Pretty good day.  Went to the NW Sustainable Preparedness Expo.  Attended some nice seminars, chatted with some friendly people, sampled LTS storage foods, learned about a bunch of topics, and brought home a few trinkets and a bunch of brochures.  I didn’t have a lot of money to spend or I probably would have come home with a car full.

This was a good listen on beekeeping from the folks at Bee Thinking.

Jere of You Can Survive with a graph of recorded natural disasters over the past 100 years. Can the incredible climb in frequency solely be from better ability to learn of and record them in the latter years?  Or are we doing something to cause them to increase in frequency? Scary thought.

While there, I received a reposnse from a craigslist inquiry.  A complete water bath canning system, used only once, more jars (probably 50ish more, bringing me up to about 200), tools, lids, rings, preserving books, jar labels,  even unopened bags of canning salt, at only 25$.  A nice older couple, downsizing as they move into a condo in a 55+ community.  After I left the expo I picked this up.

I keep looking for a good camp stove, pressure canner, dehydrator, and vacuum sealer on Craig’s list.  Not from some expensive resaler but from some kind soul with more fortitude than myself (good will over the effort of Craigslist, baby) putting unneeded items out there for a few bucks. Maybe I’ll get lucky!

I’ve mentioned that my hubby thinks I am a nut.  Yesterday, I put up the risk management post, as an option not just for assessing risk and prioritizing my preps, but as a way perhaps to show my husband that I am not being paranoid or random — just provident.

Although the more I think about it, it might be better to remove the more extreme possibilities from the list.  When I say I want to be prepared in case of earthquake (an event with a more than reasonable chance of happening), what he thinks I am saying is “I’m preparing because when the earthquake hits and half our state falls into the ocean and all the bridges collapse and our neighbors turn into a vicious starving mob of near-zombies and the grocery stores are empty and its TEOTWAWKI I don’t want to die” and even though I didn’t SAY or even THINK any of that; he really thinks that is what I’m concerned about and that I’m off my rocker.

I have read advice on various sites about bringing your spouse on board.  Most of them are written from a man’s perspective, convincing the wife.  Some things might apply either way, but some of it; well, not so much.

I have tried being reasonable about it.  I rarely bring it up and I haven’t been conspiracy theory, doomsday in the least.  I did mention EMP at one point because I was reading a post-apocalyptic novel about that topic.  And I mentioned it as the theme of the novel, kinda like “what this family has been through is crazy, how do you think we would do in that situation” like a conversation to be having a conversation more than a lets prepare chat (And so what he heard was, I’m convinced that we are going to be attacked by terrorists with low earth orbit nuclear weapons to destroy our infrastructure in the next few days and then when we have no power and our neighbors turn into a vicious starving mob of near-zombies and the grocery stores are empty and its TEOTWAWKI I don’t want to die”).  Any sense of urgency I feel is interpreted in the worst possible way.

I’ve tried talking about news events and pointing out challenges those affected people will face.  I’ve left One Second After casually laying about where he might pick it up and read a page or three and want to finish it. I’ve tried to focus on the safety aspects. Appealed to his protectiveness by explaining that this would just make me more comfortable.  I’ve told him that I’d love for us to share some of this, that I just want to spend some time with him, that he could treat it like a hobby that he might actually find more interesting than my paper crafts, cooking classes, or book club.  I’ve never said or even implied that he is wrong (except wrong about seeing me as a nutty doomsday prepper when I am not extreme!). I’ve avoided acronyms when talking to him, and don’t use a lot of pepper terms.  I asked him to attend an upcoming preparedness expo to look at some solar options (something he is slightly interested in as a way to eventually reduce our electricity costs), but no go there.

He’s agreed that storing some food and water isn’t a terrible thing, but security?  Any sustainable options (suburban livestock, gardening, offgrid heating, cooking, what have you)? Fergetaboutit.

Maybe I need to find some ridiculous Hollywood version of ladies post-apocalyptic wear ala Mad Maxx or whatnot made from 3 inches of leather straps, some metal rings and some spiked collar; that might convince him there is some value to thinking about the end of the world as we know it. 😉