Horseback

Would a feasible form of transportation be by animal? I wonder how practical it would be to have pastures and the like, available for horse grazing? What I'm concerned about is the fact that some forms of communication will undoubtedly be down, and that long distance communication will be difficult, even if the radio relay internet is successful. Also, many small clusters of communities will need to be brought together - strength in numbers as it were. Are ash in the air and poisoned land going to make pastures impossible? Also, are fields of hay impossible to produce with hydroponic methods?

Offered by Ted.

Even if the plants die, their stalks will remain. Alas, hay. If there's a lot of ash - there might be a problem. Getting out in it to gather anything could be the worst. One can always wash it, if there's water (doesn't have to be potable for humans - just wet and clean enough to get the ash off). Otherwise dust it. If you've ever seen a hungry quadraped herbivore - you know they'll eat tree bark if they have to (and like it). Give them a scratch behind the ears every day - brush'em down when they sweat under your weight, and keep'em indoors so they can breathe and have drinkable water (strained or filtered no need to be pure as we need it - different exposure bacteria; they can drink stuff that would kill us). They also reproduce and we can eat them. So, in an emergency they actually have a two-fold usefulness.

Offered by Geoff.