Relax don’t do it….

Sunday (Photo credit: ex.libris)

We in the prepper community, I think, suffer from doer syndrome, the constant need to be going or doing something at all times. We are canning, drying, planting, practicing, planning, reading, stacking, un-stacking, organizing, making lists, and stacking again. We are shooting, reloading, hiking, camping, buying, couponing, raising kids, and clearing fields of fire.

We have trouble my friend, right here in prepper city, trouble with a capitol T that rhymes with D and that stands for DOER!!!!

Well my friends, you need to rest! Yes that is right I said rest, and no I am not talking about getting in your 6 hours a night. I am talking about taking 24 hours and relaxing, not taking the kids anywhere, just stop moving for awhile. Hold your wife’s hand, go for a stroll, read your kid a book, take a Sunday drive in the country, have the whole family make a meal together and then sit down without the T.V. and eat it. For an entire 24 hours, this next one is the hard part….do that every week, yes every week.

You will find that if you rest for an entire 24 hours every week that the rest of your week will be even more productive. What is that…..? Why yes I am glad that you know that, yes this is a biblical principal. God, Himself, rested on the sixth day why shouldn’t you? Oh and for those that might think that this is not that big a deal take a look at the 4^th commandment.

Even if you are not a bible person it still works, give your brain a day to turn off your body a day to relax once a week and you will find yourself getting more done on the days that you do work, In fact try it for a month and let me know if it doesn’t work out that way.

 

Blessings

 

Jeff

Can you take it? No really, can you?

Starved prisoners, nearly dead from hunger, pose in concentration camp in Ebensee, Austria. The camp was reputedly used for "scientific" experiments. It was liberated by the 80th Division. Deutsch: Unterernährte Gefangene, fast tot vor Hunger, weil Essen knapp war, posieren im Konzentrationslager Ebensee, Österreich. Das Lager wurde angeblich für "wissenschaftliche" Experimente verwendet. Es wurde von der 80. Division befreit. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We are all preppers here, we are all in one way or another trying to ready ourselves for “whatever may come”. We have food, we have supplies, first aid, and water, and we have studied, planned and prepared ourselves. But are we really ready?

Are we ready to REALLY deal with real life if everything goes south? What do I mean by “dealing” with it? Well, beyond the stuff you have prepped, I am talking about three separate categories physical, mental, and emotional.  

Physical – Are you prepared to haul loads of water to use in your home, chop fire wood, and harvest your garden, walk everywhere you might need to go? The physical aspects of emergencies can be very taxing, during the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11/01 there were people that were not able to make it out of the building simply because they were not in good enough shape to make it down the stairs, let me say that again, they were not in shape enough to MAKE IT DOWN STAIRS. Yes there were other factors, yes we are talking about hundreds of flights of stairs, and no I am not trying to be insensitive to the families that lost members. I am simply making the point that in life or death situations your physical conditioning could determine whether you and your family live or die.

Mental – Hopefully at this point you are starting to consider things past just having enough food and stuff on hand. Considering what might happened in an economic collapse the choices you might need to make, are you prepared to make them? Will you stay where you are, will you leave and go somewhere else, if you are leaving when will you go? At what point will you ration food, will you start at the beginning to make it last as long as possible, or will you wait until you have next to nothing left to eat? To what lengths are you willing to go to protect your family, your possessions, you home? Are you willing to abandon your position in order to save lives, will you wound, maim, or kill to keep your loved ones safe?

Emotional – Upon seeing death, most people will have a visceral reaction they cry, throw up, avert their eyes, get angry, or go into shock. All of these are perfectly human reactions and none of them are right or wrong and given the right circumstances they are perfectly acceptable. What happens when these reactions conflict with your survival, are you able to put them aside to keep moving and deal with them later? What about your ethics, will you abandon your own sense of right and wrong in order to accomplish what you need to accomplish? Will you be able to keep your moral and religious beliefs in the midst of protracted anarchy, or will you just become part of the mob? Can you “keep it together” for your kids, try to shield them from the horrors that might be going on around you?

I know that these are uncomfortable questions to ask, things that we tend to not want to talk about it, yet in my opinion you must. History has shown us the human beings have a tremendous ability to adapt to their conditions to overcome circumstances to survive ghastly horrors. Prisoners of war have withstood incredible physical punishment and torture. Jews placed in concentration camps in Germany and Poland during WWII survived things unthinkable and have triumphed by outliving their captors. Being a Christian I know that my faith and my God will get me through, not always the way that I think it will happen but through none the less.

Personally I sit and think there through, I run scenarios in my mind and try to frankly asses what I would do how I will react, in short I try to prepare for what may come.

How do you ready yourself?

 

Jeff

Not enough room to garden? Don’t Pout just Sprout!

A sprouting glass jar with mung beans sprouting in it. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So you say you can’t grow your own food?  Pshaw I say!!

So you are in the same situation as me, you live in an apartment, no yard, no balcony, and no direct sunlight? Then, you, dear reader are in the perfect category to start sprouting. What is sprouting you ask…well….

According to Wikipedia:

Sprouting is the practice of germinating seeds to be eaten either raw or cooked. They are a convenient way to have fresh vegetables for salads, or otherwise, in any season and can be germinated at home or produced industrially. They are a prominent ingredient of the raw food diet and common in Eastern Asian cuisine

It is my belief that as a prepper you should be proficient in sprouting, for one it is fun, sprouts are tasty, and most importantly they provide vitamins and minerals that you would not normally get on a diet of stored food. There is a long list of things that can be sprouted, seeds, beans, lentils and nuts are just a few. Yes that is right lots of the stuff that you are storing for long term can be sprouted. Many sprouts can be eaten raw, although if you are sprouting most beans they still need to be cooked after they start to sprout to be edible.

The very best thing about it is that it is DIRT CHEAP! What you need:

Mason jar (Quart size)

Mason jar ring for the lid

Something that will act as a strainer lid like and old piece of nylon stocking.

Yes that is all you will need, well other than what you are going to sprout. For most sprouting you will need to soak you seeds overnight in cool (60-70 Degree) water in your mason jar. Drain them and rinse them every 12 hours until they are ready. You want to make sure that after the initial soak that they don’t sit in water so just turn your mason jar upside down at an angle so that they will drain and get some air flow.

Now you will note that this description is VERY VERY short, that is because it is an easy process. Also I am going to give you link in a moment that will lead you out to the web site for Sprout People, they have detailed instructions and if I am honest an outstanding web site with detailed easy directions for pretty much anything you can sprout: you can find them at http://sproutpeople.org/.

So there you have it a brief on sprouting.

 

Until next post

Jeff

The prep that will not be named…….

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You can read lots of prepper sites, and there is a lot of great information out there, but by in large there is one topic that is not addressed. This is the topic that haunts my life, the one that sneaks up in the middle for the night and rears its ugly head with fears and night sweats! What is this topic that people refuse to mention, what is this prep that strikes fear into the hearts of couch potatoes everywhere?

Fitness!

I want to be as honest as possible in this blog of mine because I believe that only by being honest with you will I be able to affect change in you the reader and in me the writer. I am 6’2” and I currently weight 310 lbs, I have been fit in my life before, but currently I am the most out of shape I have been in my 42.5 years. I am they guy that when I tell people my weight they are shocked telling me that I carry it well, I am a “big guy” but that doesn’t change the fact that I am FAT and at least 80 lbs overweight. The reasons for this is a 40 hour a week desk job, being a single father and plain old laziness the latter being the biggest reason of all. I tell you this so that you know where I am coming from, so that you can know that I know what I am talking about when I say I know how hard it is going to be in the weeks and months ahead. I am putting forth a challenge to myself and I am hoping to challenge those of you that need to be challenged also.

So as of today I am making the decision to get into better shape than I am in now. Am I going to ever run a marathon or compete in the iron man? No. But I want to be able to do the things that could be required of me, I want my knees to not hurt I want to be able to keep up with my son. I would like to be able to get my body back to the point where I could walk 15 miles and not be in agony to do it. Being a prepper I know that there is a time coming that I will need my body to work right, for my engine to fire on all pistons. What if there was an earthquake and I needed to haul water the mile or so from the river by hand? What if there was a situation where I would need to carry my son along with my backpack and travel miles upon mile on foot, or I might need to spend the day chopping wood so that I can heat my home.

So what is the game plan? Well I am going to start tonight, tonight I am starting with stretching (I have lost a TON of flexibility in the last 5 years) 20 sit ups, and 20 minutes of stair stepping up. I know this is not the fitness regime that will peal the weight off of my body at the swiftness rate but it is a start!

So I am starting what are you going to do? Truly I would like to know…..

Yours in Honesty

Jeff