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From 2004 to 2014 I lived at my location “A.” A lake, lodge, caretaker cabin, 5 rental cabins, water tower, boat house, bath house and a latrine. However, being a Boy Scout I also had locations B,C and D. I now live at location B. Stuff happens and if you stay in one place long enough a LOT of stuff will happen.
“Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee.” M. Ali
What good is stuff if you are dead?
RobinGood article. My problem is I do not have a way to get out of the city since wife and I work here plus my kids go to school and college here. So I have to bug out here which when the SHTF will be hell. About 3 million plus here.
Good article and advice from Selco as always. No location is perfect but some are better than others. More important than location and how much stuff you have set aside is the ability to size up your situation and know when it is time to move to Plan B.
Freedom, in the real world we all have constraints and limitations. In your case you at least are aware and knowledgeable and won’t be like a deer caught in the headlights. As for me, we are living fulltime in what was the bug out location, and at this time we don’t have anywhere to go. None of our relatives or friends are better situated than we are. Additionally my wife’s health is such that she is unable to just start hoofing it cross country like a refugee, nor will she last long roughing it in the wild. We are where we are and will make the best of it here. It is what it is.
I am also in the city. We have a bugout location up North. Fresh water. Secluded. Defensible. Reasonable facilities.
One major issue… garbage soil. It’s sandy and not very deep, maybe 3-4 feet in most areas until you hit rock. It is a moderately small island in a lake.
WhiteKnight,
Sandy soil can have a lot of nutrients, the main problem is moisture retention.Thanks Selco. Article definitely food for thought. I agree avoiding conflict is a must. Staying out of ‘trouble’ is a rule in survival for me. We have couple of good options being near very rural country that we know intimately via hunting and camping.
WhiteKnight, one way to improve the sandy soil is to grow a cover crop of nitrogen-fixing plants (e.g., soybeans, vetch, alfalfa, red clover, sweet potatoes) then till them in before they mature, adding wood ashes and manure if you have them. This was a technique Dr. George Washington Carver developed, and encouraged the poor southern farmers to do. Many of them, freed former slaves and poor rednecks, could only afford marginal land that had already been depleted by continuous mono-cropping of cotton, and would only grow a subsistence food crop, if that. He realized that they had no $$ to spend on commercial fertilizer, so this was one way to improve their soil without a lot of cash.
I once read (Mother Earth News, I think) the account of an engineer who lived and worked in metro-Atlanta. He bought a few rural acres, the prepared it this way: With the help of his wife and kids, he first spread chicken manure by the pickup load (free for the shoveling, if I remember correctly) at about 3/4 inch deep. Then, he covered that with at least 8 layers of old newspaper, on which he piled about 8 inches of spoiled hay (all free, or nearly so.)
This, he accomplished before Halloween, then left the field to winter over. In late spring, after checking in a few spots, to see that the earthworms were beginning to be active, he and his family went through, poking holes with a sharpened stick, through the mulch and paper into the soil, followed by seeds for corn, beans, tomatoes, and potato pieces with “eyes.” (Probably more other veggies than I remember) His harvest was huge, and he didn’t have to till the soil — the worms did it for him.
I haven’t had the space to try it yet, but I intend to (with wood ashes, too.)
Cry, "Treason!"
The other thing I do is spread leaves on the garden in the fall, and then rototill them in.
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