Feb162011
18 Comments
10 Things to Accomplish Before C-Day (Collapse Day)!
image by emdot
Guest post by Shirley Kendrick-Johnson
| 1. Have all purchased bulk food packed, inventoried and a log of where everything is for long term storage.2. Look into getting well drilled and tested and buy hand pump.
3. Have all non-food items needed for post-C-day inventoried and organized. 4. Find other local preppers and set up training days to teach and learn. 5. Make up survival buckets with recipes to give to my children’s families for post-C-day. 6. Practice skills for post C-day. 7. Write personal recipe book for cooking with long term storage and practice the recipes at least 2 times a week. 8. Prepare garden plot and raised beds for spring and summer garden. 9. Practice using Solar Oven and find best recipes for it. 10. Build solar dehydrator for garden produce. |
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countrygirl
Great list. I have a list of items, skills, etc that I feel the need to do, and then I have prioritized the list based on what I think needs to be done first. Since time and money seem to be limiting factors. I have things such as six more cases freeze dried number ten cans of food at the top and work on this every month. And at the bottom I have, moving geographically to a better location for post collapse living.
Lindyrb
Sigh….unfortunately my "To Do" list is far longer than my "Its Done" list. I've still got things like get a grain grinder and water purifier. But then there's the biggies- For those of us in rentals, many of us can't put in a garden (maybe a few containers on the porch) or get a wood stove (I can't even have a charcoal grill). So my list starts with "Find a new place to live"….
TheSurvivalMom
Lindy, a lot of us get hung up on wanting to move somewhere else. I think for now, super-preparing your current home or apartment might be the best move for most people. It looks like prices for the basics, food and fuel, are going way up. Oh, look into hydroponics. You can grow a very nice garden indoors with the proper lighting.
Michaela
I completely agree here! We bought our first home 2.5 years ago & had lived in rentals all my life prior. Did I want to move elsewhere- somewhere that was my own, that I could dig, that I could paint & build- absolutely, but 6+ years ago when I got into the mentality of preparing for an uncertain future we made do with what we had. No matter where we were at.
Linda
this is a great list, but not really applicable to those like LIndyb who live in a rental. For those of you who are renting or live in the city…now is a really great time to buy a piece of land or a cabin in a rural area. I live in the city of Phoenix and just recently purchased a small cabin elsewhere that needs some basic repairs,but will not require a contractor or a lot of experience. It was a really great price ( a repo) so I can afford it. check sites like homepath..you might also want to consider joining forces with family and friends on a purchase to keep your expenses down.
Shirley
I agree that no list works for everyone. Everyone should have their own list. Everyone has different circumstances, different likes, different needs. We can all work to better our position as it pertains to
survival. Every small change or increase in preps is a step forward to a more sure and happy future.
Let's all set goals for ourselves and strive to accomplish the ones that we can. God Bless!
Tracy
Forget the list- the name of this list grabbed me by the gut. C-day! Man oh man. That's so much better than zombie invasion day, what if day, etc etc. I think the thing we're all preparing for is going to turn out to be hyperinflation American collapse day. Whew. C-day. Thanks for that word. It's enough to get my butt in gear!
Shirley
Your very welcome Tracy. I always thought that TEOTWAWKI OR TSHTF were always a bit pretentious and I always thought keep it simple. Like V-Day or VE-Day.
Suzy
Hey, I was wondering if there's any way to tell how far off C-day is. I'm living with the stress of coming late to prepping and a common thought I have is "It can't happen yet, I'm not ready!". Once upon a time, I had money. Now I don't. I feel completely vulnerable and unable to gather much in the very near future.
Holly
Hey Suzy, I'm guessing you may get a bazillion different opinions about the C-date, and while deadlines can be motivating, they can also induce panic and inactivity, neither of which are healthy. So, please take a few deep breaths, sit down with pen and paper, and make a plan with the resources you DO have. If you haven't done it already, make a list of the things you HAVE done and check them off. Set attainable goals, no matter now small, and check them off. Keep the list visible to defeat despair and encourage that feeling that "I AM DOING SOMETHING!"
Have you ever seen the old episode of Mattlock where he's picking a lock and all of a sudden out of the corner of his eye he sees a pack of guard dogs bearing down on his location? What he says next is applicable to us all: "Don't look at the dogs, pick the lock." So, pick the lock, with whatever you have today, even if it's only an extra can of tuna!
Suzy
That's a fabulous response, Holly. It's hard to take a chill pill when you're facing a crisis that could be any minute or months or years away. I know the brain is designed to reassure us that nothing bad will ever happen. It's one of its defence mechanisms. Overriding that doesn't bring me joy at the moment, it just makes me feel naked. Taking an inventory is a good idea though. I no doubt will find out I have more than I thought.
rshnh2o
Suzy, From what I've seen heard C-day will be when gas hits $5/gal and/or riots begin in Saudi. That's what I'm telling my family. I wake up each morning and check online (not with Google) and see what's happening in Saudi.
PerpetualLearner
I’m fairly new at preparing but recognize the necessity. My mother, sister and I live together and are doing what we can without real direction. I signed up for Food Storage Made Easy and am using it now but don’t know where to go from there. Are there baby steps to prepping out there?
My other question: any ideas on waking up the rest of the family? Thanks
Pardon if I’ve double posted, my computer keeps kicking me out.
TheSurvivalMom
Hi there, Perp. For getting started, think in the order of basic survival: water first, then food, shelter, safety. How can you safely store water and then have 3 or 4 ways to filter it (if necessary) and purify it. Then consider how you can purchase additional food. Start by setting a goal of just two weeks. That's fourteen breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, and beverages. If you can store two week's worth, you can store a month's worth. Stock up on canned goods, which generally have a shelf life of a couple of years. Avoid foods with a six month, or shorter, shelf life. Keep in mind the five enemies of stored food: heat, humidity, pests, light, and oxygen. I've written quite a few articles here on this blog about food storage. Then, what can you do to stay warm in the winter if the power goes out and cool enough in the summer w/o power? If you make plans as though you'll have no power, that's a really good way to plan for emergencies and worse.
PerpetualLearner
Thank you. That should get us going. I'll be following your posts.
Jenny
I'm on the fence between "Oh, praise God, this is a handy list I'll be able to use" and "This list has buried me under a huge load of guilt for not having accomplished, ahem, ANY of these items, much less MOST or ALL of them". How do you keep from getting overwhelmed?
Jenny
Ok, I didn't mean to sound like a whiner in my previous comment. I AM making forward progress. Small steps every day as finances allow: storing food and water, working on acquiring the needed tools in a goodly quantity (we're a large family), and lots of skills practice: gardening, canning, knitting and sewing, hunting and fishing etc. It's the BIGGIES that get my gut churning. Long term water. Long term anything really. The thought is daunting. I think I need a better understanding of possible eventualities.
Shirley
You are doing more than I am in many areas! Don’t fret. I haven’t accomplished most of my list either.
You hunt? I am not even able to hold a rifle up since I have two bad shoulders. I never have been able to crochet or knit worth a darn. I have a daughter in law who does so I hope she will do most of that for us. I have a lot to learn about gardening and we rarely go fishing because we don’t trust the waters near the Naval Base that we live near. Probably all the fish are quite polluted. Don’t worry too much about all possible eventualities. Look at your area and see what is the most like catastrophe to happen in that area and then prepare for that and then prepare for economic collapse, job loss, and emp/cme scenarios as much as you are able. No one can be 100% prepared for anything so the more you are prepare for general problems the more chance you have of not just surviving but thriving.