you or for someone else.

The fourth reason for saying “thank you” is to leave a positive impression with the other person so they will remember you. If they do something for you again, they may take greater care to do it right and thoughtfully. If someone asks after you, they will associate a pleasant memory with you and pass that impression along.

There are several ways to say “thank you.” One, obviously, is to verbally say it at the moment the other finishes doing something for you or giving you something. This is the most spontaneous and common way to say “thank you” and most people expect to hear a “thank you” at that point.

Another is the handwritten brief note. The note can be written on stationary, letterhead, or a fold-over card. You don’t have to be creative, clever, or profound. Mention why you are thanking them (the action they took, the gift you received), add a brief word about how it helped you or how you liked it or will use it, then sign your name.

Email is also an acceptable way to send a “thank you” if your primary contact with the other person is via email and online. You would include the same information in an electronic thanks as you would in a handwritten one.

What happens if you don’t say or send a “thank you?”

Usually nothing much. No one is going to shun you, tack up dead animals on your door, or hunt you down for some revenge. Depending on the circumstances, though, you may cause the other person some anxiety wondering if you received something they sent you. They may feel unappreciated and less likely to help you in the future, and if someone asks for a recommendation about you, they will be less likely to say positive things about you. Expect a neutral commendation at best.

When should you say “thank you?”

Anytime someone else does anything for you – hold open a door, send you a gift, give you a job interview, give a good recommendation to someone else about you (and you hear about it), refill your beverage, bring a treat for you to share, hire you to do a job, send work your way, help you fix a flat, do research for you, print a report for you, or any thing else someone else does for you. Yes, you will probably say “thank you” a lot some days. In the end, that minimal effort is well worth it. It’s polite, kind, simple, and far-reaching in its effects.

In survival situations, it helps lessen tensions, smooths interactions, and makes for a calmer environment. There is nothing negative about saying “thank you” and much to recommend the practice. Even Mr. Spock would agree that presented in such a fashion, the minimal effort of saying “thank you” provides benefits that far exceed the effort, making it a highly logical act.

Involving Family in Prepping

In the last post, I talked a bit about forming a local survival group and briefly mentioned some ways to persuade others to join you: the neighborhood watch, the block potluck/BBQ, safety classes, etc.

Before you start seeking group members outside your home, you first need to get the support of those who live with you – roommates, significant others, spouses, children, parents… The people inside your home need to be willing participants. They need to understand what you’re doing and why, and to know it’s not just a passing phase. There will be compromises and you may not get to do things exactly the way you want to do them, but you can work together to prioritize what’s important and develop a timeline for implementing various changes.

If necessary, use local events to help you in your persuasion. If there were a rash of burglaries or vandalism nearby, talk about keeping the home safe and what to do if your home is invaded. If you pass a bad car accident, talk about car maintenance and safety. If you get a flat, have other family members fix it while you supervise so they learn how to do it. If there’s a storm and a brief power outage (a day or two), talk about the need to have back-up power, food, and water.

Ease into the discussions about survival by using current events world wide as well. We haven’t had another actual terrorist strike on US soil since 9/11, and honestly, terrorist strikes are the least of our worries about safety. We have the economic meltdown (which is more disastrous for the wealthy and those who overspent their income than the rest of us, but it’s still a talking point), we have a surge in hate groups forming, we have police storming the wrong homes under the no-knock warrants, we have contaminated food supplies, and each of these is a valid reason and way to start a conversation about safety and survival.

Talk about the things that are immediate concerns: credit scores, food costs, bills, home invasions, traffic, neighborhood watches, safe places for the children to play, storm safety, car safety, and so on. Find the places that are of the greatest concerns, and start there. You don’t need to start off building an arsenal and barricading the house with cases of toilet paper. Once you’ve identified the areas that most concern your household, make plans to protect those concerns.

I’m partial to flip charts, but am beginning to enjoy the conveniences of a Powerpoint presentation. Others may prefer spreadsheets and newspaper clippings. Use whatever tools and methods you feel work best for you.

Credit card companies are dropping credit levels and raising interest rates even on those who pay on time and are a good credit risk not because your credit is bad but because their credit is bad – there are ways to fix this, by the way, so your credit score isn’t damaged because your credit card company is taking a hit. That’s part of the survival skills we sub/urbanites need to learn.

Insurance is still a useful tool. I know, I’ve posted before about ways to live without insurance. It is possible. 50 years ago, it was mostly the wealthy that had insurance. Insurance companies changed that because they make money off of collecting premiums from people who may never file a claim and investing that money so it earns interest and dividends. The policyholder doesn’t get to benefit from the insurance company’s investments unless they have to file a claim and the insurance company actually pays up on it. So, some insurance is worth having and some isn’t. Because insurance is such a complicated and occasionally necessary item, it deserves its own post. Insurance policies are a part of sub/urban survival.

Survival plans need to include something everyone in the household can relate to and will benefit each of them. Maybe only one person gets the benefit of one item, but that item still needs to be there and be seriously considered. Start slow and small with goals that can be easily achieved and completed that have positive results. This may be a plan to pay off one large bill before moving on to the next. It may be slowly building up your food and water stocks (be sure you create storage space before you acquire the food and water). It may be getting and training a security dog/pet. It may be putting in and actually maintaining a garden and harvesting and preserving its produce.

Learn new skills together. Take a credit counseling/investing/household budgeting class, or a fitness class that will provide defensive skills, a gardening class, or cooking classes. You can ease into cooking classes by visiting one of those meal assembly services.

Those meal assembly services aren’t exactly on most people’s radar as a survivalist class, but it’s a pleasant, supervised way to learn about meal preparation and storage – and you get a week or two of meals from it that can be frozen and eaten later. You pick the meals you want from a menu, set an appointment to visit the assembly kitchen, and they will set up at “stations” that have the ingredients already chopped, diced, peeled, cored, cleaned, etc., and they’ll help you assemble your meals in packaging you either bring or they provide (it varies – ask), and they’ll give you pre-printed cooking instructions to put on the packages so when you get your meals home, you can freeze them now and eat them over the next week or two. If you’ve never cooked before, you learn a lot by using one of these services and can then use your new skills to develop your own menus, shopping lists, and stocking needs. One bonus about using a meal assembly service to learn about meal preparations, menu planning, and meal preservation is that it doesn’t feel like taking a survival class, and it’s a pleasant way to ease into it. Some of these meal assembly places have festive atmospheres, offer snacks, and for the adult-only places, wine as well.

Get your kids involved by getting them in bike safety classes (your local police department may offer free classes), and organizing to create a safe place for them to play that’s not in the street. They can also learn at a meal assembly place that’s kid friendly – and they’ll often like it better than learning at home. Have your kids enroll in a martial arts program or a fencing school and take them to the gun range on Kid Days.

Once your housemates get accustomed to doing things that are survival related, you can step up the plans and preparations and discuss it more frankly with them. If it helps, you can use my post on the Survival Pyramid to show that most of the survival skills they need are ones that will make their lives better, easier, happier, and safer while giving them more freedom. This will particularly appeal to the teens in the family – if they know that you will give them more freedom if they learn and demonstrate they understand basic survival skills, they will learn those skills. More importantly, they’ll share those skills with their friends, so you may keep a larger group of people safer than you expected.

If you want the people in your household to be serious about learning and practicing survival skills, you have to demonstrate daily that you are serious: exercise daily to improve your strength and stamina, improve your diet, practice health wellness, keep the batteries fresh in smoke alarms, do regular maintenance on your car and bicycle, and budgeting out a specific amount after bills are paid to spend on survival and disaster supplies.

Once they are in the habit of thinking about safety and survival, start planning family activities. Let each household member plan, coordinate, and lead preparedness activities. These don’t have to be military grade field maneuvers. They can be fun things like setting up a ham radio or creating a small radio station and broadcasting original content, or planning a meal or meeting, or making your own sodas or soap or jellies.

If you have kids, they’ll get their friends involved. If their friends are involved, their parents may be interested. If their parents are interested, you may have a survival group forming up before you know it.

Beyond BoB

Your Bug Out Bag is all well and good, but it isn’t enough to get you through a long term crisis. You are going to need a group, a cadre, a club, whatever you want to call it. Humans have formed societies for as far back as we can find evidence of our existence. There’s a reason for this. It’s because we survive better and healthier when we have people with us to share the work. No matter how good you are, you still have only 24 hours in each day. Even if you were outstandingly good at everything you did, you are still just one person and can’t do them all simultaneously. If you get sick or hurt, you’ll need someone to do your jobs and/or take care of you.

How can you join a group? The answer is easy – you won’t. If an existing group hasn’t already contacted you, they won’t. You might marry into a group. Maybe. You might have a child of yours marry into a group and then they might invite you. The chances of being invited to join a group with whom you have no “ins” is slimmer than remote.

So, how do you get to be in a survival group? Generally, the best way is to just form up a group yourself. You’ll have to talk to others. You’ll have to share information. You’ll have to be strong enough to reject those who don’t fit in after all, and you’ll have to accept being rejected. That last one will really sting if you are the one who gets kicked out of the group you started, but it happens. So you just start another group until you create one you fit into.

Having been down this road a few times, I have some opinions and suggestions on this. If your experience is different, I’d love to hear about it, and if you have suggestions, tell me about them after you’ve done them yourself for a year or two. It’s that experience thing. What sounds good talking about it may be completely unworkable in real life. I blog a bit about what I’m doing, but very, very rarely about who I’m doing these things with. I respect their privacy. So what I talk about is generally broadly applicable. If you want details, ask me privately and I may answer you if it doesn’t breach privacy agreements I’ve made.

You want your group to be local. People you can meet with on a regular basis and actually practice things with. Group members who are hours away won’t make it to the meetings, won’t be able to get together to build the necessary trust and familiarity you have to have. Internet “groups” are so non-starter. You can exchange information and tips and such, but you aren’t going to really depend upon them. You’ll want people you can camp with, people you’re comfortable being around 24/7, people with whom you can build a body of experience and trust because in a long term event, that’s exactly what you’re going to be doing. You’ll want people who are as dedicated as you are. You’ll probably start with your immediate family because you’re already (I presume) comfortable with them and like being around them and you know one another’s habits and capabilities.

Your group needs to be exclusive. I know, I know, this riles up some folks. But really, if you have people coming and going all the time, you will never have the ability to build the essential trust and learn one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has to be able to contribute to the success of the group. An easy way to help limit the membership is to have a definite, clearly spelled out purpose. Since this is a survival group (it is, right?), your purpose could be something along the lines of “To ensure and enhance the survival of members and their immediate families” and you can modify it you want, but I like leaving it somewhat open-ended since we don’t know what traumas and disasters may come our way.

You could decide to just have an open group that would “teach, develop, and/or practice survival strategies and techniques”. You could hold classes, have seminars, establish a kaffeeklatch that exchanges survival stories, and occasionally has group camp-outs to put the teachings to the test. Then, you could invite the more promising people to be part of your inner group, the ones you’ll really depend on. There are some people who are absolutely wonderful, but you’d never trust them with your life, and you want your group to be people you’d trust with your life.

I’d suggest looking at your actual neighbors. If something happens, they are the most likely ones to be Right There, and you’ll have to deal with them then – or now. Now is much better because you can teach them, guide them, learn about them, and develop real relationships with them. You can start by joining or starting a Neighborhood Watch. Call your local sheriff and ask them. Host a BBQ or potluck and tell them you want to start a neighborhood watch and to maybe do things like teach the kids bike safety and maybe set up a safe place for the kids to play their basketball or ride their bikes that isn’t in the middle of the street. You’ll have to strike up conversations, and ask questions, and get involved, and get them involved, and then you can start talking about neighborhood safety and protection form home invasions, and looking out for one another. And then you can suggest survival classes and group gardens and eventually, you’ll have developed a group.

If not, at least you’ll know your neighbors better. You’ll know who to depend upon and who to watch out for. You can look a bit farther outside your immediate neighborhood, but not too far. Look at people with whom you interact regularly – your co-workers, your children’s classmate parents, the people you see in the local park or stores, people at churches.

It will take time. Cold pitching someone with “wanna form a secret survival society?” is a sure way to be labeled weird and eccentric and that crazy lady to stay away from.

Having groups within groups is a good idea. You’ll have your local neighborhood watch and a couple of people who are in your inner group, and maybe you’ll have your library group of survivalists, and one or two from them in your inner group, and maybe you’ll have a co-worker survival group and one or two might make it into your inner group. There might be overlaps in these groups, or not. Maybe you belong to groups that have nothing to do with survival – a writer’s group or a knitting club or a book club, for instance – but there are one or two people in those groups you think might fit into your inner group. Invite them to one of the outer survivalist group meetings. If they act committed and become involved, invite them into your inner group and see how well they fit.

Once you start culling the other group(s) for your inner group, your core group of survivalists, you’ll need to start building your infrastructure, developing plans and actions, practicing techniques, and getting used to spending a lot of time together. It will require commitment from individual members. I don’t want to trust my life to someone who doesn’t care enough to be committed. If they’d rather watch a House, M.D. re-run than meet up to actually do survival activities – weeding, harvesting, distilling water, checking filters, cooking and canning food, practicing drills, and so on – then I don’t want them in my Core Group. Would you?

And this is just the beginning. If you live in a suburb or city, these people will form the core of your Sub/urban Survival Compound and you may all eventually living within a few blocks of one another in order to make it happen. You’ll be a tight-knit group of people and when a new neighbor moves in, you’ll check them out and see if they fit in with your group.

You don’t have to wait for a major, long-term event to go into actions, either. You’ll be there for one another in small disasters like ice storms and tornadoes. If one of you loses a job, the others will be there to help you get another one and point you to micro-businesses you can do, may even hire you for some work. They’ll take care of you when you get sick, and you’ll take care of them. Your neighborhood won’t have an elderly resident who dies at home alone and no one finds them for a year because you’ll know everyone there and their habits. You’ll have checked up on the old one and gotten help or contacted his/her relatives long before the police break down the door to find the body.

Each small disaster or event is a bonding time and a preparation for greater disasters and events. And if those greater disasters never materialize, we can all be grateful and still enjoy the benefits of a group of mutually supportive people.

Paying Bills in a Recession

When I was a kid, we’d do near anything for a bit of money, all kinds of small jobs. There were chores I had to do, but I was allowed to earn money from my work. For example, when I was the goosegirl, taking care of all the geese in our little village, I wasn’t paid to take care of the geese. I was expected to protect the geese, take them to places where they could eat themselves fat, and report any sickly geese to the owner of it. But in the process of caring for the geese, I was allowed to collect the down they shed and feathers, and I could sell those to the villagers and people outside the village, too, and I got to keep the money. My folks took their share of the down and feathers without pay, and they took some for the needy who couldn’t afford to buy the down and feathers from me, but the rest was mine. Later, when I was taking care of the chickens, I was allowed to keep the extra eggs and sell them, and when we slaughtered a chicken, I could sell the feathers when I could find a buyer. Feathers were made into dusters, basters, and artists used them as brushes or in art projects. As I got older, I would accompany the older people to harvest mushrooms and wild herbs and I was allowed to keep and sell what I collected in my baskets.

When I moved to the States, we lived in cities, not rural villages, so I didn’t have my geese, chickens, mushrooms, and herbs from which to make spending money. Instead, I started collecting tin to sell, and scrap iron, and aluminum. I weeded neighbor gardens and babysat their children, and when sodas were made in cans – I’d collect pop tops and make trivets, belts, and curtains from them and sell them and the crushed cans.

When my children and I were homeless for a while, one of the ways we made money was collecting plastic, glass, and aluminum and selling them. Those paid for gas money, groceries, school supplies and field trips, and occasionally, clothes or shoes.

After we got into a home of our own, we continued to collect cans and sell them to pay for the electric bill. And I’d dogsit for money to pay the phone bill. I’d make and sell herbal teas to help with the rent and later the martgage.

A lot of people look at their bills as one massive lump of bills. They think they need one job that will pay enough to cover all those bills at once. It can be pretty scary, thinking your whole life depends upon one job, especially now, with budget cuts, layoffs, and businesses disappearing.

But – what if you broke your bills down individually and looked at income sources to pay each bill by itself? You can collect enough cans to easily pay your internet bill each month in a single Saturday morning once a month. Mowing lawns or shoveling snow can pay for groceries or a credit card bill. Babysitting in the evenings and on weekends could pay part or all of your rent/mortgage or your car note or insurance. Designing websites could pay for your Netflix or magazine subscriptions. If you set it up so each of your bills has its own specific income, you won’t stress so much about having one single paying job to pay for everything. And if one source of income dries up, you either do without what it paid for or find a new source of income.

If you have land, you can grow crops to sell – herbs are popular and profitable; flowers, especially edible flowers, are also popular. This is seasonal sales, so use the money from these seasonal businesses for annual or seasonal expenses.

You can start out with just paying one bill this way, then in a couple of months, when you’re comfortable doing this, pay another bill with its own income source, and then another, and pretty soon, you’ll have only what you really need and the ability to pay for it regardless of your main source of income.

You can track all of your sources of income and the bills they each pay in a spreadsheet – OpenOffice has a nice one that’s free. Some of your micro-businesses may have expenses attached – gasoline, oil, spark plugs, lawn mower, edger for mowing lawns, or gasoline to haul the aluminum cans to the recycling plant, for example. Your micro-business has to earn enough to cover its expenses and pay one of your bills or it isn’t worth doing. Your spreadsheet can help you manage that.

If all your bills are being paid by micro-businesses, then the money you earn from your “day job” can be saved to give you a cushion, to use for unexpected expenses, and to build your retirement. And if you are among those who get laid off or who are asked to take a pay cut, you’ll still be able to pay your bills.

Tidbits

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7920434.stm

“The average number is about 150, says leading anthropologist Robin Dunbar.”

“They usually consist of an inner circle of five “core” people and an additional layer of 10, he says. That makes 15 people – some will probably be family members – who are your central group and then outside that, there’s another 35 in the next circle and another 100 on the outside. And that’s one person’s social world.”

“There’s a limit to how many close friends like this you can have and it’s probably between six and 12, he says.”

The “sidebar” information says the average number of close friends a person has is around 5, which make sense. Having a large circle of acquaintances is pretty easy.

I have a circle that extends out to nearly 3 thousand acquaintances – people I recognize well enough to attach a name to them, and I do things with them once a year or so. We have at least one common interest, and attend one annual event together – a convention, a volunteer project, or something similar. If I include former students, that ups the numbers a lot. If I include people whose names I don’t remember, but whom I see regularly at those events, that number goes up quite a bit more. If I count the number of people who include me in their circle whom I’ve never met face to face and whose real names I don’t know – well, I think that’s a pretty astronomical number of people.

If I count the number of people I consider a close friend, people upon whom I depend and who depend on me – that number is a shrinking number as I age and they die off. I haven’t made new close friends as my old ones die, so I’m now down to only 2 such friends and they live half a continent away. I should get off my lazy duff and admit that I have a number of people among my circle of acquaintances who could easily become close friends if I simply made the effort.

Starbuck’s Breakfast Sandwiches – can we say – “eeeww!”? I don’t like to eat mass produced foods to begin with and I especially do not like to eat frozen and reheated eggs particularly when they are being passed off as “fresh”, so I continue to avoid Starbuck’s. I’m not boycotting them the way I’m boycotting McDonald’s, but I find their coffee tastes awful, their pastries stale, and now their “fresh” breakfast sandwiches are really frozen, mass produced manufactured food. Nope, I’ll continue to have my coffee and pastries and sandwiches at places I know truly do make them fresh from scratch.

“Although the eggs and cheese are mixed in huge vats, poured into tins, baked, frozen and shipped to distribution centers to be assembled, they wanted them to look freshly made to appeal to people who do not like fast-food outlets.” – http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/business/03sbux.html?_r=1

And in the food allergy hype, with the peanut free zones and food manufacturers (what a horrible thought – food manufactured instead of grown and prepared) over-zealously labeling their products so people with legitimate allergies either forgo their product altogether (can we say “lost sales”?) or fatefully risk eating it because the other option is to go hungry. I find it appalling that restaurants often have no idea what is actually in the food they serve, probably because it’s all frozen and reheated instead of prepared on site. Still, the risk of dying from a food allergy is so small that people without allergies or with mild allergies shouldn’t have to be subjected to “peanut-free zones.” Just 18 people a year die from food allergies – all food allergies, not just peanut allergies.

When you think of how many people die of bee stings in comparison, it makes you wonder why there aren’t flower-free zones for children with bee allergies. Why are parents of children who are seriously allergic to bee stings more relaxed about their children’s allergies, which are far harder to avoid, than parents whose children have food allergies? And I’d be more worried about my child dying of malnutrition than a food allergy. I’ll risk some allergy reactions just to make sure my child is nourished. Death by malnutrition is much more fearsome than death by food allergy. And it’s not like peanuts are in everything the way soy is, or wheat.

Number of deaths per year from:
“Food allergies 18
Lightning strikes 48
Stings (hornets, wasps or bees) 82
Malnutrition 3,003
Accidental drowning 3,976
Accidental poisoning 23,618
Flu and pneumonia 63,001”

Square Root Day

For those mathematical friends of mine, today is a Square Root Day (3/3/09). Savor it because the next one won’t be until 4/4/16.

Have Square Root Cookies and drink Square Root Beer to celebrate.

Bugging In

Most survivalists talk about bugging out. They make plans, plot routes, buy land, build compounds – at least in their dreams if not in fact. Most of them are heading for one of 4 or 5 places:

1. “The hills” somewhere to live off the land, but no real, scoped out location
2. A state park, because there’s bound to be lots of game, right?
3. A friend’s house – never mind that friend may have lots of other friends and family who will also be descending upon him, many with no gear or training
4. The family farm
5. A survivalist’s compound

Hard-core, Bug-Out, Survival-Compound survivalists think I’m insane for planning to “bug in”, or shelter in place, or hunker down where I am, but you see, they all think they can get to those remote locations. I only plan to leave if there’s a high probability my place will be flooded, burned, buried, or blasted out of existence. I selected my location carefully to provide me with both a modern citified lifestyle and the ability to adapt to a survival situation. In the 10 years I’ve been here, it’s proven to be capable of surviving most of the disasters that come this way. It’s far out of a flood zone, distant from most geological fault lines, and not too near any potential enemy targets. It’s near a well-stocked pond, and walking distance from 2 huge lakes (assuming you consider under 5 miles waling distance – I do). The location is fringe: not quite city, not quite rural, not really suburb. We still have horses, goats, cows, chickens, and rabbits in people’s backyards around here. It remembers being farmland and the soil is fertile. Of course, it helps that the city I live closest to is large, sprawling and still considers itself country. We have tractors rolling down the highway during rush hour.

Now, this isn’t to say I’m not prepared to bug out if evacuation becomes necessary. I’ve set up caches and marked the location on GPS as well as by landmarks – but you can’t always depend upon landmarks. I can locate them with a sextant if I have to – and I’ve practiced locating them by sextant and landmark just in case, when I go out to refresh the caches and add to them. I just prefer to consider sheltering in place, or what is disparagingly referred to as “bugging in”.

There are stages of survivalism. I’ve read lists in survival magazines and on survivalist websites and blogs, and I sort of agree with them, but I feel they leave out all the stages of survivalism for those of us who choose to shelter in place, to survive in our urban and suburban settings. So I’m going to present the stages of survivalism for those of us who choose to hunker down where we are.

1. Beginner – This is the “I should be doing something but I really have no clue what” phase. They may have a week’s worth of water stashed and a month’s worth of food. They may have thought about buying a generator, and have some basic camping equipment. They really don’t know how to start or what to do, and many give up.
2. Stocking up – If they’ve made it past stage 1, they’ve read a few sites about survival and they’ve gotten a bit serious. They have 6 months’ of stock, mostly canned food, bullets, and toilet paper, but no guns. They peruse the paper for land to buy “in case”. They’re indoctrinated by the End-of-the-World-as-We-Know-It survivalists, and may feel stressed and worried. The news is full of talk about terrorists and bombings and they want to be safe. They’re alone and lonely and worried, and their spouse or family doesn’t care about the same things. They may just leave it at this, a niggling worry that’s really too much effort to pursue.
3. Informed – If they made it past stage 2, they’ve read more than a few sites, purchased a few books, stocked up on food, water, and medical supplies for a year, gotten their CPR and concealed carry certifications, taken a few classes they hope will help them, and started a food garden. They’re connecting with others and discovering that most survivalists think they’re crazy to try to survive in their own home. A lot of the survivalists they meet will point out how they can’t make a nuclear shelter, or properly conceal what they are doing, how they’ll be mobbed in the event of an emergency, and they’re crazy to try to make long term plans where they are. Most city folk give up at this point, convinced they are doomed and can’t do anything about it.
4. Well-rounded – If they make it past the nay-sayers in stage 3, they’ve started to reach out and get the support of family and friends, formed long term plans and developed a back-up bug-out-if-we-must plan, and started sustainable practices that will help them in long term sub/urban survival. They’ve checked city ordinances and regulations about raising livestock, planted gardens not just in their yard, but in waste spaces and abandoned lots, may have convinced neighbors to go along with them (which will reduce the worries about being mobbed), and developed alternate energy sources and back-up plans. They’ve established caches just in case they need to evacuate. They’ve taken classes to increase their barterable skills, and learned advanced first aid skills. They’ve pooled their abilities with neighbors and family members to increase their odds of surviving in place. They’ve scoped out where things are and have plans for a number of long shot survival scenarios as well as most of the most common ones.
5. Sub/urban Homesteader – They’ve gone beyond the well-rounded by proving to themselves and their family they can live in the city off their own in most situations. Obviously, a direct nuclear strike isn’t going to be survivable, but they’ve created the necessary environment for near and remote nuclear strikes to be survivable. They can live off their gardens and backyard barnyards. They have a collective of people dedicated to surviving in their homes. They’ve seeded the waste spaces with food crops. They know how to save seed for their next crop and have been doing so for several years. They’ve created a barter co-op, and are teaching their skills as well as learning new ones. They are encouraging their neighbors to reach at least the informed stage. Barring a direct nuclear strike, a serious natural disaster, or a ruthless military invasion, they are pretty confident they can survive long term in their own home. There are a few of these people scattered around already.
6. Sub/urban Survival Compound – They’ve gone beyond the sub/urban homesteader and have created a neighbor watch that is skilled in weaponry and can be armed at a moment’s notice. They are prepared to defend their turf, so they have people with military skills as well as those with gardening, medical, mechanical, carpentry, veterinarian, and masonry skills. They’ve planted dwarf orchards in their backyards and replaced trees in the neighborhood park with standard fruit and nut trees. They have recycling, greywater, alternate energy, and sewage provisions in place in case the city fails to provide them, and may have already been selling their surplus energy to the city for a few years. To the casual driver, their neighborhood looks normal: houses, trees, maybe a lot of extra plants, kids on bikes or shooting hoops in driveways, parents keeping an eye on the kids, nice, well-kept and used neighborhood park. What they don’t see are the barricades ready to block the streets and the boundary houses with sturdy fencing that can be extended to lock off the neighborhood, and those kids’ treehouses that are everywhere? Those are the watchtowers. Granted, I only know of 2 such places, and am working on making my personal neighborhood such a place, but it is possible to do this. I’m at stage 5 and working on stage 6. An apartment complex with a large pond would be an excellent survival compound, as would any neighborhood with a limited access – perhaps only 2 to 5 main roads into the area

Survival compounds don’t have to be in a remote wooded area. With foresight, planning, and persuasive skills, almost any place can become a survival compound. So, if it makes you feel more secure to have a remote wilderness survival compound, go for it. Just know that you have viable alternatives. The city and its environs are imminently survivable for long periods of time, too.