Hi from the Pacific NW of the USA!
Hi, I'm new to the forums!
I'm in my 30s and a lady (so please pretend with me that I'll be celebrating my 25th birthday for the rest of my life). I live in the Pacific NW near a city now, but with plans to move out to my dream house/farm out in the remote woods. I'm a researcher/analyst by profession, and have more than a decade of military experience, most of it spent overseas doing work I loved with amazing patriots in crummy 3rd world conditions. I have more-advanced-than-typical first aid, firearms, and SERE trainings, in addition to other specialized skills that allow me to work from the middle of nowhere and predict weather impacts on comms capabilities and military air and surface conditions. I've worked in remote areas in jungle, mountain, caribbean (that was short but the weather was SUPER fun (sarcasm)), and a whole lot of desert environments on different continents. I wouldn't call any of this experience (SERE aside) 'wilderness' experience, more like 'extremely crummy but sheltered by tarps and plywood with cleanish water and food that was ok to eat if you took your special pills every day.' Our 'attacks' rarely came from wildlife, snakes and spiders and smallish nocturnal creatures aside. I'd consider myself a novice when it comes to living off the land and killing things you actually want to ingest. I worked with a LOT of guys who went through months long schools for that, and I trust them completely with those kinds of things. In the meanwhile I went through months long schools for my nerd job, which only incidently involves weird environments.
I'm working on short term preparedness (building up the right materials to put in my small SUV), and my ultimate goal is to live on my own property described above, fully capable of living completely on the produce and products you can grow and make by hand. One of the questions on the form here is whether I am into knife making, and I confess, I have no idea how to make a knife. I could guess and make a pitiful attempt, but I'd probably end up using a tin can lid as sharp implement, which likely much less effective than a pointy knife. But I own some good knives nowI have never had a garden, aside from helping the Afghan soldiers with their roses here and there - you'd be surprised at how seriously Afghans take rose gardening. I've killed a number of innocent houseplants by leaving town on short notice with no consideration given to their watering needs. I plan to be much more considerate in future gardening ventures. As for my love of backpacking, it is absent. I can't stand wandering around in the forest, eating spider webs and mosquitos and trying to sleep on a rock in a tent that already has 6 very hungry mosquitos in it and is very likely too hot or too cold. I'm a mosquito magnet, no matter where I am. I know that won't go over well on this forum, so I apologize in advance. I love nature, and LOVE to run trails in the woods, think the sky at night is beautiful, especially if you can get away from the light pollution of the city, but I prefer short trips for particular reasons, unless there is a nice, relatively critter proof, air conditioned house out there with beds with good mattresses, running water and sewer, a place to properly cook food and electrical outlets for my computers and gadgets, and preferably satellite tv. I've also had more MREs than necessary for a lifetime, so I prefer not to put them into my survival plan unless there is NOTHING else. By the way, the vegetarian ones are the best, even if you're not a vegetarian (I'm not).
I'm in reasonable shape. Not as good as when I was a college athlete (skinny nerds are good at cross country running) but not terrible. I'm working with the VA hospital to get all of these various ignored medical issues I've acquired over the years addressed, including breaking my back, two long bones in my left hand, several toes several times, my left kneecap, my cheekbone and eye socket, my teeth, all of the long bones in my right foot, my neck, and numerous dislocations and seperations of both shoulders. It sounds bad, but they only ever make me grouchy when I'm carrying really heavy things that I shouldn't be for too long, or when the weather takes a major turn. I intend to marry or hire someone strong enough to do the heavy stuff on the farm. I hear they've got some good machines out there for some of that stuff, too. And in a tight spot, I've always got labradoodle dog power to work with
What I hope to gain on these forums are some friends who've been thinking about the kinds of problems I'll be solving as I prepare to go live off the grid, and I hope the friends have a sense of humor and don't mind answering stupid questions and an overabundance of smileys
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Originally Posted by lovesfreedom
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