Category Archives: Motivation/Planning

The Family You Choose

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What Is Meant When We Say Family

Our immediate family

I talk a lot about the importance of family. How we are doing this (prepping) for our families and how we have these responsibilities because of our families. But what does family mean?

Ryan my biological son & Chanse our ‘chosen’ son

There’s a quote I like that says, “There are the families that we are born into, and there are the families that we choose – our circle of friends.” Another says, “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.” When I use the term ‘family’ I don’t just mean the family I was born with and the family I brought into this world, I also include the friends I choose to call family. I believe family is how you define it.

As preppers it is important–and I believe may become much more important–to develop significant family support. Hopefully our families will be there to assist, defend, educate, and care for us. If possible, now while things are ‘normal’, coordinate with your family. Discuss with family members what your evacuation plan is, let them know when and where you will go. Encourage and assist them in developing their own – possibly one that mimics or overlaps with yours. Talk about possible BOLs*. Do you want to find a place together? Is it better to simply be close enough for mutual support? If a family member lives in an urban area and you live in a rural area, encourage them to bug out to your home. And, if that is the plan you decide on, coordinate with them in the interim to store extra food and supplies at your home (or vice versa).

We all have family members who aren’t interested in prepping at all and see the whole concept as somewhat idiosyncratic if not downright crazy. If pushed, their entire prepping plan is to “worry about it later”. If you love them, and know that if they come knocking on your door you will let them in, then plan for them. Plan to welcome them and, to the degree you are able, prepare for them now. In a world where human labor may be required to provide food, water, shelter, security and energy; additional people–who you know and trust–will be an asset.

Booth family reunion
Adams family reunion

Just as the last couple of generations have mostly forgotten about the importance of being prepared and of “laying up stores for the winter”, many have also forgotten about the strength, support, and love that their chosen family can provide.

(Wednesday: Walk A Mile In Your Shoes)

*For my list of abbreviations and other information, open the above ‘Check Here…’ page tab.

(added 12/29/11) Great family quote: “Being a family means you are a part of something very wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life. No matter what.”

Repetitive & Redundant x2

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Building Redundancies Into Your Preps

In the military we were taught, “Two is one, one is none.” It was stressed that if you only have one of something important you can’t depend on it; it will eventually break, fail, be lost, or stolen. We can’t even imagine all the ways something can break or fail. And, according to the infamous Murphy, that failure will happen at the worst possible time. Everything works before it breaks.

Does this mean we need to have two, or more, of everything? Of course not. Mostly we are referring to what the military would call ‘mission essential gear’. Stuff you need to have–or really want to have–to overcome foreseeable challenges. In the military, a weapon and a radio are examples of mission essential gear; if one of those items fail, the mission will likely also fail. So look at your preps and ask yourself, which items are ‘mission essential’?

We still don’t have to have two of every essential item. Yes, some things you’ll need to have extras, but others you can have an alternative that will work. I don’t feel the need to carry two identical pocketknives in case I lose or break one. I can carry one pocketknife and one multi-tool–which also serves additional purposes–and have a backup knife. Start by analyzing your five basic needs: 1) food, 2) water, 3) shelter, 4) security, and 5) energy and decide how much redundancy you need to build into each system. Some are already in place, i.e. if your freezer goes out, you still have your non-perishable foods; if your water filter breaks, you can still boil water.

Also important to consider is where you store your redundancies. If you have five ways to make fire, all carried in one pouch; yeah one is none. All your food preps in the basement and it floods; all your guns in a gun safe and it electronically fails.

But it’s a hassle to be redundant. “Dammit, I finally have one and now you’re telling me I have to get two?” Or, “They’re all nice and neat there together and I don’t have space to put them in two (or three) separate locations.” And if two is better than one, is three better than two, and four even better? Decide for yourself–doing your best to filter out paranoia–at what point do you feel safe and prepared? Don’t get too carried away; even if you have the money and space, rotating all those extra items can become a resented inconvenience.

Stuff is transient; redundancy in knowledge and skills is critical also. Knowing more than one way to do something significantly increases the chance of success. Have a backup plan. Being mentally and physically prepared will allow you to improvise, adapt, and overcome.

There is an old army joke about a combat soldier getting two wishes from a genie. He thinks and decides he wants a magazine for his rifle that never runs out of bullets, and poof it is laying in his hand. The genie asks for the second wish, after pondering the soldier says proudly “I want another one…”

‘Course It’ll Always Be There

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When people ask me why I prep, I tell them–assuming they are actually willing to listen to the answer–that we have five basic needs: food, water, shelter, security and energy. These needs are delivered via a series of integrated systems. In an emergency, big or small, when one or more of those systems fail, the delivery of these basic needs may be in jeopardy. We, as individuals, are powerless to control these systems or fix them when they fail. At that time, all you can depend on is the preparations you have previously made.

What kind of systems are we discussing and where might they be vulnerable? We’ll use food as an example:

  • Agricultural system – food production. Affected by: inclement weather, including droughts and floods, also blights, equipment costs, fuel prices, shortened growing seasons
  • Local laborer system – harvesting and packing food for shipment. Affected by: local regulations, regional (civil or economic) instability, employee shortages
  • Transportation system – getting the food from there to here. Affected by: ‘vehicle’ system – trucks, ships, airplanes, trains; fuel prices, inclement weather (snow, ice and wind storms, rough seas), transportation worker strikes
  • Processing and warehouse system – where food is received, repackaged, and temporarily stored (refrigerated as required). Affected by: power failures, worker strikes, inclement weather
  • Grocery store system – where food is stocked, refrigerated, rotated, and sold. Affected by: power failures, local inclement weather (real or anticipated), civil unrest, hoarding

We eat every day and we depend on these systems to function almost flawlessly. Most people give little thought to how these multiple systems interact to get food to us; they just assume the food will always be there when they want it. But if one of those systems fail and that food item doesn’t arrive, you may have to do without.

Now, say, this food item is your favorite type of apple from New Zealand. If it’s not in your grocery store today, you may wish it was but, you can make do with another type. What happens when it wasn’t just that apple shipment, but none of the local shipments arrived that day, or the next? Grocery stores don’t keep a large inventory on hand; their business model is based on inventory arriving on a regular basis for consumer purchase. Very quickly shelves would be emptied. Ever been to a grocery store when a large storm is predicted?

And similar events affect our other needs as well (with shelter being somewhat of an exception):

  • water: lines break, contamination, droughts, flooding, sewage leaks or backups
  • security: inclement weather delays police or medical response, civil unrest ties up resources, power failures cause security systems to be down
  • energy: power failure from storms, broken lines; fuel systems affects almost every level of every other system, i.e. fuel costs go up, food prices go up

Jack Spirko, on TSP, talks about how we buy all of our needs a la carte. But we know what those needs are, and we know we’re going to need them everyday. Most, if not all, can be planned for ahead of time and we can have extras stored and redundancies built-in. Ready your preps so you can be self-reliant when those systems temporarily fail, and build the knowledge and skills to be self-sufficient so that you will not be bound to those systems you can’t control or fix.

(Wednesday: Something To Lean On)

Self-Reliant vs Self-Sufficient

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We tend to use these phrases interchangeably, assuming they mean basically the same thing.

Recently on TSP (episode 754) Jack clearly defined and delineated them. I did a quick Google search and–even though these words previously existed–I believe Jack has created a new prepper definition of these words; Jack Spirko originals, if you will.

Self-Reliance is having stored preps; it’s like having money in a ‘rainy day’ account, or an insurance policy; it just sits there, available if we need it. Jack defined self-reliance as: “a finite resource that’s held in reserve in case another system fails”. We preppers understand this. We all have stockpiles of stuff that we don’t want to use unless we have to; we will only use enough to keep things rotated. In a total TEOTWAWKI most of these items, once they were used up, would no longer be available in their modern forms. Examples, organized into bullets of our five basic needs, include:

  • short and long term food storage, factory canned food, food not locally produced
  • bottled water, chemicals used to purify water
  • toilet paper, clothes, plastic bags
  • ammunition, most pharmacological medicines including antibiotics
  • batteries, flashlights, fuel, light bulbs

Self-Sufficiency is sustainable. Jack defined self-sufficiency as: “it’s own independent system that’s not dependent on someone else’s system . . . even when the system of support is currently available.” This describes the portion of your needs you are able to produce, and use on a daily basis, whether the current systems are in place or not:

  • gardens, livestock, canning and other food preservation
  • wells, septic systems, water filters, rain barrels
  • handmade furniture, handmade quilts
  • bows and arrows, musket balls and powder
  • solar, wind, and/or hydro power

A defining characteristic is how they are measured. Self-reliance is measured in time, it is “finite, it’s wholly self-limiting,” e.g. you have enough food stored for six months, enough batteries for three months, enough water for 30 days. Self-sufficiency is measured by percentages, it is essentially indefinite (for the sake of a human life-cycle), e.g. you can produce 20% of your food needs, produce 30% of your energy needs.

This is not to say that one is better than another, just different. Both, in our typical current worlds, are necessary. Right now the systems are in place; use them, enjoy them, just don’t become overly dependent on them being there forever. Self-reliance is typically the main thing people focus on when they initially move into a prepper mentality. Self-reliance is about stockpiling needed stuff. As we’re building our preps, look toward the goal of self-sufficiency and developing and using skills to produce needed items. Remember to view self-sufficiency as a percentage of our needs, not our wants.

Being self-reliant will give us a buffer to get our self-sufficient skills up to full speed, i.e. using our food storage for the winter and spring, until the gardens begin producing.

As preppers, if we understand these concepts we can use them to help us define our plans and set our goals. As we know–and I discussed in Buying Stuff Is Easy–stuff can be destroyed, taken, left-behind, or lost. But knowledge and skill sets exist as long as you maintain proficiency with them.

(Friday: What I Did This Week To Prep)

P.S. I was using these words interchangeably myself when I initially started my blog. My subtitle under the name ‘Trace My Preps’ said ‘A Prepper / Self-Reliant Blog’. I have now changed it to: ‘My Journey through Self-Reliance into Self-Sufficiency’.

A List

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The room goes dark and quiet. Power outage. Why really doesn’t matter right now; right now you’re sitting in a dark house. Time to start putting some of your preps to use. Duration of the blackout and appropriate level of concern, will be determined as things progress. But for now, you feel good about your families’ situation; your five basic needs are met pretty well.

But what about your daily wants and activities? We are creatures of habit; our routines give us comfort. To establish some type of normalcy will be important. Once we are warm, fed, and safe; the next complaint will be lack of everyday activity and boredom.

So what now? It’s hard to address these issues if you haven’t thought about them before. So as a family we tried to brainstorm all the things we do–at the house–on a regular basis. (No particular order, we just went around the group and each of us named something until we couldn’t think of anything else.) We didn’t try to solve any problems, or develop any ideas. I just wanted a list of things we regularly do, and to create an awareness of our normal activities.

Eventually, I want to look at each item on the list and determine it’s relative importance in an emergency situation. Do we need a back-up, a substitute, or possibly an alternate way of achieving the same end?

But for now, it’s just a list:

  1. Going to the bathroom
  2. Internet
  3. Cooking
  4. Drinking water
  5. Brushing teeth
  6. Reading
  7. Watching TV shows
  8. Putting on make up
  9. Sleeping
  10. Studying and learning
  11. Laundry
  12. Shaving
  13. Music
  14. Hanging with friends
  15. Washing hair
  16. Dishes
  17. Getting dressed
  18. Drawing
  19. Keeping food cold
  20. Wake up with alarm
  21. Crafts
  22. Drinking alcohol
  23. Using computers (non Internet)
  24. Taking medicine
  25. Texting
  26. Games
  27. Playing with and caring for pets
  28. Staying warm
  29. Watching movies
  30. Taking out trash
  31. Vacuuming
  32. Taking pictures
  33. Using microwave
  34. Dealing with menstrual cycles
  35. Sweeping
  36. Fixing stuff
  37. Video games
  38. Preparing food
  39. Changing batteries
  40. Telling time
  41. Washing hands and face
  42. Opening doors
  43. Showering
  44. Talking
  45. Building things
  46. Drinking coffee
  47. Relaxing
  48. Baking
  49. Cleaning
  50. Putting on lotion
  51. Locking doors
(Friday: What I Did This Week To Prep)

Becoming Mentally & Physically Prepared

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Buying Stuff Is Easy

“Mental and physical preparation. People die with all of the things they need to survive because they don’t maintain the will to survive. . . . the most important thing is the person using the technology.” This was recently emailed to me by one of my oldest and closest friends. In the military they taught us: improvise, adapt, and overcome. Knowledge and ability, once gained, are yours forever; stuff can be lost, broken, or taken away.

Though few of us can buy everything we’d like, the actual concept of saving up the money, going to the store, selecting, paying, and bringing it home is easy. It’s easy and we feel good because we now have this item; we believed we needed it for our preps, we saved for it, and now own it. But this is only a start, now we have to mentally and physically develop the skill set to use it. New items typically fall into one of two categories: it is something we are already familiar with and just need to figure out the new one, or it’s something we’ve never used before and need to learn a brand new skill (which take time and effort).

Mental preparation: developing a survival/can-do attitude and learning useful skill sets. Physical preparation: keeping yourself physically capable of surviving and accomplishing those skill sets.

We all have stuff sitting around our homes that we’ve bought but really don’t know how to use. We understand the basic concept and we’re fairly confident that if we needed to we could “figure it out”, but we haven’t taken the time to – yet. This can be a precarious position. Now that we’ve bought said item we feel we have checked off that box; there are other new and interesting things, to buy. Figuring it out “one of these days” frequently never quite happens.

It is imperative that we do “figure it out”. Take the time to learn the skill, then get your hands dirty and practice it – watching a video isn’t good enough. For example, It’s easy to buy a few 2x4s, some dirt, and a few seed packets; that is most everything needed to build and plant a raised bed garden. But how many more steps are there between buying and harvesting healthy vegetables?

What about the generator we’ve been told we need? Home generators are relatively simple to operate: add fuel, open fuel lines, choke, turn on, pull starter, and it should fire up. But, doing this for the first time in the dark is not simple nor stress-free. (That is not the time to realize you never stored any fuel.) What are you going to power with it, why, and for how long? Take the time to figure it out before the power fails. Consider developing your skill set further–and here I need to take my own advice–and learn some basic maintenance.

Or, one of the common prepper flaws: owning lots of guns, lots of ammo, and never having taking a defensive firearms course. “I know how to shoot” many will say, but how about shooting effectively in a high stress, low light, fatigue filled situation, where people might be hurt? Sure you can shoot the center out of the paper targets every time. Sure you assume that if the SHTF you’ll be just fine. But have you ever practiced for failure? What have you really done to mentally and physically prepare the skill set that could protect your family?

The list continues. You have the great BOB; can you carry it? Sure it’s in a quality backpack, but have you put it on, cinched it up and walked any distance? What about good footwear? You bought good boots; but finding out they needed breaking in when you are a mile into your ten-mile trek, is too late.

It was easy to buy it, but investing the time to learn new things, with our busy schedules and hectic lives, is tough – really tough. Especially when it all has to be self-motivated, there’s no ‘financial’ return, and you’re learning it for something that might happen, someday, maybe. So how do we self motivate? ‘Because we should’ isn’t (usually) good enough. Everyone knows they should exercise, eat right, etc. but you need to be able to articulate your own reason and goal.

I don’t have any brilliant insights to give you. You have to find that motivation; start with your plan. Set short-term achievable goals, working toward a reachable long-term goal; continue to eat that elephant “one bite at a time.” Begin with the Five Basic Needs and build from there. Yes, there are certain things you have to ‘get’, but, more importantly, you have to develop the skills to utilize those things and prepare yourself mentally and physically for the tasks that may be ahead.

(Wednesday: A List)

Aesop on Prepping

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The Wild Boar and The Fox
     A wild boar was sharpening his tusks upon the trunk of a tree in the forest when a fox came by and asked, “Why are you doing that, pray? The huntsmen are not out today and there are no other dangers at hand that I can see”
     “True, my friend,” replied the boar, “but the instant my life is in danger, I shall need to use my tusks. There will be no time to sharpen them then.”

History has shown us there will always be unseen dangers to prepare for; but it has also shown us there is complacency and apathy, or just downright laziness and entitlement. An early example of prepping comes from Aesop in the six century B.C.* Aesop pondered life’s truths, and wrote simple moral stories “which everyone knows not to be true, [but by doing so] told the truth by the very fact that he did not claim to be relating real events.”

The ant as a symbol in the prepper community comes from the fable:
The Grasshopper and The Ant
     In a field one summer’s day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.
     “Why not come and chat with me,” said the Grasshopper, “instead of toiling and moiling in that way?”
     “I am helping to lay up food for the winter,” said the Ant, “and recommend you to do the same.”
     “Why bother about winter?” said the Grasshopper, “we have got plenty of food at present.” 
     But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Dying, the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.

Through various retellings over the years this simple and straightforward moral has become badly distorted. This was especially shown in the 1934 Disney short film “The Grasshopper and the Ants”. The film ended with the ants feeling sorry for the grasshopper, bringing him in, feeding and caring for him. Too many believe this is what would really happen, either by ‘some government agency’ or neighbors who did take the time to “lay up food for the winter”. Planning ahead and preserving the harvest in preparation for the dark days of winter was the norm from long before the time of Aesop until as recently as two generations ago. Yet somehow today the concept of actively preparing for times of need has been labeled as hoarding, fringe, or extreme.

Be the Ant.

(Friday: “Store What You Eat”)

*Aesop is believed to be a Greek writer who is variously described as both legendary and historical. He was said to have lived in the six century B.C. perhaps as a Phrygian slave. There is debate as to whether or not Aesop actually wrote the fables, some question whether he even existed. Although the origin of Aesop’s fables may be shrouded in mystery, they were retold over generations, and finally transcribed by Babrius, in the second century A.D. Throughout the years, there have been many versions, in many cultures, used to teach morals to people of all ages.

Finding Direction = TSP

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There is so much ‘out there’ these days about prepping, self-reliance, and survivalism. In the last couple of years prepping has actually become ‘cool’, almost ‘normal’ in some circles. There are many resources: books, podcasts, online forums, other blogs. As frequently is the case, the hardest part is the myriad of choices; knowing where to look to find good, reliable sources, that you like, and that are worth your time.

I had never listened to podcasts before and Sarah suggested that might be a good place to start. We figured a podcast would work well because I drive an hour to and from work four days a week. I searched ‘survival’ and found a number of options. After listening to a few, I found Jack Spirko’s: The Survival Podcast (TSP) (www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/)

I feel like Jack Spirko created a very good survival ‘wheel’–I don’t need to recreate it. So, much of what I discuss will be taken directly or indirectly from his podcasts or his YouTube videos*.

Jack and I are, of course, different people, with different backgrounds and thus different prospectives. Jack grew up hunting, fishing, and gardening in a small rural town; I grew up in medium size city in suburbia. We both enlisted in the military, but he was a mechanic and I was in combat arms. After the military he became a successful entrepreneurial businessman; I was a police officer, back in the military, then a civilian paramedic. Jack is an expert on many things, specifically the economic system, growing your own food, and gathering wild game. My strengths are in the areas of emergency first aid, personal health and fitness.

Jack does an exceptional job making difficult concepts understandable and seemingly overwhelming tasks doable. He stresses everything becomes easier when divided into manageable categories. There is the old adage: ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.’ To teach modern survivalism Jack uses the survival model of your five basic needs: 1) food, 2) water, 3) shelter, 4) security, and 5) energy.

I believe Jack’s ideas and teaching methods are very effective. So why am I restating them in another blog? We all know there are a lot of things that sound good in theory, or work for someone else. I began by significantly increasing the breadth of my knowledge. Now I’m deepening the understanding and implementation of those specific skill sets and sharing that with you; what I learn and what I wish I had known.

(Starting this week I’ll begin posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Check back on Wednesday: “Aesop on Prepping”)

The Survival Podcast logo

* I have no commercial interest or association with TSP, I just like the show. I emailed and asked Jack for permission to share his information, his response: “Of course, no worries at all.” TSP site states: “Non commercial distribution of this show from short segments to entire episodes or even many episodes is not only acceptable, it is encouraged.” (Full TSP Disclaimer & Policies)

Jumping In With Both Feet

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I find that when I’m learning something new, I tend to jump in with both feet. This sometimes makes it difficult to process the (almost) overwhelming tide of new information that swirls around inside my head. I’m in one of those times now, as I assimilate the self-reliant/prepper/“modern survivalist” concepts into my life.

Taking advice from my wife, Sarah, I decided to start a blog. I will document my path from listening and reading about prepping ideas to actually putting them into practice. This will allow me to sort them out and keep them organized, as well as share them.

Prepping, though we didn’t call it that then, has always interested me. In my life–in the military, as a police officer, and a paramedic–preparedness and survival were key elements. If you didn’t plan well, if you didn’t bring it, you did without. That being said, you can only carry so much in your ‘ruck sack’ before it becomes full. I found what I didn’t bring was as important to consider as what I did.

My first venture into non-military prepping was before Y2K. Yes, I believed that it was a viable risk. We built our stores to the level we could before The Date, then of course nothing happened. We did continue building our storage for a time afterward, but the concern and the drive dissipated. That’s the problem with prepping for a specific incident or date: when that time passes, the prepping seems unnecessary and you lose the motivation, or worse, regret what you did (money spent, ridicule endured, etc) and swear never to be that foolish again (or be “that guy”).

I picked up the prepping ball again this past fall (2010). In the last two years my personal world has changed for the positive: including getting remarried, and moving closer to my kids to be in their lives on a daily basis. Because of this I felt a certain urgency to protect and defend my “cave.” Some balance and stability had finally returned to my life, and that was important to maintain. When you’re on your own you don’t worry much about being prepared. But when we have people we love who we are responsible for we tend to want to protect and keep them safe. Motivation is important when we start something new.

My Family & I

My goal is to become more prepared with my family, both gathering needed items and learning new skills. I’ll share my successes and failures, what I learn and what I wish I had known.