We’re several miles outside the city limits of our small town, which is itself about 25-30 miles outside the nearest large city; Little Rock. Even though it’s the state capitol, LR is still only a population of 250,000 or so, nothing like a New York, Detroit, LA, etc; so being 30 miles from it is probably as good as being 100 miles from a truly big city.
Family have a ton of extremely rural property approx 55-60 miles even farther out, and it doesn’t necessitate going thru or even toward any substantial population centers on the way. By ‘rural’, I mean “RURAL”; up until the 90’s, there wasn’t even a road address, mail just was addressed “Recipient Name, Town name, Arkansas, ZIP code”.
In total, there’s over 1,100 acres, with 6 houses, 10 or 12 barns, root/storm cellars, pastures, cattle, poultry, horses, woods, ponds, creeks, and even one small waterfall, all on the family property. With a wife & two kids, the ‘backpack survivalist’ approach is absolutely last resort; not our first option. Assuming it’s possible to stay there, (not burned out, etc), a year there would entail primarily converting electric well pumps back to manual power, etc; which were converted to electric back in the 1970’s. We’d probably have it better than a lot of people; especially city people.
Hard things would include my mother (and probably soon a brother) living 80 miles in the wrong direction; driving through Little Rock to get there. If time permitted and they could get to us, or I could get them rounded up, they’d be with us. But if not, my absolute main responsibility is to my wife & kids, and they’d have to be taken care of first; nothing gets in the way of that, even other blood relatives. Sounds harsh I guess, but it’s a fact.
Regarding:
andy said:
"… Just a .22lr in a horse will mean it aint worth keeping around anymore."
Certainly “could” incapacitate or even kill a horse if hit right, but it’s not a foregone conclusion.
I suspect most horses are tougher (and likely smarter…) than me, and I walked a half mile back to the house with a .22LR solid in me back in 1987. Treatment involved antiseptic and gauze on the entrance wound, and cutting/pulling the bullet out, and stitching the removal point (a whopping three stitches); followed by a couple days on the couch. Admittedly had a doctor do the removal & stitching, but it was nothing my wife or several others there couldn’t have handled.
Wounds and injuries could definitely be a MAJOR problem post-shtf, with no hospitals, doctors, etc; but not every injury would mean death. Ever notice how many caveman skeletons in museums have scarred bone tissue from breaks, etc…? A very large percentage of them do. They survived them, and even post-shtf, we’d still be light-years ahead of cavemen regarding medical care.
edit... just got to thinking about it. That happened December 22, 1987; tomorrow it'll be 17 years exactly.