Well folks, here's the scoop.

New house, new location. A lot of the stuff I had gathered up over the years in my old place over ten years sadly needed to be used or given away. Things that I simply could not pull halfway across the country or have shipped like gasoline, water, and a lot of IMP's that I could not take or that would have cost more cash to move than they were worth. I was in a comfort zone in my old place and quite confident that I was prepared for any emergency buy now I kind of feel a little exposed. I got to doing a lot of thinking that I want to re-establish myself asap but at the same time I want to keep things a little more simple. I have been rethinking my approach on everything from my edc to my long term preparedness planning.

In my job, any emergency on a large scale will most certainly mean that my phone will ring, I will crawl out of bed and put on my uniform, and then I will be deployed to help out. My unit will provide all that I need for such an event, and the rear party elements will keep a watchful eye on the families left behind. My hopes of bugging in during a large scale blackout or storm etc will never come to pass most likely until I retire and the risk of being called out to aid other agencies in an emergency have passed. So far I have deployed to the Quebec ice storms, the Floods in Manitoba, and the fires in British Colombia. My focus now is shifting toward making sure my family left behind has all the gear necessary for an emergency should I be deployed. I want to keep a more realistic amount of supplies on hand to meet those requirements, but I do not want to break the bank spending tons of cash on supplies that I may never need to use. I will be putting a kid through university in the next few years so more and more extra money is going to be devoted to her education. In short, I want enough but not more than I may need.

I do not believe in the end of the world Bull***t, nor the sudden fall of society. I do believe that the years to follow will be interesting times to say the least though. And I believe that an emergency can strike at a moments notice. I want to remain prepared in my new home to face such and occurrence but I want to be realistic about what I need and what I only think I need. With the way the economy is going south every penny matters a little more every day. Under my old plan I had supplies on hand for a year.(this was very expensive to build and maintain) Now I plan to reduce that amount to only about 60 days. Maintaining more was getting a little on the expensive side, and taking up a lot of valuable space as well. I figure that with that much on hand we should be able to keep sustained until things stabilize after an emergency. If I had to move my family to safety then I could easily take most of the supply with me rather than leaving 90 % of it behind like before. If I am deployed and they are left behind then I know they have a good supply to get through most things that may pop up. I am close to a river full of fish now, I am surrounded by trees and I have deer and other critters everywhere on my land.(including one big mother****** that will feel the effect of my bow as soon as the season starts, muaa ha ha ha ha!!!) This is something that I count as a resource as well. Plenty of wood for heat, water for drinking and washing, and wildlife everywhere. Unlike the city I came from, I have these options available to make less of a need to have so much stored.

How long do you guys plan for? I know every situation is different. As well I am sure that this(like every other topic here) has been kicked up more than once and for that I apologize. Any one else face having to move and re-evaluate everything? Any tips, advice or points on re-establishing myself are welcome.

Since all my preparedness nut friends are back in Edmonton I figured I could still get some good advice here.

Wow. I really like the part about feeling the effects of your bow come season. haha

I think really it come down to what assets are around you. Most of us living in suburban, city schemes rely on 'The Grid' and when that goes out so does a lot of our water treatment and ability to regulate heat.

Can you dig a well?
Can you add a wood burning stove?

Living in the woods, or close to it, I am sure you will be able to store 6-7 cords of wood.

If you have some space around your house you may want to build a storage area for your supplies. Free up some room in your family dwelling.

I am not nearly as prepared as I would like, maybe two weeks in all most aspects except potable water. Which I am working on. That meets my needs for bugging in.

Boy I wish I had your problems. As you can see by my sign in I live in So.Cal.=no rivers, no trees(unless somebody planted them). 60 days of supply's in the area you live in sounds good, I would add a bunch of fishing yoyos and a chain saw to my supply's, and during you spare time I would make up a lot snares for the wife to use while your gone, also teach her(if she dose not already know) how to skin a small critter.

I have a wood fireplace downstairs and although it won't heat the whole house it can heat the room it is in very well. I also have a kero space heater and plan on storing about 50 L of fuel. I have several other stoves and lanterns as well with fuel to last about a month or so. If that were to be used up In an emergency we could just pull the mattress from our bed and place it on the floor near the fire place and we could be very comfortable. I have no well but the Ottawa river is close enough. I may invest in a more comprehensive water purification system maybe, depending on if I feel I really need one. If not I could just boil the water over the fire if all other means(stoves) and the like were out of fuel. There is plenty of dry fallen wood close a hand. More than I could burn In a year for certain. Time permitting I will start cutting some up and stacking it. Emergencies aside, nothing is better than curling up next to a warm fire with a glass of scotch.

I have a good chainsaw, and plenty of cutting tools like axes, machetes and a sword collection to boot. Not like I would ever need to resort to that but hey, weirder things have happened.

I think I will let the deer on my land live, and hunt somewhere else this season(except for the giant buck, his ass is mine there are a bunch of apple trees out back where they come and feed regularly. If I don't murder them and I keep feeding them they will always come back. I don't have to go far in Ontario to find deer elsewhere so if I keep the ones on my land happy In an emergency I potentially have hundreds of pounds of fresh meat ready to go.

I may be on to something here.

That is really exciting that you are further out where you have access to water, wood and wild life! My first thoughts for you are things like gardening, wild gardening and indoor sprout gardening for winter. You sound like you have plenty of access to protein foods (deer, fish, etc.), so plants, berries and other wild plants would help round out your food supply and nutrition. I think it was Blast or someone here that posted this site: http://hwwff.cce.cornell.edu/learning.php?unit=3

That is great that you have apple trees too! Do you have any other fruit trees, or a good place to garden?

If you already know a lot about plant life, etc. then you can ignore this. If not, then you might want to be sure you have some books on hand to help you in times of need. Make sure you have garden seeds and books on edible plants for your area. Even if you don't have time to learn it right now, at least you will have it if needed. One gardening method I really like is Lasagna Gardening. Here is a website on it: http://ourgardengang.tripod.com/lasagna_gardening.htm One advantage to lasagna gardening is that it is a no dig method.

For your long winters I suggest you have some sprouting seeds on hand and a good book on how to sprout them. Again, if you or your wife already know how to sprout, then you can ignore this. But it is a great way to make sure you have live greens in the winter if you get snowed in or for long term emergency. You can use jars if you don't want to buy a sprouting kit. Some fresh sprout salads in the winter would be great!

This is my favorite site on sprouting: http://www.sproutpeople.com/index.html

You might want to make sure you have some vitamins for the long winter too, like Vitamin D. It isn't very expensive, so it should be easy to buy several. If you do get some, only get Vit. D3 (Cholecalciferol - http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/).

Those are the first things that come to my mind. If I think of anything else I will post them later.

Joy

Hey, Taurus, welcome back.

Glad you survived the transition -- moving is pure hell IMO.

Re supplies: Looking at my uncoordinated store, I think 60 days would exhaust a lot of my essentials. More than that is called "farming" -- growing and storing food. Having contacts in farm country, I'd be working out some options long before I hit that wall.

Re deer: Good idea leaving a healthy population for hard times. Others may thank you by helping themselves, so get to know the locals and spread the word about keeping a few for ourselves. Apples are a good draw, but a salt lick is the holy grail -- brings them in from miles around, and keeps them coming back.

Re water: Suggest you do some homework regarding your stretch of the Ottawa River. Lots of illegal toxic chemical waste dumps from the "good old days" before regulation, now leaching out. Google will give you a starting point.

Cheers,
Doug

Joy - thank you for those links, They are good reading. For me, I am one of those people who does not have any luck with plants at all. If I touch it then it dies basically. If I do plant anything, it will be something that has a good yield and which does not require vast amounts of weeding/work(Potatoes maybe) Something that stores well over winter fairly well will be a good choice.

Thanks Doug, I fully agree about the moving thing. I would rather drive to hell on a greyhound bus than move again. Since joining up I have been in Gage town, Halifax, Edmonton and now here. I hope this is where I can finally throw some roots out. I hate to pass back and forth on the forum like a yo-yo but that’s my life for now. Over half of a year I am somewhere other than home. As I think about it, maybe 30 days will be more of a realistic goal to maintain. With the resources nature has provided here I am sure I could get by a long time if I had to. I have 10 acres to call my own now and it is 95% forest. My nearest neighbour is about 2 km away so I can get outside and enjoy it without even leaving my yard. The more I look around the more I find. I found a bunch of cherry trees this evening. sweeeeeeeet. The missus makes a mean cherry pie.

There is lots of crown land for me to hunt on. Maybe I will let the deer here alone a while. At last count there were 9. The only one that I need to deal with is the big buck. Every day I see him at the far edge of the mowed part of the lawn. Unlike most bucks, this one stares me down instead of running like the rest do. I guess they are not afraid of people. That and he really likes to eat the flowers in the rock gardens there, as well as the wild raspberries. I named him "chuck" the buck because there is no mistake that it is him standing there every morning with that same smug look on his face. You know, that "yeah, what are you going to do?" look. By the time the rut is in full swing, this brute will have a huge rack on him. Most likely the biggest deer I have ever laid eyes on. I do not trophy hunt, but since he is calling me out I will make an exception with him. If I do not make an example of him, he may lead an attack on me one day. He is the leader. If I walk across the lawn then he will follow me with his eyes before he struts off. Every day he looks a little longer and this evening two of the hairy bas****s were sizing me up for the kill. If I didn’t know better I would say he was smiling. Creepy frigging deer. Always watching......waiting.......

Come September, when bow season starts and he finds all the unleashed hell of a 125 grain fixed Brodhead flying through his chops we will see who is smiling. I have a plan to introduce "Chuck" to my butchers table, the smokehouse, a sausage maker and then my BBQ.

Muaa ha ha ha.

I would introduce him to a 168 grain 30-cal bullet (3006)

Jerusalem Artichokes (AKA Sunchokes) thrive on total neglect and even spread on their own (this is both good and bad). Best to try some to see if you like them and how much gas they give you. If you like them throw some leftover pieces in the ground in a sunny spot where weeds are growing now. Right now I've got quite a bunch growing and I'm not shure what I'm going to do with them all.

As for that alpha male deer, first day of hunting season he will be nowhere to be seen.

You have me rolling with this Chuck stuff. Too funny.

Wasn't it Gary Larson, The Far Side Comic, who had the deer hunting people?

Plus, big plus, you can put that rack up over your fireplace.

I know that some butchers in Montana and Washington will trade you out on your cull. Meaning if you bring in your buck, (cleaned) and can get a 100 pounds of venison off the body, you have the option of the butcher working on your specific buck or trading for the same amount of meat already cut in the store.

My dad and I have traded a few bucks this way for equal portions of meat or there is a conversion for deer skin products like gloves and vests, boots, etc. I gave away a lot of deer skinned vests and gloves for Christmas one year.