Archive for March, 2010
This is no suprise, instead of keeping up with the Jones we’re in a race against them to the bottom… This is one race I am hoping to lose!
Double the trouble! Multiple foreclosures and more coming right around the bend. Everyone and their brother-in-law became a real estate investor overnight and now all those investment houses are going back to the banks. I have seen investors that I personally worked with lose as many as 12 homes, their entire portfolio. These were home that they had put 20% down payments on, not just zero down loans or creative financing… They have actually lost hard cash on these, very sad but life goes on!
Do your bug out plans include spending some time “camping” in the forests? Might want to do some early recon of the area and see who might be waiting for you. I don’t get out in the woods nearly enough and the deep larder of standing firewood that surrounds my BOL is all privately held. Private land isn’t necessarily always safe but I feel a little better!
Doomsday, INFOWORLD style… Interesting were the doom is coming from these days, wider and wider circles are drawing many of the same conclusions!
Who would have guessed that it wasn’t a good time to be buying a vacation property? I think that workable farmland as a vacation destination might fall into a different catergory though…
Don’t try to flee the country… Your money will have to stay behind! I had always wondered about the expatriot movement, it appears that that strategy isn’t going to work much longer?
This article in the NY Times talks about the lowering of corporate workers expectations in the work place. Over qualified workers are now happy to have a job, even if it is below their previous expectations!
I just don’t know where to start on this article. It’s almost as though I had written it myself! Federally sponsored debt slavery and “Everyone should have a college degree…”. Infuriating!
Article about the views of Ron Paul… Not the party line…
Another interesting article from lewrockwell.com, take a look at the ideas of rebllion and revolution across the ages!
With so much talk about burying a cargo container underground in the survivalist (Prepper) circles, I thought this video might be interesting. It appears that the builder did a first rate job! I’d be curious what the whole project ended up costing him? It seems like a concrete block building with the appropraite engineering for the roof would be less expensive but that’s just me! Any thoughts?
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As you turned that corner and could see the “official” entrance to your own neighborhood, you knew immediately there was something strange a foot. Your subdivision was a relatively upscale place and had a fancy metal sign, complete with flanking brick columns. The whole thing was nothing more than a facad, the homes weren’t of particularly great quality but the developer knew that the “all show and no go” suburbanites would be impressed with a sudo gated housing tract.
It wasn’t the sign or brick columns that surprised you but the make shift road block that was being setup. As neighbors were filtering out into the street and moving in the general direction of the city park, another group of men were arranging some older cars into a semblance of a zig zag pattern to slow anyone driving up to the “gate”. Like the people on your own street a couple of blocks in the opposite direction, you recognised a lot of faces but didn’t even know these particular men’s names.
The hair on the back of your neck stood straight up and that little voice in your head screamed at you to just turn around. As usual the other voice asked you about your being a man or a mouse and why would you not be up for some excitement. You’d been preparing for something like this for many years, why did it surprise you even a little that it would come down to this? You were on the outside of the development and since everyone was either preoccupied or moving in the other direction, toward the park, you had gone un-noticed. Hopefully these guys would recognise you as a neighbor and not an unwelcome arrival.
You approached them and made a little noise so as not to startle anyone. The fact that they weren’t more alert didn’t sit to good with you as these were apparently the guys that might be guarding the area. When they did hear you coming they seemed a little unsure what to do. Without seeming outright hostile, they asked if you had a reason to be coming through there?
One of the guys was looking at you like he might have recognised you. You knew he lived at the house right across from the gate and one of the cars they were arranging was usually parked in his driveway. You explained that you lived a couple blocks down and were just on your way to the meeting up at the park. They seemed alright with that and started to get back to the job at hand, when you asked for an explanation of what exactly they were doing. In response they just looked at you like you had just crawled out from under a box??? “Haven’t you heard”, their apparent leader asked? You explained that you assumed that something was up because of the meeting but what exactly was going on, you asked?
They ran you through the situation… In a nut shell they explained that there were reports of a group of thugs making their way out into the countryside from the city on scavenging runs. Well, these scavenging runs had gone beyond asking for hand outs and burglarizing empty homes to a wide spread taking of anything or anyone they wanted. Apparently the threat was rising as they became more violent and sure of themselves. A relative of another neighbor had driven in a few days ago and reported what was happening and it didn’t take long to see the pattern of movement that would lead the characters right onto your door step.
The family that found out first was the instigator of the meeting everyone was asked to attend today. The road block and some other preparations were already underway by folks like these guys that had already been briefed on the details. You could see that there wasn’t a firm plan in place but the threat was being taken seriously! You asked what else was going to be done and the guys seemed like they wanted to get back to the job at hand, they encouraged you to go and see for yourself what the meeting was about and where you might fit in with the needs of the group.
With a million thoughts swirling around in your head, you continued on past the entryway. It was easy enough to fall in with another group of folks going toward the park. Your mind was nagging you again to turn around and get back home but the details of what had and would still happen kept you moving. None of these people that were walking beside you had as much information as you, it was easy to tell by the questions they were asking each other. You decided to keep your opinions and speculations to yourself.
The park was outside the subdivision and up the road a short distance. Since your neighborhood was far enough outside the city limits and there wasn’t alot of other development beyond your area, the park was kind of looked at as an extention of your boundaries. It wasn’t anything special but had a few ball fields and playground equipment. There was also a nice nature trail that ran through the woods along it’s perimeter. You were sure it was selected as the meeting place because it was the only nearby place that would allow all of the families in the neighborhood to easily assemble.
As your group approached the entry drive to the park you could hear a growing uproar up ahead. With the information you had just received and the knowledge of what may be coming, the angry sounds were particularly upsetting. How this would all play out was any one’s guess but it looked like it was going to be thrust in your lap in the next few minutes…
Prepper
As you know I get all kinds of emails and I can’t seem to keep up with getting back to people the same day or even the very next day, I apologize but I will get back to you ASAP.
One of the popular email questions is about what’s happening over at the BOL, plans for spring, upcoming projects, etc. – I’m going to do a quick update today that will bring everyone up to speed on what I’ve been doing and plan to get done this spring and summer…
This past weekend we had the opportunity to get over and spend a couple of days. The weekends are getting filled quicker and quicker as my daughter gets older. We’d been able to go over just about every other weekend but once the weather got bad we cut back to about once a month. It’s nice to just go and relax but there are so many things that need to be done that I always feel guilty just kicking back.
The winter months have seen slow progress as far as the projects. Last Fall we added the second shipping container. Over the winter I made several trips with the truck and trailer to move alot of business related files to be stored. Unfortunately the business related materials have all but filled the thing and so I’m still limited to the first container for workshop and preps related activities. The 40 foot by 8 foot containers look big and do hold a lot but fill up quickly so do be deceived in their holding capacity.
We have been getting prepared to install a woodstove and have nearly all the needed parts to get the install complete. The stove and hearth are at the BOL waiting and I mainly need to decide if I will do the labor or hire it out to a professional to save the $500… What to do, what to do? I’ll probably do the work myself as fund-age is hard to come by right now.
We did make it through the winter without any issues coming up with the old roof still on the place. This is good news but I don’t really want to push my luck so I’ll go ahead and get the roofing material purchased and have it waiting for the right weekend to get started. I know I can do this myself and kind of look forward to the job – call me crazy… I had jokingly asked for volunteers to help with the labor and still have only received the offer of guard duty from Ranger. Thanks again Ranger but I’m hoping to get the job done before the world ends and your skills will be a required element of most outside activities.
It appears that the 8 fruit trees that we put in last spring have made it through their first year. I plan to add at least another 12 in the next month or so. Yes, I know that some of the readers here have literally 100’s of fruit and nut trees but I’m just glad to get these. I’ll try to add more of everything as the time and money allow. I have the trees ringed in wire fencing, secured to t-posts but another project for this summer is to get a 6 foot high deer fence all the way around the tree area. Yes, I also am aware that many deer can jump a 6 foot fence, I’m going to do my best to discourage them and then add another layer of defence if they become to much of a nuisance.
All of the trees need to be watered over the hot months and I have a small irrigation system in now but will be adding to this at the end of April. My brother is a landscape and irrigation guy by trade, so I’ll get him to bring his equipment up. With a little horse trading between bro’s, he’ll get me all squared away and hopefully expand the system to be ready to put in a garden area this year too! We’ll see how that weekend goes, the trees will be the priority but an easily watered garden would be a nice addition.
So, what does this all add up to… A new roof, woodstove installation, plant more fruit trees, erect a deer fence and expand the irrigation… Not enough? How about we install railings on the decks and stairs to the front one. The county is after me to get my “Project” through the final inspection process. We’re almost done with their punch list but just need to wrap the thing up and be done with them once and for all.
Since all of these jobs will need to be completed on weekends, this will be more than enough to keep me busy. We’ll talk again at the end of the summer and see how much we actually are able to get done!
I mentioned that I had spoken to some of the neighbors and got brought up to speed on the latest. Thankfully there wasn’t to much for them to report… The most exciting story I got was in regards to a cougar that was spotted crossing my land. I can’t remember if I mentioned this in another post as I got the first part of this story a few weeks back from the neighbor on one side of me. It seems that he, the first neighbor, had been out doing what he does best… helping other neighbors with their chores. See in this neck of the country, the neighbors are great! Anyway, he was going down the road between his place and mine, when a cougar comes running out in front of him. He was riding his 4×4 quad at the time and the cougar must have been spooked when he came down the road? The cat stops and stares at him but runs off as soon as he yelled at it. Since he has animals and small dogs, grandchildren, etc. he felt that if he could find it that he would remove it from the area… wink, wink! So anyhow, he goes for a rifle and then spends a half hour looking for it but eventually gives up and just wanted to warn me that he had confirmed what we all had suspected… Several cows and other animals had been killed in the area over the last couple years.
Well, this trip I get another recounting of the activities of the same afternoon the first neighbor had told me about. This time it’s from the neighbors on the other side of me, who interestingly enough, don’t get along very good with the first neighbor? I stopped in to buy some of their free range eggs that they sell as a way to off set the small amount of cost that the birds do incur them. They proceeded to tell me about this wonderful encounter with a cougar that they had… bing, bing, bing – the sirens are going off in my head at this point! When did you see this cougar I asked? Oh, it has been a few weeks… Alright, where did you see it? Oh, it came right up to our back door and meowed at us to let it in, how cool is that… Well, I would have liked to see that myself, I have yet to see a cougar in the wild! They said that the cat stuck around for a while and then they decided to see what it was going to do if they did open the door… Thankfully, it did run off when the man went out side. They were completely thrilled to have the cat in the neighborhood, even as owners of a large flock of chickens? I relayed the story the other neighbor had told me and as it turns out they had heard someone riding around on a 4-wheeler at that same time??? I told them that the cat was going to end up getting shot and being the good hippies they are, they were appalled. I did my best to explain that if the thing didn’t fear humans than it was only a matter of time before someone was going to get hurt. Since my daughter likes to go and sit on her favorite stump to work on her homework when we’re there, I kind of like the idea of it going away…
Who knows, maybe the first neighbor is over reacting but I guess I’d rather error on the side of caution myself. Oh well, that was the news for this trip. Spring has begun but the ground is still freezing over night a lot of the time. This gives me a bit more time to get the area I want to plant the trees in ready but the season promises to be a whirlwind of activities. I’ll be able to start taking more pictures and hope to have more interesting posts again about what’s getting marked off the list. That’s all for today, see ya tomorrow!
Prepper
Here’s a another round of interesting articles. So much stuff going on and I’m still waiting for someone to write me with good news… Anyone?
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This is an interesting and encouraging look at the current situation we find ourselves in…
School’s closing in Kansas City, at least this makes more sense than losing police and firefighter positions!
More mainstream prepper coverage in the media!
This one is worth a read and don’t let the title fool you…
It’s official, the social security administration is broke, bankrupt or underwater… They will be paying out billions of dollars more than they take in, soon! As if we didn’t see this coming?
US credit rating is smoke and mirrors – It appears that there is some speculation that the government is spending money irresponsibly? Say it ain’t so!
Looters in Chile, apparently people are people where ever you go and the opportunity to get something for nothing is to much for most… Will the US look any different, when the chit hits the fan?
Interesting read about our movement… Preppers that is…
More interesting facts about the world of hurt that is our economy!
This is truly beginning to sound like a theme in the news. I am very concerned about the Real Estate markets future. It appears that there isn’t going to be a bottom anytime soon and the more folks do just walk away, the worse this is going to get? An interesting read no matter how you look at it!
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Wednesday – March 31st
Posted by: Prepper | Comments (0)Hello everyone, just wanted you to know I’m still out here but have an increasingly busy week. I have a couple of posts that are almost ready to go up, so check back soon. I expect to be behind these next couple of weeks as I have some additional responsibilities right now and hope to be back to a somewhat normal schedule by mid month! Hang in there and if anyone has a Guest Article you’ve been working on… hint hint!
Prepper