Posted on 03/16/2015 4:27:03 PM PDT by Kartographer
One of the more-interesting discussions I've had over the years on a fairly consistent basis deals with the premise of prepping -- usually initiated by someone who's talking about a bug-out location, firearms, (freeze-dried or home-grown) food or (usually) all of the above.
Let's dissect this a bit, because the word prepping or prepper describe a lot of different things -- and frankly, the more I hear about some of them the more I nod in approval at some, while smirking at others. I think it's time we have this discussion, particularly given the rather-precarious nature of our global economy (driven almost-entirely by government attempts to protect certain powerful people and institutions.)
Underlying all of this is a problem that I and others have recognized for a long time: Humans do notoriously poorly at analyzing "tail risks" and acting appropriately in the face of them. I'll just put one example out there -- the Jews during WWII. Hitler's soldiers frequently came into a town with a few dozen men armed with machine guns and rounded up thousands of people, marching them into waiting boxcars.
The decision point to either riot or get into the boxcar happened right then and there, and was irrevocable.
(Excerpt) Read more at market-ticker.org ...
My prayers are with you.
I’m glad you are at peace and are right with Him.
“You want to locate in a red or purple state in the reddest county you can find, in a rural setting far from any urban areas or projects.”
Yup, did exactly that! See my tagline.
I agree with both of you.
I prep as far as possible for the foreseeable disasters, things that I’ve experienced before or have seen other communities experience: power outages, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. It’s important to me to be able to take care of myself and my circle as far as resources permit. I don’t have the resources to put in years of supplies, or buy a bug-out location; and I can think of so many scenarios where that would do me no good at all, anyway; and overall, the money would be spent better elsewhere.
I believe that a lot of people over-think this, through a concentration on the material aspects.
No amount of material prep can take the place of having a mind firmly set upon the Rock of Faith. There are some things you just can’t do anything about - or things that all of your ‘prep’ will not protect you from.
At that time, you need a sound, calm, mind - and in my experience, that can only come from Faith.
(By the way, in our Internet travels, we’ve discovered the Youtube channel of TexasPrepper2 - a lot of really good ideas.)
-JT
“My personal opinion after 9 years of prepping is that if you can afford it just get the Mountain House freeze dried meals. They are light weight and easy to store and last 25 years. We have it all and the canned stuff you have to rotate and that’s OK if its all you can afford but you need buckets of staple such as corn meal, flour, sugar, beans, rice etc. Don’t forget dried milk and oil. Olive Oil, vegetable oil whatever but you need that also. Plenty of salt too”
I can afford Mountain House, but don’t really like it. It’ll work for when there’s little time to cook, so I have some of it. I prefer to store wheat, beans, barley, rice, etc. Of course you need water, time, and condiments for those.
And especially as you said, something renewable is best - crops and livestock.
It will be a tough life, like our pioneers had. Better put getting in great shape on the too my the list!
God Bless and Keep You, JR.
;-)
You've already blown way past that my friend with your humble sharing of your experience and beliefs that will bless and give strength to far more than you will ever know.
God Bless YOU Johnny!
I do a lot of observing - objects, colors, but, mostly, people.Next time you’re in a Walmart or Costco, or a mall; watch people and see who you think will survive a TEOTWAWKI event. It’s not hard to figure out and it may come in useful later on.
That’s the right direction. The end of this world will come for each of us. That’s the most important end that we have to prepare for.
Food will get you through most any event. Food and water.
Bugging should be first choice. Home offers not only food, water (depending), shelter, knowledge of the area and comfort. Bugging out is unknown and could be very dangerous getting from A to B.
I, and a couple others here, can’t say enough about Susan’s food and garden preps at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPt5uAXcHkIlonoB5wN5exg .
Oh, you’d be surprised. A millionaire may be the scruffiest guy in the crowd. The most buff dude may not know the difference between a flat head and a Phillips.
Make that bugging IN.
I was referring to the Jews during WWII, not the current world. I plan to bug in.
If salt is a concern you can always rinse it out. I have desalted ham & bacon in water. Taste was still good. Same with some canned vegetables. I use canned vegetables in a dish as salt equivalent sometimes. Same when adding cheese.
I have desalted the aged parmasan cheese I made just as a test. Parmasan cheese was a staple for some European armies in the field because of its compact, long storage and high nutrient value.
If water is scare you can reuse the salted water in other dishes where you would want to add salt.
Fresh vegetable trim (dry onion skin, stem ends of carrots etc go in the mulch now but go in the stew when times are tough.
You’ve got your priorities straight. You’ll be fine, whether it starts before you leave or not.
My wife was diagnosed with incurable cancer (multiple myeloma) almost 15 years ago. She was given a 50/50 shot at 3 months. She’s still here, still has cancer (always will), and is still being treated for it. God wasn’t ready to take her home yet, but He had plenty of things He wanted to teach us both that dealing with impending death helps clarify.
We expect a major break down, which will mean the end of her medical care. Without that she won’t last long. We’re prepping primarily to (hopefully) save our kids and grand kids. They simply cannot see it coming, but know where to go if it does.
Thanks for the ping.
Prepping - a word used today to describe what most folks I grew up with considered common sense.
Living in tornado alley where electricity outages happen frequently too, we always had stuff on hand and stored for emergencies.
When the gas prices spiked up, I knew from the 70s inflation, that food and other goods would soon follow, so I bought as much stuff that we use regularly as I could and especially on sale-making sure that we could use it up by or shortly after the use by date.
I had already in 2007 liquidated half of my stock positions, but when the market crashed in 2008, and the economic disaster like nothing seen before in my lifetime, I also considered what if scenarios, and developed a plan to become as independent as possible.
Of course, I am not finished with that implementation since I couldn’t just run out and spend tons of money on any and all things that might be useful, but we are pretty well set up and continue to work on the plan.
God willing, we’ll have time to do more. If not we’ll have his guidance our faith in him to help us through what ever comes.
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