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© 1998 by Mary Lou Seymour and Claire Wolfe. This is a work in progress. You may download it for your own use, but it is not yet for circulation. We welcome any comments, corrections or additions you care to offer.
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What individuals should bring to the gulch
When this topic briefly arose during a discussion with friends, we were surprised by the variety of opinions expressed which ranged from, "If a friend in need showed up with nothing, I'd take them in," to, "Members of a gulch should be required to bring everything they need for self-sufficiency."
The former opinion is charitable but unrealistic. A lot of perfectly decent, "philosophically correct" people aren't preparing to take care of themselves. In any wide-scale crisis they, in their vast numbers, will quickly become a burden on everyone around them. (Remember, we're not talking about helping an individual who may be on the run; that's a different matter. We're talking about all of us surviving a sustained period of withdrawal, possibly in a financial crisis.)
The latter opinion is closer to our own, but may be too harsh or idealistic. Not many of us are actually capable of self-sufficiency, and part of the purpose of a gulch is to fill the gaps in our individual preparations and capabilities.
Some people also argue that "requiring" anyone to bring anything to a gulch is "unlibertarian." Nonsense. People contracting to create a community can require anything that's agreeable to the members of the group.
What you require, as an individual gulch organizer, or what your group decides to require as you build a cooperative approach to gulching, will depend in large part on the type of community you create. For instance, if your gulch is a corporation in which members simply buy shares, you might agree to provide all the basics, but require members to pay and/or work for their portion. If your gulch operates more like a real estate development, you might expect every buyer to provide everything from housing to tools and trade goods.
There is no one right way to do it.
About the only definitive thing we can say on the subject of "requirements" is this: While it would be the height of folly to be so loose as to say, "Hey guys, let's have a gulch! Just show up with whatever you want!" it would be a pain in the butt to dictate everything down to the last detail exactly the kind of pain in the butt (aka, government) most of us crave to escape. Dictating every detail would also be unnecessary, and would actually inhibit the workings of the invisible hand that operates within all free markets and free societies.
If you're building a gulch, big or small, the people in it will need a lot of preparations to take care of themselves and be assets to the community. But since it's likely to take you several years to plan a gulch, buy land, recruit members, create housing and do all the other things necessary to have a fully functioning, independent gulch, people have time to acquire the goods and skills needed for gulching.
With that in mind, here's a list of items gulchers will need. Whether gulch members are required to provide these for themselves, or whether some benevolent gulch god provides all and the participants merely pay for it, you should have these, at a minimum. And you should plan in advance for who, and how, they'll be provided.
Whether it's a tent, trailer, yurt, sod cave, etc. or a lodge, mansion, housing development, somebody needs to take care of this.
Some good books on housing, with emphasis on the creative and inexpensive:
Mortgage-Free: Off the $$$ Grid, by Rob Roy and Malcolm Wells (Chelsea Green Publishing)
Earthship: How to Build Your Own, Vols. I, II and II (solar homes constructed from old tires), by Michael E. Reynolds (Solar Survival)
The $50 & Up Underground House Book by Mike Oehler (Mole Pub. Co.)
Complete Book of Underground Houses, by Rob Roy (Sterling Publications)
In the short run, it may be possible for gulchers to fulfill their grocery needs simply by going to a nearby store. (A gulch might even have its own.) But nobody should count on that.
Whether its provided by the gulch organization or by individuals, and whether its home-grown, purchased or a combination of both, a year's food supply (at least) is a must for every gulcher.
There are many references for building appropriate food supplies. There are numerous references on and off the Web for learning how to do this. Good places to start looking:
Every gulch needs a reliable supply of clean, potable water that can't be shut off from the outside. You're in great shape if this comes from a spring or other uncontaminable source on your own property. If it comes from a well, make sure you won't lose the ability to pump from that well if your gulch loses electric service.
In addition, every family needs a backup supply of water to last through drought, siege, or water-contamination crisis. The backup should be sufficient for at least 30 days (60-90 is better; remember Waco and the Shirley Allen sieges, both of which lasted more than a month; water contamination due to biowar or other factors could also last longer than a month).
One gallon a day per person is enough for basic cooking and drinking. Add another gallon a day for washing and sanitation. Anyone storing dried foods (including bulk beans and legumes) would be wise to add yet another gallon; those foods require a lot of water for reconstituting.
Water can be stored in rain barrels, milk cartons (in areas without temperature extremes; otherwise cartons crack) or 55-gallon barrels. (Food-quality only, please! Old chemical barrels might poison you.)
If water supplies are iffy, people should also stock treatment methods (iodine tablets, bleach, filters) and know how to use them properly.
For the long term, your water needs also include plumbing and sewage disposal. Here's a good book on that aspect of back-to-basics living:
Cottage Water Solutions: An Out-of-the-City Guide to Pumps, Plumbing, Water Purification and Privies, by Max Burns (Vanwell Publishing, Ltd.)
The same sources that have information on food storage also have information on water storage.
For gulching, and disaster preparedness, cooking supplies mean more than pots and pans.
First of all, unless your gulch is fully (and reliably) energy self-sufficient, residents will need an alternative method for heating food and boiling water when they must do without centrally supplied gas or electricity. Consider both long-term methods (cooking equipment powered by renewable resources such as wind, water or solar energy) and short term (burners that use charcoal, kerosene, butane, propane, white gas or other fuels that need to be replaced although charcoal can be considered a long-term method if you have a means of making it on site). Have both the equipment and the fuel needed to survive a year or more.
Depending on the type of food gulchers store, they may need other equipment such as grain grinders, spare can openers, recipe books specifically for dried foods or grains, pressure canners, etc.
An ideal gulch would be food self-sufficient, but that's almost impossible. Your gulch should at least be able to provide some basics, such as eggs, milk, meat, vegetables and honey or the ground on which to raise/grow them.
Even when food is raised communally or commercially within the gulch, gulchers are better off if they have some capability of providing their own food. They should be encouraged, if not required, to bring such things as:
Keep in mind, in this as in other areas, that you have the option of requiring or requesting different supplies from gulch members. For instance, if two or three families agree to bring in chickens and the tools and supplies to care for them, another might agree to bring bee-keeping supplies or goats.
And for heaven's sake, if you want to raise chickens, practice raising chickens before you relocate to the gulch . Don't just plan on learning from a book once you get there.
Medical and Self-Care Supplies
This is covered in greater depth in another section. But unless you're able to create some miraculously perfect gulch with complete medical services and a reliable supply of medicines even in a crisis, every gulch resident should must bring the supplies necessary for basic medical self-care. This includes first-aid supplies, spare eyeglasses and contact lenses, required medications and food supplements.
Don't forget such ordinary household items as sun block, insect repellent, anti-itch creams, antiseptic ointments and Band Aids. We sometimes don't think of these drugstore items as part of our medical needs. But that's only because they're such common needs.
Under the health-care heading, also include basic sanitation supplies and tools alternative sewage-handling methods, bleach, toilet paper, sanitary napkins, soap, etc.
(Gulch organizers; be sure to set up sound methods for disposing of both sewage and garbage. One of the greatest threats of the future might be disease getting loose in your community, whether from biowar, a mutated virus, contamination from dead animals and humans or some other source. The more closely people live together, the greater the danger. In the middle ages, during the Black Plague, the highest death rates occurred in monasteries, universities, ghettos and similarly crowded places; while isolated farms and villas were often spared.)
Gulchers' need for money and trade goods will depend on a lot of factors. Will the whole FRN system still be operating, or will it have collapsed? Will the FRN system still be operating, but suffering the chaos of inflation or deflation? Will "the cashless society" have supplanted FRNs? On the other hand, will the credit society be in a state of collapse due to Y2K, recession, depression or some other problem? Will the government have made gold or silver illegal? Will your primary need be for trading within your gulch, with the outside world, or (more likely) a combination of both?
Given all the unknowns, it would be wise for gulchers to amass, to the best of their ability, a variety of money forms. We realize that may be very difficult for people of average means or less-than-average means especially people who are trying to pull together so many other items on this gulching list.
We also don't think it's realistic or humane to require that people bring any particular amount of spending money/goods into the gulch.
Nevertheless, if we were dividing up our own meager spendable resources, we might prioritize them something like this:
We'd also take careful stock of every skill we possess, whether large or small, and consider it a potential trade good. Your ability to sew a seam, tie a fly, bake bread, string a fence, kill a deer, fix a computer, set a broken bone, preach a sermon, slaughter a hog, grow carrots, train a horse, write a letter or fly a plane might, in a pinch, be the most valuable "thing" you possess.
If we were rolling around in money, we'd add gold coins to this list common ones like Canadian Maple Leafs, Kruggerands, or U.S. Gold Eagles. Gold has always been a good store of wealth, but you can't easily spend it on a loaf of bread or a coil of rope. That's why we put it last.
There's also the option of community money. See (http://www.lightlink.com/ithacahours/) for information on how that might work for your gulch.
Credit cards; don't mess with 'em. Smart cards, the coming thing; don't use one issued by a bank or government. IF one can be purchased anonymously and used like a pre-paid phone card and IF the country's financial system hasn't collapsed, fine. In that case, they're safer than carrying FRNs or silver.
Some possible trade goods
The best trade goods fall into two categories: Dire (but scarce) necessities and sheer luxuries. During a crisis, each might have its moment in the sun.
A few examples of dire necessities:
When money fails, these items may save your life. If money doesn't fail, you may have a few white elephants on your hands, but most trade items will still be useful in some way or another.
Again, it's possible that the gulch will have its own central power generation. But unless that is virtually fool-proof, attack-proof and shortage-proof, individual gulchers and families should provide their own backup heat and electricity sources.
As with cooking methods, you need to consider the advantages of both long-term renewable methods and the short-term methods that rely on possibly scarce fuel supplies (e.g. kerosene heaters, wood-burning stoves, propane furnaces). The former is usually much more expensive to set up, but cheaper to operate. The latter is easy and cheap to buy, but may not be sustainable in a long-term crisis.
Any backup method should be able to last at least a year under emergency use.
Unless you plan to live very primitively, every gulch family will need some means of cold food storage when central power isn't there. Whether that means an expensive propane refrigerator (for which fuel may not be available) or a little stone spring house built over a stream, it's necessary to prevent food spoilage.
This backup refrigeration method should be able to last at least a year or at least until the normal amount of refrigerated or frozen foods people keep around runs out. (You could accomplish this simply by having a generator powerful enough to keep your normal refrigerator going for a while, but, of course, you'd need to store fuel for the generator.)
We can do without refrigeration, but it would be a damn shame to have someone lose a whole freezer full of foods just because they didn't have a backup power source. (And don't forget, winter in some climates is a fair backup for modern refrigerators or freezers.) [Comment by David King]
While the gulch itself should have defenses, so should the individuals residing in the gulch. It's also wise for a majority of members, at least, to have tools needed for hunting.
And we mean a majority of individuals, not just a majority of households. Your ten-year-old should have tools and skills to defend herself and her home. Your twelve-year-old should be able to bag a deer, if necessary to survive.
We believe firearms are the best basic defense and hunting tools. Although this topic is far too complex to cover in a book like this, a very basic home-and-community defense arsenal might include:
For hunting, your tools are going to vary greatly, depending on your preferences and the game in your area. Basics might include:
There are lots of alternatives, including handy little over-under combination guns that put a shotgun and a small-caliber rifle into one neat package, and specialty items like rifles that disassemble and pack inside their own, floatable plastic stocks. You should also never forget the good old, inexpensive .22 rifle or pistol for practice, small game, or defensive use. And at least someone in every gulch should have equipment and supplies for reloading rifle and pistol cartridges and shotgun shells. (In that case, primers, powder, bullets, shot and cases the "ingredients" of reloading, make ideal trade goods or raw materials.)
Everyone reading this book will have some opinion about defense from pacifists who refuse any weapons to guys who want full-auto rock & roll. No doubt people can make cases from everything from home-made zip guns to crossbows. The only thing we can add is EVERYONE WHO MIGHT HAVE TO DEPEND ON FIREARMS SHOULD LEARN EVERYTHING THEY CAN ABOUT WEAPONS. And, as a gulch organizer You should make sure residents are prepared to defend both themselves and their community.
People with an interest in weapons will tell you a lot of different things, but one piece of advice is pretty consistent: It's better to have a cheap, inadequate weapon you know how to use than a perfect one you haven't got the skill to handle.
There are many tools that your community or the specialists within your community should have. While it would be a plus to have, say, a welder and welding equipment handy to you, it's hardly necessary for every household to show up with supplies for arc welding. But some tools should be common to every household. These include (but are certainly not limited to):
Fishing equipment of whatever type is best suited to your area
Basic household tools such as hammers, screw drivers, pliers, saws, nails, tape measures and vises
Communications equipment appropriate to your community which could be anything from computers and cellphones to tin-cans-with-string and signaling mirrors; any basic tools needed for maintaining it
Sewing machines (especially those operable by foot or alternative power sources) and other clothing-making equipment; looms, knitting needles, thread, etc.
Residents should be encouraged, if not required, to plan for a variety of transportation methods.
In the toughest of times, it may be that the entire community just hunkers down, goes nowhere, and needs no form of transportation other than that ancient nag, Shank's Mare. But in the long term, and in tough times, your community will need every transportation option it can get.
This will probably happen naturally. Bless us, we are a society in love with motion, whether that means cars, trucks, motorcycles, ORVs, bikes or airplanes. But for the health of your gulch and the people in it, it's best to make sure you have as many options as possible. We simply don't know what the future will bring. There may come a day when we can feed a horse, but not a car, or vice versa.
Since transportation is a basic, it seems to be overkill to require every household to bring its own. But people are silly and short-sighted; you can just about predict that someone will show up with nothing but an automobile, then be shocked and lost if fuel supplies are cut off. So if it isn't possible for residents to survive simply by walking wherever they need to go, you might want to require, or at least encourage, everyone to have an alternative method that either requires no fuel or for which they bring a year's supply of fuel (and any preservative that might be needed).
Consider:
In each case, try to ensure that everything needed to maintain and operate the alternative is also available whether that be hay for the mule or spare parts for the airplane.
Everyone should bring a full complement of clothing, appropriate to the climate and then bring spares, particularly of items that may make the difference between survival and death (such as cold-weather gear, or hats to shield against the sun).
Remember too, that clothing gets dirty and must be washed (ok, that's pretty obvious), and if water and heat are in short supply, that could present a problem. Some clothing items can be "worn dirty" for longer than others, for example, blue jeans vs. socks; and, some items are harder to wash (require more water/fuel) than others (thick socks vs. underwear). Bottom line: bring plenty of socks:-) [Comment]
We've already mentioned (and will continue to mention) specialized books on various survival topics. Either the gulch should have (in a lending library) or residents should be encouraged to bring:
Far more important than any material items are the skills and attitudes people bring to the gulch. To a certain extent you can recruit for skills. Attitudes are far more difficult.
Some attitudes you don't want:
One thing we found in beginning this project is that a would-be gulcher may be the purest freedom lover who ever graced the planet, or have breathtaking theoretical knowledge of preparedness and still be a liability to your gulch.
We cannot overemphasize this enough:
If a person lacks ordinary, basic horse sense or respect for privacy, he DOES NOT belong in your gulch, no matter how sincere, intelligent or otherwise able he may be!
One person who chronically screws up or who is unwilling to take care of himself is to the community is a liability. One person who opens her mouth when she shouldn't is a disaster. The first is a slow, painful drain on everyone's resources and patience. The second could destroy years of effort in one mis-spoken sentence.
When we talk about people unable to care for themselves we are not talking about the old or chronically ill. Nor are we talking about children. Your community will, if it lasts long enough, have the old, ill and young as residents, and if your community is civilized (and if the world hasn't degenerated into starvation and savagery), you will plan and prepare to care for the helpless. (Parents should, of course, be primarily responsible for caring for the children they bring into the community.)
We are talking about healthy, adult humans who simply don't possess, and won't learn, survival skills. Or who don't possess, and refuse to see the need for, discretion.
If the future is as tough as it might be, we're going to see a whole lot of evolution in action in the next few decades. Those who won't get real may die and if you try to save them from themselves, you'll only put yourself at needless risk.
But what if that carpenter whose skills you need so badly is one of those senseless folks? We highly recommend you find another carpenter! What if your best friend has no respect for privacy? Then he's not your best friend. [Comment by David King]
There may be some circumstances in which you'll need to adapt around someone who lacks good sense or is unable to take care of her own basic necessities. If that person has skills you simply must have in your gulch, fine. Just be aware you'll have to work around that liability. Don't trust the person with certain information. Or supply some of her needs, but have written agreements, with specified limits and requirements, so she doesn't become an endless drain.
That's fine for the person who can't quite take care of himself. But when it comes to the person who doesn't respect privacy, no accommodation is sufficient. That person will hurt you, no matter what you do. DON'T ever let that person into your gulch, no matter how much you love them, no matter what kind of amazing skills they have. (Fortunately, we've found that an uncontrollable mouth is more common among intellectual yammerheads than among people with real-world skills.)
Other folks to avoid:
Attitudes that are assets
Above all even above specific skills and talents you need people who are adaptable. We don't know what we're going to face in the future, and the person who can make a 180-degree mental turn and keep running, or who can land on her feet after having her most fervent hopes and beliefs blasted out from under her, will be invaluable.
So will the creative-minded or mechanically-inclined guy who can figure out how to make a power generator out of two tin cans and a length of pig intestine. It doesn't matter whether this guy starts out as a plumber or a philosopher; it's how he thinks that makes the difference. [Comment by David King]
In listing positive attributes for gulchers, adaptability is so far above the rest that the list would look like this:
But some of the next best traits include:
Of course, it's impossible to know, going in, what someone is really like, or what will happen when you bring a dozen or a hundred people together. A friend you've known and trusted for 20 years might be an absolute pain in the butt as a gulcher. Two people you respect highly might detest each other and cause friction among others. Factions might develop. People might intentionally or otherwise intimidate, irritate or run afoul of fellow gulchers.
Gulching is an art, not a science. And even as an art it's so unexplored it's more akin to cave painting than to decorating the Sistine Chapel.
You simply can't know.
But you can help yourself by keeping a keen eye on your companions, learning to recognize strengths, weaknesses and potential conflicts as soon as the first signs manifest themselves, then taking the appropriate steps to deal with them.
And by establishing some minimum requirements to be met by gulchers, you have already put a bullshit filter in place. The person who can't, or won't, supply basic needs, is someone to be cautious of.
Yeah, but doesn't that mean only the rich or the very highly skilled can gulch?
No way! First of all, there's nothing all that complicated about most of the items listed above. If a tent is a suitable form of housing for the climate of your gulch, your residents can buy one for 50 bucks. Storing water may take nothing more than a persistent willingness to wash used milk containers, fill 'em at the tap and add a drop of bleach.
It's daunting because there's a lot to do. But just about anybody can do it to one degree or another with some time, patience and creativity. And a little bit of money, but not as much as most people think.
And just about nobody can do it perfectly.
Which is why you, as a gulch organizer, also need to be flexible and to use both that recommended horse sense and some freedom-loving free-market skills.
For instance, it just may be that some young couple would be great, energetic, willing gulchers but simply haven't had time or cash to amass a year's supply of food for their very young family. Fine, then let them trade labor for food. Or let them in with the proviso that they have their food supply fleshed out within the next 18 months. Be creative.
Or you might want to recruit a highly skilled engineer, but he's fairly clueless about taking care of his own housing or medical needs. Okay, then do a swap with him. Or recruit someone who knows medicine or house building who can use some engineering services.
A lot of these relationships happen naturally in any community. As an organizer, your role isn't to plan every relationship, compromise and trade down to a gnat's eyebrow. It's to be on the lookout for opportunities, to encourage them to happen, to think creatively, to pick the people who can make them happen, to see the big picture.
When the doctor and the plumber look down their noses at each other, it's your job to understand how their skills and personalities can both contribute to the community, and to walk the narrow, diplomatic line that makes it all work.
No, gulching isn't just for rich people. If it were, you'd have a whole lot of well-supplied bunkers sitting side-by-side, occupied by people who could afford the toys, but who probably couldn't figure out how to rig a toilet out of an old box and a plastic bag.
Gulching is for the creative, the willing, the tough, the adaptable, the skilled, the caring, the hard-working, the diplomatic and the ones who love freedom so much they'll do anything to live it, rather than just talk about it or throw money at it.
Training sessions and community supply efforts
Here's an idea for you as a gulch organizer. To help make sure the individuals and families in your community are prepared as best as possible, hold scheduled training sessions to promote desired skills, and find ways of pooling resources to build individual supplies.
For instance, you might have monthly shooting sessions. (Be careful; you'll really be tarred for this one if the media ever has reason to come down on your gulch.) Or you might do barn-raisings to propagate carpentry skills among community members. Members of the community with specialized skills might teach them to others, either for pay or in exchange for instruction from others.
You can also, as members of the LDS church do, make group purchases of bulk foods or have community canning sessions, at which individuals all get to take home a portion of the product.
Above all, conduct drills in which you behave as if you had no access to public utilities, such as electricity, natural gas and water. This is a great way to find potentially fatal gaps in your preparations.
In other words, do whatever it takes to make sure members or prospective members are supplied and have the ability to use those supplies.
Why "one year"?
Several times in this account we've mentioned that people should have enough of something to last one year. Why one year?
We admit, that's a somewhat arbitrary designation. A three month's supply of extra food or clothing is better than nothing; a five-year supply might not be sufficient in a truly deep catastrophe. Any supply could be swept away in a raid, flood or other disaster.
One year, however, is a realistic target for most people, and a years' supply of life's necessities can carry us through a myriad of disasters, from earthquake to unemployment to the chaos in the wake of an economic collapse. We can't know, but we must realistically expect, that if we survive a disaster of major, long-term proportions, some sort of supply lines will be re-established within a year.
Within one year, you can also get crops in the ground and harvested. You can weave new fabric and make new clothing, if you have to. Above all, you have time to adapt and make other plans for transportation, heat, light and other needs.
The whole idea is to buy time. A year is simply a good amount of time to buy.
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