In an Ubi Libertas Blog post a few weeks ago, I discussed the subject of water — specifically, securing water during a grid-down situation. I also made clear that we — all of us, not just Deb and me — have reached the point where “prepping” is much more than a game.
Shit’s gettin’ real. Dismiss that at your peril.
Along with planning for access to water, of course, is making sure to have an adequate supply of food. Deb and I are in something of an unusual position in that regard — though no strangers to readiness, we downsized our preps when we hit the road 29 months ago. Then, when we moved out of Second Chance Ranch, we distributed (to family and friends and food banks) or stored (in Ohio) most of what had taken us years to put back.
Now, here we are again in a fixed location, a permanent Home. We’re not exactly starting from scratch, because we still have the mobile stash that we carried and maintained, but we’re faced with the task of bolstering supplies to match our current circumstances.
Like most of you, we don’t have a dedicated pile of money to throw at prepping. And here on The Mountain, we’re also engaged in building out our cabin. That makes it complicated, not impossible.
We re-stock our everyday provisions about once a week, maybe slightly more often than that. These days we intentionally buy a little extra, each and every time. A couple or three cans of vegetables, soup, stew or chili. A bag of sugar, a box of salt or a jar of honey. Rice or dried beans.
It’s the sort of thing we should be doing anyway, actually. We’re not goin’ full-LDS by any means, but we’ve made great progress toward becoming more independent when the inevitable collapse happens.
You can, too. And you should.
Look, you can have an arsenal of guns and a stockpile of ammo, bug-out bags and all kinds of cool “survival” gear — but if you don’t have water and food when the SHTF, you and your family will be totally screwed (and quite dead). Try to remember that.
It’s coming, People. Be ready.
We sold many of our firearms at the household auction we held last July. One that I decided to hang onto might not get a lot of respect from some gun snobs, but that’s their loss — an early 1980s Taurus 66 revolver chambered in .357 Magnum.
Four-inch barrel. Satin nickel finish. Pachmayr grips.
I bought it used several years ago while working the gun counter at a Columbus-area outdoors retailer. Because it looked homely, I guess, I was able to snag it for less than $250. A thorough cleaning and a little garden-variety TLC gave me a wheelgun that’s reliable and as pretty as it needs to be.
Its smooth and predictable trigger shames lots of current-production revolvers.
Ever since Deb and I committed to building our Home on The Mountain, I’ve fancied making this Taurus my woodswalking sidearm. Today, finally, I did just that, loading it with Hornady Custom 158-grain JHPs (soon to be bumped in favor of Federal 158-grain soft points) and slipping it into a cheap-but-serviceable leather holster sourced through eBay.
There’s something about a revolver that feels just right up here. I can’t explain it — but if you understand, I probably don’t have to.
It’s time to put out the deer corn. We’re only a couple of days behind when we did it last year, but still later than we wanted to get it done. Deb and I took the Ranger up the summit trail this morning, stopped in front of our “Mountain Two” trailcam and commenced scattering.
I took a different approach this year — I put down more, scattered it thinner and covered a wider area. It shouldn’t take too long for our resident whitetails to find it and let us know how we did.
It felt great to be up there again, by the way, deeper in the woods than our day-to-day Life has allowed. We stayed awhile today, soaking up the tranquility, before turning back toward the homesite.
I brought the Ranger to a stop at the base of the driveway, remembering that locust I had to drop the day our cabin arrived. Using a hand saw, today I liberated a couple of six-foot lengths of the trunk, five or six inches in diameter, and tossed them into the bed.
A year from now, once it’s seasoned, that wood could heat our cabin for a night. Waste not.
This afternoon, in the driveway north of the cabin, we made a mess of things — but it was a mess with a purpose.
The process didn’t get off to the best start. Our backhoe guy got stuck on his way up The Mountain, pulling his equipment on a trailer behind an aged dump truck that lost traction on the wet and slippery road. He had to walk a quarter-mile to our place,
I drove him back to his rig in the Ranger, then sat in his truck and held my foot on the brake while he unloaded the backhoe. Once we got everything up-top (which took a couple of trips), he got to work digging a two-foot-deep trench from the cabin down to the well.
This is the same guy who did the first clearing of our homesite, the one who put in our septic system and built the base for our temporary power pole. He’s good at what he does, and he finished this dig in less than two hours.
Not bad for a 70-year-old.
The next steps will be to install the pump, build the pump house and run power. That’ll involve both our well guy and our electrician, and they’re on-board.
I’m not about to predict how soon we’ll have running water on The Mountain. What I know for sure is that we took another big step in that direction today.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB