The Three-Legged Stool of Preparedness

Oftentimes we think of Preparedness in terms of what we have.  Do we have enough groceries to go A Year Without the Grocery Store?  How about making sure that we have enough personal care items or household repair supplies?  That can feel so overwhelming in itself, but it also pigeonholes our preparedness efforts.  Preparedness is really like a three-legged stool and when the legs are not even, we will either feel off-balance or we will be off-balance and not even know it.  So today we’re going to take a look at each of the different legs of our Three-Legged Stool of Preparedness:  knowledge with practice, mental readiness, and a sufficient stockpile.

Leg 1 of the Three-Legged Stool of Preparedness – Knowledge with Practice

We’ve all been there. We watch YouTube videos, we peruse blogs, we devour prepper fiction and decipher the various items they use, we study specific areas of preparedness.  And all of these can be really, really good things.  But I think sometimes the problem that we find is that we are gaining this knowledge, and we aren’t doing anything with it.

How often have you purchased a new ‘prepper tool’ and it sits in the box?  I’m guilty of this.  We purchased a new SunOven just before we moved into this house.  And we’ve been here almost a year and a half.  I have yet to pull it out.  I can honestly say that life is busy, but is life ever too busy to make time for what is REALLY important?  And I would hope that we consider preparedness important.

I was the same way with our Berkey.  It sat in the box for like three or four years.  When we moved to Central Illinois and the water started upsetting my stomach, I finally pulled it out and set it up.  My stomach thanked me.  With our pressure canner it sat for probably five years.  But I’m betting that I’m not the only one.   I’m guessing that many of us don’t regularly practice more than one or two chosen (because we find them fun or rewarding) prepper skills.

Have you considered taking just one preparedness skill each month and focusing on that skill, so that you get a chance to practice?   Here are some suggestions of things that you can practice:

• How to start a fire – in at least five different ways
• How to purify water – at least two different ways
• How to cook over/in a fire – at least two different ways
• How to start plants from seed
• How to propogate plants from cuttings
• How to start plants from other plants
• How to set up, use, and keep an indoor privvy from stinking (at least too badly)
• How to wash a load of laundry by hand, wring it out, and hang it up to dry.
• How to play five new card games.  You can find a bunch of different card games listed with their rules.
• How to do a unit study with your kids (this one would be a good one to do in the summer when they may not ‘technically’ be schooling.
• How to sew or repair clothes without power – either by hand or using a treadle.
• How to use your ham, FRS, or GMRS Radio.
• How to repair drywall.
• How to set up a rainwater catchment system.
• How to do CPR
• How to make an olive oil lamp
• How to properly don and doff a mask and gloves.
• How to make noodles from scratch
• How to make sourdough from scratch
• How to make bread from scratch
• How to make condiments from scratch
• How to make your own butter
• How to make your own yogurt
• How to set up your short-term food storage menu
• How to be more mentally aware and alert
• How to pressure can
• How to waterbath can
• How to dehydrate foods
• How to freeze dry foods
• How to grow specific medicinal plants
• How to make a poultice
• How to (already understanding the why behind) prepare a tincture.
• How to make a medicinal decoction.

But what if you know yourself well enough to know that you need (and maybe even want) accountability?  Are you like me?  Perhaps you don’t like to practice your preparedness in a vacuum, and working with others – even if remotely makes things more fun and gives you additional impetus to do so.  If you’ve already purchased A Year Without the Grocery Store, AND A Year Without the Grocery Store’s Companion Workbook, or The Prepper Planner, I have a FREE way to help you with that motivation.  We have a FREE Facebook group where each month, we have what we call A Prepper Practice Challenge.  We give you one or two small ways to practice your preparedness and then if you do so and you post a picture of you doing just that, you’re entered into a drawing to win a gift card.  If you request to be admitted into the group, make sure that you answer the membership questions or you will not be admitted.

Leg 2 of the Three Legged Stool of Preparedness – A Proper Stockpile

One of the first prepper phrases I learned in what felt like (back then) a man’s preparedness world was ‘Beans, Bullets, Bandaids.’  And while I have plenty of other areas of a stockpile that I feel are important, I do feel like this encapsulates the idea of ‘stockpile.’

So let’s look at several different areas that we should be developing a stockpile.

Food Storage

Yes, we can grow some of our own food.  But like is seen in this really interesting Reality TV series – Pioneer Quest (Free on the Pluto TV app if you have it) – two modern day families try to live like Pioneers for most of one year.   If you’ve ever seen this before, it’s a struggle and without some helps they wouldn’t survive.  And they signed up for this – producing all of their own food, preserving their own food, tending to their animals, even building their own houses from scratch.  I think it’s more true than the show even portrays.  Life without modern conveniences is HARD and most of us have no clue what life would be like without electricity and the ability to buy most of what we need.

And even if we can grow much of our own food, there are just somethings that are not as easily grown on a family garden scale (or can’t be grown in conventional places) like wheat, oats, and rice.  Interestingly enough, even for our family of six, we had a 120′ x 30′ garden this year, and we didn’t even scratch the surface of producing everything we would need for an entire year for our vegetables.  It was kinda crazy.

So we need to make sure that we are either growing and storing or purchasing and storing away enough food.  What should we be purchasing and storing?  Here’s a great Youtube video on getting your Long-Term Food Storage setup.

What other areas should you be stockpiling?

• Toiletries
• Cleaning Supplies
• OTC’s
• Extra Rx meds
• Other medical supplies – Crutches, splints, ace wraps, disinfectant supplies, bandaids
• Power free kitchen tools
• Power free hand tools
• Bullets
• Garden supplies
• Building supplies – wood and hardware
• Wood for a fireplace or woodburning stove
• Water purification filters or elements
• Matches
• Rechargeable batteries
• Family Games
• Art and craft supplies
• Musical instrument supplies

Leg 3 of the Three Legged Stool of Preparedness – Mental Readiness

What does it mean to be mentally ready?  This lends itself to several different areas of focus

Planning

Preparedness Plan

Have you sat down and created a comprehensive Preparedness Plan?  This would further be broken down into an ‘every day’ plan, a bug in plan, and a bug out plan.

Disaster Planning

Have you created a disaster plan for specific disasters? Do you know how you would handle a hurricane barreling down at you?  A tornado warning?  An earthquake?  A wildfire?  A riot? A house fire?

Financial planning

I don’t just mean for your retirement.  Have you created a budget?  If you’re in debt, do you have a plan to get out of it?  But also yes, do you have a plan for your financial wellness during your retirement years?  Do you have a plan to set aside money for more expensive preps like digging a well or a basement, a SunOven or a Freeze Dryer?

Awareness

I will be the first to tell you that I do not watch the news.  I don’t even often read the news – at least not in depth.  I doubt that I’m the only one who thinks that the news right now is incredibly depressing.  But I subscribe to a conservative news service called The Epoch Times.  From time to time, I may read an entire Article, but because I have headlines delivered to my phone, I can easily read them to know what is generally going on without delving deeply into the darkness.

Alertness

Being aware of what’s going on around you in a halmark of preparedness.  When I was newly married, I went to the grocery store by myself one evening.  I didn’t think anything of it.  Finding an empty parking spot as close as I could, I pulled in to see a man sitting on the hood of the car opposite me.  Now granted, I didn’t back out and find another spot.  That’s what I should have done.  But I was aware that he was there.  I gathered my items quickly, while keeping an eye on him and headed into the grocery store.  He did not follow me in

Before I came out of the grocery store, I looked around to see if I could see him still out there.  I couldn’t, but I didn’t feel good about stepping out, so I waited for a family – Dad, Mom, and kids to exit and I left with them.  It was good that I did because he was waiting with his back against the outside wall of the store.  If I hadn’t been alert, I am convinced that I would have been assaulted.

The question is are you aware of what is going on around you at all times.  Think of the scene from The Bourne Identity where Jason Bourne is sitting in a diner with a German woman.  He says, “I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside.  I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs 215 pounds and can handle himself.  I know the best place to look or a gun is in the cab of the grey truck outside.”  Most of us will never be Jason Bourne, but we can be aware of the circumstances around us.

What About You?

Which leg of the three-legged stool are you weakest on?  Which is your strongest leg?  If someone was to come alongside you and help you in one of these areas, what would you need and what would it look like for you?  And as you try to balance out your stool, please remember that . . .

You’ve got this, Mama!