I’m a prepper. The term “prepper” means different things to different people. For some, it evokes images of old underground bunkers filled with canned goods and wall mounted, folding beds. For others, it’s more akin to what grandma did when she put away the harvest from her kitchen garden. Still other folks consider it to be stockpiling firearms to raid the rest of us. I’m sure there are a hundred or more points in between my three, as well.
So what exactly is prepping? It’s a short form term for “preparing for emergencies” or “preparing for the apocalypse.” There are at least as many ways to prep as there are people on the planet, and maybe more. No one way is definitively right or wrong. As an example, the Mormons are required to be always prepared for the end of times, which they are told will last just under two years. Therefore, their church insists they always have two years of food on hand, along with anything else they need to survive until the end times are over. While I may not be invested in their end times prophecies, the principle is a good one.
I tend to prepare for 18 months of emergency. I try to be fairly flexible in my preps, because I don’t know if TEOTWAWKI will happen like Nagasaki, or more like the recent pandemic. I have a little bit of many things, designed to cover the most important bases for my family. Your preps probably are (and should be) different from mine, because your family will need different things, and more importantly, has different skills than my own.
A few years ago, I ran into a group of guys who basically stockpiled guns and indicated that their plan for the “coming civil war” was to shoot other people who’d spent their time preparing for the worst, and take their stuff. This is definitely not my preferred method of prepping, and indeed, it’s as close to condemning a practice as I’ll come. Don’t do it, because it means you will not have the skills necessary, come the apocalypse. And yes, that is a real problem! If you don’t know how to use your preps, they are nothing more than large, unusable paperweights.
I prep what we use. That means I have a lot of things like tinned meats and seafood, mostly packed in oil rather than water (because fat is hard to come by in a non-commercial society). I keep wheat berries on hand, and a mill to grind them. I have dry corn for making corn meal. I have a billion canning jars, lots of stored lids, and a pressure canner that works on the stove as well as over a fire. I have seeds, soil, and enough knowledge to grow those seeds.
Seeds are, in fact, the reason I prep for 18 months of emergency. By the end of 18 months, I expect that I will be able to go from “commercial living” to “homestead living.” At that point, I don’t need large stores of dry goods or canned protein. I’ll be growing it myself, hunting, fishing, etc. I don’t need to use preps beyond that point, because I’ll be living rather than surviving.
And that, to me, is the pinnacle of prepping. You’re not setting yourself up to live off your stores for the rest of your life. That’s not the point. You want enough stores to get you past whatever the immanent emergency is (earthquake, volcano, floods, political unrest, etc), plus a growing season. That growing season has to be factored in, because there’s a learning curve involved in subsistence farming as opposed to backyard gardening, and because you need time to get an ecosystem working that allows you to replace your stores going forward.
Even if I had nothing at all in my larder and pantry, I would probably do alright. I know how to forage and hunt and grow food. I have skills, and I have knowledge. My skills and knowledge are both practical, meaning I have done them before. Book knowledge is important and useful, but it’s best to have hands on experience with anything you’re going to need in the short to medium term during any kind of emergency.
There are a lot of ways to prep. I like to ask myself questions, and work from the answers.
- What kind of emergency is likely in my part of the world?
- How long do emergencies usually last?
- What’s the longest-term scenario you can envision actually happening?
- Do you want to “bug in” or “bug out” and why?
- What sort of medical emergencies are likely during an emergency?
- What are you going to drink?
- What are you going to eat?
- How are you going to stay clean?
- What skills do you feel require honing before an emergency?
- Is communications important to you, and if so, what type?
There are many more questions to ask, but that gives you a general idea. I like to use the Rule of Threes when planning out emergency preps.
- You can live three minutes without air.
- You can live three hours without shelter.
- You can live three days without water.
- You can live three weeks without food.
- You can live three months without hope.
Please note, these are general rules meant to help you remember how to prepare. They’re not hard and fast rules. Most of us, for example, won’t do well after three days without food. We might survive three weeks, but we wouldn’t thrive. As with all things to do with prepping, these “rules” are more like guidelines, and they’re meant to help you prioritize things. They are not a checklist. I’ll talk about the Rule of Threes another time, and delve more deeply into it.
Being a reenactor, I bring a lot of skills into play. I know how to run a household without power and running water, if necessary. I know how to keep clean, both myself and my clothing. I know how to grow vegetables, forage for edibles, and hunt or trap my protein. I know how to cook over an open fire, on a hearth, and in a wood cook stove. I know how to heat a home without modern amenities. All the skills I learned while playing in fields all summer, I can apply to my prepping.
Over time, I’ll share a lot of the things I do for prepping. I would love to know if there are any specific aspects of prepping you’re interested in, or if it’s just “ooh new shiny!”
Comments
6 responses to “What is Prepping?”
I’ve found that my age has directed some of my prep and consider that another consideration as it advances nonstop.
In Central Florida and having had 3 hurricanes over my roof in 2004, plus others before and after, our rep was for both bugout and stay in place, depending on circumstances. The least of complications that twofold objective caused was labeling of outer containers.
Over time, however, my age now pushes us to only one objective because of my health , my physical abilities, and my needs for treatment and medications.
Speaking of medications, we found on a long term evac years ago that Walgreens in another state could access our data and could fill prescriptions. That is, only if there are refills available in the record, a very important point. We also have at least an extra 30-day supply on hand, but it takes time to build up and keep up thanks to insurance company restrictions and as we learned the hard way, 30-day evac isn’t necessarily the limit.
Looking forward to your ideas. Meanwhile the freeze dryer is humming along and I need to pull some July expirations out.
Having extra meds on hand is important, but something that’s becoming increasingly difficult in today’s society. My meds are controlled, and so it’s difficult for me to get extras for emergencies. I do have enough of a store to “wean off” and none of mine are “life critical” (they’re happy meds, not heart meds). We’re likely to have to bug in as well, due to medical conditions, but we maintain bug out bags just in case. Better safe than sorry, right? 🙂
Living in WNY where I do, the most common reason for prepping is riding out a blizzard (hazardous inclement weather). That means food and a way to prepare it, warm clothing, gas for a well maintained snowblower and generator, heat and shelter. Those basic preps will serve for a wide range of emergency conditions, including social unrest (add defensive tools and equipment).
Absolutely. Our home is set up to run without the generator, and we rarely use it (just a test run a few times a year). Part of the joy of doing historical reenactment is that I’m very used to cooking over a fire, so when emergencies happen and I want to save the gas that runs our stove, I just pull out my portable fire pit and cook in the front yard. I’m a bit wary of using generators during “big” emergencies, because they’re so loud. I want to blend in, and look just like my neighbors.
“Prepping” vs. “Resilience.” A great many moons ago when responsibility for “Disaster Preparedness” landed on my desk, I lobbied for “Business Continuity” instead – how do we keep the biz functioning, meet customer demand, protect and pay employees, support our suppliers and contractors, etc.
Not a simple task and in our extremely complex manufacturing business more than a bit of a challenge. Which is why I embraced the concept of a good, detailed SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, all the way down to the Department level and in some cases, a separate analysis down to critical functions within a department. A good SWOT Analysis, even for a family, won’t be done in 30 minutes, it’ll take a couple weeks of thoughtful work, needs periodic review and updating as conditions change. It can be as detailed as one wants, which is probably the best way to proceed, weeding out the unattainable and unnecessary when the analysis is complete, or nearly so.
I went through the same 3 hurricanes in 2004 Bob F (above) did, and other than not having whole-house AC for the 6 days we were “electricity challenged” after Charlie – some neighborhoods were dark for almost 3 weeks – it was a “campout at home” (Francis knocked out power for about 24 hours, Jean for about 18 hours) a small ultra quiet RV generator (3K watts) kept the fridge and some fans running, powered a small window AC at night for more comfortable sleeping in one bedroom, all for about 2 – 2.5 gallons/day, a Zodi camping propane water heater provided low-flow, but warmish, showers on the back porch, the propane grill handled the cooking, etc. We didn’t lose county water which was a really big thing, and when one lives in Hurricane Country one maintains alternatives, like an old timey coffee percolator, kerosene lamps (the older Aladdins are great, the newer ones seem…a bit chintzy, but that’s pretty much the default for everything now). The only damage suffered was a lot of shingle tabs gone, but no roof leaks (houses in Florida, even those built to the older code are considerably different from those built elsewhere) and a couple trees down in the neighbor’s yard; not bad for 2-3 hours of 110 MPH sustained winds (Charlie was, fortunately, a “fast mover” and didn’t sit in one place long, grinding up everything).
Which places empasis on the “Opportunities” part of a SWOT Analysis – when A doesn’t work, what’s Plan B, or C, or D? I had 145 feet of 10MM climbing rope, a Swiss seat and a line brake for safety while smearing cold tar patch on the missing shingle tabs, and that system and the cold tar bucket made the rounds through the neighborhood for several days after Charlie (and again after Francis, and Jean….), a couple floodlights on poles provided light for a couple nights of “a neighborhood cookout for everything from the freezer” after Charlie up and down the block. We all ate like kings for several days, including the older retired folks up the street who didn’t have a grill. Walkie-Talkies got broken out, charged when a generator was running, and everyone shared flashlights and batteries. We had used simple railroad-style kerosene lanterns for ambient light on the patio for years, by the time Jean hit everyone had a couple.
We understood the Threat, had a good idea of our Weaknesses, had Options, and learned our Strengths; as the Marines preach in Basic School “Adapt, Improvise, Overcome” and while Eisenhower said ” a plan is worthless, but planning is critical,” having a plan forms a “Performance Outline” to direct attention and effort to solutions.
Regarding Planning, I’m reminded of the old, crusty senior engineer who is working at his desk when the staff runs in, crying and screaming that scientists have discovered a giant meteor that will strike Earth in 24 hours, knocking the planet out of its orbit and into the sun. Without looking up the Old Engineer points to his bookshelves and says “second shelf, blue binder, Section 4.”
Nice! My own plans for emergencies are basically to settle into the same rhythm that I do when reenacting, and then later on we can pull out the generator to get some stuff working. We do it often enough, both in and out of the house.