A Woman's Perspective on Prepping

I just read the guest post by Terrylynn over at the Survivalist Blog, entitled "Survival - Princess Style", and I found it very thought provoking.  I have wandered around the periphery of the survivalist/prepper movement since I was in my teens.  At one time back in the 70s, I took a "Survivalist" course.  I even talked my mom into taking the course.  I subscribed to "Mother Earth News", "Harrowsmith", assorted other more hardcore magazines, bought the Foxfire books, took archery lessons, learned to forage,... well, I could go on, but the interesting thing is that not one of those objects really prepared for things going to heck in a hand-basket. 

It was trying things, learning how to do things, and realizing that I had useful skills.  And when I went  through a decade of really trying times, those acquired skills helped me.  I shopped at the thrift stores because I couldn't afford to shop anywhere else.  I regularly remade items of clothing to fit my son and I.  I had a garden in the yard of the house I rented an apartment in.  I learned to make bread (very fine bread, in fact).  I learned how to make jams, and pickles and to can garden produce.  It wasn't a lifestyle choice.  It was necessity.  I learned how to make do.  I picked apples and pears from the cemetery near my place.  I gathered acorns in my neighbourhood, prepared them and ate them.  It's doing the prepares you. 

Terrylynn is right about one thing.  No matter how hard things are, the little comforts make the sacrifices easier to make.  Having a pleasant looking home, a comfortable place to sit, these make it easier to handle still being hungry when you finish eating your meal.  Reading a well-loved book yet again still helps to take you away from the worry.  Playing a lively game of cards by candle-light and having a good laugh gives you a reason to get up the next day and keep on struggling.  And even though I'm not a girly-girl, I do have a few dresses, and make-up for those special occasions.  We want to do more than survive, we want to thrive.  And thriving means we need to live, not merely exist.  It's those civilized touches that help us thrive.

And yes, chocolate is a food group, and ought to be part of any woman's preps.

Anyhow, there's my two cent's worth...

Snow

I've been reading all of my favourite blogs, and so many of them have the same theme:  snow!  The novelty has worn off, and everybody would like to see some or even all of it go away.  I'm feeling positively guilty that we haven't had much snow here. 

Years ago, living on the east coast, I too used to be very tired of snow come January.  Fallen trees on the road to our village, white outs and blasts of winds that could knock over tractor trailers, and feeling the house shudder even in the basement when a blizzard came through - I don't miss it one bit.  Those were the days when I blessed the wood stove.  We'd hang the hurricane lamp from its secure hook in the high ceiling and play cards by its light, and on the wood stove - stew from the pantry would fill the air with a wonderful aroma.  Food grown in the garden, canned and stored in the pantry... there's nothing like it.  Even when times were tough money-wise, we didn't have to worry about where the next meal would come from.

We didn't think of ourselves as preppers.  We thought of ourselves as practical people, knowing that winter happens, electricity going out happens, storms and floods happen, and only a fool would fail to plan for it.

When snow, or other life-interrupting events, force us to slow down or even pause the mad scurry, enjoy it.  Take advantage of the opportunity to take stock, re-organize your preps, and practice a few skills.  All too soon, the rat race will start again. 

Water Supply, more words of wisdom from M.G. Kains

Chapter 15, of Five Acres and Independence: A Handbook for Small Farm Management, is about the water supply.  M.G. starts by talking about his experiences with a variety of cisterns that he'd lived with over the years, and in one paragraph, he encapsulates all the mistakes one can make with putting in a cistern to harvest rain:

"At various times I have lived in houses where the primitive rain barrel furnished family needs and reared mosquitoes; where the shallow cistern provoked profanity every winter because holes had to be chopped in the ice and from which the water had to be lifted by a "sweep", "the old oaken bucket," or hauled, hand over hand, by rope and pail; a "chain-pump"; where a deep, unprotected cistern was built without provision for drainage and had to be cleaned of noisom sludge, dead toads, mice and other gruesome ingredients every summer; where there was a "filter cistern" which could not be cleaned (!) because of inaccessibility; where an attic tank filled direct from the roof collected leaves, soot, dirt and bird droppings; and where, in several houses, the water had to be pumped by hand either to a tank in the garret or a pressure tank in the cellar."

I have read a number of blogs where the authors planned to use a cistern to harvest rainwater, and this paragraph brought these folks to mind.  I've also seen some neat instructables from those who have actually made working rain collection systems.  Here are a couple of links to some manuals about creating rainwater catchment systems:


The Texas Manual of Rainwater Harvesting
Rainwater Harvesting Systems for Montana
Harvesting Rainwater for Landscape Use, University of Arizona
Rainwater Harvesting, Practical Action Organization

This interesting page details one family's experiences with using rain barrels:

http://www.kidsfromkanata.ca/files/rainbarrels.html

And here's another page from a fellow building a custom tank in his father's garden:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Water/WooTank/wootank.htm

In fact, visit Instructables and do a search for rain barrels.  There are lots of ideas for those that are handy.  In conclusion, there are some books that come highly recommended for those that are looking to build a water supply system based on rainwater:























































Art Ludwig has also written some great books on re-use of "greywater":















This particular blog entry also points out some of the pitfalls of gathering rain from a roof:

Blogs and Blooms

Here on my island, we've been complaining about how much rain we've had over the holidays.  Ironic really, as we will undoubtedly suffer a shortage of rain in July, and August.  We so rarely have freezing weather, it seems positively wasteful to watch the water that got away flowing off into the little swale behind the house.

Five Acres

I have been re-reading my ancient copy of "Five Acres and Independence: A Handbook for Small Farm Management" by M.G. Kains.  This practical book aboutthe realities of farming a modest sized spread has a wealth of information and guidance to help someone succeed both at farming the land and raising a family there.  In his introduction, he quotes from H.W. Wiley, author of "The Lure of the Land":

"Many a wreck has been the result of taking the family to the country, and afterwords having part or all of it become thoroughly dissatisfied.  There are many rough realities in a life of this kind that it takes the poetry out of the visions of joy, peace, contentment and success that arise in the minds of many."

One might also add that the realities of country life are such that preppers would profit from reading this book.  Anyone who has recently taken up their abode in the country and is trying to garden on a large scale for the first time, and going through the learning pains of maintaining a young orchard, new hives of bees knows what I speak of.  There is so much to learn and it seems like you have to learn it all at once.

This book was first printed in 1935, and is still in reprint today, and has 52 chapters of practical information.  And he didn't hesitate to quote from older authorities.  One important quote which I think is relevant in today's financial "climate" is from David S. Kelsey, author of "Kelsey's Rural Guide":

"Almost any farm needs a much larger working capital than the proprietor provides.  The more successful the farm is, the more it absorbs or ties up capital."

For anyone who is "going back to the land" as a preparedness measure, the stark reality is that you are unlikely to make a living at farming for a long time, if ever under the current economic system.  It's value for you is going to lie in its potential value when all goes to hell in a hand-basket.  This is one investment that should be protected. 

Mr. Kains wrote a number of books that would be useful to someone who wishes to keep chickens, or grow fruit.  However, only Five Acres and Independence: A Handbook for Small Farm Management is currently in print.

Check out these other books he has written:

Ginseng, Its Cultivation, Harvesting, 1902
Making Horticulture Pay, Experiences in Gardening and Fruit Growing, 1909
Culinary Herbs, 1912
Plant Propagation: Greenhouse and Nursery Practice, 1916
Home Fruit Grower, 1918
Profitable Poultry Production, 1920
The Principles and Practice of Pruning, 1922

These books are all available in PDF, kindle or ePUB format.

Non-Electric Lifestyle

I was reading Wendy's post over at Surviving the Suburbs about giving up her dishwasher to save electricity and become more eco-friendly, and it struck me that we all have our little guilty electric pleasures that will be hard to give up.  I'm sitting here listening to my electric coffeemaker gurgling on the kitchen counter, and wondering how long I would need to pedal a bicycle generator to get my morning cup of joe.

There are so many things that we North Americans take for granted, and just never consider how difficult it would be if the lights went out for a very long time.  Growing up, we didn't have an electric coffeemaker.  Mom made it on top of the stove using a percolator; it went camping with us and made coffee just as happily on the camp stove as it did on the electric stove at home.

Many of my relatives had large kitchens with both electric and wood-burning cook stoves in them.  One of my aunts had an oil-burning cook stove for use in the winter.  One thing I remember vividly is watching my granny stick her hand into the over to gauge the heat and whether it was hot enough to stick a tray of cookies in.  I wouldn't have a clue what felt hot enough.  Mom's stove had a thermometer on the front of the oven door.

We've probably all seen those camping gadgets for making toast or popcorn, but these are not new inventions.  There was a time when these are what people used.  I remember sitting in front of the fire with a wire basket on a long handle full of popcorn kernels and watching them pop.  I grew up with all those non-electric tools, although I will admit that when dad came home with that first electric coffee maker when I was in high school, that produced genuine excitement.  With that baby in the house, my first major addiction was born.  Mmmm, coffee! 

Nevertheless, when I look at a lot of food storage sites, and prepper sites, even though we all talk (and write) about preparing for a time when there might not be electricity, we all have all kinds of electric gadgets for prepping with.  Now that's ironic.  M.D. Creekmore addressed the same issue in a recent post, 4 Unique Ways to Preserve Food.  Honestly, I read a post from someone who is using an electric pressure cooker to can small batches!

This has driven me to an obsessive search for all those old-fashioned non-electric tools that my mother used to use.   Amazon has an amazing selection of these products, and the prices are not bad at all: 

Guerrilla Gardening

I have been re-reading Guerrrilla Gardening by John F. Adams, which was published in 1983.  Recently I posted about Senate Bill S410, and the alarm it was causing in some circles.  John F. Adams raised alarms about legislation of another kind.  He wrote:

"Another trend that threatens traditional seeds is downright Orwellian.  Although individual companies do develop and claim ownership of new varieties, basically, except for some ornamental varieties such as roses, plants and seed have always been, in whatever variety they grew, public property.  In recent years there has been a movement to pass laws all over the world, but especially in Europe and North America, that would effectively take ownership of plant species out of the public domain and make such ownership private and commercial.  Because the subtle differences between similar varieties of plants makes legal distinctions extremely difficult, there is a movement of members ot he European Common Market to restrict varieties of plants that can be grown to those listed in the "Common Catalog"...."


Although it has been 27 years since Adams penned those words, it was kind of chilling to read.

Disturbing News from South of the Border

If Americans ever received a clearer indicator that they no longer live in the land of the free, it's the kind of legislation the U.S. Senate is contemplating right now, Senate Bill S410 Food Safety Moderation Act.  It seems ironic that it is Canadian "watch dogs" that have alerted Americans to this threat.  Check out the article.

I've read a lot of survivalist blogs and texts floating around on the internet, and there was one fellow/group who predicted this very thing, and worse, so it was a bit surreal to see this kind of thing going on in the U.S.  Imagine making seed-saving illegal.  Let's take another step, and imagine making it illegal to use compost that you made yourself, illegal to grow non-hybrid crops, illegal to use home-made alternatives to commercial products.  Sounds like a movie I recently watched called Downstream is not entirely crazy.

I hope this kind of insane BigCorp mentality isn't contagious.

Update December 1, 2010:  Check out Dr. Laura's Blog.  The thought police are rising in America.