” Some good advice here. “
Specifically —
” Incidentally, being “macho” (or even armed to the teeth) does you absolutely no good in such a situation; the only means of avoiding that problem is not being there if it happens. “
Certainly more realistic than the “Horatius at the Bridge” fantasies of some of our number...
If you are prepared, you don’t need to go out to the store.
Wisconsin, while nearly ready to approve concealed carry, already has open carry. Wearing a holster while working around your own land is not any sort of inconvenience, just in case someone is thinking about invading a rural homestead.
For those who need to fill in their supplies, many survival sites have canned meat sales this month. Campingsurvival.com is one of these. If you sign up for emails, you will also get discounts each month. These suppliers rotate their sales, so anything you miss will come around again. Just don’t wait too long, especially for the 10-year shelf life items. It is easy to find canned chicken, turkey, tuna and salmon at the big box discounters, but bacon,beef, pork and hamburger are not easy to find in decent sizes with decent shelf life, although I have read that some Walmarts carry 27-oz cans of beef. Ours doesn’t. We are financially stretched, at the moment, so I am simply buying a few cans as we can afford them. They add up. We add to our canned butter and cheese supplies a bit at a time, as well. The price per pound for meat isn’t that much more, considering that there is no waste or shrinkage and you need minimal power to heat the cooked, canned meat. A wood stove top can warm anything, as can a charcoal grill. We just picked up 40 pounds of charcoal for $16, about a $7 savings.
Also, propane cylinders and heaters are still available and affordable. Check out eBay as well as the stores for the heaters. My advice is to avoid Mr. Heater in favor of Coleman. We had to return a Mr. Heater unit, but the Coleman Blackcat with Insta Start works well. Last winter, ours warmed a 9’x18’ room in 15 minutes, with no fan used. A low wattage fan would have perhaps speeded up the warming. The cheap battery camping lanterns ($5) at Walmart are a good deal, provide a lot of light and are safe. If nothing else, this can save on electric and gas bills this winter. Yes, the propane in the cylinders costs more, at the moment, but rates are increasing everywhere, so your storm preps can have everyday utility, if necessary. We always relied on the gas generator to provide power to the propane furnaces in case of a power outage, but at today’s prices, it is more and more difficult to stockpile gasoline.
First way to avoid getting eaten is don’t be in the lion’s den. Second way is to not act like food.
Ultimatly, if 1 or 2 fails, you need to hunt the lion.