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...

Slow Recovery

Between work, coughing (hubby is sick too) and being glued to reports of the dire events in Japan, Libya and elsewhere, I haven't been posting.  I'm finally having a whole weekend off, and hope to get some urgent projects started at least.

I finally got one of the jar sealers for the Foodsaver that I order so I can start vacuum sealing my jars of dry goods (vegetable flakes, soup makings of various kinds, etc), and I have a couple of kilograms of blueberries cleaned and ready to go in the freezer that needs to be made into jam, and some herbs to get started in the window for hubby.  As he keeps tell me, a great chef like himself needs his own herb garden in the kitchen windowsill.  I believe it was wisdom on my part not to giggle at him.  I figure if he keeps practicing his culinary skills, he'll get better.  I hope.

My heart goes out to the folks in Japan.  For those most directly affected, the events of the last few weeks (has it really been that long?) will be with them for the rest of their lives and they are living through the kind of thing that a lot of us prepping for and hope will never happen.  I have family living outside of Tokyo, and it's a real worry to me.  As you can imagine, it's difficult to sleep sometimes.  Are they really okay?  Knowing that they were not directly harmed by the earthquake and that the tsunami didn't reach their neighbourhood is reassuring only to a point.  Reading that the tap water in Tokyo is contaminated, and unsafe for children, is truly frightening.

We haven't heard a whole lot about Haiti recently beyond the news that a devasting cholera epidemic has set in.  Innocent civilians are being killed as war heats up in Libya.  People are still trying to rebuild after the earthquakes in Chile and New Zealand, and the floods in Australia.  Truly, we have entered an age of catastrophe.

Living on the Pacific ring of fire as I do, earthquakes, volcanic activity and resultant tsunamis are actually some of the things I have to prep for.  So among my weekend projects is going to have to be revamping the BOBs and the EDC. 

Age and the Prepper

Earlier in the month, I was reading a blog entry from down---to---earth's Rhonda Jean about aging (Ageing and death - the final taboo), touching on the modern refusal to be old, as if it were some bad thing.  I found it very interesting and thought-provoking, particularly looking at it from a prepper point of view.

I agree with Rhonda Jean in that I no longer feel a desire to look younger than I am.  When I hit my fiftieth birthday, as a gift to myself, I gave myself permission to be my age without conforming to stereotypes about what my age should look like, or the new stereotype that if you don't look 20 years younger than you are, there's something wrong with you.  This was actually a bit difficult for me as I come from a family of fashionistas. 

After thinking more on the subject of age, I came to the realization that being the age I am (51) is absolutely great!  I've got a bank of experience and knowledge that is useful in a wide variety of circumstances, and will be useful in a wide array of scenarios, and so does hubby (yeah, the grasshopper has skills).  I've lived without the comforts of civilization (outhouse anyone?) at different points of my life, and have learned those little tricks that make uncomfortable situations less difficult.  And I still have my health and a measure of strength.

One thing that Rhonda Jean said really sticks with me: "I like the way old people look."  I think that a lot of people do.  Young people in particular who don't have "old" grandparents like to be around people who are comfortable in their wrinkly skins, because they so often don't feel comfortable in their own hides.  I am sincerely am glad that I'm not that young any more.  I don't miss the drama at all!

So if you are older, and thinking that it's too late to start prepping, stop that negative energy right now!  You are never too old to want to keep on living, and you are never too old to want to look after your family.  So if you want to be prepared, get to it!  Figure out what you are preparing for:  retirement, unemployment, forest fires, tsunamis, earthquakes, zombie attacks.  Make a plan.  Follow it (very important!).

Check out City Roots, Country Life, specifically their excellent post on shopping around for the best prices here.  These folks that took a long, hard, practical look at getting prepared, and not buying into the hype.  Price tracking is an excellent way to get prepared, not just for food and food storage, but also hand tools, and other manufactured items that would be useful, but isn't worth going into debt for.  I first learned about price tracking from America's Cheapest Family's website.  You can even download a copy of their price tracking sheet for grocery items here.

I posted a listing on Thursday about a basic list of staples that one should have on hand, and it jived so well with my own thinking that I posted it, although there are some items that I missed out on.  You do NOT have to follow this list; it's just a great starter, and certainly can be adjusted.  For example, I will stock more split peas than the list calls for because I really do prefer them to most kinds of beans. 

So my two cent's worth on the whole age issue is that this is a great time to be older. 

Richard Nixon

Read this interesting bio about Richard Nixon over at American Minute.  I find it interesting that Richard Nixon was probably one of the better presidents the U.S. has had, and yet the only thing most people remember is that he bugged a few phones.  Today, the president presides over a government that bugs the entire world's communications system.  Both activities are politically motivated, albeit Nixon's agenda was more five and dime.  I guess in politics, if you are going to do something wrong, do it on a really large scale, and you'll get away with it.

Food, Canning and Other Ruminations

Recently, I was at the second hand emporium and I came across a great find, a pressure canner with all the bits and pieces intact, including a new (still in the package) gasket and a replacement safety valve.  Wow!  I immediately bought it even though hubby complained that I already had one.  If one is good, two is great.

Today, I tested it to make sure that the gasket made a good fit, and to determine what heat level I need to put the burner at once I have pressure up.  I am pleased to report that it worked well, and being one of the weight style canners, I didn't have to worry about getting a gauge calibrated.

I have been reading up on canning things I've never tried canning before, such as bread, cake or butter.  Yes, I know that the experts say don't do it.  For example, at the University of Georgia, some experts did a study on canning cake.  They took some bacteria that they knew isn't killed by high temperatures, deliberately introduced it to the cake batter, baked and sealed it, unsealed and tested it.  The report does not actually state that the cake was subsequently processed in a pressure canner.  Naturally, the heat-resistant bacteria survived the experience. 

And yet, you can buy canned bread!

Similarly, the experts advise against canning butter because of botulism.  For example, you can read the material from the National Center for Home Food Preservation, University of Georgia on this topic.  However, they do not address the matter of those who recommend processing the canned butter in a pressure canner with the same directions one would use for any fatty meat/fish product.  No actual research has been done on canning butter.



So, what it boils down to is that you have to decide whether or not you will take a chance with these canning practices, keeping in mind that some botulism cases have actually been caused by commercially canned goods.  Back in the day, people were aware that there were dangers inherent in the canning process.  Nevertheless, before the advent of electricity and freezers, it was the best method available for storing foods.  So, people took their chances.

Before canning, a lot of the methods of storing foods over the winter involved caching food in a cellar, or a hole in the ground, or a cave, or an unheated building.  A lot of this food suffered from the depredations of rodents, who not only nibbled on the foods, but left behind disease-ridden calling cards, and fleas (which also carried diseases).  They frequently didn't have clean water to drink, and didn't know why they got sick.

We do know about these disease vectors, and so we can work to overcome them, but the bottom line is, life is not really safe.

My personal take?  I think I'm going to try pressure canning butter like it was a nice fatty bit of meat, 75 minutes per pint, 90 minutes per quart at 10 lbs pressure.  Update:  After reading this post by Bonny of Opportunity Farm on Safe Survival Canning over at the Survivalist Blog.net, I'll only try canning stuff that I know is tested.  Like most, I have an aversion to dying, or seeing someone I love die.  After all, preparedness is all about 'better safe than sorry', isn't it.

Update:  May 2011 - after doing more research, I'm looking into making and storing ghee.  Once the milk solids have been removed from butter, clarified butter or ghee, can be stored for a significantly longer time.  Check out this article here (a .doc file). 

But I'm also still going to look at getting in some commercially canned butter or butter powder:















Or butter powder:

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: 

What You Can Learn from Playing Video Games

I had an interesting conversation with a fellow at work yesterday about what you can learn from video games.  Now, I've always thought video games are great for teaching eye-hand coordination.  It worked well with my youngest who had real problems in that area.  But apparently, there is more that you can learn.

One thing my young friend mentioned is that you learn not to panic.  Suddenly, a raptor jumps you from out of nowhere; what do you do!  Apparently, long time gamers learn to not panic.  Another skill is to anticipate possible scenarios and plan for them, or planning strategies.  Thirdly, another skill is to learn to deal with tedium as in "grinding out rep", and "farming".  So, my friend thinks that all that time spent playing World of Warcraft is good survival training.

I can see the value in learning to not panic, but strategic thinking is best developed in handling real world events.  In real life, your strategy cannot include running through your opponent, and rezzing if things don't go as planned.  Indeed, if your main skills are game related, and you are a computer potato, you are not going to be physically prepared.

It's possible that in a bad situation where you need to direct younger folk who are clueless about real life, drawing upon gaming analogies can at least help them understand the situation, and why you need them to follow a certain strategy.  For example, you can tell them it's like doing a boss raid where you have to do everything just right, or the raid will wipe.  And if they complain that you don't trust them, let them know that all the tedious little jobs you are giving them to do is "grinding rep" with your faction, or they are "farming" for mats.

If you have kids that spend all their leisure time in the cyber world, you may need to offer them a "quest" and help them apply their "skills" in the real world.

Canning

A few weeks ago, I was reading Kellene Bishop's Preparedness Pro blog and she had posted about reusable canning lids.  A number of readers commented on the lids, and I recommend that you check out the blog, AND the comments.   Initially, when I saw these re-usable lids, I was all enthused, and thought I would like to have some.  This seems like it might be a useful item to have on hand.

However, I'm put in mind of a few recent blogs I read that asked if you are going broke prepping.  It seems like there's always someone coming up with some new "must-have" preparedness product, and people flock to purchase them, which is fine if you have the money to spend. 
However, for those of us on a budget, these new "must-haves" can be depressing to contemplate. 

I reuse my metal ones.  And I can pick them up at the dollar store very economically.  For the price of one flat's worth of re-usable plastic lids and rubbers, I can pick up 10 or more packs of the tin lids.  If you carefully inspect a used tin lid, you can readily tell when the sealing material is gone and not suitable for reuse.  And even a new lid can fail to seal, which is why we test the seal after cooling. 

So, while I think it would be wonderful to have the plastic re-usable lids, I believe that I will stock up on the tin lids. 

Economic Collapse

It seems clear that some sort of economic collapse is on the way in the U.S., and that would tend to have a domino effect around the world.  When that will happen, no one can predict because there are simply to many factors to consider, and it's possible that the triggering event will not even look financial, if you know what I mean.

And remember, there are groups in the United States that are actively trying to take away freedom of speech.  If they are successful, a great many blogs and sites with useful information for the prepper minded may simply disappear because they are deemed offensive and alarmist. 

Be prepared!  Checked out this video from RickVanMan.

Preparedness and Planning

Another fantastic post from The Survivalist Blog Dot Net.  This is the best summing up of the first principles of preparedness I have seen.  I especially appreciate the point on having a team.  Anyone who imagines that being a lone survivor is a good thing needs to re-watch Castaway.  The dangers of being injured or hurt when alone, and the sheer horror of being lonely are well-illustrated in this film.

I also like the points on planning, point 2 being "with a paper and pen write out a detailed survival plan", and point 6, "know when to change strategies."   "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley", quote Robbie Burns.

I'm going to be daring and add to point 2:

Whatever your long term goal is, set a series of mini-goals, and don't rush.  As a self-confessed lazy person, I want to do the job right the first time, so I don't have to do it again.  This means a little extra work in the short term because a detailed plan really is necessary.

Planning is especially important if you have non-preppers in the house.  Hubby has been known to give away some of my prepper supplies because "we have lots".  Well, duh, Skippy!  That's the point!  It takes planning to keep him from giving away the store.

The Survivalist Blog Dot Net

If you don't already have a subscription to this fantastic blog, The Survivalist Blog Dot Net, I highly recommend it.  I find that I frequently go back and re-read his blogs because they are so full of intelligent comments that often give voice to nebulous thoughts I've had myself.

This morning, I re-read a post from October about minimalism, or not getting carried away.  He talks about not spending too much time and money on gear just for the sake of having gear.  Skills, and multi-purpose tools are more useful.  I particularly related to his having to clean out an overstuffed shed and just get rid of the excess because in practical terms, the money invested could better be used elsewhere.

I can relate to that.  I moved across the country from one end to the other, and I had to do some serious down-sizing, but it was ultimately worthwhile.  Sometimes your possessions start to own you, and they might even get in the way of surviving a serious situation.  How many people have died trying to save some possession from a burning building?  Was it really worth dying for?

Take care to think about what you are buying and why you are buying it.  Do you already have something that could fulfill the purpose of the thing you are thinking of buying?  If so, then maybe your money would be better spent elsewhere.

Airport Security

Read an interesting article this morning, courtesy of Digg, about how Isreal handles airport security.  Considering that they've been dealing with terrorists for a lot longer than any other country in the world, I think having a look at their security measures is a good idea.  Check out this article from the Star.  Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?

Behavioural profiling.  Ignoring the politification (is that a word?) of the word profiling, it is a reality that people, regardless of race, gender, religious beliefs or age, who are planning to do something that people will want them to not do and flies in the face of their own instincts,  will exhibit certain behaviours unconsciously, and these behaviours can be observed by someone who has been properly trained.  Many layers of well-trained eyes protect travelers without invading their privacy.

This is a concept that has been around for a long time.  Indeed, some researchers believe that intuition is an unconscious form of behavioural profiling.

Dehydrated Oranges

It's amazing how a fellow can turn into an instant expert.  Hubby, who thinks my prepper "antics" are just too freaky, suddenly became an expert on dehydrating, which he has never done before.  It started the other day with that extra bag of onions I picked up to dehydrate.  I was slicing them into rings, and he insisted all I needed to do is quarter them and separate them into it's natural sections.  Well, I learned a long time ago that this is a guy who can't be argued with.  It turn's his brain into petrified rock, so I said, "well, let's see how it turns out."

The properly sliced onion dehydrated nicely, just like the instructions said.  His chucks are dry on the outside and not dry in the middle.  Regrettably, he hasn't caught on that the natural division have a skin designed to prevent the onion from drying out.

Last night, I was slicing up some oranges to try dehydrating them, something neither of us has done before, so I had first checked on the internet and in my books to find out how thick to slice it and what temperature to set the thermostat.

He proceeds to tell me that all I have to do is separate them into their natural sections and they'll dry no problem.  And I said, well that's not what the instructions say.  Hubby got made at me for arguing with him.  I kept slicing, and he proceeded to divided up "his" oranges into sections.  This morning, the slices are nicely dehydrated, and the sections are not.

It strikes me that in a survival situation, you are going to have to deal with people (a LOT of people!!) who THINK they know what to do and don't actually.  My tussles with hubby about something as simple as how to dehydrate produce is just an extremely minor case in point.  He used to made jerky with his dad when he was a teenager, and so he thinks he knows how to dehydrate anything.  He likes to go fishing in the nice weather, so he thinks he's a fisherman.  He used to go hunting with his dad, so he thinks he's a hunter.

In a survival situation, we are not suddenly going to start hunting and fishing and getting by on that.  Everybody who hunts and fishes for real is going to have the same idea, and there won't be enough fish and deer to go around.  That's why home-storage is important.

I read something someone wrote, and I wish I remembered where and who, but this fellow said that in a situation where the powers that be, or looters, decide to confiscate other people's food-storage, home-canned stuff might be less likely to be confiscated.  His argument was that the modern mindset says that commercially canned food is safer than home-canned, and there are a lot of people who would refuse to eat home-canned food because they are afraid it's bad.  A dust-covered shelf full of home-canned jars with labels dated several years back might very well be passed over.  It's an interesting thought.

My Two Cents' Worth

I've been reading blogs and sites about the various aspects of preparedness, survivalism, food storage, and all the scenarios that are floating around in peoples' heads about why they need to "stock up and hunker down" for quite a while now, and I thought I would post my thoughts.  Why not!  Everyone is these days it seems.

I'm in my 50s, female, and have the usual weight accumulation that seems to afflict women my age.  It's pretty hard to stay active when the fastest you can go is the speed of your youngest child.  By the time that one gets going faster, you've washed out of the race.  Sucks, but that's life.

I've been more interested in the preppers who are looking long and hard at the reality that when some disaster strikes, or slowly erodes our lifestyle, few of us are going to be able to "get out of Dodge" because there's nowhere to go.  I live on an island.  Mind you, it's a big island, but just the same, most of the goods for sale in the stores are imported from the mainland, so barring a volcano or tsunami happening here, most folks will stay put.

That having been said, I still see the value in being quietly prepared for "unquiet" times.  My partner thinks I'm a "freak" for putting by extras even though those extras saved us when I was laid off work.

My two cents' worth?  Life is uncertain, so it's just smart to prepare for the unexpected.  Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.