Three Items For Surviving Full Collapse
Kevin Felts 06.19.17
What are three items to surviving a full collapse? For the sake of discussion, let’s say there is no government, there is nobody but you, your family and the neighbors.
One way to look at this, what did settlers do on the American frontier? What were three things settlers needed? For that matter, what are some key points humanity have needed for the past 10,000 years?
It comes down to water, cleared land, and the ability to raise your own food.
Water
All discussions on survival have to start with access to water, and safe drinking water. There is a difference between water for livestock, irrigation and water for human consumption. Livestock–goats, horses, cattle, and chickens–will usually be able to drink from a clear running stream.
My grandfather fenced off an area going across a creek. Rather than his cows and horses drinking from tubs of water at the barn, they would go down to the creek. This saved a massive amount of time not having to keep the water trough filled.
Cleared Land
It is not enough to bug out to the wilderness and expect to live off the land. Well rounded survival plans should include gardening.
Without heavy machinery, it would take months of hard, manual labor to clear land. The trees have to be cut and the stumps removed. However, there are other options, such as gardening on a utility right-of-way. The right-of-ways will already be cleared of timber.
In urban areas there are parks, backyards and other areas that could be turned into community gardens.
Farming And Livestock
Starting around 10,000 years ago, humanity shifted away from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and started raising their own food. Since then, we have been sustained by gardening and raising livestock.
The key to long term sustainability is the ability to produce our own food. This is through farming, saving seeds, chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, pigs and cattle. Cattle not so much, as their primary purpose would be for milk, cheese and butter production.
Hunting and Fishing
If we look at historical references, hunting is not sustainable and wildlife would be quickly depleted.
In the 1930s, wild turkey and whitetail deer populations were decimated all across the United States. My grandfather was born in 1928. He ate so much deer during the 1930s, he refused to eat it as an adult.
Without modern bass boats and people fishing only from the bank, fishing could possibly be sustainable.
Three Items
It boils down to the big three – water, land and farming. Those are the things that will allow people to sustain themselves when there is a collapse of modern society.
We can talk about bug out bags, firearms, stockpiling beans, bullets and band-aids until we are blue in the face. When all those modern comforts are gone, we will have the same way of life our ancestors used to survive.
