Long ago people traveled by wagon and they had to carry their goods with them. Most important was water and food and some type of shelter.
Our Pioneers had to plan and think things through before they left. How would they cook and wash? How would they make their supplies last? What would they do if they got sick or injured? How would they feed and water their animals? How would they have enough water for themselves?
We would be in a world of hurt if we tried this today because they hunted for food, washed in streams and had skills that are mostly lost today.
That was a long time ago and there are still people interested in this form of travel, they have formed groups that travel in covered wagons for the experience and I am sure this would be very educational.
People need tools to cook out in the open, without the right tools we can barely do anything.
What this article is about is what we have been told over and over but many never listen or if they do hear it they never act on it. This is about preparing for any kind of a long term emergency. How would we ever survive?
We live in a different world now and I feel people are very unprepared. Most of us live a life of convenience. We have grocery stores and fast food places to eat. We concern ourselves of nothing more than shopping at most any hour. Many of us completely depend on electricity for everything we do in our home. We depend on the flow.
So we fast forward to today. If we had a situation that our grid was affected what are we going to do?
We could have a severe outage or disruption of food supplies for many reasons and often it is caused by severe weather. We could fall on hard times for many unseen reasons. Elizabeth in photo above just wants to make sure we have food and water for her.
My opinion is we have to think like pioneers. We cannot always have the conveniences that we are accustom to and that is what people try to do.
We do not have a covered wagon or a chuck wagon but we do have a chuck pantry.
Here at our house we live in our typical small American home with running water and electricity. But then we have our outdoor bath area, our outdoor laundry area with a hand wringer and we have several ways to cook outdoors. We are set up to do things without electricity if we desire or need to. We can only store so much water due to space and weight.
So we have rain barrels and we know where our closest pond and stream is located. We have a berkey filter so we can have drinking water should something happen to our city water.
How do we afford to buy items for our old fashioned ways? We give up many things. We dropped our tv cable, we don't drink sodas or buy junk food. We do all we can to reduce our utility bills and we seldom ever eat out. This saves a lot of money.
We have a camping gas stove and we have stored cans of gas for this stove but eventually that would run out.
So we have our fire pit area for back up.
Before our fire pit we had our hobo stove that we made out of a can which we still have.
I keep sourdough starter.
We keep our oil lamps and plenty of lamp oil and matches because batteries will eventually run out. So we try and think like the pioneers with one exception, we have taken advantage of solar power.
We have canners..
And jars.
Eventually our fresh food stock would be gone..
So we made a back up plan for these foods..
We dehydrated food...
We air seal all kinds of dried goods.
We have canned milk.
Sugars, molasses, honey, syrup, oil, canned foods, flour, corn meal. We don't stock on convenience foods but real dry goods and a way to cook them.
Then we have fresh food growing.
Are we preppers? Survivalist? Let me tell you I cannot stand those made up terms because people try and make it sound as if we are trying to plan for the end of the world!
We are doing nothing more than our generations before us did and we are being smart and keeping a stock that would keep us from being a burden on our state resources if a disaster did occur and we could keep our family as comfortable as possible during a difficult time. Our ancestors had greater knowledge that we do now because they lived a life not relying on the flow.
We should not live in fear of something happening and we should not be ignorant to think nothing will ever happen.
What would you do if you had a job loss? We would certainly rely on our pantry goods.
We are living in a very unsettled time and people are feeling anxious about many things. Some are concerned with politics, some are very worried about war, some feel we are going to have a total grid disaster.
I completely understand why people worry because it is all over the news and internet to remind us of these things. There are many natural disasters that have been happening and people are suffering right now as I am writing this.
Just recently we had a hurricane and people rushed out to the stores only to find many of the store shelves had been cleaned out. There was nothing left because so many had never prepared.
So we must put things into perspective. Instead of doing nothing or the opposite worry or fear about these things we use that energy on what we can do in our home.
If we study about how people lived through the difficult times as we have already had in this country and this world then we can gain knowledge in what to do.
We make a plan and we start working towards that plan buying extra little by little for our pantry. We visit the camping section of the store next time we are there. We experiment with cooking without electricity, washing our clothes without a washing machine, drying our clothes on a line. Do we have a plan B and C or D?
We do not have a covered wagon, we have a home and a car. We have gone far away from our roots and maybe we have advanced too far.
This post has been inspired by some of my blog visitors that write to me with concerns and a friend in a country that is in a troubled time. She is very concerned because things are not getting better. There are rumors of war and it is hard for her to not be concerned.
Our world is very Volatile and none of us are immune from these things so we are foolish to not keep a pantry, and that can be a closet or boxes, cabinets or most anywhere. Our government, civil defense, local, state and national tell us to have an emergency plan, they have information and lists but many never give this a second thought.
In my friends case it is difficult to stock because they are already living with less in her country and have been for awhile now. We should let this be an example for all of us to start now if we have never done this, remember this is just a normal thing our generations before us did. We should make this priority before purchasing anything new. We can do without things to get our stock supplied and in order.
Our pioneers did not have a lot of variety so most likely that is where we should start. Basic dry goods, flour, meal, dry beans, rice, spices, canned items, fruits and meats. Dehydrated foods to start. Learn how to cook and eat less.
My friend is finding ways to keep herself uplifted during a difficult time and has given me a gift of a video that also is uplifting to me and I am sharing with you all so this can be uplifting to you. A simple life is a good thing.
Click on link below to watch the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZG1XqFUBDQ
Grandma Donna
