Prepping

[heavyhorse]

Farming in rough country most of my life, "prepping" is just normal life.  We are used to losing electricity fairly often, sometimes for a week at a time, for often amazingly stupid reasons (ex: someone stealing copper from the electric substation, part of his scalp found burned to the bus, takes a week to repair burned-out transformer.)  I have an absurdly large propane tank and an absurdly small 96% furnace, smallest you can buy, gets used maybe 50 hours a year.  Primary heating is wood.  House is super-insulated.  Whole-house air cond is 5 amps/110v.  Have a 9Kw generator with a 3-way carburetor (gas, propane, nat.gas) and the old B&S 3Kw permanent-magnet flywheel generator for backup.  (Propane is stable, will last forever; "gas" isn't gasoline anymore, it's a "blend" of bunker fuel, isobutane, benzine, paraffin, ethanol, basically whatever is cheapest on the commodity market, and is stable for about 30 days before the low-boiling components vaporize off and it turns into a yellow oily mess.)  Water is from a 400 foot well with bulk storage.  There's the biggest Sears freezer in the house, and a bigger backup freezer in the shop, and 2 refrigerators (daily user and long term storage).  And of course, it's a given, livestock are largely produced for food.  I will basically last only as long as my pills do, so I keep 90 days+ of meds (refill another 90 days when I get down to 90 days).  I am far enough off the beaten path to mostly avoid Ramsey's "zombies"; propane is a lot harder to "siphon" than a bulk tank of gas or diesel and besides it is in the ram lot, in the brush behind the electric fence; the propane guy uses a 100 ft hose to fill it.  And for those who don't know, I'm an ardent fan of Giant breed dogs (for whom I keep a 60 day supply of dog food).  One of them has the local reputation of “putting (doorknob rattlers) back in the truck”.  I don't have enough guns to "pay for a farm" but have at least 1 of most types, and shoot slow, one bullet--one hit most of the time, and it's a nice clear view for about a quarter mile down the valley.  And to the extent that it matters, only one vehicle is computer-operated, the rest are pretty much EMP-proof.