- Think of "missteps I have taken" ...they were mistakes but they were lessons (albeit sometimes expensive ones). i.e. Things I Have Done (and shall not do again) the wrong way may work out just fine, but when it did fail how spectacular was it? I can say that my mistakes have been minimal. I know that when I was first starting out I bought food, lots that ended up expiring or things we really didn’t even eat. I am coupon queen so I bought cheap and lots of junk. Why I bought 5 dozen cans of tuna when we never eat tuna? Because prepper books said I needed tuna. I wasted a couple hundred in food. Most of it went into the garbage or to the food shelf. I learned buy what we eat. Also- buy what you want and what you need but buy quality. I spent quite a bit of money on radios, flash lights (all size batteries), propane stoves, butane burners. Why I didn’t slow down and think in an organized manner? because I was trying to play catch up getting prepared for SHTF. Other mistakes have been fire. When practicing how to make fire, two things I learned. One- 9 volt and steel wool works great. But if you live in a dry area, have a hose handy. Two- if you are trying to make fire and you have lots of sparks flying about do not wear shorts. I am sure some of you have some missteps/ mistakes that many of us could learn from. Maybe some have mistakes that turned out well or need help correcting.
A nine volt battery and a pocket load of loose change will make a fire too... (my brother set his pants on fire that way in a public park. We stripped him down amid catcalls and applause from admiring ladies.) Some lessons are painful, and embarrassing)
Have to say most of my prepping mistakes have been mistakes of omission vs mistake of commission, usually because I didn't think of it in time. For example, I buried a 168 feet electrical line from my shop to the house to be able to run both off a generator at the shop. Was in a hurry to get the job done and wasn't thinking ahead. So I spaced on running a water line or two (Pex is cheap) in the same trench so I could collect water from the steel shop roof, filter and purify it, then pump it to the house and still have county water to the house as well (I can close county water shut-off and pump backwards through supply line to shop to get to the house but I can't have both soft rain water for washing and county water for cooking and drinking.) Idiot, now I'll need to run a parallel trench to do that. AT
In the early days I was very bullets 'n beans. This was around 98-2002. Buying firearms and ammo was fun, buying rice and beans was cheap. One day I was doing some rearranging and I realized, here I had close to 10 years worth of rice and beans and flour, a room full of guns and ammo, and zero water. And given the kind of food I was storing I'd easily need twice or three times the usual 1 gal per person per day. So, I filled a couple of 55 gallon drums of water and stuck 'em in the barn. Because nothing says clean drinking water like having a couple of not-at-all-sterilized barrels of water with questionable bungs sitting in the goat barn getting covered with dust and fly dirt. No filters, nothing to make filters with. It wouldn't be until '07 that I started to grasp just how blind I'd been about the fragility of municipal water systems, and the importance of having potable water on hand as well as the means to purify surface water. I was also bad in the early days about medical supplies. I had lots of toiletries, shampoo and TP and bar soap, but no first aid or medical, which was nuts because I lived on a small farm then and was ALWAYS getting hurt. If I got cut I'd slap a paper towel on it and add duct tape. Sprain an ankle, wrap it with vetwrap. None of my mistakes really cost me. I eventually ate all the rice, used all the flour... the brick like pintos went to the trash after about 8 years, maybe $100 worth. But hindsight does cause me a bit of cringing from time to time. Generally I delight in doing things the wrong way just to prove it can still work, but the water and medical thing was just stupid. I do wish I had some of that ammo stash from back then though....
Don't feel bad, I didn't know about the pinto beans until your earlier post about them! One of the good things about this place is the way we teach and learn from each other.
I have made some "doozies" in the way of mistakes, in my Life... However, my GrandPa Erskine made an astute observation, which he passed on to my Cousin, and I, when he encounter the two of us, waiting in Ambush, as he was on his Daily Walk, around the Block... "Boy's... You got'a get up a lot earlier, if you want to catch this Old Boy.... and you had Better LEARN from your Mistakes, or you will forever, be behind the rest of the world, in Smarts Department." We were 4 years old at the time, but neither of us have ever forgot, his Wise Counsel.
Yeah, ammo was my first thought and spent a bunch, then I read something that made a lot of sense "If it ever gets to the point where you need a lot of ammo, one well placed shot and you'll have all you'll need!"
I laughed at the fire and shorts comment.... I've done that one =) I'm prolly over stocked on plants in the garden but it's such a peaceful hobby for me it's hard to stop. I almost have year round fruit supply... Not quite but getting there. I was going back thru the herb inventory and seeing what I was doubled up on. I think 10-15 herbs will handle most ailments and nutrition
I got caught with my pants down a few times. I was still in my teens when I went on a Vision Quest (Hey! don't judge. It was the seventies.) Canyon country. Someone was definitely looking out for me. Severely dehydrated, some hikers found me and got me out. Spent the night in the hospital after that one. Camping in the FL Keys. We took a small boat out to the reefs (about 6 miles) . I told my wife we could navigate back to the camp by homing in on the red light on top of the tower on the Key. Got too dark to spearfish and we turned to find the light and saw a whoooooole horizon line of red lights. Spent the night laying in rotten shrimp and stray fishhooks anchored on the flats to have enough gas to get home in the morning. Still working on home and cabin prep. Caches have been started. We have a good gennie here. Need another in NC.
MM, am in NC. If I can help just holler. We are fortunate in having an Argon tank to Oxygen purge our storage items. We used the LDS(mormon) ideas a lot and hopefully have improved on them. Don't forget condiments in your preps. We have lots of pepper/salt/spices/etc. My sage bushes keep dying but will get one going sometime. Right now am hitting my aunts--lol. Being raised on a farm as a kid taught us how to live within our means. That is, we ate what we raised/grew/traded for/swapped.
Thanks. We're west of Bryson City. We do "survival" 3 dayers in FL. It's amazing how much you miss spices out there. Great suggestion with that and LDS.
Off topic but- Did you see a vision in your dehydrated state? You said you were in the hospital a few days but how long did it take you to recover? Dehydration can be real bad.
Yes. I saw a lot of stuff. In the native American beliefs, I met my spirit animal...er bird. The raven. That was the first but not the last time. Had some delirious conversations with all kinds of things. I'm a nontraditional Christian now. By the time they found me stumbling with no sense of which direction I was walking, my eyes felt like they were coated with sand, splitting headache, and bleeding lips. It took us 4-5 hours to get to their car and to the hospital. I felt 1000 percent better after an overnight with IV's, but they kept me one more night for observation. think it was that I had to pee before they'ld let me go. Long time ago.
The adventures of living... It's a wonder you survived.... I was riding Fence In the hills when I was 16 saw a coyote pulled out saddle rifle shot. Got bucked off (I was shooting off a green horse duh and not my normal mount) Hit my head on something hard I guess because I don't remember how I got home. My Dad said he found me almost to the main road about 5 miles from where I was... He said I talked to him and the next thing g I remember was my telling me if I asked one more time what happened she was taking me to emergency room. (75 miles away) God looked after me that day
And I'm lucky? Head traumas so unpredictable. I was guiding on horseback when my lead horse bolted. He weaved around something on the trail and I was airborne. That was the hardest hit I ever took from an "unexpected dismount". Sometimes we just get lucky. Sometimes we just endure. And sometimes training saves are arses. Cave diving solo. Waaaay in. 160 feet down. My uber expensive cave diving light blinked out. I went for my secondary light. Nothing. Little light. Came on blinked off. Teeny pen light everybody teased me about. On. YEAH! This was all one handed because I wasn't letting go of the line. I dropped the light and it buried itself in the silt. I made it to the first deco in the dark following the line. When I got to the first deco I could just make out daylight. That's when I started shaking. Training saved me on that.one.
