Zombie Wednesday: Rebel Wellness Gardens - 'We Survived the Zombie Apocalypse'

Some people seem incapable of getting motivated unless they imagine that society has collapsed due to a zombie apocalypse. Exercising? Donating blood? Preparing for utility outages? Gardening? Bo-ring! But if you make them part of a zombie apocalypse in which all human institutions collapse, where survivors play Robinson Crusoe in the ruins of modernity, then everything becomes jolly funtime.

We make survivalism FUN!

So Andrew Smith's zombie-themed primer on starting a community garden should come as little surprise. It takes the resurgence in gardening and the locavore movement and combines them with the old zombie apocalypse. The twist is that in this scenario, the zombie part is over. I imagine that gardening after a zombie apocalypse is... much like gardening before a zombie apocalypse, but the garden-stores are all closed, and you have to pump your own water. Really, the only time that the gardening experience is significantly different is during the actual zombie apocalypse.

What surprises me is that Smith didn't combine zombies and locavorism with that fad that keeps walking, despite smelling dead: the praise of bacon. Zombie apocalypse bacon! What's more DIY than raising your own pigs and slaughtering them? You get to fight the ghouls that try to invade your compound, while inside, you learn about swine husbandry, slaughter, and processing. Dispatch the pig with a well-placed bullet or blow from a tire iron (remember: you must destroy the brain!), then cook the pig whole, and you and your cosplay friends can tear your dinner apart with your bare hands. Appendices will explain how to make organs and gristle into sausage.*

NOM NOM NOM NOM!1 NOMMERS! NOMzorz!

Here are some other ideas that Smith's project has given me.

The Rock-and-Roll Knitter's Handbook to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. (includes patterns for knit rifle-cases and tactical vests)

A Cosplayer's Guide to Building Props that Would Survive a Real Zombie Apocalypse (but Still Look Like PVC).

This Fixed-Gear Cupcake Kills Zombies!

This Bacon Kills Zombies, or The Steampunk Slaughterman's Primer on Surviving the Revenant Deceased in a Manner Befitting Subjects of Her Majesty, with Appendices on Goggles, Pneumatic Captive-Bolt Stunners, and Abattoir Corsetry.

*Note: You must process all the flesh quickly, to avoid putrefaction. Gore effects master Tom Savini bought real pig entrails to use in the dismemberment scenes of Day of the Dead (Romero, 1985), but a member of the production crew accidentally unplugged the refrigerator, letting the guts begin to decay. By the time the crew filmed the scene using the decaying viscera, the stench was enough to make most of them ill.