Sounds like an odd question...
I believe in preparedness and I believe in the necessity to be resilient or, in my case, self-sufficient; I try to setup my family as such. I don't think that having a go-bag and 3 months of food is the best way to be a prepper (my opinion, I'm not trying to convince anyone!) as eventually, supplies will run out.
Being able to garden, raise animals, essentially be able to "homestead" is the way to go to prepare for a long term issue. But there are setbacks...
Looking at this year, I find myself coming to the realization that self-sufficiency is very difficult, and that setbacks can be really depressing.
I came back in the spring from a contract out of the county and found myself late getting the garden going. I was also very surprised at how few flowers were on the trees in the orchard, something I had no control over. Fast forward a few months, we had a smaller berry crop this year and or apple trees only yielded about 1/4 of the previous years. Add to this the frost we had last weekend (yup, frost in central AB on 25 Aug!) that will likely end up killing quite a bit of my garden and I'm realizing that we would be in a tough situation if we had to rely on the garden for subsistence.
A lot of the trees also look unwell. We had to resort to routine watering owing to the drought. Dry condition aside, our large, mature, plum tree looks in rough condition and only gave off a half dozen plums. The leaves look sickly and so is the bark; it fared poorly last year but looks even worse now. Looks like I'll have to pull out the chainsaw... Other trees and ornamental perennials also look so unwell this year, and also at my neighbours' place... Sickly looking, with lots of dark brown patches all over the leaves and stems. They look as if it was late October and they died out, only that we are in late Aug. Hoping this is nothing ominous.
Then we've been incrementally increasing our backyard flock of laying hen and were roundly getting over a dozen (it took a while to convince Mrs HP, but she's on board now) when one of our hen took sick last week and died within the day. Looks like it may have been isolated as the other hens appear ok, but the though of losing the flock - or having to cull - has been on my mind for the past few days. Again, this would be a big setback, after time, efforts and money invested in the flock.
So then, all that to realize that it's really hard to be self sufficient. I could really see a lot of people giving up when things are not working out as per textbook.
Oh well, we'll try again next year.
I would say self sufficiency involves other people, likely lots. A measure of durability is doable as a single entity.....
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
My level of concern over where the world is going, out weighs my frustration for getting my ass kicked for a couple years setting up the homestead. Ten years on this property and we suffered so many set backs!!! So thankful we had those years to get it working better. We have come so far, learned so much. Trial and error!!! We thought it would be easier than we've experienced but at least our lives didn't depend on it!!! Learn it while we have the luxury to fail!
Are you Resilient Enough to be Resilient? Sounds like an odd question...
I've contemplated these words and tried to put them in the context of facing a number of SHTF events that one could be presented with. To me being resilient is the ability to recover and adjust to misfortune or change. The word implies that you spring back to your previous position before the misfortune occurred quickly. This would seem to be important, but with further consideration it seems to me somehow insufficient.
For the sake of waxing eloquent, what was the misfortune that occurred that resulted in the position that you now find yourself. Now that you are armed with this knowledge, your new goal should not be to return to your previous position, but one that is less susceptible to your recent tragedy. What is required is something more than resilience. Perhaps flexible is a better word. Something that can be bent or folded without breaking... To reassess your experience and formulate a position that may be completely different than your previous one...
You build a bridge, it falls down. You are resilient if you try to rebuild. You're flexible if you are willing to build in a different location or simply walk around the obstruction. If you find yourself with lemons, make lemonade. Not being critical, your post inspired thought...:-)
None you improvise, one (or more) is luxury.
Its never ending.. its the one thing that those that have lived on the farm and the homestead life for years will tell you.. the challenges are endless, the costs can be high (so many lives often at stake) based on our choices from animal to plant.
I often think of homesteading like riding a horse.. we have the land or the horse, we have the gear/tack and we have a basic or even a advanced knowledge base and just ilke when you ride a horse.. Control is nothing but a illusion
There are moments that the partnership flows and moves in a way that seems perfect. enjoy those moments! they are special but the truth is we work daily in many ways to "tame" nature LOL and nature.. well nature can and will kick our rears when it wants to.
The closer we can work with the natural the better we will always do.. creating layers on your land is good, finding an creating layers on the land around if possible even better.
And to quote C% (because its true) when certain things happen. lower your expectations. I will give a live example for this year.. good year for soft fruits on the farm, poor year for hard fruits yield this year. We will go pick apples off the farm as per creating layers but I didn't buy the rest, we will just change our expectations and eat more rhubarb and soft fruits for the next year.
We truly have been crazy spoiled at the amount of things we can get year round at the stores..
http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/
Sounds like an odd question...
I believe in preparedness and I believe in the necessity to be resilient or, in my case, self-sufficient; I try to setup my family as such. I don't think that having a go-bag and 3 months of food is the best way to be a prepper (my opinion, I'm not trying to convince anyone!) as eventually, supplies will run out.
Being able to garden, raise animals, essentially be able to "homestead" is the way to go to prepare for a long term issue. But there are setbacks...
Oh well, we'll try again next year.
Great question and one a person will never know the answer to until they meet that wall. I have faced death four times in my life and managed to pull myself over the wall and I don’t even include AK 47 in far off land put in my face as one of them because that was a nothing compared to other events. Nope we never know until there and I for one am getting mighty afraid that I am getting tired of fighting. Probably a few more left in me but man I am finding it harder and harder to summon the strength and eventually, one just can’t push past and succumbs.
Homesteading is likely the most genteel method of survival but regardless of all ones preparations, it will require much strength. Will require help at one point, likely violence to defend, luck, will power and when the time comes, acceptance that one fought the good fight and hopefully was able to pass the torch to others.
Doing what many of are trying to do is a great method of building up inner and outer tools for resiliency. We learn, overcome and improve for next time and hope that whatever we face, we will be ready for it. A killer drought or infestation of bugs etc, may be the last nail in the coffin, but one can only try until they have nothing left. With luck, that last push may just be enough to get us over the wall. Ya never know until you awake and realize your still here and ready for next challenge
Welcome to the fight, big guy. Now you "Know" in the biblical sense instead of knowing in the prepper porn sense. You had your ass kicked... and now you know.
You are 101% more resilient now simply because you KNOW.
Alot of us got our ass kicked this year... and it gets worse, every year from here on in.
I have a Tactical Harness and I have a Tool Belt. The Tool Belt is more Useful.
Florence has just passed... so I gave myself the day to finally slack... and send a note while I was passing through.
It has been a shit year, right across the entire canadian continent. 95% of my tomatoes still haven't ripened.
As a Prepper, Training yourself to adapt to collapse, that others are watching, this is your moment to shine. Look at where you are now.... and ask yourself, based on what i see, how much can i pack away to get me to the next harvest. How can I get through this? What calories can I pack away. Example. We dried onion tops and chopped cabbage leave in the greenhouse today as well as speed drying beans. No one goes, Yum, Dehydrated cabbage. The only reason i knew to go there was from hanging with mountain climbers that did Patagonia on the cheap. All they could gather in country was dried cabbage and commercial potato chips crushed into powder.
My point is, here is your real survival test. Examine and store every potential calorie you can store between now and hard freeze...and eat it.
On your mark. Get set. GO!!!
I have a Tactical Harness and I have a Tool Belt. The Tool Belt is more Useful.
Slowly raises hand.. I like cabbage .. no I really do.. love the dang stuff.. I blame my mother, she loves the stuff and made it seem so special when we got cabbage based meals.. I still get excited about a good cabbage salad or cabbage rolls.. I use it dried in almost all my soups/stews. When hubby is not home, I have been known to eat nothing but a big old plate of fried cabbage.
But I get your point.. I really do.. I have been in a mad push on putting things up and away from the gardens but I also went "bleep it" this year, I got hundreds of pounds of basic's that went on sale and filled up a couple extra hundred jars and put it away. We are still bringing in food from the gardens yet and more to come.
I sent hubby down to the pantry to get me more pint jars, standard mouth size and he came up with wide mouth and I went..no babe, wide mouth jars are for meat, I am not at butcher time yet and he went.. you are out of pints.. BLINK.. HARD BLINK.. he says, he have small mouth quarts (very limited amounts left to fill), wide mouth pints and quarts and less then six of the smaller 8oz jam jars
I knew I had been busy canning and I do mean canning.. lots and then some but this just stumped me.. I know how many pint jars I own and I thought I had at least a few hundred more jars to fill but it turns out that I have been busy filling them all summer. I am heading into end of the sept with a full fruit/garden canning pantry. as well as a full (maybe different kinds) winter keep pantry
Time to switch over from garden (which will need to move more to drying) to butcher over the next two months..
So I say the same.. put up what you can, stock up if you can
http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/
Slowly raises hand.. I like cabbage ..
and then some but this just stumped me.. I know how many pint jars I own and I thought I had at least a few hundred more jars to fill
Me too with the cabbage. I dehydrate cabbage to use in cabbage rolls casserole or cabbage roll soup. I find it easier to dehydrate a few things now and can the "extra" bits when things are quieter.
Check your closet for the jars. I was shocked when I thought I had "lost" several hundred jars. I found them after taking a part the house. It turns out when I was working on the renos I moved the cases of jars and forgot. 😳
Now you "Know" in the biblical sense instead of knowing in the prepper porn sense. You had your ass kicked... and now you know.
You are 101% more resilient now simply because you KNOW.
I have said this kind of thing for many years. It is one thing to think "this is how I will react or nothing like this will get me down".
I have been thankful for the chance to experience a few of the "Know" on a smaller scale. For example: a house fire...I did not loose my house, I did not loose my fur babies, I was only a little bit hurt........and now I "Know" how I will react. Let me tell you, how I did react was nothing like how I thought I would react.
helicopilot - in spite of how it feels at this moment in time, I look at it as a blessing for you. The SHTF has not happened on a country/world scale so there are at least some "safety" nets still available. A weekend "test" does not give you the same kind of deep knowledge on just how strong you really are. And trust me when I say you are one of the strong ones.
