Cold Times — How to Prepare for the Mini Ice Age

by Dr. Anita Bailey

  Next, map and mark important outlying sites on your maps – civil structures (town hall, police, sheriff, county seat and offices); religious buildings; medical centers; food centers and distribution; banks; bridges, rivers, canals, harbors; airports; livestock holding or auction sites; rail lines and stations; power plants and utilities; high-tension power lines; and other facilities unique to your area.

  Now, go through and draw three large divisions in your land, representing an outer ring near the boundaries, a middle ring, and an inner ring right around the dwellings. Later, when you set up your defensive perimeters, you’ll form strong outer boundaries – but if someone gets through that, you will still have two strong inner defensive rings before they can get into your residence(s). The final defensive ring around the house(s) should be the first one you really fortify. Work out from there to the edges of your property.

  With the ring system of property defense – an outer ring at the perimeter, and inner ring around residences and living areas, and a middle ring somewhere between the two. Each ring layer needs static as well as active defense. The outer ring acts as the first alert, letting you know that someone or something has entered the property. The middle ring alarm will tell you how quickly the intruder is proceeding into the property, as well as which direction they are going (direct to the center ring? Or catty-corner just crossing the land?). The innermost ring is the one that sets off the highest level of alert, with all hands on deck.

  Finally, divide the three rings into “sectors” and name them. Don’t name them things like “front gate” or “west pasture” or “cattle barn” – use something that won’t be clear to someone listening in on a private chat or radio communication, such as “Sector A”, “Region 23”, or “Blue Zone”.

  Store your maps in the most secure portion of your property which is also readily accessible – something like a Command Post (CP), which might be the middle of your kitchen table. You don’t want outsiders to get copies, but you’ll want to be able to look at a map when communicating with someone at an Observation Post (OP).

  Observation Posts

  Using your maps, consider the best places to put observation posts (OPs) – sites which give you a ground level or elevated (tree, building, hillside) view of the terrain, passing roadways, weak spots in your boundaries. Try to find locations from which you can see more than one direction, near the top of a rise but not silhouette-able along a ridgeline, and within “shootin’ distance” of the observed site.

  These OPs should be concealable in outcroppings or shrubs, and covered among sandbags that provide ballistic defense for observers within. If you have artists in your group, they can help design camouflage that mimics the surroundings. Then your OP blends so well that it becomes invisible to viewers. When observers go into each OP, remember to use different entry paths so that there isn’t any outward sign of trails or use.

  Communications

  One of the foundations of a successful security plan is the ability to communicate among team members in the field and with the main center. Any usual activity noticed at an OP can be communicated to the CP and even the entire camp if needed. Handheld walkie-talkie type radios are the go-to tool for this. Most have a dozen or more channels, so a team can have several conversations going at one time. These are relatively inexpensive and available online and in Wal-Mart and camping stores. Each person in your group should have two radios at minimum, plus dozens of batteries set aside for each radio. Some radios come with an earbud (only use one so you can hear other sounds too) so that noise can be kept under control.

  Set one channel aside for emergency communications to the whole group, a fire or severe weather alert, for instance. The head of each household would then leave one of their radios constantly on, set on the emergency channel, so that everyone can be notified of an emergency at one time. Batteries may need to be changed daily or every other day on that radio. Solar rechargeable batteries are extra handy here.

  A second channel would be designated for OP communications, using site codes (“Blue Zone”) to represent which area is being discussed. Other channels could be designated for specific types of conversations, such as when people go out hunting. Radios shouldn’t be used for routine personal or idle conversations. That’s not their purpose and defeats security of your group.

  Any radio, especially these walkie-talkie types, are absolutely insecure. Everything said over the radio can be overheard by outsiders with their own radios, including the ones who are scoping out your group with nefarious purposes in mind. Always keep in mind that outsiders can listen in, no matter what is being discussed.

  People who have cell phones should NEVER carry them, keep them on vibrate, and DO NOT CALL OUT. They are to receive emergency calls from relatives ONLY. The risk of letting outsiders know about your set up is too great, otherwise. Yes, smart phones can be tracked and monitored from outside your location.

  Consider utilizing the knowledge that others may be listening to plant tantalizing false information from time to time, in order to lure outsiders into showing their cards. Think through all possible ramifications before doing this. It may not go the way you’d like.

  If there has been an intrusion into one area of your property that resulted in radio conversation, immediately change the name of each area. For example, “Blue Zone” becomes “Sector 9.” Intruders may be probing your defenses and code names, looking for clues to your defenses. Don’t help them out.

  Several members of your group ideally would also be skilled in use of amateur radio (HAM radio) and have appropriate equipment. At this time, there is an FCC requirement for licensing of HAMs; the test is not difficult, mostly memory work, and can be taken with a minimum of cost.

  HAMs can often contact the outside world, get information on conditions elsewhere, ask for or offer assistance, and keep your group up-to-date on current events if the internet or other news media is down. Real proficiency would include the ability to tap-out and receive Morse Code at a good rate. HAM radio is also absolutely insecure, so there should be restraint on naming your location and no information whatsoever on your supplies, personnel, or security should go over the airwaves.

  During a grid down CME or EMP incident, or if power is just unavailable in your area due to severe weather, you may need alternative or backup communication methods. You’ll need to develop a signaling system – blinking lights, ringing bells, whistles, car horns, or even trumpet blasts can all work. Work out a code, too, such as “three clangs of the bell means intruder” or “six flashes of headlights signifies a health emergency.” Write your code down and make copies available in critical locations. If something knocks down your radios suddenly, your groups needs to immediately be able to go to backup signals. Practice!

  There are systems that can be set up over limited areas that make use of wifi, especially directional wifi utilizing special antennas. This is a small industry, with devoted followers, constantly updating with new techniques. Your best way to find out the latest is to do an internet search using the terms “directional wifi” or “third-world wifi”. Using this presumes functioning grid or battery power, plus computers, in order to utilize the technology. Directional wifi is moderately secure. Intruders can still see the transmitters and receivers, and by positioning equipment on the line between them and using their own receivers, intruders can “listen in” to what is being transmitted….obviously, at the risk of being seen themselves.

  If computers are functioning and you need to relay information to someone that is too detailed to talk about, or if you wish to have a “newsletter” type info sharing, consider flash drives or even mini or micro SD cards. Reports of local news, copies of books, or requests for medical help, or trades/barter, music, videos, photos, and whatever can be loaded onto a drive. When you visit a neighbor, drop it off. They can download the info, then pass the drive along up the road. Soon the whole area will be communicating. This presumes there is power for computers, neighbors have and c
an use computers, and that people are willing to use this method as a bulletin board. This, too, is absolutely insecure.

  Don’t ignore the old “low tech” methods of communication, either. The ancient landline phone systems were simple battery-operated contraptions. A ringer was triggered by turning a gear, rather like the modern wind-up emergency radios, which sent a pulse along a buried or elevated electrical line to a receiver-phone. The same basic idea was behind the WWII “field phones”.

  If you have several locations within your property that you want to connect “by phone”, consider hunting down army surplus field phones on ebay.com. Virtually all the old WWII field phones are interchangeable; some have schematics right on the phones. Basically, each phone is powered by a pair of D batteries, and connected to one other phone by a powerline, or connected to an actual human-activated switchboard that acts as the router to any number of other phones attached to the same switchboard. The field phone system is elegant in its simplicity, and because its components were manufactured for use in war zones, it’s hardy and built for ease of use. Don’t use it during lightning storms because a direct strike can send a pulse of deadly electricity into the handsets.

  There are multiple online tutorials and plans for putting in a field phone system, plus many youtube.com videos with step by step instructions. Field phones are more secure than flash drives, wifi or radio transmissions. Potential hackers would have to find, dig up, cut, and attach listening devices to the actual electric line or in the handsets.

  Static Defense

  If your land is larger than a city lot, you simply do not have enough time, energy, or manpower to monitor all the potential entry points 24 hours a day. That’s the reason for lockable gates at potential drive-through entries. Gates act as a stationary or static defense against unwanted intruders. Gates aren’t perfect – people can climb over them, pull them down, or ram them with a tractor – but they do provide a level of visual deterrence. Anyone found on your property must have come through at least one barrier.

  Same thing with locks on our doors. People can smash a window and gain entry to the house, or even kick in a door. But all those things take effort. The type of person who gets involved in smash-and-grab generally prefers an easy target. So a locked gate or door provides an excuse for those people to just move along to a place that’s got easier entrance.

  A fence, even a simple barbed wire one, keeps in cattle and provides deterrence to intruders – most of the time, anyway. Cattle still escape, and people still trespass.

  “Most of the time” works fine in typical times and ordinary years. In the coming Cold Times, more people will have a sense of desperation and justification. Cold, hunger, not having enough money, or any other excuse will make it seem all right to them to encroach on other’s property or food.

  But not if it’s your property or food. Not if it’s the food that your children or family needs to get through the winter, or the supplies that you set back by sacrificing when times were good. You have a moral, legal, and historical right to your property and supplies, and no obligation whatsoever to allow anyone else to take it from you. You can share all you want, but that’s a different story.

  So, static defense of your property must be considered along with other security and safety issues. When you created your property maps, there were probably areas that had existing static defenses: rough terrain, cliffs, fast rivers, swamps, or other natural barriers to entry. That’s static defense in those locations. Cutting down and dropping trees across potential entry points is another form of defense.

  Standard fences that have been enhanced with additional barriers to entry can also be exceptional static defense. Rolls of barbed wire woven into an existing fence makes it that much more difficult for intruders to get through. Concertina wire, the kind with sharp razor-like edges, is even better defensively but some jurisdictions don’t permit its use right now.

  In the middle ages, peasants made fences by weaving woody plants together, forming “living hedges”. If someone was willing to wait a few years to get a tall fence, planting and then weaving something like “hedge apple” (AKA bois d’arc, Osage orange) or thorny locust together, they’d have a nearly impenetrable hedge that was full of spikes and snakes. The only way through would be with a tank, or a flame thrower. Once a year, you’d have to go through and mow all the sprouts that were trying to expand into your fields. It’s a small price for a sturdy living barrier.

  Other commonplace static defenses include trip wires set to jiggle rocks in tin cans, for example, or trigger a flashbulb alert, or ring a loud bell – you get the idea. There’s a risk of having this triggered if livestock, wild animals, or pets pass over it, too.

  An electric fence is another form of static defense that can operate on solar power. Anyone who touches it gets a shock, which is quite a surprising deterrent. Electric fences can be easily defeated, though, by grounding them out: a tree limb touching the ground and thrown over an electric fence will impede the flow of juice to it, and probably drain the solar battery pretty quickly. Grid-powered electric fences may throw a fuse and quit working when grounded. Ideally, if you have an electric line as part of your static defense, you would rig up a light or bell to go off if the fence is interrupted. That would signal you that something was breeching your defense.

  Some people suggest booby traps as a form of static defense, such as boards with nails in them with points turned up, a dug trench with pointed sticks in it, spikey farm equipment left lying in tall grass, etc. For right now, don’t.

  The first problem with having an array of booby traps as static deterrence is that everyone on your place must know where they are and be able to avoid them during all seasons including tall grass, rain, and snow. That really means you’ll have to pull a screaming kid off a nail board at some time or other.

  The second problem is that they are illegal in most jurisdictions. You can be sued into the poor house if some trespasser crawls under a fence and onto your punji sticks.

  The third problem is that booby traps aren’t terribly effective. Unless you can dig a 10 foot alligator moat around your entire property, an alert intruder can find a way around most other traps.

  Your OPs will be part of your static defense. Each OP provides the means for your security team to monitor sections of the perimeter. If any intrusion is noted, communication with the CP alerts the entire group.

  Dogs

  This may seem like an odd spot to put in information about dogs. We most often think of dogs as family pets whose primary job is to keep us company. We tend to treat dogs as if they are our children. That assumption about these useful animals is about to change.

  There is credible evidence that humankind’s first use of the dog wasn’t in hunting, as many anthropologists would like us to believe. The first use was actually as an intruder alarm. Virtually all dogs will bark at strange noises or people, giving “alarm”. Packs of feral and wild dogs do the same. It’s a means of alerting their pack that something unusual is going on. That brings the pack to attention, and threats can be dealt with.

  Some dogs are better at this than others. Most small lap dogs are so high strung that a wind-rattled window can trigger a volley of alarm barking. Many large breed dogs, originally bred as estate guards, have now been overbred for docility so they rarely alarm bark. That huge mastiff or Rottweiler or Great Dane or St. Bernard may look imposing, but at their hearts they often are big, fluffy teddy bears. We have bred these once lion-hearted giants into frightened, dependent children.

  As we progress into the Cold Times, we have to honestly assess the value of dogs on our property. A dog that does not work for its living in some fashion, is a mouth that requires food…that is, food which may be expensive or hard to come by as the weather reels and changes. Try not to look into Fido’s big, soft, loving brown eyes while you think about this. It’s easy to be led astray by emotion.

  A good resource is to read about “working dogs” – breeds and
crossbreeds that have been developed to carry out specific tasks to aid their owners’ livelihoods. I’m referring here to herding dogs, such as Border Collies or Blue Heelers, who run dozens of miles daily to drive sheep or cattle so the owner doesn’t have to. And to livestock guardian dogs, such as Great Pyrenees or Anatolians, who live out in the elements with sheep or goats or cattle and protect them from predators both human and animal.

  A good working dog can replace a human hired hand. The dog works for nothing more than kibble and a little pat on the head now and then. The dog doesn’t complain about having to work in bad weather, doesn’t care how you’re dressed, doesn’t go to town and get drunk or tear up expensive equipment like the hired hand might.

  A good dog is a valuable asset. A dog that doesn’t pull its own weight and then some, is not. Here’s how a dog that is a valuable asset pulls its own weight:

  The dog has a job, and does it consistently. Most working dogs learn “their job” early and have it utterly down pat by the time they are 2 years old. We had one collie whose self-assigned job was to patrol the edge of the property, a round he made several times daily until he had cut a path into the field. He continued that job until he was too old to make the rounds any more, day and night, in all weather.