Self Sustaining Families, Planning For A Barter Future

This post was inspired by a thread on the SurvivalistBoards.com forum with regard to what items should be prepped for bartering in a SHTF or EOTWAWKI (End Of The World As We Know It) situation. There were some excellent posts about what to plan to barter, and more importantly what not to barter and whether or not you would want anyone to know that you did have stuff to barter.

No matter what the 'survivalist catalyist' is, skills would be first and foremost on the list of things you should have.  If you have skills, you'll always be needed, and if you have the skills which are always in need in order to produce things that are always in need, your safety is almost guaranteed.

What Skills Would Be Useful For Bartering?

1. First Aid/CPR and other medical skills- these are basic, easy to learn skills.
2. Ability to make medicines like penicillin- all drugs are derived from living organisms. Do some research on them and learn some basic chemistry.
3. Ability to desalinate and distill water
4. Ability to create fire
5. Ability to make weapons
6. Ability to mine for ore to make weapons
7. Ability to build shelter
8. Ability to build boats
9. Ability to harness, transfer and store solar power, and wind power.
10. Ability to grow food
11. Ability to hunt and trap animals, including fishing.   

Obviously if we faced an 'end of the world as we know it' global crisis that wipes out 2/3 of the human race, leaving us in a Mad Max or Waterworld situation, safety will be a main concern and having any kind of food, water or other perishables could make you a target for those who never bothered to prepare for such a day.  If we still have farmable land, becoming a squatting farmer will most likely be what we turn to for our survival.  In a Waterworld situation, boat building and fishing will become the ways of the world.

I got to thinking that if all I had was a few skills and water and food, I could be self-sustaining, and I could most likely protect myself, but I've always been the type who wants to have an 'edge' so I started to think about what isn't 'necessary' but what people would want and miss should 'the end of the world as we know it' come to pass. The first thing I thought of was what I could grow that people wouldn't necessarily 'need' but would want.

Tobacco
Cocoa beans
Cotton
Coffee Beans
Peanut seeds

Plus, the ability to make homemade wines, beers, and other liquors.

Assuming that the EOTWAWKI event leaves us all with an abundance of land that we can farm, I'm going to order tobacco seeds, cocoa beans and cotton seeds from Amazon and store them in my provisions. I was told it's illegal to grow cotton here in Florida, but if it's not or if I can get around the law somehow with a greenhouse, I may grow it just to keep producing seed.  I don't know about laws regarding tobacco or  cocoa either, but if the end of the world comes, I won't need to worry about the idiotic laws that protect businesses.

I'm already planning the distillery supplies for wine, beer and booze, and I collected the 'how to' books on these subjects a long time ago.

I found the video below on the SurvivalBoards.com forum, and now plan on building one of these man made floating islands.  The one in the video is the size of a tennis court, but just as Richie plans to make his bigger, I plan to start out with a 10 x 20 pontoon built much the same way, and then expand it until it is 5 acres in size, and I can put my solar powered green houses on it to grow food, stock it with animal life and float away.

Self Sustaining Family Food Ideas

Even though we've wanted our kids to learn about becoming self-sustaining for a while, it was only after we created "Two Bites"- the healthy eating game for kids, that we finally decided to dig in and start planting our own garden. We created the game to get our own 'fussy eater' to try new foods, and learn about nutrition and healthy eating.  What could be healthier than eating the food you grow yourself?

Studies have shown that kids are more likely to eat the delicious meals that they got to help create, and so involving in them in the meal planning and cooking processes are great ways to get them to try new foods, but since mine are still too little to really help out with the 'cooking' part, having them help grow the food and care for it seemed liked a perfect solution.

 One of the 'rewards' we are using for our "Kickstarter Project" to raise funds for producing this game, is 'seeded paper.'

Theses seeded papers are made with a process similar to making papier mache, and are cut into various shapes.  I've seen them with string attached so they can be worn as a necklace, which makes a great conversation piece.  But even if you don't wear them, or after you're done wearing them, you place the whole piece into some soil, water, and watch your garden grown.

We had only seen flowers and shapes that really didn't have anything to do with food...

Except for this one in the shape of the cupcake-

so we researched how to make them, and we headed to our local flea market in search of cookie cutters in the shapes of food.

I tried to start an egg carton garden with my oldest a couple of years ago, but he was only 3 at the time and he just didn't have the attention span for it.  But now that he's 5, we're trying again and although the youngest is now 3, he's following his big brother and not getting distracted as easily as big brother did at the same age.

First we bought some potting soil and seeds for pumpkins, peas, zucchinni, onions, peppers, squash, watermelon, lettuce, spinach, parsely and cilantro.  We bought the plastic container garden for starting them, and went home and began our mission to growing our own food.

When we hit the flea market in search of the cookie cutters, we also bought a few plants.  I thought that having something that was already sprouted to plant in the ground would engage the kids more, and I was right.  We got 1 oregano plant, 4 basil plants, and 4 tomato plants, and planted them in the flower beds surrounding the front of the house.

Although I would have preferred having the food garden in the back yard, there are just too many trees and too much shade in our back yard.  One of my goals is to get Shane and the boys to build me a portable greenhouse, since we know we'll be moving to another house as soon as we find one with the land we want to be as self-sustaining as possible.  

This one from Amazon is perfect for my yard and budget.

Now our garden is almost fully planted, though I would like to add some cantaloupe and honeydew to our crop.  With the Florida summer setting in, I'm limited on what I can grow until I get that greenhouse.       

I can grow anything if I can control the climate, and that of course is what a greenhouse is great for.  

We've created our self-sustaining income, we've begun our self sustaining food growth project, and we're now ready to start learning about DIY alternative energies like solar and wind power, and since we live so close to the Gulf, we're also going to learn about DIY water desalination, and purification.