Many improvements coming in the next couple of weeks for me.

Here in the rural Deep South at the land my wife and I own, we are trying to formulate a lifestyle that draws us away from the evil that we (and our readers here at GG&G) see around us in the world, and closer to God and each other. A big part of that is reducing the dependence on the system to provide us with food.

We eat a lot of green beans here, and so that will be our first food project this week. Using six 2x6 boards, my dad built a 8'x4' garden box that is about one foot deep and gave it to us. That's 32 square feet of planting space and the entire box planted with "bush beans" should provide our family of five all of the green beans that we will need for the year, if not for two years.

Our plan is to build several more of these boxes for "square foot gardening" and plant tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos and several other vegetables. Strawberries, potatos and corn are in the plans as well. My wife is a canning wizard and has canned fruits and veggies that could be used five or more years later, if we weren't eating them already.

If you can grow a large amount of what your family eats, then the system will have lost that control over you.

We also are right on the edge of having our rainwater catch system in place for watering the garden, and in short time will have the purification system in place to make it full potable for drinking.

You can have all the guns and bullets you need, but you can't drink them.

Speaking of bullets, do you have your 5,000 rounds of ammo for your battle rifle or carbine? What about 5,000 rounds of .22LR? What about 1,000 rounds for your fighting pistol?

Get it. Get a year of food stored away. Get a year of sundries packed away. Store water, but have a way to collect and filter your own to the tune of one gallon per person per day. If you've got five people at home, a 55 gallon drum of clean water is only 11 days. You have to have a flow of water coming in. A river, a spring, a creek, the rain. Whatever. A Big Berkey system is perfect for making it potable.

And very importantly, expand your network of hard nosed, like-minded friends. If Islands82 showed up on my doorstep post-SHTF, there would be no questions asked of him before bringing him inside. People such as these are very difficult to find. I live in a deep red area of "conservatives", and I have a very difficult time finding people who I'd crack open my stores for. Build that network.

We all like to ponder about a SHTF scenario and what we'd do.

Stop pondering. You're in one.