2012 TSHTF Preps

[hwillm1977]

I'm assuming here that you have an treadle type sewing machine, since in such a scenario the electricity would be down. My wife still uses our treadle machine (1909 Singer) from time to time just to stay in practice. I tried running it for here once, but was kinda spastic. It takes a bit of practice, but the dang thing will sew very nicely.

I've got one of each here... a more modern one (that can work without power if you turn the handle yourself... you could rig that up to a treadle) and I have a treadle sewing machine that was my great grandmother's when she was first married. Four generations of my family's clothes have been made on that machine

 

[Wildsky]

I'm assuming here that you have an treadle type sewing machine, since in such a scenario the electricity would be down. My wife still uses our treadle machine (1909 Singer) from time to time just to stay in practice. I tried running it for here once, but was kinda spastic. It takes a bit of practice, but the dang thing will sew very nicely.

I've got one of each here... a more modern one (that can work without power if you turn the handle yourself... you could rig that up to a treadle) and I have a treadle sewing machine that was my great grandmother's when she was first married. Four generations of my family's clothes have been made on that machine

I could turn the round thing, whatever its called, but there is no handle as such... :/ (Babylock Esante)

 

[Dace]

Hey SK8PN....does that mean we need to call you Levy now?

Gina, we have not had any power glitches. Most of the power lines in my area are under ground, so we very rarely get hit. How about you? were you out at all?

Ugh this entire thread makes me want to move to the country...where I can do whatever I want and do it out of sight from the crazies that any catastrophe with flush out.

Anyone else here as amazed as I am at the relative calm in Haiti? I thought by now it would be utter and complete pandemonium.

 

[okiegirl1]

i guess there were more earthquakes last night. so sad!!

 

[xpc]

i guess there were more earthquakes last night. so sad!!

My God must not be as benevolent as our preacher has been saying.

 

[Dace]

i guess there were more earthquakes last night. so sad!!

My God must not be as benevolent as our preacher has been saying.

Well there is a flip side. I mean yes the people of Haiti are undergoing an immense tragedy, but now the world is focused on helping them in a way that we never have. I think that the silver lining here is that the future of Haiti is brighter than it ever has been. I think good things will come out of this.

 

[valmom]

Quite honestly, though -- and just for the record I do not see ANY sensible reality-based reason WHATSOEVER to believe that there *would* be a catastrophic collapse of civilization in 2012, although there are a large number of people in whose best interest it is to convince y'all that it's so -- in my opinion, there are just two universally-useful, always-there, nearly-lifetime-storage-life, handy dandy thing to store away against emergencies:

1) good relations with the people around you, including the ability to cooperate agreeably on group endeavors;

and

2) skills and knowledge. The stuff in your head. Dudes with guns can take away your gold or your drums of wheat; earthquake or fire or flood can destroy your carefully-stored stockpile of stored food; but if you know ways to obtain safely drinkable water in a variety of circumstances, and how to build things and how to fix things, and have *experience* growing your own food in various circumstances, they cannot take THAT away from you, and the more you know, the likelier you are to figure out how to land on your feet and get going again.

Optimism, unflappability and a willingness to put up with hard work and discomfort are also useful things to stockpile, possibly falling under the second category above.

JMHO,

Pat, who thinks that a lot of people are going to make a biiiiig profit sellin' survival and defense stuff over the next couple years, just like pre-Y2K, sigh.

I totally agree that knowledge and skills are what will get people through a catastrophic collapse of our way of life. Stockpiling just puts off the inevitable. Know how to do things without a power grid, know what your neighbors can do and they know what you can do and work together. Know what resources you have as a collective and your chances for your group surviving improve greatly. No one can stand alone in such a doomsday scenario. That's why I'm working to improve my Crone's knowledge- we are the knowledge keepers of a group!

But, I honestly don't think anything is going to actually take out civilization as we know it in 2012. It is just a hyped up excuse to sell stuff. And, I wouldn't put it beyond our government to have helped hype it up to keep people thinking about catastrophe instead of the current daily issues that face us. Who cares about what the government is doing if the world is going to end in two years?

 

[redux]

I agree with valmom

 

[big brown horse]

Since my plastic-in-the-kitchen scare I had this summer, I have slowly been replacing all my electric kitchen gadgets too. Well, I still have them, but I've been trying NOT to use them. Preparing every meal w/o anything except heat from the stove. So I've been grating all the blocks of cheese by hand, whipping everything up with only my wisks, using my mortar and pestle, hand cranking my lime juice, crushing my garlic with a small slab of granite, etc. (I found the granite "circle" on a construction site. It was the circle that was cut out of a slab of granite for a faucet hole or something.) It is a good habit to get into jic tshtf, and I save a little electricity too.

I read a book about a family that got it's table salt from the great Salt Lake. They collected a couple of buckets worth of water and put them in their barn (which was hot and dry b/c they lived in Arizona) covered with cloth. After the water was all evaporated, they scraped the sides etc. to collect their salt.

 

[Dace]

BBH, I love your ideas, but I gotta ask...crushing my garlic with a small slab of granite???

Why don't you use a knife? or micro plane? A hunk of granite seems like it would be awkward!