Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[GloryofGreece]

I wish I had 1/3rd this guy's skill set. He could live without modern amenities and technologies . He's probably healthier and happier than me by a mile. He's also a decade or more older but doesn't show but the grey hair . And he was sometype of finance guy to boot. It's like a business admin man I know in his 60s that has all the boating captain licenses one could have as a civilian . Somehow he's got the knowledge to commandeer any sail boat or merchant vessel basically . Pretty cool. I read books and articles online bro.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LqWHKjCiG ... dex=4&t=0s

[SuburbanFarmer]

This new virus from China looks interesting. Only 40 ‘official’ deaths, it they’ve locked down an entire province over it. Videos of bodies piling up, and the CDC is on full alert.

Apparently, it originated in a brand new ‘pathogen research facility’ in Wuhan. There seems to be more here than meets the eye.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/56- ... a-malaysia

[Montegriffo]

This new virus from China looks interesting. Only 40 ‘official’ deaths, it they’ve locked down an entire province over it. Videos of bodies piling up, and the CDC is on full alert.

Apparently, it originated in a brand new ‘pathogen research facility’ in Wuhan. There seems to be more here than meets the eye.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/56- ... a-malaysia

Gaia is fighting back.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Getting our canned food stock up to snuff this weekend.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/how ... rus-deaths

[heydaralon]

Getting our canned food stock up to snuff this weekend.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/how ... rus-deaths

You don't need to put snuff in a can, it already comes in a can like that. So does dip fyi.

[C-Mag]

At the homestead we've been preparing to be quarantined due to Bat Aids.

Inventory of beans, bullets and bandages. Organizing everything, and making a plan if NBC ops if necessary.

Chickens incoming in the next few weeks, prepping a coop and run.

[Speaker to Animals]

I still need to fill my freezer with some meat. I want to get extra paper towels and toilet paper. Probably more lysol, soap, and hand sanitizer.

Not self-reliant by any means, but I have a solid amount of time I can ride it out as long as I don't lose power and water.

I had been slowly building that emergency food supply over the course of five years, so I do have that going for me, and then about three months worth of dry goods I bought this month. Just need meat and the pray they keep the power on.

I was watching local videos coming out of Wuhan's lock down, and it occurred to me that we need to have entertainment squared away. Plenty of batteries for game controllers, etc. Those people are losing their minds in boredom. Probably a vital prep here is to have some projects set aside to work on so that you come out of lock down stronger than you went in rather than just surviving, which is the difference between antifragility and robustness, in the Taleb sense.

In hindsight, one antifragile investment strategy would have been to assume a pandemic would someday be very possible and to stake out positions in all the little biotech firms that develop vaccines for these things. Also invest in any manufacturing that produces necessary medical supplies in regions where most of those supplies are outsourced now. It's not a position that you take to make money each year, but one that will pay off big if the event you planned for occurs. Going forward, it might behoove folks to think about what other fat tail risks we could encounter to do something similar.

[C-Mag]

I hate being tagged a prepper because I consider preppers to be a bad mix of old school survivalism and modern consumerism. But in modern nomenclature I am a prepper.

Though, I never had a choice. Parents grew up kids of the Great Depression Dad in '30, Mom in '36. Wifes descended from Mormons, and grew up in rural agville. All groups that save, store and fix stuff.

I've shared my self reliance experiences with you folks. So, I'll skip that and take a current pulse of my situation and adjustments I've made for Bat Aids...………… just in case.

A. Threat
- Global pandemic - Respiratory Illness
1. Historically they happen, and they always seem to surprise the Experts
- Don't rely on Experts
2. Weeks of watching China take increasingly totalitarian steps to control the outbreak, and unable to stop the spread tells me the threat is real.


B. Self Assessment
1. Beans - Check
2. Bullets - Check
3. Bandages - nope. Not prepared for a pandemic at all, well prepared for trauma injuries and general illness...………. better get to work.

C. Respiratory Illness Preps
1. PPE - Mask, clothing, gloves
- had everything for me, need more for the family and extended family
--N95 or better masks, if you don't have them you are too late(learn to improvise). I had a box for doing work around home, got more to cover family. I also have 3 replaceable filter masks that I've gotten from work over the years.
-- I had 1 Tyvek suit left, bought 3 more, you can still find them, but don't panic if you can't. Go to Walmart and get the cheap rain coat and pants instead.
2. Sanitation Supplies - Personal and hard surfaces, generally I was pretty good on this stuff, beefed up the supply.
- General cleaners, Bleach, cleaning vinegar, rubbing alcohol, detergents
-- Non-Traditional cleaners H2O2, Colloidal Silver
-- Toilet paper, paper towels, kleenex, paper plates, feminine hygeine products if needed
3. Meds - Had some gaps here
- Wife and I inventoried everything, used a pigeon hole shelf with drawers to organize it all and labeled it by use.
-- Wife never throws out good meds. Old prescriptions include great things from opioid pain killers to high power antibiotics.
-- Not a Doctor, plan A is to have a doctor tell us what to take if necessary. Plan B, got "Where there's No Doctor" ordered. Latest edition is supposed to have use of modern drugs section in it.
-- I have seasonal hayfever, stocked up on meds, plus antihistemens are good for respiratory problems
-- loaded up on anti-diarehhal, nasea, etc. Gotta manage the sypmtoms even if you can't cure the disease.
4. What if planning
- If our area goes into lock down, how do we operate.
- Planned decon room for entering the house, and a sick room.

Other
Going to up our available supply of cash at home. There have been bank runs in China already.
Beefed up our supply of staples, we have a pretty deep larder right now and I want to be able to help out extended family if necessary. Worst case scenario is we have really small grocery bills for the next year or two.
Wife demanded Chickens - coop in the works, chickens coming soon.
Garden - need a complete inventory of seeds. Still need to improve the soil, a work in progress.
Canning - plenty of capability of pint and half pint jars, need to get stocked on quart jars for the garden
Meat - split a beef with my brother in December, made 125 lbs of sausage in December. So we are solid there.
Soft Weakness - Commo, need to improve 1st responder scanning ability, get my handheld hams in practice,
Glaring weakness - No generator for the well, if needed.

Summary
Most everything I bought, I'm going to use regardless over the coming months and years. It will not go to waste. I see it as an investment and insurance.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Man, I wish I had the chickens as an option.

Food:
2 fridges and 1 freezer full.
Basement has a tote of canned goods per family member.
Lots of pickles/peppers canned up.
Seeds already stocked and ready to go.
1/4 acre ready to grow.

Water:
Pitcher and extra filters.
If the water shuts off, Lake Erie.
Water purification tablets.

Meds:
All the standard stuff for injured kids.
Extra NyQuil etc.
extra TP and tissues.
Dust masks.

Money:
Precious metals
Savings for a few months out of work.
Profession allows work from home.

Glaring weakness:
No livestock.
No heavy PPE.
Dependent on power supply.

[C-Mag]

Nicely done.

Have you considered Quail ?
I think you can raise them on a tiny footprint.