12 Bad Strategies That Will Get Preppers Killed

The Organic Prepper ^ | 4/11/15 | Daisy Luther

[Kartographer]

Bad Strategy #1: “I’ll just hunt and live off the land.”
Bad Strategy #2: “I’ll go into the woods and live there.”
Bad Strategy #3: “I’ll bug out on foot for 73 miles through the mountains, even though I don’t regularly exercise.”
Bad Strategy #4: “I don’t need a group. I’m going to go it alone.”
Bad Strategy #5: “I don’t need to store food, I’ll just take everyone else’s because I’m a bad-ass.”
Bad Strategy #5: “I don’t need to store food, I’ll just take everyone else’s because I’m a bad-ass.”
Bad Strategy #7: “I don’t store food. I store seeds.”
Bad Strategy #8: “I’ll just run a generator and continue on like nothing ever happened.”
Bad Strategy #9: “I’ll just use my fireplace for cooking and heating.”
Bad Strategy #10: “I’m going to hunker down in the city and scavenge what I need.”
Bad Strategy #11: “I’ve got my supplies, and now I don’t need to think about gloom and doom.”
Bad Strategy #12: We’ll set up a perimeter and shoot anyone who breaches it.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Well it sounds like you are ready for any situation. :-)

[Georgia Girl 2]

Goats love Kudzu also.

[Iron Munro]

Kart -

This turned out to be another good thread.

Thanks for rooting out these articles and posting them.

A lot of good ideas and solid information get shared in these discussions.

[ansel12]

I think that people are being naive about what would happen to agriculture and ranching in an event like we seem to be talking about here.

With no transportation for the farmers and consumers either one, what would happen?

Modern agriculture is more similar to industrial production that depends on electricity, water from the government, pesticides and on time delivery of seeds and materials, gasoline powered equipment, technology, canning plants, and the staples moving vast distances to markets.

I don’t see our wheat and sugar, and eggs, and rice, and cooking oil merely shifting from Safeway store shelves, to being sold in the Safeway parking lot in a Farmer’s market.

[archy]

With no transportation for the farmers and consumers either one, what would happen?

The farmers will have to deal with rural raiders and snipers while at work and with ambushes when/if attempting to transport their produce.

The prospective consumers get ambushed or roadblocked by the desperate on their way to purchase, and by the wily on return with the goods.

Unless, of course, they have armed and skilled escorts. And that drives prices up, one way or another.

[archy]

Canned olive oil will last 2-3 years, and contains vitamins E and K.

That's part of the answer, for me. And coconut oil is the other side of the coin.

[archy]

Goats love Kudzu also.

Maresey doats and doesey doats, and little kids eat kudzu?

[familyop]

"You certainly have a lot of romantic ideas about what is required.

I'll rely on my 2 years of experience, living without running water and without electricity, on the side of a mountain from summer through winter.

Experience beats theorizing any day."

Good point! That would be nice and easy at a low elevation in New Mexico for only two years. Alright, preppies, "bug out" on foot to the New Mexico or Texas hills, 'cause it's much safer than high elevations in mountains far to the north of there.

But be sure that you can carry at least six gallons of water for each person for every twenty miles that you hike out of the city. And remember that the roads will be blocked by stalled vehicles and roadblocks in the event of an EMP disaster. You might reconsider the draft animals and wagon (as used in the 1800s).

Thanks for the good point. NM and TX would be much safer destinations for TEOTWAWKI than say, higher altitudes in CO or WY. Winter can get pretty ugly for folks roughing it with temps in the minus-30s and 110 mph wind gusts (more than two years' experience).

Summer can be difficult, too, with some 40-mile or more stretches between towns, frequent wildfires and smoke, no road shoulders, high passes, surface water bad for drinking, property owners more aggressive against trespassers, more predators, etc. And there have already been plans and training to clear public land areas to prevent conflicts, lacks of resources, hypothermia, heat exhaustion, sanitation problems resulting from the former, etc.

And remember the local attitude and bumper sticker in CO, "Gaper, Go Home!"

[JRandomFreeper]

You make a lot of assumptions about "bugging out" that don't hold water for everybody.

And yes, 7,200 feet is plenty high enough for me. -18F was the coldest I saw there.

You set up rules and assumptions that may or may not be valid, and expect people to take your word as gospel.

It don't work that way.

/johnny

[familyop]

Honestly, disaster or no disaster, I’d rather be in a more fertile and temperate place in the Midwest. Gardening and livestock are much easier in such places, and heating costs much less.

Electricity is easy, though, with a homebuilt PV solar system and generator for tools that require more current (experience). The PV solar system can be protected from pulses. Good batteries in a properly sized system can last ten years or more. A generator can run on wood-gas.

There’s also an ongoing, international development project for an open source design (free design license) rotary drill rig for deep water wells (and a tractor and many other tools for mining, manufacturing, etc.).

[central_va]

Electricity is easy,

Producing electricity 7/24/365 quietly and efficiently is one of the hardest things to do that there is, especially on a SMALL scale.

[familyop]

I’ve been doing it for several years.

[maine-iac7]

Very good!................you might also want to look into "oven canning" and making your own hand/dish and laundry soap. (You can store just 3ingredients,taking up about as much room as two regular boxes of Tide that will make up to a year's worth of laundry soap. also, have you practiced saving your own seeds? And know how to knit? know how to make "quick" hats,mittens.etc from old wool sweaters? know how to salt down pork and beef for storage, etc etc?).................yes,I make cheese too. I make cottage,ricotta and farmer's cheese....and save the whey which I mix with V-8 to drink. MUCH better and cheaper than commercial whey powder. I,m a great grandmother. This has given me a boost in strength...able to do stairs and get up out of chairs without struggle...........also, do you know which "wild" plants are edible in your area?(I am now watching anxiously for the fiddle heads - and then dandelios to come up 😄

[familyop]

I had quite a few years of real training (both military and civilian) for what so many people speak and write fantasies about and can say that it’s not what it’s cracked up to be in the minds of civilians, former real-echelon military folks and administrators.

I’ve seen the sad consequences of too many vanities from those who try to act out fantasies. Also learned a few trades and continue to do some agricultural work for neighbors. I live here. There are no “assumptions” here.

“Bugging out” is not a good plan for anyone whose chances against a disaster are better at home or already on a self-sufficient place of their own. There’s no sense in people trying go out and get themselves and their families into trouble unnecessarily.

[familyop]

I’ll send some links to good information on getting a small, low-cost, mobile system built, if you’re interested in doing so. I don’t sell or otherwise get any income from systems or components, by the way. Electrical safety is important, even for PV solar systems (some study, care and/or experience required). If you have a system other than a mobile one in mind, adherence to the National Electrical Code will probably be required (much study or experience).

[JRandomFreeper]

There are a LOT of assumptions, including bugging out.

Every proclamation from on high comes loaded with assumptions.

You just have to figure out what is assumed.

/johnny

[familyop]

...not what it’s cracked up to be in the minds of civilians, former rear-echelon military folks and administrators.

Little correction there.

[familyop]

"Every proclamation from on high comes loaded with assumptions."

Yes, it does. And the preppy proclamations sending people into unnecessary danger are coming from those who were REMFs, officers, office employees, one-trick tradesmen and administrators on high. They also project and disrespect men who have the experiences.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I’m getting ready to plant pumpkin and sunflower seeds that I harvested from my own stuff last year.

[maine-iac7]

You’re doing it rught!

Quiet, efficient, under the radar.

“And the meek shall inherit”

I put the emphasis on ‘Self Sufficiency” - rather than prepping. My feeling is that, even if we didn’t have to worry about a flare or an EMP or anything else, we should strive to be as self-sufficient as possible - It can get us throu’ job loss, medical emergencies, - We should be as little dependent on outside sources as possible.

I grew up that way - when most people were self-sufficient, no electricity, etc - we were never hungry, never cold, had a nice farm that my great grandfather built in 1848.

We owned our lives.