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["Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>]

The local hospital was built during the Cold War.  Half the building has 
lead lined walls throughout and was built to be a bomb shelter of sorts. 
The generators are in the basement of that part of the building.  Supposedly 
that part of the hospital would not be affected.  But, since there is no way 
to test them, who knows.

I am surrounded by wackos, conspiracy theorists and folks who have some 
mighty weird set-ups.  They have caves they are using, lead lined 
plasterboard, bicycle generated electricity and a few do have the Faraday 
shields and Hoffman boxes.

We used to do a lot of the training (show and race) at the fairgrounds in 
SoCo.  The place was a nasty muddy mess in the winter.  We used ponies to 
haul feed.  I would think a couple of good sized ponies (Welsh crosses, 
Connemara, etc.) would make good water haulers.

Only 10% of this county is privately owned.  The balance is national forest. 
WTSHTF, I don't think Uncle Sam is going to be worrying too much about folks 
taking trees to heat their houses and cook with.  Right now we could haul 
falls all day long and twice on Sunday and be busy 365 days of the year and 
never have to cut a tree down.  Ponderosa pines and Gray pines are notorious 
for deciding to snap and fall.

As to people learning, well, I don't think there's much hope. :(

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "EarthNSky" <erthnsky AT gmail.com>

> Connected or not, unless someone is living a very different lifestyle now, 
> they will be severely affected later.  Most off grid folks I am aware of 
> still produce their own electricity and store it as battery power.  A good 
> CME will take that out right along with the grid.  Do you know if any one 
> out there uses Faraday cages or has their systems otherwise protected?
>
> That is kind of what I meant...we too have lost of springs and there is 
> surface water close by, but hauling water is rough on the body.  Just 
> hauling for animals day in and day out will stress you after a few months. 
> I can't imagine hauling water for everything, everyday, all year long the 
> way I know some have (Lynn in SC comes to mind) at my age.   Now mind you, 
> I feel pretty good now at almost 50, but I am under no illusions about how 
> much labor hauling water takes.
>
> Interesting.  Like Lisa, I want to hear more and see pictures. As you 
> know, I also heat with wood, and I live in a forest, too, but I'm not sure 
> how many years we could cut without a chainsaw.  I do have a old two man 
> saw blade that we could re-handle, but wow, that would be a job!   We 
> would resort to more gathering, which would be more time and labor-or at 
> least equal labor.  I've got 6 permanent raised beds now, each about 4x12 
> or 3x16 or 3.5x10.  Those are my no till zones-less than 250 sf of space. 
> In order to feed myself, I still have to till a small area, and of course 
> after a CME  we would not be using tillers.  I would be out there turning 
> over the soil with a hoe, spade, or mattock as the case may be.  It is 
> entirely doable by hand, but I would most certainly feel it, even 
> spreading the work out over a couple of weeks.
>
> Living at elevation, you'd be closer to having ice than I would.  There's 
> one luxury that almost one takes for granted.
> I know folks with outhouses and generators and even stills, but I don't 
> know anyone with an ice house anymore.
>
> Could I live without my meds...yeah.  Could I function at the level I 
> would need to function without them, I seriously doubt it.
> The paradigm shift I would hope for would be one that value and use 
> natural resources like oil and the rainforests for medicine more than for 
> transportation and tourism.   With our present technology, we could become 
> virtual tourists without becoming physical tourists- we can communicate 
> around the world without going.  It is happening already with 
> Facebook-people are using Facebook INSTEAD of going to reunions.  You text 
> or video phone or go the GoToMeeting INSTEAD of visiting face to face.
> After a CME, none of that would be possible, and we would be back to more 
> primitive travel and communications for a time, BUT when the world comes 
> back online(and it will), perhaps the technology will be used in even more 
> practical ways.  We are already moving in the 'one device' direction 
> thanks to Steve Jobs, but it would be truly futuristic if everyone had an 
> ipad and could connect and communicate with everyone else in the world. 
> Electricity would be for charging more than lighting.  Perhaps instead of 
> money, we are paid in kilowatts for the work we do. ( LOL )  We would cook 
> less(lose fast food restaurants of all kinds because we would not be so 
> fast and mobile anyway), eat more raw veggies and fruits, and dry 
> more-lighter and more portable for all that walking/biking we would be 
> doing.  Oil as a resource would go more for petrochemicals and 
> pharmaceuticals and mass transport, not as much for individual transport. 
> I just think we have to get a better handle on technology and use it 
> wisely.  IMO, we haven't done that so far and Nature will probably wipe 
> the slate clean for us to start over.  I hope we have a good plan so that 
> we don't make the same mistakes over again.
>
>
> --
> The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are 
> willing to work and give to those who would not.      Thomas Jefferson
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