14 replies to this topic

[CrabGrassAcres]

Many people are going to be in need of water. If you have a well with a way to easily access the water or a good spring and you have a wagon with a tank and a horse to pull it, you got a job. Just don't take any paper dollars.

[Mt_Rider]

Like the ice man of yesteryear... I've thot of ways I can transport water UP A S T E E P mountainside from pond to house if HooeyHitsFan. I'm thinking of saddlebags with closed water jugs/containers. [Yes, I have horses and saddlebags and containers.]

Still a LOT of physical labor....but, I could take that circus on the road....

MtRider [...recently hauled all for our water needs from our "next door" friends .... Oye! ]

[Gunplumber]

Like the ice man of yesteryear... I've thot of ways I can transport water UP A S T E E P mountainside from pond to house if HooeyHitsFan. I'm thinking of saddlebags with closed water jugs/containers. [Yes, I have horses and saddlebags and containers.]

Still a LOT of physical labor....but, I could take that circus on the road....

MtRider [...recently hauled all for our water needs from our "next door" friends .... Oye! ]

I'd be concerned with such a basic item as water, that someone would just shoot you and take it (if they are short-sighted). Or follow you home, shoot you and take it all.

Couldn't find the movie clip for BlackHawk Down, where The warlord Adid's men seize the Red Cross food shipment, but I think it bears watching.

The problem with "good people" is mirror imaging. Assuming that others share the same logical thought process, couched in Judeo-Christian morality, that they do. Big Mistake! Some people are just so "good" that they cannot imagine the animal behavior of someone starving - I don't even want to call the animal behavior "evil" because starvation overrides any morality as people revert to their most base, amoral, survival mode.

Edited by Gunplumber, 09 August 2012 - 05:09 PM.

[CrabGrassAcres]

http://www.fao.org/d...0e/AH810E07.htm
http://www.fdungan.com/well.htm
http://www.lifewater.../rws1/rws1m.htm

Mt_Rider, you need a pump from the pond to the top of that mountain. Maybe something in one of the links would help.

[Mt_Rider]

Like the ice man of yesteryear... I've thot of ways I can transport water UP A S T E E P mountainside from pond to house if HooeyHitsFan. I'm thinking of saddlebags with closed water jugs/containers. [Yes, I have horses and saddlebags and containers.]

Still a LOT of physical labor....but, I could take that circus on the road....

MtRider [...recently hauled all for our water needs from our "next door" friends .... Oye! ]

I'd be concerned with such a basic item as water, that someone would just shoot you and take it (if they are short-sighted). Or follow you home, shoot you and take it all.

Couldn't find the movie clip for BlackHawk Down, where The warlord Adid's men seize the Red Cross food shipment, but I think it bears watching.

The problem with "good people" is mirror imaging. Assuming that others share the same logical thought process, couched in Judeo-Christian morality, that they do. Big Mistake! Some people are just so "good" that they cannot imagine the animal behavior of someone starving - I don't even want to call the animal behavior "evil" because starvation overrides any morality as people revert to their most base, amoral, survival mode.

{sigh} You make a REALLY good point, Gunplumber. In this case, I was actually assuming that the major Hooey had been long past and some semblance of order was settling into place. Cuz I wouldn't be out lookin' for work until the 'dust has settled'.

But your point....this is something everyone on MrsS should ponder on. I've had years of experience of working in the deep inner city. Decades ago but there was a distressingly high percentage of folks already who would slit your throat for a pair of shoes. {Or have a child BREAK into your truck for a First Aid kit...hoping for drugs. -that one happened} I know it's worse now and getting unimaginable. I feel sorry for those who still live by Judeo/Christian values (whether they have the whole belief or not), who are living in areas where a greater and greater percentage of folks are predatory. And some are evil.

I'm no longer up-to-speed on these things. I've long lived in areas where break-ins are something one gasps at in shock. Where a murder or suicide is a once-in-a-decade thing. Where....in our still fairly opulent times...folks are decent to one another.

But yes, starvation and terror [for self or loved ones] changes most folks. "Decent folks" can turn into wild-eyed frantic maniacs. Sometimes it takes only high anxiety for a potential situation...not even real starvation. Some will become truly 'mentally ill'. Some will simply set aside 'decency for all' in favor of getting what they need at any cost. One of the ways I define 'evil' as one who enjoys the misfortune of others...and this panic/starvation-driven mentality doesn't usually include that insane, evil delight. Unless they go seriously 'round the bend...


Y'know, by now....this is all more theoretical than real to me though. After all the years.... I do retain more awareness than most of my VERY naive neighbors. The ones who got broken into ....again. The type that never met a stranger....until folks disappoint them. They're always shocked and then very upset. I think the emotions of the betrayals that will happen will be hard....especially for folks that so desperately WANT other folks to be always 'decent'. Even a few seconds of disbelief will be quite dangerous if you should be ACTING quickly instead of


This brings up a very good point for the arid western states. If you are fortunate enough to have water visibly on your property, you might not be 'allowed' to stay on your suddenly VERY valuable property. The stream that goes thru our 12 acres is long and can be freely accessed from whereever it crosses under the roads. I'd expect folks to come and fill water cantainers, even at my place, if electric was permanently off. But.... guess I hadn't taken the next step to think of a group forcing us [and others] off the land [or shooting us ] so THEY could live close to a water source. Historically, a LOT of blood has been shed over water out here. I've already got the new idiot neighbor blocking the stream so his pond will fill up. His doesn't have springs like ours.

I DID construct pens for goats right up next to house....less visible/accessible from the road. For security reasons. I figured folks might even come to the pond and help themselves....and I didn't figure to stop them with just DH and I. [I had a fellow with mental health issues come and bathe there once... ]


So Gunplumber, are you able to tutor some of us who live rural...on how to THINK like a predator, and set up so we MIGHT be able to survive on our lands with our resources? [....like, at the October Gathering? ]



CGA.....if I was going to spend money, time, energy [having little of the three right now], I'd just make sure I could draw water up from our well head near the cabin. But I might print out those pages you linked. Someone with more tech skill than me might make use of them some day. Our rise, in the 300' from pond/creek UP to house, is almost vertical. I don't know the math but, most manual methods of lift would be impossible by the laws of physics....I think.
But our well, totally vertical, had water at 40'. [an important tidbit of knowledge from having just replaced the well pump! ] Pulling upward on a pulley is doable. Well bucket device? [how does one keep from contaminating the well????? ]

Also....there is that thing about moving from this rented property.....


MtRider

Edited by Mt_Rider, 11 August 2012 - 01:28 PM.

[CrabGrassAcres]

There is a cheap, inertia pump you can make. It will work easily on the well with 40 ft to static level. Instructions are near the bottom of the page on the second link. That is the one I have supplies to make, hoping that if I have to use it here, the well has a high static water level. Impossible for me to find out right now, or I would. (Not my well, and will only be done with permission. Owners don't think it is necessary to check it right now.)

Praying for you a better place. Praying every day.

[CrabGrassAcres]

Mt Rider, I have been guilty of the 'this can't be happening to me' mind set. It can be deadly because you will not be moving or reacting quickly enough in some situations.

[Gunplumber]

So Gunplumber, are you able to tutor some of us who live rural...on how to THINK like a predator, and set up so we MIGHT be able to survive on our lands with our resources? ....like, at the October Gathering?

I thought about this and since I'm currently watching season II of The Colony, I'm thinking about it a little more.

I think all of us are capable of thinking like predators, but it is a dark place. I recognize a need for being able to go there, but what's that thing by Neitze (paraphrased)

stare not too long into the abyss, as the abyss is staring back at you

Best I can say off the top of my head is to envision others outside the tribe as very intelligent, very hungry, wolves (with opposing thumbs). Wolves don't think in right and wrong as they don't share our society's moral code. They think on satisfying their base impulses. Food, water, shelter, procreation. Adversaries to your tribe will think the same way. How to get what they must have with as little effort or risk as possible.

To some this will be through trade. And to the long-thinker, this is what builds societies and raises everyone. Trade is always more profitable than war. But it is also a higher level of thinking. When one is starving to death, there is no long-thinking. It is only the here and now and what happens tomorrow or a month from now isn't even on the radar.

During the Bataan Death March, soldiers drank polluted swamp water, knowing it may kill them. But that was for tomorrow. Today is drink now or die now.

[Mt_Rider]

Hmmm....nope, definitely don't want to stare too long into the abyss...

Wolf...or coyote [which might be a bit less disciplined/cohesive].... I've seen that. It's an example I can relate to. The 'zombie' storyline [aka: hungry HORDES] will be more prevalent in the city...rather than alll the way out here. But wolf and coyotes....


With opposable thumbs....tool-users.....


Sooooooo, just HOW is anyone supposed to guard livestock/selves on rural lands? When one does not have a small army....or even a tribe? Even a pack of Darlene's dogs could get picked off. [remembering opposing thumbs/tool using]


Got any good news here? [not killing the messenger.... ...I'm beggin'! ]

What's The Colony? [haven't had TV since....the late 90's]

=====

CGA....OK, I'll look up which one you're talking about. Cuz once I found out that 40' mark, it did open some possibilities. Just getting the materials together makes a lot of sense cuz if we move, supplies go with us. It's been a VERY reliable well, even in bad drought years, EVEN when others are having trouble. And the well head is hiding behind trees I am NOT trimming up. Keeping the screen from the road...and the road's waaay down the HILL and further over. Had one heck of a time getting the well pump truck back to it in June..... I had to explain to the property manager the ONLY way to do it. She wasn't happy; the owners weren't happy; and we were not happy. But my plan got the pump replaced. {Cuz I foresaw that problem a LOOONG time ago and have been staring at it long enough to have the solution.}


MtRider [thinkin' I wanna move even FURTHER into the boonies.... ....or rather, get to a community with a high ratio of really prepared folks! ]

Edited by Mt_Rider, 11 August 2012 - 10:13 PM.

[Gunplumber]

The Colony is a Discovery Channel documentary of putting a group of people in an area notionally wiped out by pandemic, and testing their survival against real and manufactured crises. While I think most of the participants are a little dramatic over their "feelings" (they are interviewed frequently, with commentary by so-called "experts") it is a good show well worth watching. I got it at the library.

Season 1 is a large warehouse.

Season 2 is an area wiped out by Katrina and still abandoned.


Their search for food, water, shelter, is pretty good. Their "security" is a joke. Partially because they really can't kill the marauders, as the marauders are actors. So my idea of cutting off the marauder's heads, and putting them on a spike at the entrance, would not work. It is what I would do, as nothing says "behave yourself" better than heads on spikes.

Edited by Gunplumber, 12 August 2012 - 10:32 AM.

[Mt_Rider]

Available at library? Cool. DH gets all his movies/TV shows there anyway. Thanks.

Heads on spikes..... Um...I can see your point.... {shades of 'Alas Babylon' }

Um...OK, here's a thot. Is there a place where we can buy 'spiked heads' and have them stored away like manual well pumps? In case they are ever needed?

I MEAN...fake ones. Or something that might be convincing as a warning/deterrent? Like big dogs are deterrents, if they aren't poisoned or shot. "Sighting in one's rifle" frequently is a deterrent. What else?

MtRider [... Work with me. I'm trying to think outside the box!!! ]

[Gunplumber]

You can't fake the smell or the flies.

And it prevents repeat offenders.

Many times I've tried to differentiate for people CRUEL and RUTHLESS. Both may do the same thing. Only one enjoys it.

You know, I've got a so-so analogy. You've got a grossly overflowed and clogged toilette. You can be dainty about it, or you can just reach in there and do what needs to be done. You may be covered in $hit, but it doesn't change who you are. You're just doing what needs to be done for the greater good/result.

I remember a story about North Korean infiltrators in the American and the South Korean zones on the DMZ. The Americans would remove the dead bodies from the barbed wire/mine fields. The South Koreans left them there to rot. The Americans continued to experience infiltration attempts. The South Koreans did not.

I have no "proof" of this story I heard/read somewhere, but even if not true, it makes for a fair illustration.

[CrabGrassAcres]

It used to be quite common to have the barn in the walkout basement and the house built above it. That might have to be an option. ALL animals into the barn before dusk. (Predators are more active then.) NONE go out before the sun is well up. Good tight fencing all around the house and barn yard as well as perimeter and cross fencing for the rest of the farm. Water supply inside the house and barn since going for water can be dangerous. (Part of my ancestral family was massacred by the Red Stick Indians while going for water, but the ladies just HAD to do laundry and didn't stay in the fort.) You won't be able to let the animals graze unattended like we do now. Time was that there were no fences and so a shepherd boy or girl had to go with the animals and guard them all day. I think that is a good job for a kid with so called hyperactivity and attention deficit. No Ritalin needed. Still having a good LGD to go with the kid would be wise, IMHO.

[Jeepers]

You can find The Colony on YouTube

[CrabGrassAcres]

If you HAVE to drink polluted water or die NOW, the very very first opportunity, pick up some charcoal from a campfire and start chewing it. Even better, try to put some in your pocket or pack for JIC from your first fire on the trail. Doesn't hurt to chew it as you go along if you can have something to wash it down. Stuff is gritty, but life saving.