So why do you prepare? And what was the catalyst?

It's simple enough for me, I was raised in many homes and learned to compete early. If you didn't eat fast and ask for seconds you'd go to bed hungry. Reach for the last pork chop without asking and you'd get stabbed with a fork. On the farm, kids could've been hurt fighting over who got the cream, so the older kids finally made that decision for us. Uncle Buck loved to tell us stories of the North woods, and Grandma could cook whatever we brought home, so we became proficient small game meat hunters. In the summer we stayed cool in the lake, and in winter we found what shelters protected us from the wind off the lake and started seeing stove potential in any old junk we found. My favorite was a gas water heater stuffed into a dugout on the back side of the hill above the lake. The water heater made a decent stove with a center stove pipe and fire box below the tank. We could stuff wood down the pipe and it'd blow glowing red embers and ashes all over the snow. This kept us warm and protected enough to spend whole days on the ice playing hockey and watching tip-ups with breaks to warm up by the fire... just before our fingers and toes started getting crunchy and frost bitten.

I grew up with coal, gas, and wood heat. Laundry rooms in the basement, pantries under the stairs, cistern under the screened porch, tractors in the barn, and from the time the sun came up, until supper time I was outside. I was never a fat kid, always moving, running, climbing, biking, skiing, digging holes, rowing heavy old boats. No air conditioning, not even in cars, color TV was new, and the only show I remember watching was the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday evening. It was the best show in the summer, but during the school year it signaled the end to the weekend.

When an elementary school teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up there were the predictable firemen, policemen, and doctors. I wanted to be a "World traveling bum." Started out after High School bicycle camping with the Mennonites on my journey North. Darn near froze to death in Ontario in June, and survived alone on the bike until late September when I went to Marine Corps Boot Camp. I spent twenty years and seven days living my childhood dream, thanks to Uncle Sam, carrying everything I owned on my back and seeing the World. The whole time learning to become more competitive in everything I did every day.

For me it's not about stuff. I've lost more stuff than I really want to think about. For me it's about being able to smile and greet the day when I step out of my tent barefoot onto frosty leaves on a 25 degree mountain morning, or welcome another Carolina sunrise on the beach. There's great peace and happiness in knowing that you're ready to compete and win, no matter what the future hurls at you.

 

I think it is hardest for those that had life relatively easy growing up, to appreciate the rigors of "making do" .
Except for this and sites like it, I know very few people that know from experience how to improvise, and it is largely because we had to.
I am constantly making new tools, largely because what I need does not exist "to my knowledge".
I think more people would be creative if driven into a corner, but then there are those that die inches from food or water, due to ignorance.
Which us why we are here.
I am proud of the fact I brought tought my children using antiques and old ways ,it may have seemed difficult and hard at times but in the end they appreciate what they have all the more, and they know how to live in an off grid environment .

 

I was raised with the idea of food in the house and having stores but not prepping per say. In 89 I was in Oakland for the quake and my family was 35 miles away. No contact for 14 hours. Had a trailer sitting in the yard I have just emptied after a trip. Started by restocking the emergency shelter in the yard and went from there. Th biggest factor became the research I did for work, reading the FEMA projected response plan to a work day 8 0 or larger quake and the projected response time lines. At the time they felt 3 to 4 days before any aid began to arrive. After several natural disasters I know this to be a government dream. 10 days or more for anything substantial is more realistic. So down the self sufficient road I went.

 

I was always an outdoorsman and had survival skills taught by my dad. Later on, it was with the military.
I was certified as a FEMA instructor trainer about 15 years ago. A year or two later we did a big exercise on avian flu. Virtually the first thing they do in that event is close state borders. If you are in a small town (I am) just across the state line from a big urban area, most of your supplies come from warehouses there. No open border, no supplies.

I took a look around and realized that due to 18 military moves, I had essential survival items and firearms, but little stored food. My parents always had two stocked freezers, plus a full "fruit room" full of home canned goods and a pantry.

We started stocking up on freeze dried food first. When I got to a 3 month supply, I started adding other essentials...generator, solar power panels, a case of 120 hr candles, spare propane and propane heaters. Several years worth of ammo and a couple more rifles...build a faraday cage.

Now, I can't prep for everything, but I've got the basics. The big issue would be gathering friends and neighbors if needed, as one family (esp empty nesters like we are) we can bug in, but if it is a SHTF scenario, no way would we defend the house 24x7 alone.

Future preps: Home freeze drier. I also want to make a solar trailer that I can also store and put most of my supplies in like this one:

 

People today have more money than people from the 50s ,60s and before. People today can just drive to the store and pick up just about anything they need. People from the 60s on back didn’t have the money flow of today, and had to be creative at times to repair equipment, household appliances etc. Today , people don’t have to be as creative as our older generations. I was on a job a while back. We had a Latino crew doing some framing on a house for us. They had their air compressor out, and I looked down at it and they had made 2 wheels for it out of a couple of pieces of wood. I laughed at it because I had the same compressor, and had the same issues with the wheel bushings wearing out. If you don’t have to think outside the box,, you’ll always be confined to the box.