NwbiePrepperGal

Tag: Planning

  • Practical & Provident — Works for Me!

    1ppBefore I spend money on any books, I tend to get them from  Kindle Unlimited or from the library, if they are available.  My latest read from the library is The Practical Prepper by Kylene & Jonathan Jones.  Interestingly, it seems to have been re-named; as far as I can tell, its the same book, with the same release date, not an updated version, but on Amazon, it is only available as The Provident Prepper.  I suspect it is because the “experts” on Doomsday Preppers were referred to as “Our experts at Practical Preppers…” and Kylene & Jonathan didn’t want to be confused with them.  (Or maybe they WERE the experts and didn’t want to be known as them. ;)) But that’s just a guess.

    I have only read the first few chapters, but as I went through chapter 2 “What are the Odds?” (much of which you can see on amazon with the “Look Inside” link), I wondered if this risk assessment information might appeal to my skeptical husband.

    It provides 24 emergency scenarios, ranging from house fire, earthquake, tornados, through more unlikely disasters, such as EMP, Pandemic, and so on.  Each is briefly defined, may include observations about what makes it more or less likely, and offers some methods to prepare specifically for that event.

    What I thought might appeal to my husband is the rating system.  It lays out the 24 scenarios in a chart and asks you to rate the probability of that event occurring in your location (In socal, you’re going to rate earthquake or drought a lot higher than extreme winter storms, for example) from 1 (no chance) to 5 (will definitely occur at some point).  Then you rate the significance of those events from 1 (no consequence or inconvenience) to 5 (catastrophic injury, etc.)  [each number is given a fairly specific set of circumstances to make it easier to choose.]  Then you multiply the two numbers together to get a Risk Number between 1 and 25.  The higher the number, the more likely and detrimental the scenario, the more emphasis you should put on preparing for that possibility.

    While the rating is subjective, the mathematical nature of this risk assessment may well appeal to my husband’s rational and logical mind.  That isn’t to say that I am not rational and logical!  No matter what he says! 😉

    The Hazards listed (again, you can see these and the chart in the Look Inside link, AND I am linking you TO the book AND their web site, so I hope I am OK posting this.

    Drought
    Earthquake
    Extreme Winter Storms
    Flooding
    Heat Wave
    Hurricane, Tropical Storm, Typhoon
    Landslide, Mudslide, Debris Flow
    Tornado
    Tsunami
    Wildfire
    Pandemic, Epidemic
    Biological Attack
    Chemical Attack
    Hazmat Incident
    EMP
    Solar Flare
    Nuclear Accident
    Nuclear Attack
    Terrorist Attack
    Civil Unrest / Breakdown of Social Order
    Economic Collapse
    House Fire
    Personal Disaster
    Societal Collapse / Breakdown of Civilization
    Other

    I might include volcanic eruption on my personal list. I remember St. Helens.  I might also break down “Personal Disaster” a bit.  Right now we do have a lot of concern over potential unemployment.  I think I may try to get the hubby to give this risk assessment a chance so perhaps he will be more open to risk mitigation.

  • Getting myself in line

    Second on the main list for getting prepared to be prepared was “Self”.  This I Broke down into

    1. Self-Reflection / Mental Preparedness
    2. Health
    3. Fitness
    4. Debt Freedom / Frugality
    5. Cultivating a Community
    6. Skills / Training

    1. Self-Reflection / Mental Preparedness

    For me this is getting my head on straight.  Am I approaching this journey in a logical, non-hysterical, non-tinfoil hat kinda way?  Am I going to be able to remain calm and implement my plans, especially if the S does HTF? Can I control my anxieties and actually take things step by step and not get overwhelmed at the magnitude of everything there is to do?

    2 Health

    I’m overweight.  I have high blood sugar.  I am on various medications.  And I don’t sleep.

    lose-sleep-lose-your-mind-and-health_52cd620e68f6a_w1500

    None of these things are ideal in a “perfect” world, much less one where I have to work a lot harder to make sure my family has a fairly “normal” life.

    3. Fitness

    While tied to health, it isn’t entirely the same thing.  I need to get myself in enough shape to handle the chores and responsibilities of life in post-emergency world, no matter how short or long it might be.  If I needed to leave my home on foot, could I make it to a place I consider safe?

    4. Debt Freedom / Frugality

    I mentioned in a previous post that I thought some of my concerns may be coming from the fact that I feel the least financially stable that I have in a long time.  I’m carrying too much credit card debt and struggling to stick to my budget given some additional expenses.  There are a lot of things that I can do to alleviate some of this.  Pantry organization and meal planning will help here as well as being smart and making space for more storage.

    frugal

    5. Cultivating a Community

    My family isn’t very supportive.  They are being a bit tolerant, but I know they think I am crazy, and are humoring me as long as what I am doing to prepare doesn’t cause them inconvenience or cost my family money.  Mom is helping with some organization.  She’s being a good resource for getting my raised beds ready for some garden experiments next Spring.  But she also has mentioned maybe I need an appointment with a therapist.  So.

    It would be good to have other people to talk about preparedness and homesteading.  Folks that can help me find resources to prepare, who can teach me skills, or at least help me find where I can learn those skills.  I’ve looked into forums and meetups for like-minded individuals in my area.  Nothing very active, but I’ve put a few postings out there.  There is some kind of preparedness expo in this area soon.  As much as I don’t like to put myself out there like that — I think I will.  If I can swing it, I’d like to take an herbal remedy and salve making class from Nicole (from the second season of Alone, if you’ve seen that) and perhaps make a connection there.  I’ve looked into CERT training.

    prepper-group

    6. Skills / Training

    Some of that above meets these needs too.  I can potentially meet people that make up the preparedness / homesteading community in the area, but also learn some good skills.  I’m also planning on some gardening next spring.  I have 3 raised beds, maybe 75 square feet? all told.  It’s not enough to feed my family exclusively by any means, but I think I can do enough to learn HOW to garden.  Maybe grow enough to do some canning.  I plan to learn vermiculture to support the garden, and done a bit of research in how to build a worm farm.  I’ve also picked up some supplies to practice sprouting and growing microgreens (that’s a whole post alone!).  There’s a LOT more skills out there, but these are the ones I am adding to my plate right now.

  • Thoughts, check! Home …

    The second part of getting organized before I really get started stockpiling anything is making my home ready for it.  I’ve got one attic-y space that is relatively easy to access, and would be a good place for paper goods.  I need to get in there, clean it up a bit and make it ready.  I have a couple of oddly shaped small closets tucked into corners and such.  One upstairs would be perfect for stocking shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and other smallish items, but its got junk in it; I can’t recall the last time I opened that door.  Time to clean it out, ruthlessly.

    My pantry needs a complete overhaul.  I actually had decent organization in it once.  If you read much about pantry management,  you’ll see that organizing by keeping like items together (i.e. canned beans all in once place, baking goods together, and so on) is often recommended.  And I did do that, when I was first building my pantry when we moved here a decade ago.  Over time, my pantry has become an extension of the junk drawer though.  I “lost” a shelf to games and science kits, another shelf to a bunch of stuff purchased to make oreo pops for my kids’ teachers – piles of candy melts, double boiler, molds and lollipop sticks, cellophane bags and the like.  The entire back third of my pantry is full of lunch stuff.  Not food, dozens of lunch pails, bento boxes, shelves FULL of bento making supplies.  Under the shelving on the floor is a mish mash of bags, beer (we don’t drink much; I am certain that at least one of those boxes is over 7 years old since its been in there since before my daughter was born (!)), and I don’t even know what.  I shudder to think how many food items buried in there are expired.  So, that’s another job to tackle.

    And finally, there is the garage.  There are boxes that have been there since the move, and never opened.  That’s more than 10 years.  There are bins full of the kids’ old toys.  Some of them are worth keeping around for potential grandkids, extensive (and expensive to replace) classic toys.  I did get those all binned up and cleared another attic space (I have an oddly shaped bonus room with slanted ceilings and cubbies under a window, and its got 3 separate attic spaces, on either side of the room, maybe 4-5 feet tall, 4-5 wide, but all total, about 40 feet in length) for those.  I just need to get through all the stored stuff, and get it all into rubbish or donate piles.  Half our two car garage can be used for storage, but only for non-temperature sensitive items. It gets over 100 in there in summer and below freezing in the winter.

    Not OFTEN, we actually have a very mild climate but it can happen.  We average about 12 days a year over 90 degrees and 26 days at 32 or below.  We also get a decent amount of rain, which bodes well for rainwater reclamation, we get precipitation (mostly rain, very rarely snow) ~165 days a year, for a total of ~45 inches.

    Anyway, once I get the garage stuff sorted, I can get some shelving and get some storage space in there.

    So those are my big projects to get done before I can really think about adding to my stockpile.

  • Organizing my Thoughts

    Every family is different.  You can go online and find all kinds of articles on what to do to prepare for XYZ, or how to be a prepper and get some step by step plan, with specific lists of foods and supplies.  But we are not cookie cutters.  Our geographic locations are different.  I’m in planting zone 8B; what I could do with a garden is a lot different from someone in zone 5.  Our families needs are different – I’ve got kids with special needs.  I don’t think starvation would even be enough deterrent to get them both to eat oatmeal or wheat berries. I live in a heavily populated area in general, but specifically, my suburban neighborhood is heavily wooded, surrounded by both state wilderness preserve and privately owned undeveloped lands.  My neighborhood was carved out of a hill in the mid to late 80’s.  We have very little flat land for gardening, surrounded by mature trees, with very steep roads.  I have a moderately sized pantry, but no place to centrally store preps in a single space.  I’d LOVE a space like the ones pictured below.  Nope.  Not in my world.

    storagebins

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    Our knowledge levels are radically different.  I wasn’t raised knowing how to can food, raise livestock, or even garden.  I don’t have any “handy” skills for tinkering with an engine or fixing plumbing or installing my own rain catchment system.  We didn’t camp much; I don’t know how to set up a propane lantern with those little mantle things or cook on a camp stove.  I’ve got a lot to learn.

    I do know how to cook.  And cook well I think.  I have lots of basic recipes in my head.  You could toss me in a preppers pantry full of rice and beans and spices and canned goods and as long as I had a stove (I need to learn to cook other ways!), I could turn out a relatively tasty, nutritious meal.  So at least I have that going for me!

    First, I had to think about who I plan to support with my supplies if ever an emergency strikes and the SHTF.  Besides my husband and myself, we have a 12yo boy and a 7yo girl.  Both my kids have different special needs, sensory issues, and a lot of food accommodations for texture and tastes.  My mom lives with us about half time.  So at a minimum, I should be planning on supporting 5 persons.

    Then I came up with a list of major categories of preparedness.  Some of these things are critical for very short term (i.e. 3 days of supplies ala the FEMA recommendations), some are more relevant to a longer term, but still something we will recover from, others are more geared to truly long term preps – what would we do in the even of the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWOWKI)?  I consider those homesteading skills more than emergency preparedness, but still added them to my list.

    This is a major undertaking.  And every list item breaks down more and there is so much information.  It can be overwhelming.

    1. Emergency Contacts & Plans
    2. Self
    3. Water
    4. Food Supplies
    5. Food Preparation off the grid
    6. Medical Supplies
    7. Medical Knowledge
    8. Sanitation & Hygiene
    9. Backup Power
    10. Keeping Warm
    11. Lighting
    12. Self-Defense & Security
    13. Financial Security
    14. Emergency Communications
    15. Create Survival Library
    16. Homeschooling & Education
    17. Skill Acquisition
      1. Gardening
      2. Composting
      3. Fishing
      4. Foraging
      5. Hunting
      6. Livestock
      7. Cheesemaking
      8. Food Preserving
      9. Homebrewing
      10. Soapmaking
      11. Candlemaking
      12. Herbal Healing & First Aid
      13. Sewing, Quilting
      14. Knitting, Crocheting
      15. Woodworking & Carpentry
      16. Handyman & DIY
      17. Outdoors Survival Skills – knots, shelters, walking sticks, etc
      18. Homemade Self & Home Care Products
    18. Prepper Projects
    19. Bugging Out

     

  • Getting Organized

    After the initial research (I can’t say I will ever be “done” researching, but I’ve got some general information in my head), I found I need to do two things before I can really do much about preparing.  I need to organize my thoughts and I need to organize my home.  The slightly anxious part of me, a tiny voice in my head that says “something is going to go wrong, you need to be ready!” wants to jump in and start buying and going all tin foil hat.  But I know that will just lead to wasted money and wasted time.

    ORGANIZE word cloud, business concept

    To organize my thoughts, I decided to write down all the major categories of preparedness, and start prioritizing what I feel is most important for my family.  Eventually, this will flesh out and become my emergency preparedness binder, but for now I am keeping it fairly simple.

    Secondly, I gotta start organizing my home.  My pantry isn’t that large, and its a disaster of mostly disorganized, wasted space.  Half my garage is full of bins of things that wouldn’t be useful in an emergency, and has needed to be sorted into trash and donate piles for months years.  As for the rest of my home, with its limited storage areas — well, we just have Too Much Stuff.