| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Prepping for Life, Lifestyle and Legacy
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 3:27
% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.
We need to talk about a few things that have been on my mind lately. Actually, Mrs. Prepper has been leaning on me to solidify some paperwork that I’ve been putting off for a while now. On top of this I get the random email from you readers from time to time asking what my long term plans are with my prepping and other questions surrounding my future move to the BOL (Bug Out Location). I’ve been trying to come up with the best way to answer all of the emails as well as clarify my plans and thus be able to put down in writing for posterities sake the long term goals of our preps, in particular the future use of the doomstead…
So, what are my long term plans… Well, for background sake, I’ll remind everyone that I’ve been at the whole “prepping” thing for quite a while now and so many of the more costly purchases have been made already. That would of course include the BOL. Through many years of hard work and dedication, we have the BOL completely paid for. As many of you have seen, it’s hardly a palace but it’s paid for and therefore we have a nearly guaranteed roof over our heads.
There are always the ongoing prepper concerns of a larger food supply and those pesky day to day life preps, like more TP and razor blades, etc. My personal goal is to have a SOLID one year supply of everything that we currently use in our household. This has gotten a little easier since it is by and large just Mrs. Prepper and I at the house now. My daughter will be returning home briefly after she completes her military training but I expect that to be for just a short stint. However, my goal of a one year supply is a little deceptive in that I want a years supply for 4-6 individuals, not just the 2 that I expect to be under the roof full time.
Why storage for 4-6, when only a household of 2? What’s that old saying… “Two is one, one is none!” If I take the easy route and just beef up the larder for the Mrs. and I, then that will virtually guarantee that I’ll find myself sharing the land with 10 family members when that fateful day collapse arrives! I don’t know about what any of you believe but I know God has a sense of humor!
If I plan for MORE THAN ENOUGH, I’ll probably find myself with a shortage of manpower when it comes to guard duty, see where I’m going with this. I’ll either have the food or the additional help. Might as well have the supplies and hope the help shows up too!
All this to say, “I’ll keep on preppin’ cause preppin’ is the answer!” This covers the short term and or ongoing prepping goals. When we move into the more long term lifestyle preps, we’ll be looking primarily at the continued BOL development. In the near (1-2 years) future, we will be making the move to the BOL full time. This will mean the transition to the and for our primary residence but not necessarily that we will be there 24/365. My wife and I both have interests and aspirations that will keep us on the road at least part of the time. The plan is to build our homestead businesses so that we will recognize at least some seasonal slow downs that will help accommodate the travel plans we have! This move will however allow us to kick the lifestyle preps in to high gear.
So far we’ve been working with our land almost exclusively on weekends and the occasional extended weekend… Trust me, it is very difficult to watch your progress take shape at a snails pace. I’ve mentioned that I’m in my 40′s now and the old energy level has been waining, which doesn’t help when trying to use the 2 day trips to their fullest when it comes to my MANY projects.
What do I mean when I say, developing the BOL and lifestyle preps? It’s been a long time since I’ve done any updates on what’s happening over there and I don’t want to get into too many specifics in this post, not a whole lot to report anyway but I’ll save the specifics for another day!
To start with “Lifestyle” preps to me would be the long term food production systems. Fruit and nut trees, berry patches, extensive garden space. The addition of animals for fertility and meat production. You know, all the things that will allow us to provide for our own food supply. I’m fully prepared to store up that years food supply but in the long run, I’m planning to use my prepping activities to allow for an early retirement. A retirement from the rat race but not from work… I’m one of those sick individuals that feels ill when I have too much idle time. I’m a businessman at heart and will always have my finger in something! I have at least 3 business ideas that I have to sit on right now because I’m too busy making the money to keep my head above water in the city to give any attention to the new opportunities.
Speaking of these new opportunities, a couple of them have the need of a manufacturing area so a shop will be in the works. I’m currently planning to build the basic workshop area out of the 3 shipping container that I already have on the land. I know that some folks would be put off by using something so ugly on such a beautiful piece of land but I like the industrial look and relative security they provide, despite the break-ins that I’ve suffered in the past.
I can already hear the questions about the container shop build… YES, I will be documenting the whole thing (minus the security features, of course) for all of you. It should be starting to take shape this coming summer but I have a stumbling block to overcome before I can get too far on the project! I’ll figure it out somehow, I’ll show you that part as well!
So, the lifestyle prepping is not only the purchase of the land that my wife and I will be bailing out too but also the many systems and upgrades that will take years to complete. Root cellar, shop, barns, animal pens, fencing, housing remodels and many, many more details that I can only describe as what will be my life’s work – at least the life’s work when it comes to prepping anyway!
Prepping as a legacy, what could I possibly mean? Do I plan to hand down that ever growing food supply to my daughter… Well, if by food supply, you mean the ability to reliably feed herself – yes! I do have a lot of LONG TERM food supply stored up but no I don’t think the Mountain House freeze dried pork chops count as a legacy.
When my daughter was a teenager in High School, I explained that I have no intention of giving away an “all expense paid trip for one to some glamorous university in a tropical location”. I would be happy to help her earn her way through school and even pay up to half of what was left if she went and diligently found scholarships to pay for the bulk of the expenses. In the same vein, I have no intention of leaving a large sum of money to her when I kick-off, hopefully one day many, many years from now. Please don’t get the wrong idea, my daughter is an especially high achiever and has no real need for my help and to be perfectly honest, my help would have been more of a hinderance then a help! She has taken the bull by the horns and found a very profitable way to get her education and her employment prospects are very bright and lucrative! The “Prepper’s” are a do it yourself, hands on, kind of family and it has served us well.
If I have my way, I’ll have grandchildren and possibly even great grandchildren that will be the recipients of my legacy. My plan would be that my daughter and her family would reap the blessings of my prepping efforts during my lifetime. The legacy I want and plan for, would be far longer reaching then just to the next couple of generations.
The legacy that I want to leave behind would be an ability to provide the infrastructure to my lineage for producing their own food, on paid for land that will provide them with all the opportunities to live a self sufficient life. In my mind I’m envisioning something akin to the old “Family Farm” that so many families had to fall back on as recently as 40-50 years ago.
Describing my legacy plans as a “family farm” is to some what simplify the concept. For lack of a better descriptor, this will do… The family farm will eventually have extensive food production capabilities of both produce and meat. Shop space to maintain the working of the farm or even create and run a business. All on a piece of debt free land that has it’s own infrastructure. Water and waste are handled directly on the land. Energy needs can be accomplished with generous backup systems and potentially go completely off-grid at some point in the future.
I dream of leaving my family of the future an oasis that will only require minimal inputs of time and money to maintain. Yes, property taxes will always come due but even these may be alleviated at some point in the future if our economic situation were to get bad enough to warrant the county making that kind of deal with land owners. The term I believe is an alloidal ownership, were the land owner makes a specified advance payment to the hard up county to avoid ever having to pay the taxes annually again. Don’t forget, I said I was dreaming!
I see prepping as a series of events that will continue over the course of a “Preppers” lifetime. The ability to prepare for our own future and even our extended generational families future is a worthy goal and I believe will one day be far more valuable then just giving my grandson my antique Rolex watch or great grandma’s wedding band. I will of course do those things as well but I see a future where having a highly productive apple tree is of far greater worth, kind of a true “gift that keeps on giving sort of thing!”
I hope that this post will encourage all of you, my fellow preppers, to think LONG term in your prepping activities. We are all involved with an absolutely “can’t lose” activity. Whatever you do – “Keep on preppin’, cause preppin’ is the answer”, sometimes the answer to more then one question!
Prepper
___________________________________________________________________________________________
I hope you’re enjoying the topics we discuss here at Preppernation.com – Please take a second to subscribe to the email alerts and I’ll let you know when new content is posted to the blog for your consideration! Prepper
2013-03-12 03:00:55
Source: http://preppernation.com/prepping-for-life-lifestyle-and-legacy/
Source:
