Survival, what if you're a man?

I have been all over the net digging up ways to provide for me and mine, and I usually find grand schemes describing this and or that if and when TSHTF.

For example, what women should do for the menstrual cycle, how to take care of toddlers and still nursing babies, or my favorite,how will I feed my dog/cat/ gerbil.
I want to know what the real men are going to do when we all find ourselves in barbaric conditions, no help in sight, total destruction of the societey and there is no law, no Sean Penn walking the (abandoned) streets with a shotgun (what a fool), no farmaid type benefit on anybody's radar, cause there is no power, and won't be. No nothing.
Think total Apocalypse.
What are you going to do?
I have already gone through the threads where people give great descriptions of themselves, or their friends, telling great deeds that will never happen. I want to know what you, a MAN, will do to keep yourself, first and foremost, safe. And then commence to the bragadoccio.
F'rinstance, as the man of the group, you and you alone are going to be expected to know how to do.... everything, can you do ANYTHING?
As the man of the group, you are expected to fight, can you?
Hunt with any result?
Fish?
Know any thing about crop rotation?
Know what bugs are edible, birds, fish? Trees, even.
Construct not only temporary shelter but in the future something substantial?
Got some rations put away for when the grocers run out of food? You just know your signifigant other is gonna be on you after the fact, after all, she knows your on this site, or I hope you are that honest, and I hope you're honest with her about what we talk about here and the first thing the sig other is gonna say is why were you there if you didn't learn anything?.
Got a route outta town, a place to hunker down in town till the zombies* are thinned out enough?
Again, you're a man, THE man, you got THE plan, or are you so pathetic as to just plan on living off of others?
*=www.foxnews.com/.../cdc-warns-public-prepare-zombie-apocalypse/ - Cached

Its funny you mention this. Used to have the same problem.

The key is to use quotes on topics.

"edible insects"

In the Google drop down there is 'for sale' 'north america' and 'recipies'

Right off I want to look at 'for sale'. Its probably going to list the food values if you dig deep.

Guy stuff is usually found under tight topic searches.

eat the weak and their dogs

reply to post by lewman


Now that is what I'm asking, could you, and if you can, can you being the man, get the rest of the group to eat Fluffy?

I'm sure it would be easier to be a cute chick in these circumstances. All you have to do is cry a little and some knucklehead will come to "save" you. When you eat all his stores or he is killed you can just find another. Wait....that's what some women do already.

And has anybody given consideration to propagation, you think you're gonna get sex stinking? I got some definative answers, but you gotta play along.

Depends on how bad it truly was and how long it lasted. If it becomes truly awful...Those that can will hunker down, those who can't will form groups based on strong leaders and hunt those that are hunkered down. They really have no other choice. You can give up the idea of hunting/scavenging because, unless you live in sparsely populated areas, EVERYONE will be hunting and gathering. If you are alone, well, see the previous mention of large groups. No matter how bad ass you are, no matter how many guns you have - numbers matter. Think your home is secure, think it's your castle? Will it burn? What happens if someone drives a bulldozer into it? What if your attacked by 80 people with guns and equipment. What if they have heavy weapons...So, a real man has little choice for long term survival (in a SHTF scenario) other than allying himself with other like minded individuals, moving to a secure fortified location and gathering heavy firepower. Not and AK47, you want big stuff. You need a group to hold and maintain it. Your gonna get sleepy sometime. A lone man has little chance for long term survival. A lone person has little chance unless you live in a very sparsely populated resource poor area.

If you can, hunkering down, along with hiding, would be the best survival scenario for a man or anyone else. A underground bunker buried beneath the ground.

V

I want to know what the real men are going to do when we all find ourselves in barbaric conditions,

same thing we do now push everything off to the women

and sit and scratch ourselves and burp and say hunny is dinner ready yet?

now that that bad joke is outta of the way

i guess people seem to forget the real life sean penn beating the hell out of everyone who looked at him and his woman wrong.


hunting and fishing and growing food will be tough if zombies are running around.


a real surivialist creedo is flight not fight live to to fight another day in another way

not every issue will be solved with a bullet.

reply to post by neo96


Happy to see you understood my little joke re: Sean Penn, but the problem is persistant,
There is a horde on the horizon, I got me, my kids, some men I believe in, all I could gather as the political environment descended, and a few females of child bearing age. The holocaust has been alive for7 months now, I got a couple of thousand rounds, but after all of my prep work, my people are divided on whether or not to shoot the ( obviously) scavenging horde. I don't know if these approachers are friendlies (I think not) or hostiles, I give the word to..... you tell me.
Shoot or hold fire?

reply to post by LAUGHING-CAT


i have one problems with "groups"

you put any one in a high stress environement even someone you have know years add hunger and starvation and uncertainity and the can work out to be a recipe for disaster.

for most people not saying you or your group people reach a breaking point to where people put themselves first and stab other people in the back for a "pop tart"

not everyone is like that but way to many are.

i hope and pray that the day ever comes that proves me right in fact i prefer to think i am wrong but history has shown us the truth of it all.

riots and looting is the biggest proof and katrina and while there were alot of people who didnt go evil too many did.

i cant shoot someone just trying to live run them off but if they come back

1 shot one kill

reply to post by neo96


I understand your worries, but.... if you are describing the American experience, I think we need some qualifiers, if you are describing the human experience, you need to look at Japanese response to their own holocaust.
If you're describing the human need to get something, anything, as we see in Katrina, well thats a horse of a different color.

reply to post by LAUGHING-CAT

Well in these days many husbands and wives do all that stuff together!
My husband and I are learning to grow food and we learned to shoot, we are putting away some food, when we build anything from small to big we do it together certainly works great for us, we cook together (hum he never cleans but) we cut firewood and everything together, I am only 5'4 not a big tough woman so he does a lot of the heavy with my punny help but I hope he will never feel like we won't share all the stuff of life.

reply to post by LAUGHING-CAT


the horse we will see is the horse of katrina

japan is a different people and culture than ours the promotion of family and "team"

too many americans are I I I I me me me its my way or 2 in the chest and one in the head.

we are not a bad people for the most part you add adversity into the mix and its on like donkey kong.

sad but true.

reply to post by LAUGHING-CAT


good topic dude, but you are looking at this all wrong. What you are finding is the stuff that I haven't found yet. But that is because I started at the beginning. First you need to start with the basics. There are good books on the topic. The S.A.S. Survival Guide is a great place to start. Or perhaps the book "Survive" by Les Stroud. (personal hero of mine) Shadowalker is right. Use specific searches. Try terms like "bushcraft" and "campcraft" for example. Youtube is epically valuable on this subject. Start with the 3 main dudes (Les Stroud, Ray Mears and Bear Grylls) and just surf it from there. Most aspects of survival, whether long term or short, are covered within a few skills (as in things you need to practice) and of course knowledge. You would like to know what plants are edible of course but you can't just carry around an exhaustive book on what is good and what is not. You also need to learn rules determining if an unknown plant is any good. The explorers who mapped out north america kept dying of scurvy. This is of course caused by a lack of vitamin C. They had no fresh fruit, and if you were trapping or exploring in the winter you had no chance of finding berries and such.What is a good way to keep from getting scurvy you ask? Pine needle tea. Tastes like garbage but it's loaded with vit.C These guys were sleeping on beds made of pine boughs.

Now, take myself for example. I am leaving in the next couple of days to do some serious bushwacking. I have multiple lighters of course. And I know how to build fires for different purposes and conditions. But what about if I lose, damage or otherwise take my fire making equipment out of commission? I have read extensively about how to make fire in the wild, but I have never practiced these techniques. Of course, I can't say that I can make a fire with one of those usual methods any more than I can say that I can drive. Just understanding how to do something wont always let you do it. I know how to play basketball, but I suck at it. So how do I cover this scenario? Easy! I use a magnifying glass. Just got one the other day that I can hang around my neck. Less than a second and a half and it will give a good bit of smoke and ember on the right tinder. I actually once lit a smoke on a cloudy day with my buddies glasses. The cloud cover wasn't very thick of course, and he seemed to have sawed off coke bottles for glasses, but you get the point. As long as I never lose or damage that lens, I can always make fire. The trick is getting that spark to be a full blaze. That part is a learned skill. Whether with a lighter, magnifying glass, fire bow or what not, you need to know how to work that fire. Try this...build a fire( I mean set it up rather than light it) and when it is ready light a smoke. If you don't smoke, well that's awesome, find someone who does. Light the smoke and use only that with no accelerant to start the fire. If you can do that, you will be ok.

Sorry for rambling about pine needle tea and magnifying glasses but it all illustrates my main point...you must cultivate BOTH knowledge AND skill. Neither is much good without the other. You and I have the opposite problem it seems. I have been wondering about the whole menstrual thing. I know allot about different survival skills, but if i find myself in a SHTF scenario with a woman, I will need to know that. Do you want bears coyotes and mountain lions attacking you in your camp? Just leave the scent of blood lying around for them. They'll be along shortly. And keeping a dog fed? Not only is a dog like a family member, they are wicked usefull for hunting so long as you have a good breed for it and know how to make use of it. A black lab is great for going after wild fowl...but what if you have one of those wiener dogs? They were originally bred for hunting gophers. No joke. You get a stick in one hand and then grab the wiener dog by the tail and shove him down the gopher hole. When you hear him grab one, you yank him out and club the gopher. I wish I was making that up. So I will start looking into some of the things that you mentioned and you look into the books that I mentioned. We can meet each other on the other side of the apocalypse. Best of luck to you homie.I'm still a total noob on this sight so I haven't tried to post links or anything yet, but here are a couple of good sites to start with too...

www.equipped.com...

www.wilderness-survival.net...

reply to post by LarrofDanu

You are one of the people I like. You apparently know that a good part of a pine tree is edible. Good .Lets move on to shelter. Anything that keeps rain, heat, cold, snow.... etc away from the body is good. these things are also good as resources. who wants to tell me why, bonus. Love for the person that can explain why cold is , for lack of a better word, good.

reply to post by Char-Lee


My sig other and I have a sim arrangement, I cook... bring home the meat, etc, she does domestic issues, e.g.; deals with the crazy step-children, in-laws, regular in-laws, grand-parents, etc. you see where I'm going. I got the the better of the deal.
until then....
I gotta worry about something that most of us will never live to see. But if, and what a huge if, I got it.

/

reply to post by LAUGHING-CAT


cold=good......hmmmmm. best i can come up with on that is the fact that food spoils slower, but i doubt that is what you mean. And thanks for the kudos. I'm not all THAT knowledgeable but I do my research and I practice whatI can when I can. To be honest I have been out of the game for too long. My current plan is a backpacking trip from central ontario to the east coast. Like I said. It's not just knowledge, it's also practiced skills. I'll be attempting (and likely failing) some of the friction fire techniques as well as some other things. As for shelter.... it depends on for how long or what conditions. a great shelter in one local may easily be useless in another. as for me, I have a good tent, some good cordage (from rope to twine to wire) some space blankets and i'm picking up a good plastic sheet in the morning. most of the trip will be just the tent, but a good lean-to built around it and facing the fire will make a huge difference whether its cause i want to stay put for a bit or if im stuck due to bad weather. as for anything longer term than a couple of weeks....log cabins are easy enough. i just need a saw to go with my axe. I wont worry about that though. I dont plan on sitting still for long enough to make it worth it. during the warmer months, i think i only really need to worry about is shedding rain. a proper spruce thatch and or birch bark would make ideal temporary roofing.

Originally posted by LAUGHING-CAT
reply to post by Char-Lee

 

My sig other and I have a sim arrangement, I cook... bring home the meat, etc, she does domestic issues, e.g.; deals with the crazy step-children, in-laws, regular in-laws, grand-parents, etc. you see where I'm going. I got the the better of the deal.
until then....
I gotta worry about something that most of us will never live to see. But if, and what a huge if, I got it.

you want to have some fun? look up those 2 sites i posted and check out the sections on shelters. get a hatchet, some rope and good wire, round up those crazy step kids and go out fort building on the edge of town on the weekend. if they are young enough they will love it. lets you bond with them a little, teaches them some valuable skills and lets you practice. if you or them are into camping, you could make quite the trip out of it. bring a tent and see if you can make a shelter that you find comfortable. if you fail, you can still crawl into the tent when you get cold. great chance to practice the whole fire thing too. that is what i will be doing. every night when i set up camp, ill start a fire. once it is going i'll see if i can get another going with material on hand using one of the classic techniques. practice the skills before you need them.

A lot of people have this idea of living as a mountain man, just with a family or solo. I take a different tack.

I'm a former Ranger medic. I get with people in my community and I have people that I can count on if it all hits the fan.

My responsibilities include, knowing how to make penicillin, training in basic marksmanship, doing house calls, etc.

I know guys who are metallurgists. I know guys who know how to grow crops. We also continue our education. I'm in college right now, but over the next few months, I'll be learning British Literature, and how to brew beer and wine to further our abilities. That way, I'll be the combat medic and the brew master for our community in the worst case scenario.

Don't think individual, think community in all things.

I may know how to treat a bullet wound, and the guy next to me can forge steel. Neither one of us can do the others' job with any sort of competence. If you can forge steel, treat wounds, brew beer, make rope, plant crops, know the times and conditions to do all of the above, then you are a super genius. For the rest of us, teams are a better idea.