We would first like to Thank-you for letting us join your group. We are an average, middle class, American family. We have 3 children, two of adult age and one a teenager. We have been prepping for about three years. We have focused mostly on renewable resources and non power mechaical devices to aid us in this. I have four years of military service and six as a state patrolman. I am now GM for a heavy equipment company. We feel there are many things going on in the world and in nature that could spell both short and long term hardship for us. So we have been doing a general prep, for whatever may come down the pike. We would like to learn, share, and when needed, teach, within the group. Make friends and share ideas. So once again, Thank-you for letting us participate.
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- Thread starter Chance
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Wow, thanks for joining! That's cool and unique that your intro is as a family. That is probably the first time I have seen that.
It sounds like you have a good bit of experience we'll(I'll) be looking forward to hearing about for sure. You have a very diverse background too that should surely lend you some different and unique skills and experiences. Welcome to our community. Thanks to YOU for joining and participating in the learning AND the teaching.
It sounds like you have a good bit of experience we'll(I'll) be looking forward to hearing about for sure. You have a very diverse background too that should surely lend you some different and unique skills and experiences. Welcome to our community. Thanks to YOU for joining and participating in the learning AND the teaching.
W
Welcome Aboard Chance. You will meet alot of nice people here. they are all ready to help you in any way they can. Wyoming is a beautiful state. I semi-retired a few yrs. ago and went to Wy. for about 3 1/2 yrs. I hated to leave it but I get lonesome for my Louisiana mud and came back to south La. I hope you will enjoy this site as much as I have.
Welcome and thank you for taking time to join Doomsday Prepper Forums.com. Your presence here is much appreciated. We look forward to your posts, and hope you enjoy the community!
The members on here are extremely knowledgeable and more than willing to help!
Thank you again for taking the time to join Doomsday Prepper Forums.com!
Hello Chance. It's wonderful to see another family like mine. Hope you find things to help y'all out here on the board.
Wow, thanks for joining! That's cool and unique that your intro is as a family. That is probably the first time I have seen that.
It sounds like you have a good bit of experience we'll(I'll) be looking forward to hearing about for sure. You have a very diverse background too that should surely lend you some different and unique skills and experiences. Welcome to our community. Thanks to YOU for joining and participating in the learning AND the teaching.
Thank-you Alabaster
Unique we are!
We look forward to the positive experiences ahead as members.Thank-you Anorak
Family is the foundation of our lives and we are happy to meet someone who feels the same. I am sure we will find many gems of knowledge that will benefit us in our endeavor.
Thank-you Clydesdale
We feel individual preparedness is very important, but that in the long course, community, will be essential. Thus, after some deliberation, we searched for a group with real substance. Luckily, we found yours, and now are excited to belong. We don't pretend to have all the answers, or know exactly what to do in every situation that may materialize. So we can't help but improve our chances by sharing knowledge and ideas with other like minded people. Thanks for creating the group and putting us all together albeit the internet, it provides a forum to express our concerns, situations, and ideas with positive feedback and solutions. We are pretty old school thinkers in Wyoming. We are the 10th largest state in area, and a total population under 600,000. We jokingly say wildlife, mines and oil wells outnumber people. Our weather is extreme on a regular basis, so we venture out prepared for the elements every day. Using basic skills are also an everyday routine for most of us. Like the Dakota's, it is a unique state. We also have a large missle base with silo's spread across the high praire. We also have Yellowstone National Park. We joke that if we have a Nuclear war, or Yellowstone blows, we can bend over and kiss our butts Good-bye. However, if any other disaster occurs, we have an abundance of resources on which to survive. lol So as Alabaster said, we are Unique. I hope we can give as much as we receive from the group. Man, didn't know I would be so long winded.
ThanksThank-you Mastercajun
What? You gave up the Wonderful Wyoming Wind, sub zero temperatures, snow and hail in July, and hundreds of miles of nothing but high prairie grass, for, warm weather, fresh seafood, yes fresh seafood, great fishing, unreal good food, and on and on? Smart man! Just kidding. Wyoming is beautiful indeed, but we sometimes find ourselves longing for the Southern climate, food and fun. Very nice to meet you. We have alot of military retiree's living here. We have a very good VA and the Denver VA is only 90 miles away. It has been nice for me to get to know so many Great Americans. I am already enjoying the site, so I am already happy I did! Thanks for your Warm Welcome, and eveyone's. I look forward to reading your posts and sharing ideas and information.
I like this guy(?) already... I tell you what... I hear all too often that people are into prepping and that heir loved ones think that they're crazy. I think if we can't show our loved ones that this is a valid and logical thought process/activity then we're in BIG trouble. Either we don't yet have the conviction and knowledge to explain it properly or they haven't had their cages rattled hard enough by life's little monsters. I think living where you do makes it a logical thought process for all of you. Many of us that live in a more urban setting take the comforts of society for granted. Once someone is faced with a situation they can't handle and no one comes to "Make it all better" they quickly find out that being prepared is common sense. I have lived in suburban and urban areas my whole life but have loved the wilderness and the greatness that mother nature has provided for us. Everything from hiking to camping to getting a truck unstuck has helped me come to this conclusion. In my area, a lot of preppers start from a defensive standpoint. They are attacked in their homes, on the street, or know someone who is. They start to think about guns, knives, pepper spray, etc as the first thing they can do to "Prepare" for a likely crisis. I think it grows from there. It seems many who are from more rural areas start like your family has and the worries of human threats come along long after the threats of ignoring God's gifts of nature. Snow storms, floods, even farming and hunting are all challenges that the rural preppers encounter earlier and more often than the urban threats of crack heads, gangs, and riots.
I'm looking forward very much to learning a lot from Chance and from our other members that hail from more rural settings...
I'm looking forward very much to learning a lot from Chance and from our other members that hail from more rural settings...
Yep I gave up all the good stuff you talked about to come back to all the bad stuff we have down here. In fact we are cooking some nasty old fried shrimp and shrimp scampi for supper. Don't you feel sorry for us? And what else is bad, we are in short sleeves and short pants. I know you must feel sorry for us that we can't wear long johns, wool pants, huge coats, ect. LOL. I really don't miss the winters up there but I miss the summers. We lived in Ranchester, Wy. If you and your family ever want to come to La. for a visit, don't worry about a place to stay. We got you covered. But you'll will have to eat our lousy south La. cooking like all that nasty seafood, gumbo, jambalya, fried oysters, boiled crabs, boiled crawfish, ect. HUNGRY YET? It's good to have you on this site with us. I have learned alot in just the short time i've been here. This feels more like a family than just a site.
Mastercajun, that does it. I'm packing up and headin' out. See you in the morning'(Or was that invite only for Chance?).... Assumin' you got room for another southern boy, his old lady and 2 dogs!Hahaha!!
All that food talk has my mouth watering, man! I love seafood and I love southern cooking. My Dad was always a fan of Louisiana cooking. I thought he was crazy when I was younger, but as I got older I started to be fascinated by La, from zydeco to jumbalaya. I think I like almost everything about that place and I haven't even been yet! Weather, too. I've always loved heat and humidity. I know a lot of people think I'm crazy, but I love southern summers. I'm moving back to Florida as soon as possible. Maybe sometime we can all meet up for a southern prepper get together!
All that food talk has my mouth watering, man! I love seafood and I love southern cooking. My Dad was always a fan of Louisiana cooking. I thought he was crazy when I was younger, but as I got older I started to be fascinated by La, from zydeco to jumbalaya. I think I like almost everything about that place and I haven't even been yet! Weather, too. I've always loved heat and humidity. I know a lot of people think I'm crazy, but I love southern summers. I'm moving back to Florida as soon as possible. Maybe sometime we can all meet up for a southern prepper get together!
Well,you and your "old lady" don't think she is that old. In any case you can tell her for me that she has all of my condolancies for living with you. LOL. just joking, but if you guys come to La. and need a place you are covered also. I've been all over the USA and have not found food anywhere that compares to south La. cooking. It's that us cajuns don't eat to live, it's we live to eat. After being with us for a week and eating our food and meeting the people here, you would want to live here pemanently. The more preppers we can get to come to south La. means the more preppers we will have in south La. because they won't want to leave. My personal opinion. LOL
Now that's thinking out of the box! More preppers that fall in love with the area so you have more preppers when you need 'em. Good thinking, man. We're foodies in general. We've always loved trying new foods and checking out different cultures because so much of any culture is food related. We all have that in common. We have to eat so we all try and make it a "Specialty", like BBQ, seafood, tex-mex, etc.
I totally agree with you Alabaster. But then you spilled the beans when you said what you said about getting more preppers here for when we need them. I thought I was going to be slick, but you just busted my bubble. LOL On your post about the gardens, it is ashame that our government (who is supposed to watch out for us) is destroying our lives instead. The only way some people made it through the great depression was to grow gardens and raise their own livestock. It will be worst this time because our own government won't let us do that. Life's a bitch---then you die.
Welcome Chance and family. I hope you enjoy our little forum here, and I hope to learn form you and hopefully give you a different perspective on some things or maybe even teach you something. I am sure you will teach me a lot in the future. It's definitely like one big family here and I have learned quite a bit in the short time I have been a member. Welcome and I hope we get to chat quite a bit in the coming months. I have been thinking about a move to South Dakota as I loved it when I was there on business last time. I was only in Wyoming once to Yellowstone but it was incredibly beautiful. Thanks for joining and talk to you soon.
Thanks Alabaster. I admire your insight and perspective. The 2 largest cities Casper and Cheyenne, have about 110 to 120 thousand residents together. The rest of our state are smaller enclaves dotted around the state, usually with miles of open prairie and mountains in between. Storing water and fuel, growing and canning food, hunting and fishing, smoking and drying our meats and vegetables, preparing for any kind of weather, and maintaining various forms of transportation to do all this, is every day life. We are already pretty self reliant people just to live here. Aquiring and maintaining weaponry of all kinds is the norm. A right of passage for our children is to receive and learn to maintain their first hunting rifle. Wild game and home grown vegetables are staples for many, including us. I guess you could say, we already have a head start with being prepared, just by living in Wyoming.
I saw a thread about, "what have you done to prep". I think I will share what we have done in that forum. As time allows. I work between 60 and 70 hours a week, so not alot of free time. Living between 6 and 8 thousand feet above sea level presents it's own set of challenges. 35 to 60 pus mph winds are almsot a daily occurance in the Fall, Winter, and Spring seasons. Add snow and fog, and it becomes an adventure just getting to work. I drive about 100 miles a day maintaining our 2 stores. Cheyenne and Laramie, about 50 miles apart. Go from 6,000 ft to over 8,000ft and back to 7,200 feet, which is Laramie, and then come home at night. Been doing it 8 years now. Yep, we are slightly crazy. lol
I would say the majoity of Wyoming residents are aware of the many potentials for disaster in the world, and are somewhat already marginally prepared. With that said, I better get to work.
I'll try to post information about what we have done to prepare, that I think might be helpful to others, and follow others threads. We can never know too much or be overly prepared. Survival is basic to all God's creatures.
Thanks Again!
Thanks army. I look forward to chatting and sharing with you too.
Chance it's great to have you on board here. I know your going to love this site and everyone here will be happy to share anything you may have a question about. I'm very new to the site but have some prepping in the works as we speak thanks to everyone's input. I personally would like to find more preppers in my area have yet to find any here where I live in Bath, North Carolina. Luckily I have my 2 adult children that are with me on this as well as my son-in-law. I believe that it won't be much longer when things begin to really shift to the bad. Heck we are already seeing it with the economy like it is. I look forward to hearing what you are doing to prepare because it may something I haven't thought of and need to do as well. So prep, prep and prep some more. Welcome Aboard.
Hey how's things in Australia? I haven't been there since 1999. I was there 4 times with the US Military, in 1997 and 1999. I have been to Perth, and Sydney, and a couple other places. Dove the Great Barrier Reef as well on some down time. Beautiful Country and I really enjoyed every visit. I wish I could go back it was so nice there.
Army127 - Things are looking up - federal election in Sept, but, who knows. All going well we will actually get a govt that was elected by the people, not one who stole her position. There is a long time to go, and a lot of us are skeptical that an election was called so early.
I was lucky in my time to have a little to do with your forces when I lived in the US ( '85-88 & 89-94). Had some great times at Ft Hood, Even played on anM1Abrams tank simulator. Mate, if you ever visit, more than welcome to crash here. The past few years have had a mate in the CT Nat Gd. visiting us.
I was lucky in my time to have a little to do with your forces when I lived in the US ( '85-88 & 89-94). Had some great times at Ft Hood, Even played on anM1Abrams tank simulator. Mate, if you ever visit, more than welcome to crash here. The past few years have had a mate in the CT Nat Gd. visiting us.
Thanks June. I haven't had much time as of late to be on the site. I'm working on making some changes that will give me more personal time. Really, happy to still have my job with the way government is heading. We have had to do some rethinking of our plans for the future. Really sucks after working toward the same goals for over 4 years and then having to amend them. We have been actually completing some preps and moving on to others we haven't addewssed yet. Our circumstances are unusual because of where and how we live. It would be easier I think if we lived in an area with a more temporate climate, but, of course more people live in those areas, so we would have different circumstances to deal with. Like you, we haven't found many that are actually preparing for what may occur. They seem interested, and sometimes "talk the talk", but fall short if it means actually doing any real preps. I guess mostly they say, "we are coming to your house if anything happens". Lol Guess they don't really understand what this means. It is good that you have family members on board. We have quite a bit of close family living here and know they will look to us for help. It would be nice if they were actually contributing, but that hasn't happened. So we know we will have to prepare for more than just us. We broke our preps into segments and arranged it by priority. We are always on the look out for items we need. We find them all over, and relatively cheap, since they are "old school", and nobody uses them anymore. Works to our advantage. they will become precious at some point.
Our lifestyle has been slowly progressing to an off the grid status. Less dependant on outside services, and more focused on us, and natural resources. We probably will not take the final steps to be completely independant until we are forced by circumstance. We have been putting into daily practice some old time skills, such as cooking from scratch, different techniques for preserving the food we grow and butcher, exploring water resources in our area, actually using the manual mechanical devices we have accumulated to do this, and researching practical home medicine. We can only stockpile so much and still maintain our ability to go mobile if we need to. Renewable resources will be our saving grace. So that is our main focus. Not too many people will flock to WY and it's extreme weather conditions in a crisis. We are adapted to them, but most would not survive them for long. So we really do have long term survival using what we have around us in mind as we prep. Pretty close to a homestead situation.
Thank-you for your Welcome. Sorry I'm so long winded on this subject. We really haven't had many interested in the details, so I seem to ramble on in this forum. Lol We look forward to exchanging infromation and just expressing ourselves and getting feedback here. Take care and as you say.......prep, prep, prep!
Thanks for the invite and if I ever get down there again I will definitely take you up on that. I was a Ft. Hood only once and it was to set up a remote refueling station and hold the position during our pre deployment exercises.
Hi Mr. Chance, welcome to you and your family. I am new to our community but it already feels like a family as so many have mentioned. I have always lived in a big city however even in my childhood I longed to live in a small town. I know little to nothing about growing a garden every attempt has not worked. I want to start a garden that is raised up from the ground becasue I have mobility challenges. I don't really feel like I have anything that I can teach to other preppers becasue up until a year ago I only thought about it outside of having emergency things in my carand extra ice in our freezer. I let people teasing me when I mention anything about being prepared stop me. I have talked about it a lot to my husband and he never understood. Until about 6 weeks ago I brought it up again. I'm not sure if I said it differently or if he is recognizing how things are changing on the news but he is supporting me now. It means so much to me to have him understand. He is still not as passionate about it as I am but I will take what I can get. A little while ago he came home from work and brought in two big things from the car. I had no idea what it was and when I asked he said, "Well we talked about stocking things so we need shelves." He got two plastic shelving units on his own. I told him that is better than any chocolate he could ever give me. I am starting to get BOB's together. I told him we should have drills and he said okay. It is such a switch. They only thing he ever acknowledged me for was the way I wash out our milk jugs and put water in them and freeze them. I always have between 10 & 14 bottles of ice in our freezer at any given time. We have expereinced power outages one was 5 days in the middle of a horrible and deadly heat wave and one was 4 days due to an ice storm. First thing we did was get our cooler out and open up the freezerr to get what we needed for several days then move eveything close together surrounded by some of the ice and didn't open it up until the power went back on. We did the same thing with our refrigerator and lived out of our cooler. During the heat wave there was no ice to purchase and so many lost all their food. Thankfully we didn't loose any food either time. It is so expensive to restock a refigerator with the basics. You forget becasue you don't have to buy mustard, mayo, ketsup etc all at once every time you go to the market. Being in WY you probably don't have many heat waves. Well I have rambled on and on...welcome. I look forward to learning from you and your family.
Hi Lindy. Very nice to meet you! Great idea with the freezer, dual purposed. Lol I have always been a great gardener, but WY has been an over the top challenge. I ovecame with amendments and time the poor soil, but the weather, well .......you can only do your best and pray! It is gret that your husband is on board. I'm not sure how I would handle my wife not supporting our preps. It would definately be a difficult situation for me. Everybody has their gardening methods, usually in tune with where they are at, so don't feel poorly about your poor success in the past. We will help you with some basics and you will take off from there I know. We have generator back ups, so we haven't had to get that creative yet when the power grid goes down temporarily. Let me know what you have in mind to grow and I'll tell you what I know. My wife wasn't that interested until a few years ago, loved eating it, just not the work of growing it! lol She jumped in two years ago and now gets excited every Spring! Actually does more than drink ice tea, watch, and supervise me! She even got dirty last year! It is alot more fun with your partner involved with you! Her expertise seems to lie in preserving it. She did very well last year with some things and i did the rest. Really felt like a team, and we remember growing and preserving it every time we eat something now! LOL I just laid my garden plan out this morning and put together my seed order this afternoon. We always buy about twice what we need and plant the other half the next year and keep the new for the following year. Crop failure can be bad, and i noticed some seed is not available this year or at a high price because of it. Luckily, i have last years seeds still. We also only grow heirloom plants, inless we get a wild hair, and have been learning the proper way to save and store seed. some tecniques are a little surprising . Like fermenting tomato seed in the rotten tomato before cleaning and drying. whew!
Now who is running on? Me! We love gardening and we love practising the tried and true old school ways of doing it. Look forward to sharing. Let me know about where your at geographically and what you want to grow and we will tell you what we know and do. Thanks Lindy!
Hi Mr. Chance, thank you for your offer to help me, I tend to kill every green thing in my path accept the weeds. I don't really like to garden but I think it would be good to learn how. We recently moved to Southern IL from MO where the ground was mostly clay. We haven't tried gardening at our new home. I think my husband is kind of discouraged and I'm not much help. I remember many years ago when we had a pretty good start on the garden I tried to help my husband and ended up "weeding" the young plants instead of the actual weeds. After that my husband said "thanks but no thanks" to my offers of help. Bless his heart he was so disappointed but he knew I didn't do it on purpose. Now I'm afraid some of my physical limitations won't lend much help in a traditional garden but I am always looking for ways to adapt my life as I am now. I am thinking a garden higher up in a raised box might work. I would like to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots to start. Do you know if I could try to grow those in big potted planters? Maybe that won't be so overwhelming to start with??? Blessings on your evening. ~Lindy
After that my husband said "thanks but no thanks" to my offers of help. Bless his heart he was so disappointed but he knew I didn't do it on purpose. Now I'm afraid some of my physical limitations won't lend much help in a traditional garden but I am always looking for ways to adapt my life as I am now. I am thinking a garden higher up in a raised box might work. I would like to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots to start. Do you know if I could try to grow those in big potted planters? Maybe that won't be so overwhelming to start with??? Blessings on your evening. ~LindyHi Lindy, mastercajun here, welcome again. The only real garden I have ever been able to grow was in pots. I have grown tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, all our hot peppers. I just have not been able to grow a garden in the ground. I guess I've started to big of a garden at the begining. I guess I need to start small. I know these guys here will be able to help both of us. The only thing is, Im in south Lousiana and you are in Illinois. I don't know how much different our planting would be. I know I can survive in the wild, but it's hell, I can't grow a garden. Ain't that some sh*t. If I learn anything that can help you also, I will sure let you know. I know that Old-Anorak can help us because she has a great garden and has been doing it for a long time. I will try to pick Old-Anorak's brain about gardening. Good luck my friend.Hi Mr. Chance, thank you for your offer to help me, I tend to kill every green thing in my path accept the weeds. I don't really like to garden but I think it would be good to learn how. We recently moved to Southern IL from MO where the ground was mostly clay. We haven't tried gardening at our new home. I think my husband is kind of discouraged and I'm not much help. I remember many years ago when we had a pretty good start on the garden I tried to help my husband and ended up "weeding" the young plants instead of the actual weeds.
Hi Mr. Mastercajun. I have talked to Old Anorak but not about gardens. I don't know why I didn't think to ask her. It is good to know that your were able to grow things in pots maybe I can talk my husband into trying that is summer. I would die in the wild at this point anyway. I am learning so much from this forum I might learn how to do that too, stranger things have happened right? ?? Have a good night. ~Lindy
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Welcome Chance. I am hoping that you are able to learn as much as you seem to be able to share. You seem to be well informed which is freshing.
