My position on whether and how to "prepare" is gradually clarifying.  I felt a desperate need a couple of yours ago to figure out what to do, which meant I had to figure out what was going to happen.  It was very frustrating to realize how cloudy the crystal ball still is.  Most of the web sites and books devoted to preparation seem to have staked out a position based on little more than faith.  The contributing considerations for post-peak preparation include things like urban/rural, slow/fast, money/no money, cooperation/roving hordes, etc.  There is a legitimate case for each of these, and few rational reasons that I can see to prefer one over the other.

So the approach I have decided on is a combination of cost reduction, awareness, flexibility, and developing response options for various scenarios that can be progressively implemented as the situation clarifies.  This approach means that I have in a sense triaged my life.  I have decided that the most effort should go into being able to mitigate moderate scenarios.  I can not, at my age, move to a farm and develop within a couple of years the skills needed to survive a major social crash.  I can, however, plan to move to a farm if things get tight in my current urban situation, in time to develop grid-free heat and power and put in enough of a garden to make life easier - assuming the survival of some infrastructure and cooperation.

I will not plan for a major crash because I believe the cost/benefit ratio of doing that is too low, the opportunity cost is too high, and the cost of a false positive (preparing for a major crash that doesn't come) exceeds what I am willing to pay.  Also, I am under no illusions about the probability of my long-term survival in such a situation.

I will keep my finger on the pulse of developments, and mentally and financially prepare myself for the possibility of making fairly large changes in my life if they become necessary.  The kind of decline I am interested in preparing for will give at least six months warning, and will be gentle enough to allow me to reorganize during the first six months it's happening.  Anything worse than that is too problematic for rational preparation.

I hear what you say about age. This morning I am putting the last of my R-19 up on the inside of the gable ends of my loghouse. This is on top of 1/2" of polyisocurinate rigid board and 1/2" of outside woodsheating. I made is extra thick since its the north side gable end.
So I work awhile and rest a while.I'm a lot slower than I used to be.

I have always wanted to dig a root cellar. My basement suffices somewhat but I like to have a place in the summer to store perishables for short periods.

I could box off the northwest end of the basement and super insulate it for a workable root cellar.

Best regards,
Airdale
I also need a milk cow or two and some chickens.

I'm just about where you are, prep-wise, over here in NH. Garden (Fedco seeds!), berries, chickens, cutting own firewood (and skidding it out with my big Percheron mare), etc.

I too am finding that age is taking its toll - especially with regard to firewood procurement. I'm thinking that maybe it's a younger man's game. However, one learns to pace one's self. But I confess I do feel a bit creaky sometimes...

- sgage

I agree with your comments 100%, particularly the last paragraph. I sure don't have any illusions. I don't do what I do because I think I'm "preparing" for anything. I do it because I love the life. I embarked on my path long before I ever heard of PO or whatever. It's just what I want to do.

I live in an area where most all the folks around are quite competent at useful skills. We're pretty used to helping each other out from time to time, and I guess we mostly like each other. No matter - we get along. Among my nearest half dozen or so neighbors, we have just about every tool and every skill you could want. And lots of horses - what I call the "horsepower of the future" :-)  I just want to fit in with that, and be friends with everyone.

Meanwhile, I keep gardening, maintain the ol' chicken fleet (I guess most people would call it a "flock", but I think of them as "the fleet"), and manage my woodlot.

Nice and warm today in NH - sunny and mid-50's! No need for a fire in the woodstove until after sunset...

- sgage

As I see it there will be plenty of land available. There will be many folks in the rural areas who won't survive and they sit on lots of acres. Since thats so then those with the will and the means can and should be able to survive if they wish on land that is of questionable ownership. I don't think someone will come up and demand you move if we are all just trying to survive.

I don't see any ruling authority that will be in control expect possibly the one sheriff we have in my county and he won't be going looking for trouble. He will have far more other more difficult problems, if he is still around and thats likely debateable.

Remember back in Thoreau's time many did what was termed squatting. They occupied questionable land. Besides there are thousands upon thousands of public land.

Now if they don't want to bootstrap themselves up but want what you got then AFAIAC they will have to kill me to get it.
I won't be handing it over easily. Let them go get their own piece and farm it. If they wish to cooperate then they have to have something to offer except a hungry mouth. Even then they are going to have to be extremely careful how they approach others for the others will be expecting trouble.

This is the hardest part. Learning if you can trust a stranger. The stranger can just cut your throat in the night after you have given him a place to sleep.

So its a troublesome question. I worked hard for what I have. No one will take it from me.

Its as we used to say "root hog or die".

That's correct, especially about the stealing.  Imagine going to harvest your garden or hay the back forty, after all your work, to find the goods gone.

As I've said before, don't jump rural for just PO.  I don't see the end of the world scenario, but things will become different and get tough. And the last place law enforcement will be is rural.  It can hardly manage the current cost of gas, and we now can hardly support their tax share.  If it does get worse, recall that land titles are only as good as the government's ability to protect it.  The old dictum  "strong fences make good neighbors" will fall with a pair of wire cutters.    

No chickens, no cows, not even blueberries, but a big organic garden and 10 acres of woodlot with two streams, a dead end private road, and two neighbors who are good with their hands, machinery and hunting (bow and rifle).

I'm not much of a handyman, and as a city boy I've never hunted, so I've made it my role to provide our little compound with vegetables, something that I was able to do this past summer in spades. The neighbor's kids were fascinated by the vegetable garden, and I often sent them home burdened with root vegetables and squash for their dinner table. I've still got some winter squash (butternut) sitting here in my office and some greens in the freezer.

However, any idea that we are going to be able to survive as a "liferaft" while the rest of society goes completely to pieces is pure fantasy. All it will take is a group of armed men in a pickup truck to pull up the driveway one morning before dawn and drag us out of bed, and that's the end of that story. Think that can't happen? Look at Europe in the 20th century. In fact, my wife's great-great-grandfather in Germany was murdered in his house by two men who came to steal the food that he had stored away. My wife's grandmother, who is still alive, was a child and watched from the other room as it happened.

In order to have any power over your situation post-peak, or post-catastrophe, or post-financial-meltdown, IMO, you have to be part of a larger social organization that can influence the behavior of others. How was this done in the past? Well at least one way was to form a local militia. And when the local militias cooperate or are controlled centrally (regionally or otherwise, not the case in Iraq, unfortunately), then you have order and security and life goes on.

Iraq is a good, if unfortunate, example - no central control, no societal organization and the result is chaos without personal safety for anyone. Try growing vegetables and being left alone under those circumstances!

If you truly want safety and food post-peak, it may help not to be in an urban environment, where you are completely dependent on others for the basics of life. You will also likely be more comfortable if you are prepared with a wood stove, no debt, some sustainability skills and something of value to trade with your neighbors.

This, combined with being part of the effort to form groups and to organize, may result not only in survival, but in some degree of comfort (if not prosperity by previous standards), under the new circumstances.

"No man is an island, no man stands alone."