Are you a prepper?

[MossRoad]

I just finished off the last of my Y2K bean stash.

 

[LJH]

I just finished off the last of my Y2K bean stash.

:laughing:

And to answer the question - you betcha. Always have been, coming from a farming culture & all, but even more so in the last few years for all the obvious reasons. I don't much like the term either, and like 'survivalist' even less. That said, anybody interested in a site with rational, intelligent podcasts and forums check out

Survival Podcast

 

[RobertBrown]

I quit drinking soft drinks many years ago, too much sugar....I would drink a Pepsi when I had a chance. I like peanuts in my Pepsi.

 

[RoMad]

No, I just have lots of stuff. My wife keeps the cupboards full and we have a large pool that stays full of water. When our power was out for 5 days during hurricanes a few years back we really didn't have any issues. I pulled my motorhome up to the house and plugged the freezer, refrigerator, and TV in to it. We used pool water for baths and flushing the toilets and had plenty of food.
I would put me down as an "adapter" more than prepper.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

We have been flooded in 3 times in the last 20+ years. Once 9 days without power as well. Didn't want for anything. So I guess I am a prepper. Don't do anything different than normal for us.

That's just rural living. I'm surprised anyone here is even concerned about this. You don't make a 30 mile run to town because you ran out of milk, and if you don't own livestock or poultry, one of your neighbors does. I had a few fruit trees, but in the last 5 years have planted a couple dozen fruit and nut trees. Here's something I wrote elsewhere:

Preserve your own food. I have 6 gallons of home canned tomato sauce, 5
gallons of applesauce, 36 half pints of apple butter, 40 half pints of canned
wild mushrooms, 14 pints of canned smoked salmon, 25 half pints of berry
jelly, 20 quarts of canned venison, 14 quarts of canned stir-fry, 7 quarts of
canned gardineria, 5 gallons of fresh sauerkraut, 7 lbs of walnut meats, 20
lbs of shelled almonds, And that's just the stuff I did myself. I have a
trade coming for a friend who did 60 pints of smoked tuna last summer.

For purchased food, I have 20 lbs of dry kidney beans, 20 lbs of dry pinto
beans, 20 lbs of dry navy beans, 20 lbs of enriched long grain white rice, 20
lbs. of brown rice, 14 lbs. of pancake mix, 25 lbs white sugar, 5 lbs brown
sugar, 1 gallon honey, 1 gallon pancake syrup, 1/2 gallon maple syrup, 24
cans evaporated milk, 48 cans of chunk and solid albacore in water, 5 lbs.
dried egg powder, 5 lbs dried milk powder, 5 lbs quinoa, 5 lbs corn meal,5
lbs popcorn, 5 lbs rye, 5 lbs steel cut oats, 3 lbs wheat berries, 2 lbs
pearl barley, 25 packages of flavored potato flakes, 8 pint bottles of olive
oil, 4 quart bottles of vegetable oil, 2 cans Crisco, 2 gallons of catsup, 14
pint bottles of prepared mustard, a multitude of sauces and herbs, 150
bottles of wine, 21 liters of assorted hard liquor, 5 lbs of coffee beans 25
boxes of green tea and 25 packages of medicinal teas. There's also a couple
of 14' long shelves in the garage full of canned foods too varied to list,
like water chestnuts, palm hearts, canned hams, chicken, stew, corned beef,
pineapple, etc.

This is just the standard household food inventory, not a survival store at
all. My wife and I often quit buying groceries for a month or so just to eat
what we have on hand. We don't eat out much, and don't have a problem
creating delicious and nutritious meals right out of the pantry. All this
food is cheap, since I shop specials and seasonally. For instance, 20 lbs of
long grain enriched white rice is $9 on sale. When we open the bag I pour it
into glass gallon jars with tight fitting lids for storage. Gallon glass jars
are easy to find. Restaurants will give them away free, or for $1 each.

I only listed the food that is dry or canned, so it will be fine if the power
goes out. We also have a chest freezer full of food, mostly steaks and
roasts, frozen vegetables and such. If things get really bad and it's in
danger of spoiling I have about 100 empty quart canning jars with lids and
other canning supplies, plus a propane burner that will fit the pressure
canner and about 100 lbs of spare propane. Wood heat for the house, 2500
gallons of gravity feed drinking water, a hand pump on the well for
emergencies, and a couple generators if I need them. Hunting rifles,
shotguns, reloading gear, bullet molds and sizing dies for everything, plus a
flint lock smoke pole that doesn't even need caps. 93 acres of timber and
pasture, with a creek in the back yard and a major salmon and steelhead river
just 3 miles away.

That doesn't mention the mobile emergency stuff, which includes a FSC travel
trailer with extra deep cycle batteries, always on a float charger, with
extra propane and fuel. It gets used every year for camping, so we can go
anywhere and don't need a utility hookup to be comfortable.

The funny thing is I don't even see this as survival stuff. It's just a
lifestyle, a lot of it a continuation of my farm background. My 93 year old
mother sees it as a normal way of life that she remembers well from her
childhood in the 1920s and 1930s. The canned meats are my grandmother's
recipe: cube the meat, dredge it in flour, fry until it's browned, hot pack
it into jars, fill with boiling stock you rendered off the bones, add 1 tbsp
of cider vinegar to each jar and process at 10 lbs. Even the toughest cut
will fall off the fork after it's canned. Does anybody remember when they
quoted livestock prices for canners and cutters?

 

[bullbreaker]

I just finished off the last of my Y2K bean stash.

Thanks for the warning ! Will start putting on our gas mask(s).




Boone

 

[smstonypoint]

I quit drinking soft drinks many years ago, too much sugar....I would drink a Pepsi when I had a chance. I like peanuts in my Pepsi.

:laughing:

I like Diet Coke myself.

OOPS!!!!!! Sorry, I misread the thread title.

Steve

 

[3930dave]

10 years on..... re-visiting what my grandparents would have thought of as Common Sense......

Caught this vid last night, on Sweden's approach. Emailed it to a friend, then not wanting to start a new thread, thought I'd resurrect this one....

Rgds, D.

 

[Yander]

I like the comment "I'm prepared", I'm also happy to see my kids trying to follow some of our warnings and concerns. You don't have to get crazy about it, though you can if you like and nothing wrong with it. Just buy a little more or a lot more of what you use that will not go bad, work on a self sustaining lifestyle. By this I mean, grow food, preserve food, get some chickens and read up on things like foraging.

Do you realize how much very healthy food grows as weeds around your property? Chickweed every spring, purslane, dandelions, mushrooms of multiple varieties etc. I have been putting chickweed and purslane in our smoothies all spring/summer as I find it growing wild. It is a free supperfood. Obviously you cannot live on just that but if you find enough supplemental foods like this and you grow some of your own and raise your chooks for eggs.

It adds up and it is much healthier. Makes you healthier, saves you money and makes you less grocery store dependent. My goal is to become only dependent upon the grocery store for about 25% of my food needs. I'm no where close, but I have a plan and I am working toward that. I'm doing it for health, financial and stability reasons.

If that is the definition of a prepper then I will own it. As has been said, this is the way many of us lived 45 years ago, I know we did.

I also have the equipment to help my kids, family and neighbors at no charge.

 

[sea2summit]

There was a thread on TBN this time last year on the same subject.

What scares me is how many TBNers are concerned enough about current events to have made some serious preparations. What scares me more is that it is not just TBNers. I noticed last year that Sportsmans Guide, which has for decades sold MREs and other long storage foods, but was now selling bulk food to supply a person meal for months. Sportmans Guide is not putting this stuff for sale unless people are buying. Last years TBN thread caused me to look at long term food storage. A quick search on Amazon had quite a few hits on mylar bags, five gallon buckets, O2 eater pills, etc. That says there is a serious number of people storing food.

There are quite a few bulk food sellers on the Internet. Soybeans, peanuts, and oatmeal provide a heck of a lot of calories per pound per dollar.

Another scary thing to me, is how many people will tell me they are worried about the future and how they will feed their families. I don't start these conversations, people will just tell me for some reason which I think indicates how much they are worried. They are not talking about just loosing their job but an economic meltdown.

Later,
Dan

Why does it scare you that someone else is buying food because they think they might have trouble feeding their family in the future?