I just re-read R.A.H.'s "Tunnel in the sky", one of his juvi's about a survival course for highschool kids gone very wrong. What was to be a 10 day outing at the most turned into a 2 year ordeal. Very interesting stuff. Robert is often quoted in many of the survival sites I go to. Speaking through his character Lazarus Long he says "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts,build a wall,set a bone,comfort the dying, take orders, give orders,cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." (page 248-Time Enough For Love). Speaking of Survival sites, I downloaded the the survival bible #2, which is just a .pdf file with a few articles and hundreds of links to survival sites. Alot of the sites are no longer up and running, but a bunch of the die-hard sites are still in operation. Some of them have been going for 10 years, so they must be doing something right.

I was wondering why such a large amount of sites listed where not there. I know people get tired of running a site and just close it down if it is not making any money or giving any satifaction.In some cases I think many people have "bugged out" to their retreats after 9-11 and just stayed there. I have a 5 year plan in place to start the move. I am fixing up my house and plan on selling it in about 5 year's time. I life in a small city where I can't have an open fire (other than a BBQ) and there are a lot of restrictions on other activities I would like to do. I can't raise rabbits or chickens without the city raising a squack. I can't shoot an arrow or a BB gun for practice without attracting undue attention. I live in Canada, so gun ownership is frowned upon. I have a nice assortment of knives and practice with them indoors, while doing Tai Chi. I have a throwing knive I whould like to get provicient with that is in the same boat as the arrows and BB's. I need more land!

Here's my wish list of what I think I need. I can live on 5-20 acres if I have a bit of bush and a pond and some fruit trees on it. It would need to have well water and be located near a hill. It would need a small barn/workshop. I could live in a trailer for all I really care. My 17 footer would not be big enough. My main two crops would be sunflowers and hemp. I of course would put in a huge garden. I would like the hill to not be seen from the road because I would like to put one or more wind generators. If there is no hill I would set up a tower. The barn and the trailer would have as many solar panels on it as I can afford I would heat the barn and the trailer with a safe woodstove that can divert it's smoke to a smoke house next to it. Water pipes around the woodstove, then buried in the ground leading to the trailer and barn would bring heated water. I could tap some for hot water and the rest would heat the floors. With that much space I could have goats, rabbits and chickens as food and worms for bait and organic fertilizer. That is my simple outline of what I could set up as a self-sustaining farm. I figure that would be good enough for me and my girlfriend.

Any thoughts? I would like to hear them.
Michael.