Do the "bug out" folks really want this kind of living???

Mule Packer

Mule Packer

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After reading some of the posts on "Bug Out Facts, Fables and Fairy Tales," and after the last couple of days around here, I'm thinking, if the people who are "bugging out" from the urban areas really want this kind of lifestyle, they can have it!!

Don't get me wrong, if push came to shove, I probably wouldn't trade places with anybody in the world. But to tell the truth, right now I feel like I've been rode hard and put away wet!

Unloaded a couple tons of hay the other day and spent most of today loading a pickup truck load of hardwood, then unloading it in the woodshed. Split up some hardwood, too. It didn't want to be split. Ugh.

Then checked on our valley's water supply. The water master told me that I have enough water shares that I could turn the pipeline on to irrigate my place, leave it going 24/7, and still not run out of water. That's awful downright fortunate because a lot of folks in the west are experiencing a real drought. Of course, I'd never waste water, but it's nice to know that I've got enough to get me through this growing season. I don't want to be a jerk, but I'm afraid if some gang-banger came up from the inner-city, squatted on my land and started stealing my water, I'd probably be less than generous.

Plowed up the south end of the garden the other day. Harvested corn and beans. My sweet little wife has been putting up beans for the last couple of days.

Again, I'm not complaining, but dang...do these folks really know what they're getting themselves into??? Sorry for the rant...but, I guess during these past few days I haven't been able to bask in the enjoyment of the "leisure days of country life" that we read so much about.:confused:
 
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When I was a kid I was raised that way. Then from 12 through 15 I worked for truck farmers school vacations. I didnt like it. When I was 16 I got to work 12 hour graveyard for Green Giant Cannery. Came home one day and mom said a deputy was by asking about me. A blind senile old neighbor complained I was stealing his crops and selling them. Mom laughed and told the deputy I was too lazy to pick our own! A deputy decided to watch his place that night. Sure nuff, a car come around a corner and its headlights lit up some tin cans he had nailed to fence posts around his garden. The old man came out with his double barrel and blasted away in the dark. I was told the deputy set him straight. A few days later he seen me at the village grocery store. He pointed at the sky and yelled at me in half polish, "He knows! He knows! I just laughed and walked off but told pa. Dad took umbrance, went over to his house and tore him a new one!
 
Mule Packer said:
After reading some of the posts on "Bug Out Facts, Fables and Fairy Tales," and after the last couple of days around here, I'm thinking, if the people who are "bugging out" from the urban areas really want this kind of lifestyle, they can have it!!

Don't get me wrong, if push came to shove, I probably wouldn't trade places with anybody in the world. But to tell the truth, right now I feel like I've been rode hard and put away wet!

Unloaded a couple tons of hay the other day and spent most of today loading a pickup truck load of hardwood, then unloading it in the woodshed. Split up some hardwood, too. It didn't want to be split. Ugh.

Then checked on our valley's water supply. The water master told me that I have enough water shares that I could turn the pipeline on to irrigate my place, leave it going 24/7, and still not run out of water. That's awful downright fortunate because a lot of folks in the west are experiencing a real drought. Of course, I'd never waste water, but it's nice to know that I've got enough to get me through this growing season.

Plowed up the south end of the garden the other day. Harvested corn and beans. My sweet little wife has been putting up beans for the last couple of days.

Again, I'm not complaining, but dang...do these folks really know what they're getting themselves into???
Click to expand...

I grew up this way. Because of the fond and beautiful memories of that lifestyle I went to law school and live on the country club golf course! I was like Scarlet O'Hara when I left the farm--I shook my fist at the sky and screamed to the heavens "I swear I will never touch another hay bale again!" And I haven't.
 
Can't say I have experienced that kind of life but you could trade it for a life in New York City. On your 2 hour commute home you can stop by the local super market and pick up fixens for the next couple of night. Make a little super, have dinner, go outside and breath some of that fresh Atlantic Ocean air with a little side of big city mixed in. Go to bed at 10, get up at 5 and do it all over again. Don't get me wrong, you work hard for your living. I somewhere in the middle, definitely not New York City. But if things go really bad for 6 months to a year, you know how to make ends meet. You have more than one up on the rest of us. You will survive.
 
Mule Packer, you live a "lifestyle." It is much different than bugging out, as in living off the land - survival. Bugging out means not going home after a few days maybe maybe weeks, months, maybe never.

And no the urbanites, they don't. Living off the land, I mean - at least more than a couple of weeks. Very few do. Neither do I, frankly. I hope I never have to find out.
 
I agree that farm life is often misunderstood and the "survivalist/ back to to nature" /experience is often too romanticized, however it beats trying to get by in an urban/suburban setting where there's been a major calamity, breakdown of society, loss of public services-water first of all-and the possibility of predatory gangs cannot be dismissed as a paranoiac's fantasy.
 
I can remember not having a refrigerator, draw water from the well with a bucket, an outhouse, cut wood with a cross cut and ax. We had electricity but couldn't afford a refrigerator. I can remember grandpa not having electricity and using candles and kerosene lamps for light. I remember him talking about using pine knots for light. People that think that is an easy life with no stress are living in a fantasy world. There is real stress when you are worried about having enough to eat, wear and stay warm and dry. Larry
 
The majority of bug out people would never make it. Lots of ideas and plans, but no experience. I spend a lot of time outdoors, I have a lot of good equipment and take supplies. I can hunt, fish trap and snare, but, I don't fool myself into thinking that completely living off the land wouldn't be extremely difficult especially when the winter comes. I have seen some old trappers dugout and the like. Very primitive and they had to be extremely tough. I really wonder about the ones that plan to excape to the mountains. Even the Indians left the mountain in these part in the winter.
 
Ya know, the survivalists live in a dream world. Its not up to me to shine sunshine up their skirts. But even living the comfortable life we do, there are neighbors real close who do the survival living every day. We call them the homeless. Bums, really. They live down on the riverbank and scrape for a meal every day. Well, except for when they can get an SS check or maybe some welfare. I'm guessing going to the soup kitchen or parish kitchen isn't really a picnic, either.

I have a black neighbor who lives in a rent assist building up the road and around the bend. He stops about once a week or so and asks for a ride to town. I oblige him when he asks. He's got a different perspective than I have, and he keeps his ear to the ground, listening and hearing different things than I hear.

Every time someone suggests to me that I need to stock up on some survival supplies, I agree with them. Then I try to think when the last time was that I visited the liquor store. It wasn't even this year, so last week I went down with one son who was visiting and bought a couple of bottles. Can't remember when the last time was I had a drink. Surely not this year, but then this year is only 8+ months old. There's still time...probably.

I can't "bug out". There's no way I can haul all the guns and ammo. Let alone the reloading supplies. If'n you think I' abandoning my collection of American Rifleman, give up that thought, too. Me'n my reading material are stayin' put. Call it "buggin' in" if you want. I'm too lazy to leave, and I'm not walkin'.

The OP here talks about packin' light and cinch'n tight. If he does that, he leaves a lot of the comforts of home to do it. Can't really haul along a generator to power his electric light to read. Some of the new lanterns put out a bunch of light and don't swallow batteries. But its an ugly light.
 
GIVE ME YOUR POOR/TIRED/HUDDLED MASSES

I wouldn't expect the "LOCALS" to welcome the millions of refuges with open arms. Yasgur's farm will run out of space & Wavy Gravy out of oatmeal quick. "I can hunt/fish", maybe for a short while, then all game will either be spooked or shot/fished out. I may move to the epicenter of the expected blast zone & hide in plain sight. Maybe open up a trading post for the Zombies, "we are having a special today on intestines".
 
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Are you suggesting that all the food we see at the grocery store doesn't just spontaneously appear?

I have relatives who grew up on a farm and currently raise some animals and have size me garden. I don't know much about farming but would work hard and have skills to offer in trade. Although I am currently in computers I have done lots of things from electrical to plumbing to roofing, drywall and automotive etc.
 
My mom and dad grew up in the Depression and War rationing - I'm a GenXer.
One day, when I was about 10 or so, I was complaining about having to work in the garden on a somewhat warm spring day. He got tired and told me "You don't know what it is to work! You don't know what hardship is! You don't know and you don't appreciate how easy your life is!" I never forgot that and didn't really understand what he meant until I went to other countries and saw how "they" lived.
My dad grew up as a laborer on the RR helping his dad. Immigrants, they had nothing they slept in bunk houses with 10 other kids. My mom grew up in a Pueblo, they were living off the land!

As a kid, I didn't understand or should I say, I was too arrogant to learn from their hard won experience. I still have my parents, and while they are still here, I'm trying to make up for lost time and trying to learn all the little things that, as an adult I see their wisdom.

They lived/experienced hardship and poverty, I'll, hopefully, never know.
 
Most of us don't know what it's like to even go hungry,let alone be shot at or race for a bomb shelter or sit in the mountains waiting to be overrun.Preppers watch too many movies that romanticize this stuff.My father didnt talk about it much.My 83 year old mother will a little until she tears up.She was a kid during the blitz.The old man was an adult.He told me a few stories from that time,but mostly he just wanted to leave it behind.
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Unless they're in their bug-out location, chances are they'll never get to it. Ever see pictures of the highways when people are trying to evacuate from a hurricane? If they don't get bushwhacked along the way, they'll only get as far as a tank of gas will take them. If your refuge is 500 miles away and your loaded 4x4 can only go 400 on one tankful, guess what. I know there are those here that will refute everything I've said, but IMHO, bugging out is wishful thinking. And if the fear mongers are correct, we'll get a chance to find out next Thursday, (9/11).
 
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