Are YOU on Your List?

      In the beginning it is easy to buy some batteries, some rice and some bottled water and think you are done.  Sure, you want to eat.  How are you going to cook the rice?  Solar cooker?  Propane stove? Your barbecue grill?  When you run out of bottled water, do you know how to filter and sterilize water and make it safe to drink?  Can you trap, kill and clean small animals? 

      Early on when you were making your list of assets, I suggested you list yourself and your skills.  What I suggest to you now is that you acquire more skills and knowledge.  It’s great if you are a doctor.  You can trade that skill for a place in a group of survivors.  You will still have to work.  A doctor or a medical professional is a plus and may become crucial but you still have to survive daily.  You have to pitch in with the planting, the food prep, the security.  Your skills may keep you close to the inner circle for safety sake but you will need to do more than rest on your past laurels.

      I would like to say, a single mother with knowledge of living a rural life would be as valuable as a doctor in a worst case TSHTF (the stuff hits the fan) situation.  Moms are tough.  Good moms are fierce, and moms with knowledge of weapons, could and would take you out if you threaten their kids.  Mom-type skills are invaluable.  Beyond changing a diaper and breast feeding we can squeeze the life out of a dollar bill and sooth your owwies.  For years now, commercials have extolled the virtues of the “Dr. Mom’s”.  We make excellent nurses; some of us have seen more blood and gooey stuff oozing out of kids than some med students!  Your "mom" skills should be on your list of skills.

      When I said, “List your skills!”, I meant all of them.  I do not knit, but I do crochet.  Crochet a circle with fishing line and you have a fish net.  I make crafty things from Paper Mache.  Paper Mache is yet another method of insulating interior walls.  The principles for icing a cake are virtually the same as floating drywall mud.  The scale and materials are different.  So, list your skills and translate from crocheting a beret to making a fish net.  Translate your skills into an off the grid or after the disaster use.

      I saw a grow house bust on the news the other night and it just killed me a little to see the film of half of the house being used to grow marijuana.  The plants were five to eight feet tall.  It was an indoor forest of illegal plants!  What killed me a little was, if those rotten so and so’s had spent the same time, energy and money to grow food, they could have fed a village!  They were skilled gardeners!  You don’t get that kind of lush foliage unless you know what you are doing.  Translating the plants from marijuana to tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, beans, or eggplant they could have supplied an organic produce stand for a year!  What a waste of a skill!  What a waste of time, energy and money!   They were growing in a gated community, as if no one would notice or complain.  Criminals are idiots! 

      Translate your skills and look at the people in your immediate family.  I have a son who is a former Marine.  Besides blowing people up, a handy skill, he can teach his skills to others.  I have a son who raises dogs that is small scaled animal husbandry.  He has fancy fish ponds, fish are good eating.  One son works for the city in storm water management and has a mind like a sponge.  He can be taught and has college level math skills.  He can teach.  I have another who has been in construction all his life.  They all know how to build, hunt, fish, garden, landscape, sew, (two crochet, one knits!).  They can rebuild a car, small engines (mowers, weed eaters) two can weld.  They can all cook clean and make a bed.  What they are willing to try is anything that needs to be done to live.  They are willing to learn new skills.  They are survivors.

     So, I am asking you again, are YOU on your prep list?  Are you a useful item on your list?