livingston
20×102mm Vulcan
Selco: What an “Average Day” Is REALLY Like When the SHTF
What an "Average Day" Is REALLY Like When the SHTF - The Organic Prepper
A few weeks after the collapse came, all aspects of our normal life changed based on the new reality around us.
One aspect was “sleep cycle“- the time when we sleep and when we were awake and active.
One of the most basic rules that jumped in was that most of the activities got done during the night.
Some reasons for that were obvious, like danger from snipers. But also the other reason (maybe even more important) was that over time it becomes very important to hide your activities connected to gathering resources.
To explain it more, when you have a lot of people in a small area (city) and you have less resources that are needed for that number of people, the fact that you HAVE something (food, water medicines…) needs to be hidden from people who do not have that.
The system (law, police, etc.) was out, and it was important not to give reasons for people to attack you because you have something interesting.
So, anything connected with gathering resources (wood, food, trade…) was finished mostly during the night.
Of course, violence mostly happened during the night too (violence that included “close fighting.“)
Activities in your home and yard were possible to be done in the daytime. For example, we would spend the day fixing our water gutter that goes from the roof so it can go in a big barrel, but if we needed to climb on the roof and fix holes with tarps or to “funnel“ it to the gutter, that needed to be done in the night time.
There was no “usual“ time to get up, at least not in hardest period. Even if we did not have anything particular to do we would be alert during the night time, simply because night time was full of different activities in the city, and you needed to be ready.
In our case (because we had more than 10 people most of the time in the house) we could do a schedule that meant not all of us needed to be alert all the night.
During 24 hour periods of time, someone was always sleeping, others were doing some job, but as a general rule nights were much more active then days.
Messing up with normal sleep cycle was a problem alone, and it contributed to the stress, feeling tired and stressed because you did not have enough sleep or enough quality sleep was a normal thing.
Sometimes close detonation of shells would wake me up, sometimes my relatives woke me up because it was my guard shift, sometimes we would all be awake the whole night because of close shootings, and possible danger.
Sometimes I would wake up by myself because that day I did not have any particular duty to do, so I would stay home, checking things in the house, maybe trying to fix some things.
What did you eat for breakfast, if you had breakfast?
Traditionally here (in Balkan region) we ate a lot of bread, and we eat it with almost all food.
It is actually strange not to have bread on the table, no matter what kind of food you eat, or what time of day it is (breakfast, dinner…)
It is a Slavic tradition from ancient times to greet dear guests with bread and salt (and right after that comes alcohol).
I am trying to portray the importance of bread here, and then when the collapse came, suddenly it became scarce (just like everything else).
I believe it was the biggest problem when it came to meals, the lack of bread, simply because we used to eat it a lot.
It was kinda a psychological problem for us too, not to have enough bread.
That was first biggest change.
Note: do not underestimate the power that food has not only in calorie terms but also in psychological terms. Having and eating food that you love makes things much easier. Store food in your prepper storage that you LIKE to eat.
Second thing was that the usual “schedule“ of meals was lost.
It was very rare when we could all sit together to have dinner or breakfast, simply because someone was sleeping or someone else was busy with something.
For breakfast, we ate whatever was there in the moment. If the day was good and we managed to find something like an MRE or canned meat it was good breakfast.
On bad days we usually ate “pancakes“. “Pancakes“ were locally picked greens, mixed with water and very small amounts of flour (just to keep greens connected). It looked awful and tasted awful too.
The greens that people picked from nearest hills were supposed to be edible, based on rumors, or older people who had some knowledge about edible plants.
Another favorite at that time was “tea“. It was a big pot that stood on the stove, with water and local herbs inside, we called that tea or soup.
It was something like substituted for one of the traditionally favorite meals in this region – soup. Just like bread, here it is a tradition to have hot soup with your meal.
Just like with sleep cycles, times of meals were messed up. Also, the food that we ate for particular meals was messed up. We ate when we had the chance, and we ate what was available in the moment. For example, in normal times for breakfast here, we ate sandwiches or eggs. It was something to dream about during the collapse.
And yes, sometimes I simply did not have breakfast or dinner, or anything for a whole day or night.
Note: very soon people (when they had all ingredients) started to make bread in small pots right on the stove, it required not too much fuel and time, it was easy to make it (with flipping bread in the pot).
Did you have a job aside from survival? Did people go to work each day like they do now?
No, in my case no jobs because in that hardest period system was out completely. There was nothing like regular jobs in places that you worked prior to the collapse.
You could find a use for your skills if you had any, for example being nurse meant I had some knowledge and skills, and it was pretty valuable actually because I could trade it for food or other usable items.
When the system is out, any knowledge in some particular field is important. For example being able to recognize a broken rib or infection, and being able to help with whatever is available in that moment meant a real value that you could sell.
An important thing to mention is that in some other cities in the region where war was at the same time, some kind of system and government was still there. In those regions, the government imposed something like”obligatory working“.
It worked in a way that, for example, if you were an electrician in a city company, the government could give you an order to work for free for some other company, military unit, or whatever.
In reality, it meant that some armed group or fraction could simply mobilize you and take you from your home.
My biggest skill in that time was my medical knowledge. Even when the whole system was out, even when there was no medication, there was use for my knowledge.
More at ....
What an "Average Day" Is REALLY Like When the SHTF - The Organic Prepper
What an "Average Day" Is REALLY Like When the SHTF - The Organic Prepper
A few weeks after the collapse came, all aspects of our normal life changed based on the new reality around us.
One aspect was “sleep cycle“- the time when we sleep and when we were awake and active.
One of the most basic rules that jumped in was that most of the activities got done during the night.
Some reasons for that were obvious, like danger from snipers. But also the other reason (maybe even more important) was that over time it becomes very important to hide your activities connected to gathering resources.
To explain it more, when you have a lot of people in a small area (city) and you have less resources that are needed for that number of people, the fact that you HAVE something (food, water medicines…) needs to be hidden from people who do not have that.
The system (law, police, etc.) was out, and it was important not to give reasons for people to attack you because you have something interesting.
So, anything connected with gathering resources (wood, food, trade…) was finished mostly during the night.
Of course, violence mostly happened during the night too (violence that included “close fighting.“)
Activities in your home and yard were possible to be done in the daytime. For example, we would spend the day fixing our water gutter that goes from the roof so it can go in a big barrel, but if we needed to climb on the roof and fix holes with tarps or to “funnel“ it to the gutter, that needed to be done in the night time.
There was no “usual“ time to get up, at least not in hardest period. Even if we did not have anything particular to do we would be alert during the night time, simply because night time was full of different activities in the city, and you needed to be ready.
In our case (because we had more than 10 people most of the time in the house) we could do a schedule that meant not all of us needed to be alert all the night.
During 24 hour periods of time, someone was always sleeping, others were doing some job, but as a general rule nights were much more active then days.
Messing up with normal sleep cycle was a problem alone, and it contributed to the stress, feeling tired and stressed because you did not have enough sleep or enough quality sleep was a normal thing.
Sometimes close detonation of shells would wake me up, sometimes my relatives woke me up because it was my guard shift, sometimes we would all be awake the whole night because of close shootings, and possible danger.
Sometimes I would wake up by myself because that day I did not have any particular duty to do, so I would stay home, checking things in the house, maybe trying to fix some things.
What did you eat for breakfast, if you had breakfast?
Traditionally here (in Balkan region) we ate a lot of bread, and we eat it with almost all food.
It is actually strange not to have bread on the table, no matter what kind of food you eat, or what time of day it is (breakfast, dinner…)
It is a Slavic tradition from ancient times to greet dear guests with bread and salt (and right after that comes alcohol).
I am trying to portray the importance of bread here, and then when the collapse came, suddenly it became scarce (just like everything else).
I believe it was the biggest problem when it came to meals, the lack of bread, simply because we used to eat it a lot.
It was kinda a psychological problem for us too, not to have enough bread.
That was first biggest change.
Note: do not underestimate the power that food has not only in calorie terms but also in psychological terms. Having and eating food that you love makes things much easier. Store food in your prepper storage that you LIKE to eat.
Second thing was that the usual “schedule“ of meals was lost.
It was very rare when we could all sit together to have dinner or breakfast, simply because someone was sleeping or someone else was busy with something.
For breakfast, we ate whatever was there in the moment. If the day was good and we managed to find something like an MRE or canned meat it was good breakfast.
On bad days we usually ate “pancakes“. “Pancakes“ were locally picked greens, mixed with water and very small amounts of flour (just to keep greens connected). It looked awful and tasted awful too.
The greens that people picked from nearest hills were supposed to be edible, based on rumors, or older people who had some knowledge about edible plants.
Another favorite at that time was “tea“. It was a big pot that stood on the stove, with water and local herbs inside, we called that tea or soup.
It was something like substituted for one of the traditionally favorite meals in this region – soup. Just like bread, here it is a tradition to have hot soup with your meal.
Just like with sleep cycles, times of meals were messed up. Also, the food that we ate for particular meals was messed up. We ate when we had the chance, and we ate what was available in the moment. For example, in normal times for breakfast here, we ate sandwiches or eggs. It was something to dream about during the collapse.
And yes, sometimes I simply did not have breakfast or dinner, or anything for a whole day or night.
Note: very soon people (when they had all ingredients) started to make bread in small pots right on the stove, it required not too much fuel and time, it was easy to make it (with flipping bread in the pot).
Did you have a job aside from survival? Did people go to work each day like they do now?
No, in my case no jobs because in that hardest period system was out completely. There was nothing like regular jobs in places that you worked prior to the collapse.
You could find a use for your skills if you had any, for example being nurse meant I had some knowledge and skills, and it was pretty valuable actually because I could trade it for food or other usable items.
When the system is out, any knowledge in some particular field is important. For example being able to recognize a broken rib or infection, and being able to help with whatever is available in that moment meant a real value that you could sell.
An important thing to mention is that in some other cities in the region where war was at the same time, some kind of system and government was still there. In those regions, the government imposed something like”obligatory working“.
It worked in a way that, for example, if you were an electrician in a city company, the government could give you an order to work for free for some other company, military unit, or whatever.
In reality, it meant that some armed group or fraction could simply mobilize you and take you from your home.
My biggest skill in that time was my medical knowledge. Even when the whole system was out, even when there was no medication, there was use for my knowledge.
More at ....
What an "Average Day" Is REALLY Like When the SHTF - The Organic Prepper