| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
“Lay Up” Before Being “Laid Up”, by Wandering Will
Lately, I have seen a growing number of articles stressing that everyone needs to get prepared NOW! They stress that this may very well be your last chance to get prepped up. Is this true? I don’t know, but like many of my friends I do feel that in many areas things are rapidly accelerating. Am I going to give a prediction on when the bottom will drop out? Not a chance. I do, however, feel it’s not a question of “if” but rather one of “when”.
Waking Up
When did it happen for me? I have always been a “preparedness” type, but my first big commitment came when the Y2K scare came along. I thought about it, reasoned that a world without electricity would not be a good place, and promptly shelled out “mucho dinero” for a six-month supply of storage food for my family. Y2K came and went, without a single catastrophe. I have no doubt that the family members I had tried to convince to get prepared were not so quietly snickering about the crazy old man who tried to get them to waste their money. Undeterred, I hauled the food through two house moves and to a storage locker, and yes the majority of the food is still good; we continue to consume it. About four years ago, we linked up with some very intelligent folks who really opened our eyes to what was going on. My wife and I were so impressed with the way these people were walking the talk that we made major changes in our life. We watched as our friends took all the steps– finding land, stocking up, building a garden (only slightly smaller than Connecticut), and acquiring livestock. Oh, their efforts also included employing a very large, four-footed, security guard to watch over the operation.
The Changes
My wife and I were retired, so the changes were not life-shattering, but they were certainly life-changing. We moved to a different state and bought a house close to our friends. Thereafter, we jumped in with both feet and began serious prepping. Only by the efforts of my chief financial officer (the wife) were we slowly able to acquire, on a pensioner’s income, the necessary preps and eliminate as much debt as possible. Although it took years, we achieved a reasonable level of preparedness. We had the stuff, so what now? Well, we decided we had better see if the stuff works. Like many writers suggest, we decided to do a blackout drill. The rules were pretty simple for the next ____ (fill in the amount of time you wish to drill). We would have no electricity, no running water, and no egress from the house. We would have to make do with what we had acquired. Thankfully, we completed the drill in the winter time, with very few problems. However, the lessons learned were many.
One of the most important lessons I learned was that, depending on the type of stove you use, one can make two different kinds of coffee.
Source: http://survivalblog.com/lay-up-before-being-laid-up-by-wandering-will/
