This question comes from Matt in Bathurst: “How would you protect your family against the inevitable zombie apocalypse?”

Well first up, I am going to set myself some criteria for answering this question otherwise my copious imagination will run amok.  I am going to take Matt’s question very literally.  I am going to come at it from the perspective that I am indeed just protecting my family and I’ll even narrow that down further  to my immediate family, thereby not taking advantage of my brothers riverfront property with boats, industrial grade tractors and hunting rifles.  I will also approach this in that I can only use what I already have or can scavenge from my immediate neighborhood.  So no tanks, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, impregnable towers or armed soldiers.  This will be me and my family on our hobby farm vs the Zombie Apocalypse.

Location

First off we are pretty lucky to be located where we are.  We live a good 8 minute drive away from the nearest town which only has a population of 10,000.  Our neighborhood consists of big wide fenced paddocks with the odd farmhouse so you could count the amount of people that live within a two mile radius easily if you took off your shoes.  Say when the apocalypse hits, when the initial carnage settles approximately half the town is zombies.  That is 5000 zombies to deal with.  By the time they spread out away from the township in all directions and some reach to our little remote area we are talking probably only dozens to deal with and spread out at that.  With our farm at the top of a hill that means we should see any zombie making its way in our direction well before they see us.

 

Now, to answer Matt’s question: “How would I protect my family?” Let’s see:

 

Protection from dehydration

We have a 5000 litre rainwater tank as well as a 1 megalitre farm dam.  Plenty of water to keep us going for months at a time if rationed properly.  Raids on any dead neighbours houses can supply us with more if required.

Protection from starvation

We have three chickens and three ducks which both can provide us with eggs.  We also have a drake and a rooster so more chickens and ducks down the line for meat.  We have two nanny goats who are ripe for breeding if we were to hijack a billy from the bloke down the road when things started turning south. So 2 types of egg, 3 types of meat and one type of milk right there!  Add to this 30+ fruit and nut trees and two gigantic vege patches and we are able to live off the land for quite a while if necessary.  Add to that all the canned food in our pantry and raids on the kitchens of dead neighbours and we are sitting pretty!

1^st line of defense: Protection of our borders

We have fencing right the way round our 15 acres.  It is certainly tall enough and strong enough to stop lone zombies, however a small group could knock over a section in short order by force of weight alone.  Strengthening the fences with a good quality barbed wire (I have a big roll under my pool table) as well as digging a pit at least 5 feet deep lined with spiked logs around the outside and it would take a very large number of zombies to breach the gates.

2^nd line of defense: Protection of our property

Zombies hunt primarily by sight and sound.  Some claim by smell too though it’s the weakest of their three senses (a lot of noses tend to get bitten off during human-to-zombie conversion).  Easy enough to hide the family indoors while I go about the farm covertly with my rather extensive range of long handled, bladed farming implements to quietly dispatch them.  Also the zombies will be attracted to the ducks, chickens and goats because of their noise.  With whatever zombies breaching our perimeter being attracted to those three main points, it makes it a simple task to locate them and then dispatch them from behind with a spike to the brain while their attention is focused on the animals.

3^rd line of defense: House and shed

Our house, being one story and with its many windows, is not really zombie-proof.  However the windows and doors could be boarded up and there is a large cavity within the roof with it’s own lighting.  Certainly one could hold out in there for a fair while until the zombies eventually forgot us and left.  By kicking the chair away there is no way the zombies could climb up or locate us within the roof.

Our shed has strong metal walls, strong metal door and strong metal roller doors.  No windows.  It is also chockers with the aforementioned farm equipment that could be turned into weapons.  Shovels, picks, edgers, chainsaws, pitchforks, trimmers, ride on mowers and of course my trusty hunting knife.  Should the house become compromised the shed could be a bastion to hold up in.

Last line of defense: BIG ANGRY TREV!

How do you think I got this moniker?  From being a calm and collected person, timid in the face of adversity?  Hell no – when needed I can call upon a rage that fills me with the warm, glowing crimson light of anger that brings death and destruction to those that would threaten me and mine!  I will FREAKIN DESTROY any zombie that gets close to my wife and kids!  And should their numbers prove too great for me to physically hold off, then that’s when my big fat mouth comes into play.  I can and will make that much noise that every zombie for miles will be chasing me down the road, my family forgotten in their decaying minds.

 

So Matt, should the zombie apocalypse be as inevitable as you believe, well you just pop the wife and kids in the car and head on down to Trev’s place, we’ll be right as rain!  Thanks for your question.