City folks, buy a farm!

[Joe13]

A farm for survival.... I haven't laughed so hard in a day or too.

Maybe a ranch but unless your planting crops in the spring and tending too it, you will never grow enough food in the PNW to sustain yourself.

I'll keep to building my preps and join a roaming gang to pillage anything left when I have no other options.

 

[jbett98]

In my youth, I was initially hired to remodel a huge old farm house and the smaller 2 bedroom renters quarters for an airline pilot that needed the tax write offs.
It was in the Hood River upper valley area and I was also expected to manage the run down 60 acre pear/apple orchard.
I had never worked so hard in my life, before or since. The work never ends.
The worst was changing the sprinkler irrigation first thing at daybreak, work 12 hours, then back out to move the pipes again in the evening.

 

[The Heretic]

My family did okay on our farm.

Of course we sold all of our crops (fruit and nuts, wheat, oats and such), but we had gardens every year, we bartered with neighbors for their produce, we had our own cattle for milk and beef (I remember seeing my grandfather walking to the barn every morning to milk the Jersey cow) and chickens and such.

 

[tionico]

Would I have to buy the leader a Rolls?

View attachment 270239

lol

no, I'd rather have the Lear he used to try and escape. Good work, the Feds "bagged the baghwan" as he was preparing to leave Florida for the Caribbean. He was a goofball, but WHAT was (not) going on within the crania of the "followers" he had?

 

[tionico]

Exactly. Bob's Red Mill in Milwaukie has all of the staples and storage containers one could need. A person does not need $20000, they need $40...and that $40 will get them a 25# bag of rice and an awesome re-sealable food grade container to throw it in.

But do they do this....probably not. It's more fun to imagine one is the main character in Patriots Surviving the Coming Collapse.

can't LOVE on rice for very long. Not enough protein, vitamins, etc.... bery unbalanced diet. SO< your $40 figure is a bit off. If you're paying more than fifty cents the pound for rice, you're paying far too much. And you don't need to buy a NEW bucket..... you can buy five one gallon glass jars full of stuff you eat anyway and put the rice in the empties.

 

[mjbskwim]

First,like most have said it's not that easy.Second,you say build something cheap so you're not upset if you don't get out there that often.
You need to be out there often to take care of crops or animals.
If you aren't a gardener then it will take a couple yeas to get a good garden going.
Will you get side tracked or bored with it?
It is very hard to get a group of people together that will actually PAY for it on a regular basis without getting bored or deciding it just isn't for them.
Someone will not keep up their area and someone else will have to till the weeds under or they will spread to the rest of the farm
The list goes on. Better to try to find yourself a 1 acre lot if you want to do something like this
Or start a community garden area
Communism hardly ever works very good.Some always work some never work. Tempers rise

 

[jluck]

A farm for survival.... I haven't laughed so hard in a day or too.

Maybe a ranch but unless your planting crops in the spring and tending too it, you will never grow enough food in the PNW to sustain yourself.

I'll keep to building my preps and join a roaming gang to pillage anything left when I have no other options.

Is this a serious post? What's the difference in a farm and ranch? Aren't we talking about land or a given area? In a post apocalyptic scenario fertile land is just that, Adaptable for necessities. With the PNW having great growing seasons and near perfect soils why is it a stretch to self sustain from a modest piece of land? I need to know so I can tell the people who have been doing it for years they are doing life wrong. As far as the gang joke, The ignorant might actually take this as advice. Probably not good advice. I Don't recommend pilfering and stealing in my area and figured most to agree.

 

[mjbskwim]

What's the difference in a farm and ranch?

Farm is for veggies and a ranch is for animals?
Farm is for farmers and a ranch is for cool dudes?
Farms can have livestock but ranches won't usually have crops?
All questions we need answered.
The farm/ranch part is a great idea while the partnership part leaves something to be desired

 

[The Heretic]

Orygun is more or less self-sufficient when it comes to water, electricity and food. The Willamette Valley produces a lot of produce, meat, eggs and milk. I fail to see how a farm of sufficient size with enough labor and proper management could not eventually be self-sufficient.

But then as a child of multiple generations of farmers (I don't know how far back it goes, but I am pretty sure my grandfather's grandfather was a farmer, as was my father, and my uncles, and I was until I left the farm as a young adult), that is just my opinion.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

I see most of these posts as supplying a problem for every solution. Ultimately everything you consume comes from the land. If you don't own any land you are at the mercy of those who do. I can find reasons all day long for not making the investment in the land, and putting in the effort to raise at least some of your own food and fiber, but in a post-apocalyptic situation they look like pretty thin excuses. Maybe there will never be such a situation in our lifetimes. I hope that is true. If it's not, the smug urban types that one encounters in various non-gun forums are going to be in a world of hurt.

My wife and I gave up on urban living many years ago. We've lived on 2 to 5 acre parcels for the last 15 years. What's required is a commitment and some basic skills. I'm an electrician, plumber, mechanic, welder, carpenter, and farmer. I've built, wired, and plumbed several of my own buildings. I installed irrigation to our animals and gardens. I've built miles of fences. I've given shots and performed other medical procedures on our livestock. Some of the basic skills were mine before I started. Most of them I've had to research and learn through practice, and trial and error.

A 20' x 30' garden will produce more tomatoes and other produce than you will know what to do with, but if you learn to can things you can deal with it. There are breeds and types of livestock that do well in our climate, on plain old grass, with little or no attention. Like Soay sheep:



You can put 4 Soays on an acre of grass and they will thrive and reproduce. Their meat is like the finest venison.

Chickens pretty much self-manage if they can free range, and a dozen chickens will produce more eggs than the average family can use up. Left to their own devices chickens will actually reproduce and multiply, believe it or not. More meat for the table.

Yes, there are things to learn along the the way, usually the hard way: Predator control, pest control, dealing with and being prepared for the weather, basic construction techniques, and skills with hand tools. You quickly learn what tools are a necessity to own, like a $2000 tractor, a chain saw, and a decent flatbed trailer.



Some people can deal with this learning curve. Others simply throw up their hands and return to the land of $7 latte's.

 

[SkeeterGunner]

25% of Americans have a negative net worth 50% have less than $5000 in the bank. Half of all people who reach retirement age have less than $25,000 saved for retirement.

A fifth of a farm? Most folks would be lucky to be able to afford a 500th of a farm.

It would be different if you could make a living farming, but the days of being able to make a living with a 40 acre farm are long, long gone.

It would not be hard to lease out the unused portions of the farm to a "real" farmer to plant what he wants and harvests it. I'd keep it cheap for him or a small percentage of the harvest Net profits. He will then watch over the place and you have coin to pay the taxes on the place.

 

[The Heretic]

For me, it is not an "if" proposition, it is when - and the "when" is now.

I will put my broken record on the player - here goes:

The world population is still growing, and will continue to grow at at an unsustainable rate. Whether you believe climate change is man-made or not, the climate is changing. Personally I believe climate change is at least partially man-made, and I definitely believe it is changing; I have been around 6 decades plus, and on the average, spring is coming earlier, winter later, I am seeing more severe weather in the winter and hotter drier summers (I remember when it was a toss up whether we would have rain on the 4th of July).

The population numbers are staring us in the face and there is no way to deny that they are growing faster and faster. The math is pretty simple; more people simply means less water, less land, more pollution and less energy per person - and it is only going to get worse until we have a die off.

Humans are really no different than any other animal - we are way past the "climax population" level and we are reaching (or already have reached) the maximum carry capacity of our environment (a suggested fiction book based on this is "Earth Abides" - http://bamfordsworld.weebly.com/uploads/8/7/0/3/8703302/george_a._stewart_-_earth_abides.pdf )

We are already seeing and sometimes engaging in violent conflicts over natural resources - such as petroleum and water and sometimes food.

All you have to do to see the impact is look at how much you spent the last year or two on food and fuel until the US gov. artificially brought down the price of oil by allowing fracking in the midwest (polluting water and land and causing earthquakes in the region). The OPEC nations responded by increasing production and lowering prices to kill off the fracking and they succeeded (a lot of those companies either went bankrupt or stopped the fracking) so as to maintain their monopoly on oil. How long that will last remains to be seen, but it won't last forever - over the long run food and energy and land prices will continue upwards.

Any group of people who are more self-sufficient than the average, will have an advantage over those who are less self-sufficient. The less self-sufficient are those who live in denser population centers where food, water and energy must be imported into those centers. Southern California is on the bleeding edge of this right now and we will see what the results of unsustainable growth are.

I predict a larger increase in migration from such areas into areas where the region is more self-sufficient. Right now Orygun is one such region; we grow more than enough food for ourselves and we export our hydro based energy (mostly to Calif.). Eventually the Calif. agriculture will collapse due to not having enough water to both grow crops and sustain a very large and dense population (e.g., L.A. and San Diego and S.F.).

That migration will mean more population density and higher land prices. Those of us who have already invested in land, especially self-sufficient land (our own water, able to grow our own food, etc.) will be able to live better lives. City dwellers who rent apartments, who depend on city water, who get all their food from grocery stores, will spend increasing percentages of their income on rent, food, water and energy. Incomes are already more or less stagnant on average, so the average family will increasingly feel the pinch.

Good luck. We are in for a fun ride.

 

[IronMonster]

It would not be hard to lease out the unused portions of the farm to a "real" farmer to plant what he wants and harvests it. I'd keep it cheap for him or a small percentage of the harvest Net profits. He will then watch over the place and you have coin to pay the taxes on the place.

Yeah, it does not really work like that unless you can buy the place cash from the get go.

Down where my place is at productive farm ground (something with a pivot or other real improvements) cost around $10,000 an acre. So you get a mortgage to buy this 40 acre farm, the payments are $2500-$3000 a month and after expenses sharecropping you end up with a return of maybe $7500 a year, You end up needing to come up with better than $20,000 a year to let someone else make a few bucks off your farm. If you can buy the farm cash you can probably get enough from having someone else farm it to pay the taxes and other expenses but you are not getting much ahead.

 

[Joe13]

Is this a serious post? What's the difference in a farm and ranch? Aren't we talking about land or a given area? In a post apocalyptic scenario fertile land is just that, Adaptable for necessities. With the PNW having great growing seasons and near perfect soils why is it a stretch to self sustain from a modest piece of land? I need to know so I can tell the people who have been doing it for years they are doing life wrong. As far as the gang joke, The ignorant might actually take this as advice. Probably not good advice. I Don't recommend pilfering and stealing in my area and figured most to agree.

A farm for survival.... I haven't laughed so hard in a day or too.
Seriously this thread made me laugh.

Maybe a ranch but unless your planting crops in the spring and tending too it, you will never grow enough food in the PNW to sustain yourself.
I stand by this. Animals take less maintenance then plants, if your doing it too feed yourself. Also, again, unless you plant your seeds in May and tend to it all summer, having a farm is useless...
As a lot of y'all have pointed out, yes people have been self sufficient for ever.
However, y'all can't stand city folks in the woods leaving trash everywhere - are all of these (rurally uneducated) people all of a sudden turn into Pa Farmer and have any kind of success? No.

I'll keep to building my preps and join a roaming gang to pillage anything left "when I have no other options".

^^^yea, I am serious - I bolded the main point. After a few months the weak and unprepared will die off if it lasts that long.
---And if you think you will be better then to loot dead people's supplies then I am pretty low on the moral line or am just being realistic... There is almost always safety in numbers.

I am not going to travel 30 miles mostly uphill to get to a bug out property. There will be plenty of resources left in your end of the world event.

I have enough for a solid month so anything realistic, earthquake etc won't force me out of the house. Stuck in the city and out of resources, your only option to resupply will be to find it in abandoned properties. Should that happen, I'd rather not have to clear it out solo - too many people with the opinion that making those place look unihabited is a good idea. I'll send in some 20 something year old first and use them as cannon fodder.


Sorry if this and the previous post do not sit well with you. Hopefully, you won't hold it against me.

 

[The Heretic]

That assumes it is a sudden event.

My scenario, which is happening right now, is a much more gradual "event" that is happening over the space of decades and there will still be rule of law.

If you loot while there is still rule of law, then eventually you will be caught. Either way, looters greatly increase their chances of being shot and seriously injured at best, shot and killed at worst - so no, I don't agree that this is a good plan at all, nor is it flexible, adaptable or even very feasible.

 

[mjbskwim]

Looters will be killed like dogs.
If your plan is to loot I hope for a slow grueling death for you
But alas most would smoke them fast to be done with them

 

[Joe13]

Looters will be killed like dogs.
If your plan is to loot I hope for a slow grueling death for you
But alas most would smoke them fast to be done with them

I feel like I somehow was either misunderstood or worded my response wrong:
I am not advocating looting because the cops can't do anything, but instead scavaging what can be found (ideally without harm to anyone or stealing) when all other options are taken.

If your in the woods you have critters and can forage - I am saying there is an urban equivalent that is not evil. I'm not taking tvs and jewels, food and medical supply's... If I HAVE too.

 

[jluck]

A farm for survival.... I haven't laughed so hard in a day or too.
Seriously this thread made me laugh.

Maybe a ranch but unless your planting crops in the spring and tending too it, you will never grow enough food in the PNW to sustain yourself.
I stand by this. Animals take less maintenance then plants, if your doing it too feed yourself. Also, again, unless you plant your seeds in May and tend to it all summer, having a farm is useless...
As a lot of y'all have pointed out, yes people have been self sufficient for ever.
However, y'all can't stand city folks in the woods leaving trash everywhere - are all of these (rurally uneducated) people all of a sudden turn into Pa Farmer and have any kind of success? No.

I'll keep to building my preps and join a roaming gang to pillage anything left "when I have no other options".

^^^yea, I am serious - I bolded the main point. After a few months the weak and unprepared will die off if it lasts that long.
---And if you think you will be better then to loot dead people's supplies then I am pretty low on the moral line or am just being realistic... There is almost always safety in numbers.

I am not going to travel 30 miles mostly uphill to get to a bug out property. There will be plenty of resources left in your end of the world event.

I have enough for a solid month so anything realistic, earthquake etc won't force me out of the house. Stuck in the city and out of resources, your only option to resupply will be to find it in abandoned properties. Should that happen, I'd rather not have to clear it out solo - too many people with the opinion that making those place look unihabited is a good idea. I'll send in some 20 something year old first and use them as cannon fodder.


Sorry if this and the previous post do not sit well with you. Hopefully, you won't hold it against me.

I think I understand your thoughts. A "farm" is only for growing plants or vegetables and can't be multi faceted and a ranch only grows bovinious romeus roundus (silly name for cow) and likewise can't produce any other items. Copy. Clear like mud. My brain works with a wider scope than that.

You originally never said you were stealing dead people stuff just just a gang were going to "pillage". I hope you put a little more thought into skills and taking care of yourself instead of thievery. I don't think that's a long game. I'm not upset by what your rebuttal but I am disturbed a bit by it and will adapt my planning to better protect from people with your mind set. If the day ever comes you better make sure those targets are good and dead before pillage. I know how it'd go down around me.

 

[Joe13]

You should be planning for people much worse then me...

I'm done with this thread it seems.

 

[IronMonster]

Sure easy to get things all worked out here in make believe land.