New Angle on a much discussed topic

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There have been many discussions on how 'prepped' people will react if/when the 'non-prepped' come knocking on their door. I have recently been thinking about the flip side of this coin. With 'bug-out' bags prepared, there may be a good chance that even the 'prepped' could find themselves at someone else's door.

What, if anything, have you all thought about this situation. You will have to make yourself very attractive to anyone you may need help from.

In our case, we have neighbors that have much larger gardens and more land to develop into gardens. We are planning on talking with them about us using some of their space to grow a decent stand of corn next spring, and of course sharing the crop with them. We are not going to mention Y2K, prepping, etc. Just a normal neighbor to neighbor thing. Of course, if they agree and things do go sour, we will have a foot in the door with another family with resources we do not have, with no sharing of opinions, prep info, etc.

Wondering if others have had any similiar thoughts on their personal contingency plans ?????

-- BH (bh_slientvoice@hotmail.com), November 20, 1999

Answers

Of course, it may not be of interest to your neighbors with the established garden, but there may be others in your neighborhood interested in working together to start a community garden?

Even if you just want to make an offer to the neighbors with the big garden, as you suggest, it would be a good idea to bring more to the table than just your labor. Perhaps an item you've stockpiled will seem indispensible to them in a few months.

The greatest advantage the preparing GI's have is the chance to think and strategize ahead of Y2K... and ahead of the pack. Your storehouse can help you out here.

-- Sara Nealy (keithn@aloha.net), November 20, 1999.


My suggestion is to buy now many bags of 6-12-12 fertilizer, garden tools, and seeds. Then next spring do a co-op garden. If you supply the seed and fertilizer and work, offer them 1/3 of the produce. This is a sort of long standing farm deal for rented land. And don't forget canning supplies! This is what I hope to do.

-- Les Holladay (holladayl@aol.com), November 20, 1999.

---if i have to bugout, it'll be a grizzly zog deal. go so far back in, you have to preorder sunshine and have it shipped! Not going to be bothering anyone then. i refuse to be a burden. I have beaucoup skills, but would have zero way of proving that on someones doorstep, and furthermore, I think just showing up knocking hat in hand is just dang RUDE! I'd be a hypocrite deluxe to do that, and I ain't. --a full scale, category ten bugout means society has collapsed, your home and person is in immediate danger of thievery and murder, and it's mad max time, and you are hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, so you split. You don't know who the heck to trust. People get killed for warmup jackets or nike shoes NOW, think human beings will change for the better once there isn't anything? I don't. If folks come up to me, they disarm, strip naked, and the entire area around is checked for others hiding in wait. it would be real easy for some bad guy predator to send some sweet young thing, or even his own children and wife, up to the door looking for help. you come out, see no danger, and POP, all of a sudden you got a new eye socket in your forehead. No. You STOP people from advancing to your door. maybe a bullhorn, or a barricade and warning signs. You check them out from a DISTANCE, hopefully using your entire group, the ones on security that day. you check all around. You make the interlopers drop all their belongings to prove they aren't holding arms or radios, and move away from the pile. THEN you might consider listening to their story. this sounds hardass, because an emergency survival situation-an 8 or better scale-is a hardass situation. If we get above a 7 real quick on this crash, the US is going to resemble a big Kosovo, not "Little house on the prarie". sorry, call em like I see em You will run into decent folks who can contribute asnd help, and you will run into outright murdering thieves, and mostly you'll get folks who are a mixture by desparation. someone who two weeks previous never even had a traffic ticket could now already be a multiple murderer, and once that line is crossed, usually they don't go back. humans change FAST. I witnessed entire families, moms dads and kids, looting and rioting during rodney king riots. same folks who might have been standing in line with you just an hour before at a store, for example. this stuff is real, and no joke. I take it serious, anyway still got a positive attitude, just not being polly about human nature zog

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), November 20, 1999.

GET TO KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS NOW. January - May is not the time to decide who is useful and friendly. If it doesn't come to an infomagic working together could prove to be a lynchpin to holding your society together. There doesn't have to be any y2k talk, just drop over with some brownies, introduce yourself and chat.

-- squid (Itsdark@down.here), November 20, 1999.

While I never advertise anything about what's in my yard, my house and my life in my neighborhood, I have spent 14 years here, and by and large, know a great deal about my neighbors. The folks next door are elderly with medical problems to the hilt, and I have helped out by driving them places as often as I can.

My sweetie and I make it policy never to talk about anything we have, no matter what,...being private during potential Y2K nattiness will not be a problem. It is people coming from outside of our neighborhood that could be a problem, but then, everyone here knows the moment such things happen...my neighbor across the street calls me on the phone from her upstairs window to point out who is doing what on our block....It's rather nice actually. Sad that others live in less friendly places.

By the way,...the "what do the neighbors know?" issue has been discussed on this forum for at least the last 15 months....

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 20, 1999.



Good post, zog. I basicly agree; if TSHTF, then it will be a case of "extreme times call for extreme measures". Unfortunately, it is difficult to perform detailed thinking more than a modest degree "outside the box", and the further outside the box, the fewer people who can do it/the harder it is to do. This even applies to GIs; consider some of the dialogues between GIs on this forum about "what ifs" during >8.5 scenarios.

There is a conceptual line for everyone which is not crossable as a practical matter, without outside assistance of some kind. The most obvious assistance is actual events; when the electricity, phone, and water stopped working 4 days ago, the vast majority (most, not all) of DGIs will probably become aware that "there may actually be something to this Y2K thing", a mental position they were incapable of previously. (This is of course too late for proactive preparation, but that is another issue.) People may have repeated FTF one-on-one conversations with someone highly familiar to them, pondering the points raised between incidences of interaction. They may also read books and other written material with no possibility of asking a question (that gets answered) of the author, pondering the implications in a sort of "splendid isolation". (I consider Sorokin's books, the infamous executive orders, and history in general to be the least-utilized thought-provokers on Y2K compared to their value, but that is a subissue).

I perceive the mode of this forum to be intermediate between the last two cases. If it only consisted of pure discussion, without reference to outside information ("cut and paste" and providing direct links are critical here), then it would be much more like the pure FTF case, but the pasting/linkage make it a true intermediate case IMO.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999.


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