Interesting Question to Ponder.

That's the ultimate aim, isn't it ? Totally self sufficient and not relying on any outside help.

But, how long would you need to last for ?

A Christians reply would be different from a secular person, as after the falling away, we only have to survive 3 1/2 years till Jesus comes again, and that's doable using both stockpiled reserves and freshly grown foods.

I doubt many could survive indefinitely at all. Eventually, things will wear out, tools and so on, and then its gardening with sticks and stones - not easy. Then there is the question of seeds and other food growing inputs. Reusing last years seeds for this year would work for a while, but inbreeding would start to be an issue after a few years, leading to reduced harvests and potential starvation. Ditto for animals, and if there is not much wild game around, its bad news. Perhaps if you suddenly were surrounded by the sea, fishing may be a option.


Good question to ponder on as we go about our work.






The most important rule in a gunfight is: Always win / cheat if necessary."

That's one reason i invited my sister and her kids to move here, add to us and our 5 kids, mother in law etc, and we do have a small community.

Unfortunately, going it alone isn't survival, you cant be awake 24/7 to keep watch, even with movement triggered technology.

And I do feel for you Rosebud and others in the same situation.






If you think wellness is expensive, try illness

With zero input at all I think my family would last probably five days too. But rosebud's comment about water made me think that we'd be in struggle town pretty quickly. We're fairly reliant on town water. I have a Berkey water filter that we use daily because our local water is horrifically hard, so we could rely on water from 'unclean' sources that we'd boil and filter. But we're assuming no input whatsoever which means no rain, no access to dirty water via rivers/ponds/streams etc... We have none on hand.

That's a sobering thought. Notes to self. Replace water storage and fill storage tank this weekend.

Then in regard to food we have enough to keep us going with zero input whatsoever for approximately a month to six weeks, if we rationed effectively. That's largely thanks to our growing freeze dried storage. I'm trying to keep a wide variety of nutritious fruits and vegetables that might be in short supply if SHTF so that we can keep our growing kids on track with their nutrient intake. Calories are very important of course, but a lack of essential micronutrients can have lifelong impacts if there's a deficiency in youth and that's something that concerns me greatly. So despite their lack of enthusiasm on the matter I have been stockpiling fresh veg like there's no tomorrow.

When it comes to power and cooking options we do have solar now however it of course shuts off if we have a power outage from the grid. Go figure. We don't have batteries and despite my desire to have them it's really not cost effective when we're planning to sell this house in a couple of years. I have a battery box ready to install a battery in, and solar panels to use with it. But I haven't gotten around to doing that yet. Note to self, get that squared away too! I also need to get a replacement gas bottle as we've not replaced the old one since we moved. We have some butane canisters but of course that wouldn't keep us going for long.

Well if nothing else that's given me a to-do list for the weekend.

In my answer, I assumed that the sun would still shine and rain would still fall on my little island.

Not that difficult to rapidly build a water catchment system with a few tarps and type of water container or divert rain water to the bathtub. 

There are a lot on online calculators for food storage and how much you need per day etc...

To me the limiting factor is medical and calories.  Baring a medical disaster +12 months.  After that the neighborhood will be empty and there will be plenty of resources.  

That's a fair assumption where you are I thinkn. Where I'm at, we've had rain once since we moved here so I just assumed no input for that because we just haven't had any of any real significance for the season. That'll change in the coming months of course but your comment about water really got me thinking that it's definitely a large gap in our supplies.

We are probably ok for many months if we were suddenly locked in. For food without any garden input we probably have 12 months for 10, but it would be pretty boring without the garden spicing things up

Issues are people taking what we have and water.

We have no good flowing water on the property - we have one area which, through two sustained dry spells, has remained damp - so realistically, we could probably dig a working well.

Our predictions for climate change say similar rainfall but more dry spells, so we focused on water storage and probably have a crazy amount.

For the other core areas, we are mostly sorted. Medically I could run a field hospital - but my challenge there is when to stop......

But it is little things that would break us - we have a single battery-powered chainsaw, and we only have one chimney cleaning brush - so we currently are wrestling with the degree of redundancy we need to have.
I keep getting stuck with what I think are good quality gear based on recommendations or brands, and they turn out to be shit. We have a solid well, performing, off-grid solar system, but if the inverter charger breaks, we are in big trouble - we cannot afford a spare just in case.

I bought a Ronix socket set and some spanners based on recommendations from a couple of mechanics, and it has performed badly.
Also, have some Stanley items that were recommended, and I have had mixed success with them.
The starting point is I am a shit handyman, and I hope I can still make ends meet by practising medicine - so I don't know what is real and what is 'a poor workman blaming his tools'