Our Prepper Property Search – Part 3
My prepper journey has consistently led me from the city to the country, often in smaller steps than I would like. Getting a good job was the limiting factor, but every time I’ve moved, it has been further from the big city. I went from living in an apartment in New York City, to living in a rental house in a medium-sized city, to living in my own home outside a medium-sized city to living on some land well outside a small city. Our next step, we hope, is to live on more substantial acreage outside a small town.
Many preppers move out of the city to get away from the vast hordes of people who walk the crowded streets and bring problems like crime, drug use, homelessness, and disease. When I lived in New York, I was robbed once, and my car was broken into at least three times. In a short walk near Columbus Circle, I could get offered drugs for sale, sometimes more than once. I’ve been panhandled while at a restaurant on a date and solicited by hookers while stopped at a red light. Surprisingly, you get used to it and it stops registering on your outrage meter; those aren’t even the reasons I left.
I’m not saying some of these problems don’t exist in the country; I’m just saying the lower population density makes crime less frequent and hopefully easier to avoid. Plus, in a small town, the local law enforcement and just about everyone else know who the “usual suspects” are, who to avoid when they are drunk, and who will shoot a deer after dark.
Food Independence
Many preppers want land to garden and raise livestock. We tell people may do this to avoid chemicals like herbicides in our vegetables and antibiotics in our meat. We may do it because we like the taste of grass fed beef and free range eggs better. But the real reason is to be less dependent on the supply chain.
Sure, we can store food, enough to last for months or even years, but growing your own gives you a sense of independence, and it stretches your stored food.
No matter how many Smithfield plants are forced to close, the family that raises chickens, rabbits, goats, sheep, pigs or even cows is unlikely to run out of meat or eggs. Even those who hunt rather than raise livestock will probably have venison and other game in the freezer. If you have a garden and can your excess vegetables, you’ll be better off if the trucks stop running.
Privacy
A big motivating factor is privacy, freedom, and deregulation. We want a patch of land where no one from the home owner’s association will write us a nasty letter if we paint the front door without getting there permission first , and no code enforcement officer will send us a warning because we put the trash bin out for collection before 6 p.m. If we want to bury a dead animal, we should be able to do so without worrying what the county health department will say. We want to be able to shoot a firearm without someone calling 911.
It would be nice to walk in the woods without seeing another person and with our dog off the leash. We want to leave the drapes open and not worry about who’s looking in, because no one else is in sight, and we want to see someone coming up the driveway well before they get to the house.
Survival
Most importantly, we believe moving into a rural property like I described the other day will increase our odds of survival in a TEOTWAWKI situation. As the coronavirus has proved, your odds for survival are better away from urban areas with high population density.
All of the topics above contribute to that: distance from the city and off the beaten track, food independence, and privacy.
And that’s really the idea of living full time at your retreat. You don’t have to bug out because you are already far from the nuclear power plants that could melt down, the factory that could release a toxic substance in the air or water, the water treatment plant where chlorine gas could leak, or where civil unrest could spill out into the streets once the food trucks stop running. We won’t be near an earthquake fault line, in a flood zone, or face danger from wild fires. And we certainly won’t be near any targets for terrorists or enemy nukes.
And that’s really the idea of living full time at your retreat. You don’t have to bug out because you are already far from the nuclear power plants that could melt down, the factory that could release a toxic substance in the air or water, the water treatment plant where chlorine gas could leak, or where civil unrest could spill out into the streets once the food trucks stop running. We won’t be near an earthquake fault line, in a flood zone, or face danger from wild fires. And we certainly won’t be near any targets for terrorists or enemy nukes.
Sure, we might get ash should the Yellowstone caldera blow, fallout from nuclear hits on cities to the west, or suffer nuclear winter if enough dust gets thrown up in the air, but that’s going to happen anywhere. And if something like that does happen, we hope to be in the last place hungry refugees show up.
Where will your prepper journey take you? Only you can say for sure. Your destination today might be different that it is in 10 or 20 years. As your life changes, your journey will too.
All the parts of our Prepper Property Search are available in chronological order.
Photo Credit: All three photos are from Dreamstime
