Off the grid

    I wanted to start this thread for like-minded individuals to share ideas about self-reliance, "prepping", etc.


    My wife just sent me a copy of "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks, as an inside ongoing joke between the two of us. As silly as it may seem, it actually had some pretty good ideas and suggestions for surviving the chaos that may come from long term social unrest or civil disobedience. Of course while most of the ideas are based on a fictitious zombie attack, the ideas are useful in a variety of situations such as natural disasters, or at least getting by after the disaster has occurred.


    Being a member of the Boy Scouts from ages 8-16, the motto of "Be Prepared" has always stuck with me. I make it a point in our household to get the kids away from the TVs and X-Boxes to get them out in the 500 acres of woods behind out house to learn essential skills that could save their lives should the situation arise. Living where I do, it is very important to at least have the skills to provide basic food, water and shelter in the aftermath of hurricanes and tornados, where power could be out for weeks after a major event, our house destroyed by a tornado, or supermarkets running out of food and daily household items.


    Our number one project at this time has been learning how to successfully grow food in our yard. After a couple of seasons, we have a good idea of what grows well and what doesn't. Aside from time being well spent together as a family, we have also been able to considerably lower our monthly grocery costs. That combined with the plentiful fish from the GOM and the game literally in our backyard, has given new perspective to our kids on where food really comes from and how hard it would be to acquire if the grocery stores were to suddenly shut down from lack of inventory in a disasterous event.


    Please keep the ideas coming:toast:

    Quote from Dan

    Wait a minute, wife? Congratulations then :) I'll delete this post later.


    Thanks Dan.


    Yes, we've been seeing each other for over 4 years. We had planned the wedding for March of this year, but it just got to be too much, so we got married at our house last November when I went home for the Thanksgiving holiday. We kept it small and just invited the family and closest friends. In hindsight, we both agree that's how weddings should be:) She's a simple country girl and I wouldn't have it any other way:thumbup:

    John you definetely are my kind of guy. I grow my own stuff around here, every I have a Fig tree, a papaya, tomato plants, chiles and all kind of things. That is a wise and enviromental friendly mind set.


    I´m always prepared. Regards

    I'm a Speardiver, not a freediver

    We've had a pretty good harvest of various legumes, squashes, green beans, tomatoes and a "bumper" crop of Serrano chiles this year! Unfortunately, I am not at home to enjoy them. We also have several fruit trees including lemon, lime, peach and nectarine that are already producing even though they were only planted this year.


    Dan, now that I have been thinking on this for a bit, could you please move this to the "members only" section?

    My dream is to set up an aquaponics rig. Tilapia, maybe some macrobrachium shrimp and use that water for plant production. Probably in some type of greenhouse to keep bugs off.
    It's kind of what I do now, minus the plants but we remove nitrogen waste using biofliters. The roots of the plants will do the same.


    But regarding total chaos and food production.....down here, maybe. We have a light population. But if you have food and people need it, your main focus will be on security....like, lots of guns or people will be worse than birds or insects in cleaning out your crop. That's already a problem on the shrimp farm and it's "good times" for most people.

    Hank, I saw an episode of Doomsday Preppers where two guys had those rigs with Tilapia. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in regard to self-reliance. I've thought about doing something similar and perhaps one day I will. My main objective at this time is doing without the convenience of electricity.

    Quote from John Hanson

    Hank, I saw an episode of Doomsday Preppers where two guys had those rigs with Tilapia. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in regard to self-reliance. I've thought about doing something similar and perhaps one day I will. My main objective at this time is doing without the convenience of electricity.


    That's a bit more of a challenge for sure. But if you're planning on doing it without power, which I assume is what you think it would be like in bad times, how would you get water? Besides rain?


    I know a guy here back in the "valley" who has a small hydro generator. That would be awesome. He has to run fans and other units to keep some load on it. That would be the ideal setup. If you didn't want to produce power, you could set up a small dam and have flowing water for your fish or plants instead of recirculating it.
    Or, solar power. I know a guy here who runs a small AC and refrigerator on some panels.

    Edited 2 times, last by hank ().

    Nice harvest , high grade crops especially for non industrial farming . I tried growing tomatoes , bananas etc but as i am sure Dan can attest to rotts can be destructive dogs , one once uprooted a whole banana tree and dragged it on top the back step .

    Be safe ... Happy hunting .

    Tufal, after learning things the hard way last season, we put a lot of effort into educating ourselves on the subject. A big help was the local farmers. I work with a guy that does commercial farming and he gave me a lot of tips in regard to soil preparation. Last season we just tilled the soil and threw some seeds in the ground. While we were able to get a few things, most of it died or simply didn't grow.


    We spent a lot of time researching what the most productive crops for our area are based on humidity, temperature, soil content, etc. We then put a lot of effort into only buying non-GMO heirloom seeds. We got a soil testing kit for a couple bucks at our local walmart and added the necessary minerals to the soil as required. Our soil preparation this year took over three months. It was well worth the time. Our harvest totals for this season have already exceeded last seasons by 300% and we're just over half-way through the season. We will get crops well into October.


    Hank, as far as the electricity goes, I'm not saying that we wouldn't consider complex projects that require it. I'm saying that at this point we're focusing our efforts on emergency situations. I will be looking into alternative power sources in the near future. I'm interested in wind and solar systems for use at our home. Fortunately, I am an industrial electrician by trade, so I have a bit of knowledge and experience with it;)


    As far as water goes we have plenty of it. I am smack in the middle of two major rivers and a number of lesser creeks. Ground water is fairly shallow and I could easily install a hand-pumped well in my yard in a matter of days. Rain is abundant and we have catch systems that we use for our garden simply because the city water has so many chemicals in it that it kills our crops. Scary thought that same water comes out of the faucet. We don't drink it .

    Great thread ... We are adding a lot of stuff since I got home with plans to add more. We have gardens all over the place and we'll add more to include a greenhouse. Free range rabbits and ducks for eggs. And a well in the near future.


    Busy,busy,busy

    Quote from hank

    That's unbelievable. The tap water kills the crop? Chlorine?


    Yep. Some days it's so bad you can smell it coming out of the tap. Every time there is an interruption in water service, it gets shut down and then they treat the water.We get a boil water notice every 6-8 weeks or so. I am going to set up some water distillation units when I get home and look into putting a filtration system on the tap water. We live in too rural of an area for home delivery of water to economically feasible.

    Sounds like you might do better with the ground water and a filtration system.


    Chlorine can be a good thing as long as you neutralize it before use. Sodum Thiosulfate or Sodium metabisulfite work every well. And you only add 0.5 to 1 ppm chlorine. Very important with shrimp because over dose will kill the babies.
    We chlorinate all our seawater for the shrimp hatchery. The good thing about it is that it oxydizes some of the metals, (iron) and organics, creating a flock that a standard sand type swimming pool filter can remove. You can then "polish" the water by going through bag type filters that go down to 0.5 microns. Bacteria size.
    I've done a lot of water filtering. PM me and maybe I can help you on that. Suppliers etc.


    Or, you could donate a tank to growing aquatic plants that will absorb the heavy metals and become toxic themselves. You have to "mow the lawn" and remove them as they grow or they will die, break down and release all that they absorbed. I did this in a hatchery in the Philippines. We called the tank a BARB which stood for Big Ass River Bed. The principle being that a river purifies the water by passing it through algae and organisms that absorb the impurities. Before I did that all the shrimp died at day 4. The algae that was grown in the direct water actually became toxic
    That would be a first step, then chlorinate and filter.


    But oops....I forget you want to do this without power.

    Not necessarily without power Hank...again, it's just where my focus is at the moment.


    I am all for ideas on anything that helps eliminate dependency on city based infrastructure. Obviously if I can eventually produce my own power, then any electrical convenience item is certainly appreciated.


    All information is welcome in this thread from surviving doomsday scenarios to simply saving a few bucks on your electric bill by generating ones own power.


    I like to think of it this way. If all commerce were to suddenly shut down, how and what would you do to to make your life more comfortable and or convenient? Topics I am interested in discussing


    Hunting/Gathering
    Water production
    disaster preparedness
    DIY
    security/home defense
    wilderness survival
    gardening
    home agriculture/livestock (non commercial)
    etc.

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