BlackSheep OffGrid Homestead: A journey to an off grid paradise

Like many others that are beginning the adventure of self sufficency, the question of where to begin has come up. My wife has not been a prepper per se for the majority of her life. She grew up with a mother who canned, gardened, sewed and generally grew up with little money. I grew up in a family of 9, and even though my mother and step father made decent money, with 7 children it did nkt go far. I learned to make a grocery budget extend as far as it could with home cooked meals. During high school I decided that the society of today is not a place I wanted to be. The most common question is where one should begin to begin the journey. It does not matter what your current situation, skill set, or knowledge base is. There is always something you can learn. The amount of knowledge needed to be self sufficent is more staggering than one would realize when first starting. Gardening, Food Preservation, Canning, Dehydrating, Cooking, Baking, Animal Husbandry, First Aid, Carpentry, Plumbing, Electrical, and the list gkes on that one should be sufficent in. It doesn't include Foraging, Butchering, Hunting or any other number of skills that one would need if society collapsed. There are a lot of terms all preppers use, and some of them you should be familiar with. However we will address those as they come up, and why a lot of long held beliefs in the prepper community that are based in myth, not fact. There are a lot of rabit holes that tou can go down, and the information they use seems credible. However if basic research and theory are applied to it, they do not pan out. Use trusted resources that can survive scientific research, and realize that fiction books are just that. They are sensationalized for sales, and rarely use all available scientific evidence to support what may happen. Could society collapse, yes. However it is essential to remember that society has continued in one way or another for atleast 6 thousand years. It may change drastically, however it will most likely survive. The most likely scenarios you are likely to encounter are localized emergencies that impact a small portion of the global population. Covid 19 was sensationalized because there was no one with immunity to it, and was lethal enough to overwhelm the medical industry if everyone came down with it at once. It was always about managing how many people were severly sick at once so as many lives as possible could be saved. Wildfires, flooding, civil unrest, train derailments, chemical spills, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, freezing weather, extreme heat and illness are all much more likely to occur that impact small geographic areas. War is always a possibility, but it is not as likely as most people think. My advice is always the same no matter who asks the question? What should a person or family prepare for? They should prepare what they need to survive one year. This assumes you are growing your own food, and preserving what you need for the year. For a family of 4 you need roughly 8,000 sq. ft. of garden space. This will not provide all of your needs, but will be most of what you need. Hunting game, meat animals, trapping are all ways to add meat to your supplies. Why one year? Because the supplies needed for one year are difficult enough to secure, and replace. What a single person needs equates to nearly 2 tons for one year, and a family of 4 needs nearly 8 tons. 365 Gallons Water (3,044 pounds) Grains- 400 pounds (Wheat Berries. Oats. Rice. Corn. Rye. Barley) Beans and Legume- 60 pounds Milk - 16 pounds dehydrated milk powder Fats/Oils 20 pounds (oils, butter) Sugar or Honey - 60 pounds Salt - 8 pounds Fruits/Vegetables- 90 pounds Meat- 20 pounds Total- 3718 pounds, and is the bare minimum needed to survive one year. That is what you need to begin to prepare. The knowledge you need to replenish these stores every year so that you do not need to rely on others. Never prepare something you will not eat, in emergency situations foods you are used to are far better than you can imagine. Having to adjust to what are most likely extremely stressful circumstances, you would have to adjust to a new diet as well. The other things we will cover through the course of the book. From the stuff every beginner should know, to the more obscure things most preppers salivate over knowing.