What got you started in Prepping?

I feel the same — I used to be more into wilderness-style survival, but now I focus on what’s actually useful in a real crisis.
Calorie storage, water filtration, and routine gear checks have become my new essentials.

 

This is hilarious, outdoorsmen come out of the woods and learn the urban jungle

 

I was born into it. My parents were old hippies who bought a five acre farm to get out of Detroit after the riots. Everybody we knew had left by 1970. Dad had always taught me that a real craftsman could do with a hand saw, a plane and chisel anything that fancy power tools could do.

We used antique tools and techniques for just about everything on the farm. Mom always kept a big pantry, canned, made jelly and cooked what we grew. She made my clothes until I was a teenager.
Dad taught me how to collect rain water in a cistern with sand and charcoal filters. He had a good instinct for rain and understood how long and how hard it had to rain to wash the bird droppings and pollen off the roof before he kicked the diverter valve to start catching rain water.

I was a feral child. I grew up outside, fishing, hunting, exploring. I left home after high school and bicycled up into Ontario, spending three months on my bicycle, cold, hungry and sunburned. After that, Marine Corps boot camp was a picnic. I dragged everything I owned around the World a couple times in the Corps before settling down to raise a family. And I picked a spot that seems to attract hurricanes.

We had survived blizzards together Up North, so this wasn't so bad. We did what our families had always done. Huge pantry, bulk storage, old ways. We didn't get our first clothes dryer until we'd been married for ten years. Clothesline always worked.

I knew lantern and stoves from family camping, but when we got our first Coleman lamp we just stopped using electric light outside. Cards on the deck every night. Got to where I could flip on a Coleman lantern so fast people thought it was an electric light.

I really started bulk storage in multiple locations because I'm a hoarder, but it made sense to have stuff scattered in case of flood or fire. This worked out well when we had one house with water and no power and the other with no water, but with power. Shifted essentials, and learned to get stuff done so we could commute at low tide.

I never thought "two is one and one is none" applied to houses until we lost one to flooding during hurricane Florence. It took ten months to find the perfect replacement home after that, but the ideal hurricane resistant location finally came on the market.

I'm not a youngster anymore, so my preparedness is much more people oriented lately. I'm constantly networking, meeting people with talents I can use, who are willing to trade their skills for mine. We know all our neighbors who live here full time well, and are friendly with the visitors. They can be useful too.

Mom and Dad did the same thing as they got older. They always knew a guy who could help out around the farm.

I've come full circle. I still use old tools for most everything. The kids learned the same way, and appreciate how well old stuff works. Our gardening is different here, more fruit trees, less veggies, but we have farms all around us, and barter is a way of life here.

 

You are getting old. I can tell by the way you tell the same stories over and over again.

 

Fixed it. Thanks.

 

Besides my parents, I grew up around older folks that went through WWI and WWII, Dad served in the army 42-45.
Mom grew up in the city and dad grew up on the farm, so they both had their challenges during the depression.
Both grandfathers were self sufficient men accustomed to making the best of a bad situation. I inherited my grandfathers' creative skills both genetically and intellectually.
Both my brother and I are gifted and quite aware of the state of things so with that from birth our family has the preparedness gene.

 

It is definitely a mindset more than a lifestyle. I have seen many try to adopt the lifestyle over the years only to fail miserably because they lacked the proper mindset.

 

I like to tell people, that you have to decide that you and yours are the most important people on the planet and then make plans and be ready to act accordingly!