Prepare Without Looking Prepared

“We’ve got this neighbor down the street who’s prepping for the end of the world. What a weirdo!”

We’ve all heard these comments (or similar ones). As for the wife and me, when friends, delivery men, in-laws, out-laws, offspring, or third cousins (who only show when they need something) come by the house, we don’t want them thinking we’re crazier than we are. Most importantly, we don’t want them knowing we’re prepping. For obvious security reasons, we don’t want those cousins to be the first at our doorstep when SHTF. So, how do we prepare without looking the part?

The wife and I are blessed to live in a good home on a remote farm in eastern Tennessee with plenty of resources at hand– good garden space, open fields in front, timber around, plenty of storage space, and a good defensible arrangement. We’re fortunate to keep most of our food stored in sheds and have a dry, cool basement to store food, ammo, medicine, and whatever else we need. Everything is stored in dusty old boxes and bags, clearly marked for what is NOT in them. When asked by our children why our milk is powdered or why their Mom makes her own washing detergent, we convincingly (and truthfully) respond that it saves lots of money.

For as bad as the winters are here, I am surprised that more people don’t have studded tires.

I do seem to recall that they are illegal here, though. They didn’t used to be but I think that the problem was they were ripping up the roads too much.

That said, if the weather is bad enough that what I have isn’t going to work, I don’t go out in it. I keep a close eye on the weather and am always ready to hunker down for a storm. I do my shopping days before it’s expected arrival instead of in the teeth of it, like most idiots who live here.

You’d think that someone born and raised in this climate would have a clue, and yet they are caught off guard almost every single time and the stores shelves are stripped bare of milk, bread, eggs, bottled water, etc by people who have no business driving in the conditions they’re out in.

I don’t know if I could or would for sure. What I do know is that I have a habit of acting instictively and agressively when threatened, and think later.

For example, we had someone enter our house at night. I had inadvertently fallen asleep on the couch in the living room. Hubby fell asleep unintentionally in front of the TV in the basement family room. Kids were in bed asleep.

Being a lite sleeper, the patio door woke me up. I thought at first it was Hubby. When he didn’t answer me, it made me kinda mad, so I repeated my question in a harsher tone.

He froze and stopped right there by the door. I realized that it was not hubby. That made me so mad, I screamed at him like a banshee, jumped up and started toward him demanding to know who the h*ll are you, and what the h*ll do think YOU are doing in MY house? He turned around and ran off.

Only then was I scared, but he was gone.

Similarly, a man once entered the womans rest room and went into the stall next to me. I didn’t know whether it was a man or woman, but I noticed the boots were awfully dirty.

Next thing I know, a face appeared under the stall, and I thought, if that’s a woman, it’s the ugliest and most greasy haired woman I ever saw. So I am screaming like a banshee and using the H*ll word and telling the jerk to quit looking and at the same time, I am kicking him with my foot enclosed in my nice clean cowboy boot.

After it was over, I was scared, and thought jee whiz, if he had a gun he’d probably have killed me.

Good article. I enjoyed reading it. We have always had a certain way of life. It’s now called prepping, so I have a hard time thinking of myself as a prepper.

I am just doing what we grew up doing and what most of our friends and grand parents did too.

Since we grew up camping we always had alternative ways of doing stuff when the electricity went off as it often does. We have always grown some food and preserved it. Always bought extra food when on sale and stored it. Ordered a quarter of beef and stored it in the freezer (that’s a year’s worth for our family of four).

The main change for us is just more of what we have always done. When the oil prices first spiked up from 2 bucks, and the market crashed in 2008.

I immediately began stocking up on all our usual and favortie things. Like peanut butter and tuna fish.

If the peanut butter had a use by that was at least 15 months in the future, then I bought enough to last 15 months, and so forth. We have 4 grocery stores, so I bought some from each store, and bought plenty of extra when it was on sale.

Same for all the staples that last forever it seems, like pinto beans, sugar, flour, salt, baking soda, honey, etc.
Once a quarter, I buy food in bulk, number 10 cans from the LDS on line store.

I particularly like their starter kit. It has 6 cans in a case. Beans, Rice, White Wheat, Red Wheat, Flour, Oatmeal. That’s about one months worth for 1 person. Add some home grown veggies, staples, and vitamin pills a few scraps of meat or seasoning, and you can make some tasty meals.

These cans will still be good for 20 or 30 years, and that’s longer than we expect to live. We are working toward having at least a year’s worth of our regular food, and a year or more of staples and number 10 cans.

One of the easiest ways to prepare is to just buy 2 or 3 extras of whatever is on your non perishable grocery list. I have always bought one to use, one for the pantry, and one in case of company. I still do, except now, I buy it more often.

If your garden hasn’t produced, check out the farmer’s market, and can, dehydrate, or freeze the stuff your self. Saves money, and prepares for emergencies too.

Many people do this kind of stuff all the time anyway around here, and most families hunt deer, quail, turkeys etc, so it’s all pretty much under the radar.

If you are a “doomsday” type, then you need to consider that even if you have a year or 5 years of stuff. At some point you will run out, or maybe there will be a storm that ruins your stuff.

If something happens to your food and water, do you have the knowledge and skills to do it yourself? Take sugar for example. What if there is no where to buy it? What will you do? Can you grow sugar beets? If so, do you know how to make sugar from beets at home? Have you ever done it?

What about bread and flour? How will you make your own if you don’t have a grocery to buy bread or flour? Well, you get the idea.

Skills and knowledge are very valuable things to have. Such a hobby is another under the radar thing you can do, and it can ensure that your food supply is not tainted with pesticides and chemicals which is the reason, I got started. Just sick of hearing about e coli in spinach for a tiny bag @ 3 bucks. Save money and be safer. Buy a pack of seeds have spinach all year.

Normally, our snow is dry and powdery. It 'squeeches' like walking on styrofoam when it gets about -20 or so, and vehicle tires make that continuous scrunching noise (about like the footfall squeech, only deeper and continuous).

What we seldom get, and you do, is wet slushy snow, and that is no picnic. Cold isn't so bad if it is a dry cold, although it will dehydrate you, and you have to be careful exerting yourself to prevent frost damage to your respiratory tract when the temps are well below zero. (Been there, done that, no fun.)

I did away with my snow shovel (well not completely) years ago and bought a two-stage snow thrower (self propelled) for getting around the vehicles and the sidewalk. It'll throw powdery snow a fair distance (30 ft.) but the slushy stuff doesn't go nearly as far or as well. It is good for the conditions here. Electric start was only another $50, and when I thought of trying to pull start it at -30, that decision was a no-brainer.

I'm no fan of contact frostbite, either, and as someone who grew up in a warmer climate long ago and far away, had to learn the patience needed to keep your gloves on to get things done. It's about as efficient as eating soup with a sawed-off canoe paddle, but you get used to everything taking longer in winter.

Another thing I haven't seen addressed on the thread as far as vehicles go is one of lubricants. Motor oils should be synthetic in extreme cold, and gear lube for manual transmissions and differentials should be similarly arctic rated.

We have engine heaters to facilitate starting on the cold days (-10 and colder--some days, <-20, they will not go without one). Having a warm (relatively speaking) engine block can help keep fuel from washing the cylinders and scoring the pistons and significantly extends engine life.

Another thing not mentioned is the survival kit, at bare minimum the means to keep either the occupants or the passenger cabin warm for a few hours. These can be a lifesaver, especially for those who do not dress for being out in the weather.

We’ve had it cold enough for the snow to squeak when you walk and drive on it so I know the sounds you are describing.

Around here it doesn’t usually get that cold but still there are tons of idiots who I’ve seen walking around in t-shirts and shorts in 30 degree weather, as if it’s not cold at all.

The snow we get varies from lake effect, which can be extremely light and fluffy to nor-easter stuff which is shoveling slop because it’s so warm that the water content is very high. That is back breaking work and when it freezes, makes an awful mess.

There are times when you are FORCED to go out and shovel it because it neither goes through the snow blower, and when the forecast is for deep cold, it freezes into a nasty, mess that is difficult to drive and walk on and impossible to shovel off when the next storm hits.

My neighbors around my land know that I’m prepping . . . for the next time I lose my job and have to pay my expenses with what I grow. They know it has happened 3 times in the last 7 years, so this doesn’t seem outlandish to them. In their eyes, I’m just learning from my own past.

This will work much better after I get my house built and am actually living on that land, but one step at a time.

Meanwhile, I’m investing in a few gadgets that will hopefully make my canning and preserving easier. I got a Back 2 Basics tomato strainer, and later today will be ordering the accessories for grapes and berries and such. I got the strainer used, so I saved enough that after buying the extras I’ll have spent about the same as buying just the strainer new. I’ve also been saving up for a grain grinder. I have a couple of cheap ones, but they don’t get any finer than malt-o-meal. I want real flour! Tomorrow I plan on experimenting with making my own bug spray. I found instructions for distilling yarrow, and the person who wrote that said that it worked better on mosquitoes than any other spray she’d tried. Granted, my “distiller” is going to be a little more kludged than hers was, but the physics should be the same.

Oh, I also got a cherry stoner for $5 on shopgoodwill.com. Good place to find gadgets. I currently am bidding on a solar/hand-cranked radio/lantern/USB charger. I’m not able to put up much in the line of solar panels, but this should at least help keep small electronics charged.

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