The Siege of New Hampshire

Beyond 'beans, bullets, and bandaids' is preparing to handle the people you could be cooped up with during a crisis event. Well-vetted survival groups are rare. Families or neighbors are far more common and will be a mixed-bag of stable individuals and those with potentially problematic personalities. Recognizing the issues early and dealing with them can prevent internal conflict from complicating your survival plan. Mic, Brian, and Jeff all watched the movie Lifeboat as a conversation starter about a mixed-bag of survivors.

The IMDB listing for Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, 1944.
Streamable via Amazon Prime.

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Matt and his little band of volunteers (and a couple conscripts) head down to Sawyer to hopefully distract and discourage the assault on Cliffhaven. They meet up with Gus in his shop and learn of the attackers' plan to breach the gate and loot all the food. Matt thinks up a different plan. Instead of simply creating a flanking distraction, he thinks they can even up the numbers by their wounding a sizable enough portion of the attacking force. His little squad move into position near the gate of Cliffhaven.

 

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Mic, Jeff, and Brian explore the feasibility of going "Lone Wolf" using the 2009 movie: The Road, as a jumping off point. McCarthy's very dour tale follows one man and his young son trying to travel through a bleak post-apocalyptic landscape. They encounter bad men and horrible situations. While the father is more of the stereotypical lone wolf -- always on guard, worried that everyone is a threat -- his son persists in wanting to treat people like human beings. The father isn't wrong, but neither is the son.

Watch The Road (free for now) with Amazon Prime.

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The moment of truth had arrived. Corniel's assault forces move in on the gate of Cliffhaven. A track loader with improvised armor plate is to pull open the gate. A small strike time is to rush in and neutralize the defenders. After that, two dozen conscripts are to move in to haul away the food, supplies and anything else of value. Corniel's team had not planned on there being a handful of defenders in the woods behind them. When the gate is breached and strike time rush in, Matt and his ad hoc crew must act.

 

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The rich and famous are building million dollar bunkers. Developers are creating bunker condos or luxury Bug Out Locations in underground (former) military sites. One such developer project: Vivos xPoint in South Dakota has only a small population of year round residents thus far, but it has already begun to suffer troubles, both physical and legal. The whole project looks like it will fail. What lessons might we all learn from xPoint about bunkerism and community? Mic, Jeff, and Brian share their thoughts and suggestions.

Links:

Futurism article: Apocalypse Bunker Failure —

Wallstreet Journal story on same community (behind paywall, if you have it)

Another Futurism article on the rich buying/building bunkers generally.

Canadian Prepper commentary on the same xPoint  problems.

Vivos XPoint Sales Promo Website:

 

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The final chapter of Refuge Mountain. Matt is awakened with the news that Morgan had disappeared again. He realizes that he had been holding onto a false hope that somehow he could regain his ex-wife. He had to move on. While Matt and Nicole are ferrying jars of food from the hiding place to his proper root cellar, a group of townsfolk come up his driveway. They had been discussing their future and had a proposal to announce to Matt.

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Monthly supporters on Patreon and BMAC will be getting chapter 4 of "Matt's Restart" -- the prequel to Refuge Mountain. You could read ahead too, when you become a member! 

 

If hiding in a bunker, subsisting on stored supplies, has some significant problems, what about staying on the surface and growing more food? Mic, Brian, and Jeff discuss some of the challenges wrapped up in the grow-your-own model. For one, it's a lot more work than a lot of people realize. Many a neophyte homesteader have given up on the lifestyle because it was more work than it was idyllic. Group efforts are good — the distribution of labor, efficiencies of specialization, etc. – but many of those fail for depending upon a single charismatic leader, or for organizing as a commune. Mic asks the guys what they would do differently.

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This is the prequel to the novelette, Refuge Mountain. You could consider it all part of the same story, just told in two different sections. This part takes place 4 years before the outage featured in the Siege of New Hampshire series. It follows Matt as he starts his life over, trying to live as a hermit in the mountains. In this chapter, Matt leaves his old home of Manchester behind, with all his worldly possessions in his pickup. He finds out fairly quickly that his meager 401k cash-out will not get him much, if anything. He follows a tip to a widow living near Mount Moosilaukee who might have some acres to sell.

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Monthly supporters on Patreon and BMAC will be getting chapter 5 of the Matt's Restart prequel. You could read ahead too, when you become a member! 

Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical analyst, predicts that the globally integrated just-in-time world trade that we've all become accustomed to (for the past 80 years), will devolve into regional (and less connected) trading blocks. Mic, Brian, and Jeff look at three ramifications that the average American might face, if Zeihan is right. One, is pharmaceuticals. China produces 90% of the world's Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients. What happens when that source is cut off, or severely restricted? A second sector is food. While the US can produce most of its food needs, much is imported. Does what you like to eat come from overseas?

Peter Zeihan's book on Amazon -

Peter Zeihan's Patreon Page - Many free videos

 

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The supplies Matt arrived with are running thin. He has to head into a store for more. The local grocery store / truck stop / hardware store had garden tools and seeds so he can grow his own food. Matt stocked up, though he realizes he has no real idea how to about gardening. On the way back home, he spots the little library of the village of Warren. Its one computer with firewalled internet was not much help with how to grow corn. The very plain young woman librarian found him the perfect beginner book but he could not check it out. Matt eventually noticed that Erin, the librarian was attracted to him.

Visible Quips?

Patreon introduced a new feature late last year. Quips would be short form public posts — a bit like tweets — that could include text, photo, and video. These were supposed to help content creators be more visible.

I have been posting Quips for a couple of months, mostly about little things going on around the homestead. These have filled in the gaps between chapters. I WAS going to tell you to check out my Patreon page (www.patreon.com/mic_roland) to view my Quips, but it seems that some OS and browser combinations don't show the Quips tab on my homepage.  If you see it, great. Check them out. If you can't, I've pasted links to a few of them below so you can still have a look.

https://www.patreon.com/mic_roland/posts/159390657

https://www.patreon.com/mic_roland/posts/165100471

https://www.patreon.com/mic_roland/posts/165476323

https://www.patreon.com/mic_roland/posts/166016126

https://www.patreon.com/mic_roland/posts/166431457

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