Surviving IV

Living the type of survival lifestyle that I did that summer can get kind of lonely. There were neighbors around and I did get into the county seat for the flea market and to pick up stuff from the food pantry, but the rest of the time I was alone. The well which had been on the place was bad so I had to haul my water in. When I went out picking aluminum cans, I would go to one of the parks and get twenty gallons or so of water. In this way I could collect any aluminum cans in the garbage at the park and get my water, making it a profitable trip. My water for washing was left in a five gallon bucket in the sun or in my solar shower in the sun. The solar shower would bring the water almost to a boil. When I went fishing I only caught enough fish that I could use up the same day. When in the parks I picked wild plants to be used as greens. I picked dandelion greens, plantain, stinging nettle and a couple of other plants whose names escape me these many years later. Later in the summer I picked raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. All in all, between fishing and picking wild food, I ate fairly well throughout the summer. The reason I had to go to the food pantry was that at the time I only had a two week supply of food on hand for survival. That taught me to have a much longer supply on hand. I now feel my wife and I could live close to a year on what we have on hand. With my small garden at the survival site, I grew quite a bit of food. Had I stayed another year I would have expanded the garden and grown much of the food I needed for the summer. As it was, I had all the beets, carrots, lettuce, radishes and tomatoes that I could use. The camper I was living in that summer had no way of being heated and I did not make enough money to outfit it for being heated. I also had not been able to find employment to supplement what little I was making. This being Northern Wisconsin and the winters being what they are, there would be no flea markets at which to make money and I would definately need heat. I therefore decided that I would have to leave the area and go somewhere to find a job. I left in September of 1984 and used all of my money for gas for the station wagon which was again loaded with all of my belongings except my guns. These I secreted on my survival property. I was headed in the general direction of Chicago and did not want to take them there where the gun laws are harsh. I stopped at a friend's house in southern Wisconsin to spend the night and they had some painting that needed to be done. I spent a couple of days there doing some painting and made enough money to get me the rest of the way to Chicago and even some eating money. So, after spending five months in the survival mode, I found myself in Chicago. I still owed several thousand dollars in bills from the business and several thousand more in back child support. It took me three years to get it all paid off and another three years to get back on my feet. I then came back to Wisconsin and now live a better survival life than I was before the job loss and divorce. I now live where I feel I could survive anything that happens and if not I still own the old acre of land. I think that before too much time has passed we all are going to need all the survival skills that we can put forth. Coming next; Starting over.