Zofoman, how are your medical supplies? Have ample quantities of Iodine, bandages, and over the counter treatments, especially for eyes, ears and teeth? Splints for broken bones. Been to a vet pharmacy and picked up sulfa drugs and fungus based anti-biotics. Forget Penicillin, Tetracyclines and other abused antibiotics. Has everyone in your family had their appendix removed? Surgical supplies OK? Are you prepared to remove an appendix or pull a tooth, splint a fracture or surgically close a compound fracture and setting that bone after restoring an aseptic environment around area.
shooter, packing seeds are a good idea. If the SHTF today, one would have to survive on stored food until the first crops come in after the spring planting. Starting indoors or in a green house would give you an extra month or two on the spring harvest, but at the earliest one could expect no self-produced food until late April or early May, depending on when the last freeze is. To avoid that and have food production the year around allow me to recommend something like
this, which cultivates only 800 sq feet.
Charles prefers the term “high tunnel” to greenhouse because, she explains, her 20- by 40-foot enclosure is not externally heated. Instead, it is heated in winter and cooled in summer by air that travels through a series of underground tubes, part of a subterranean heating/cooling system.
Now completing her fifth winter growing season, Charles supplies fresh greens all year long to her own family, 20 to 25 regular customers and to the Food Co-op and Food Bank when supplies are plentiful enough. She grows 10 types of lettuce, three varieties of arugula, five kinds of Asian greens and four herbs. By trial and error, she has discovered that during the cold months, seeds get a better start under powerful fluorescent lights in the basement of her home. Every couple of weeks she plants 80 or so seeds that she’ll transplant into her high tunnel after they’ve gotten a good start.
For that you'll need a compost pile of a good size to recycle. Also, growing worms wouldn't be a bad idea to create fertilizer. Lot's of helpful ideas, and free plans, are
here.In a SHTF scenario a LOT of people are going to be deparately roaming the landscape looking for game to shoot or catch so they can eat and live. Most will be completely unskilled at hunting and will litter the landscape with dead animals which crept away to die after being hit in a non-vital area. Lakes and streams will quickly be seined out of fish. Many species of birds will be added to the Carrier Pigeon, perhaps even sparrows. Not only squirrels but even rats and mice will be hunted to near extinction. As the wanders run out of ammo and game they'll start eating grasses, leaves and other things to stave off starvation. Not many of them will think to dig up worms, grubs or hunt for insects, most of which are 70% protein, or if they do, the idea will repel them, even as they starve. Many will consider cannibalism and some will do it.
Sooner or later you will be running low on ammo, especially if your bug-out spot is constantly being attacked. You two major problems will be Lead, primer and powder, and you may be forced to use Copper in place of Lead. Powder will have to be made by collecting Urine and processing it to form Nitrates. From it you can make black powder, but you'll need a weapon designed to shoot black powder. Making gun cotton would require sulfuric and nitric acid, which will be more difficult to make, but making primers would be even harder. So, your bug-out kit should contain a balance and chemical glassware, hotplates, a fractional distillation column, thermometers, etc... If sustaining firearms fails you then you can always rely on a crossbow and bolts. Having a slingshot handy for small game would be nice. Is a good bow and several dozen arrows in your bug-out kit?
If you decide to revert to the late 1880's life style then you'll need some horses.
VERY few preppers have thought this all the way through to the ten year post-SHTF mark.
