Homesteading and Prepping - What is the Connection?

 

I just got in from working outside and had lunch and was sitting eating my ham sandwich and popcorn, I know but I love it, and thinking about the modern prepper. I watch several prepping channels. Some are common sense and some are just out to scare you or sell you something. I call my version casual and complementary prepping because I take a common sense approach to things like my Grand Parents and Parents would have done. Were they preppers? The answer to that is that they were Appalachian. I don’t necessarily call what me and Crystal do prepping. I call it living an Appalachian lifestyle.

What does “Living an Appalachian Lifestyle” even mean? Well, living an "Appalachian Lifestyle" is living a lifestyle in which you are ready for whatever life can throw at you. Get laid off and you are ready for that. Natural disaster occurs and you are ready for that. Manmade disaster occurs and you are ready for that. People trying to take what you have by force and you are ready for that. People in your community in need and you are ready for that too. Living in Appalachia is not always easy but if you plan and prepare you can be ready for whatever the life throws your way.

So many preppers are the lone wolf kind that just want to have guns and large amounts of stored up dehydrated food. They would come and take what you have in a heartbeat. They have no moral compass and will tell you that in a situation they would take what they need and that God would want them too. They are not really preppers but predators. I don’t want anything to do with these kinds of people.  I avoid those channels on youtube as well. They are always ready if the government declares “marshal law” and wail about their rights. They say that they have enough food to last for 25 years but they couldn’t hold out for a month during the last pandemic marching around with their guns. They are dangerous for certain. I know that the next zombie movie I see it will have to have a lot more realism because this pandemic has taught us the truth.

The truth is that in the next zombie movie, if there are not people calling the zombies “reenactors” and don’t run at them trying to get bit, it will not be very realistic. These folks are very unpredictable and dangerous to say the least. They say one thing and do something completely different. The entire thing about zombie preparedness was always prepper code for pandemic preparedness. There will be no reanimated corpses running around. Neither life nor science work that way. The entire thing about zombie preparedness was about there being diseased people roaming the streets trying to find what they need. It is all about how you stay away from them and keep them away from you. It has nothing to do with actual movie type zombies. Some people just don’t get it. I say this literally. I have heard tales of a medical professional talking about how zombies could be a real thing. Not doctors but others working in the profession. I have to shake my head and wonder if they actually studied and understood in science class. You can teach them but you just can’t understand for them, they either do or don’t.

The biggest threats to you and your family are the simple things like getting laid off, getting sick, the death of a spouse, financial downturns, and food insecurity. Those have to be addressed first and foremost. Once those are addressed many of the other prepping things are already covered.

Always have at least 6 months of food in your house. Learn how to grow a garden because once the downturn occurs the learning curve for gardening is very steep. Have enough clothes planned for your growing kids. Save back at least 10% of your income each month until you have enough money saved that you could pay for 6 months of your bare essential bills. Get out of debt and stay there as much as possible. This may mean that you have less than your neighbors. It is okay. They don’t pay your bills nor do they care what your bills are.

These are common sense things that people in Appalachia learned long ago. Our financial reality when the kids were growing up made it such that these essential things were hard to attain. I didn’t say it would be easy. There are sacrifices to this lifestyle. But there is also peace of mind. One of the biggest mistakes you can have in life is to let drama destroy your peace. Your inner circle should support your strengths and weaknesses. But if you allow your peace of mind to be destroyed then you will fail at surviving the trials of life or any prepper scenario.

There are lots of people out there that live for protracted excruciating drama. Most of them are superior in their own ignorance. They know it all and blab it all and bully their way through life. You know the people I am talking about. You couldn’t trust them to keep a confidence or do what is right for other people if they can profit from doing wrong. They are always “stirring shit” as my mom would say. They are quick to pit friends against friends to benefit themselves or just because they can. They gossip incessantly and are quick to point the finger at others. They blame everyone around for their stupid choices in life. Get those folks out of your life even if they are kinfolk. Then, there are those who just never figure it out.

They live from pillar to post with no stability in their life. Good hearted people but always in crisis and if they don’t have a crisis they will take on other people crisis’s so they can go through them too. Their social media posts are always about what crisis they are experiencing. They always need prayer for themselves or someone else whose crisis they have taken on. I need prayer every now and again too but you don’t find me continually asking for it. If people love me and want to pray for me I am glad to have it but that has to be what they want to do.  I am fully capable of asking the master for what I need and to ask for the needs of others from my own closet. These folks are okay to keep in your circle because they are good hearted and would help you any way they could. However, understand their limitations when it comes to a serious problem. Never depend on their decision making skills to get you out of a pickle. Although, the act of them just being there for you when you need them will be worth it in the end. So be prepared to be there for them too, even if they take on everyone else’s crisis. But, avoid the “Shit Stirrers” like the plague. Again it is about preserving your inner peace.

Now, how does all this relate to homesteading and prepping. Homesteaders understand that for 2 people to eat for a year it takes 1.4 million calories worth of food. As a matter of fact most of my friends would lose weight at this level of food, with me included. Homesteaders raise large portions of their food and store it in ways that they will last for years i.e. canning, freezing, drying, and smoking. Crystal and I grow most of our own food and have been for a long time. We have 4 freezers and a large canning pantry. At any one time we have approximately 2 yrs worth of food and it is food we will eat – not 25 year dehydrated scrotum that no one wants to eat.  We have saved and planned for financial security. Our number one financial worry is that we will outlive our savings. But we own our homestead outright and will do what is necessary to keep it that way. These things are the definition of a prepper.

I am working toward things like grid stability with solar. We are putting in other infrastructure on our homestead to be ready for any hard times to come. We are not done yet. At my current age I doubt that I will be done before I croak. There is a limited amount of both resources and time. But someone will get the fruits of my labor whether it is my kids or the people who buy this property after we are gone. Hopefully the kids will get the full value of everything we have done.

There are prepping events that we can’t plan for. If you obsess about those you will never get anything done. Be certain to prep for the inevitable SHTF – old age - because it is coming for all of us. I am too old for all this bugging out stuff. In the event of a major catastrophe we will bug in till it is impossible and then will either perish or move on. So have peace with what you can accomplish and accomplishment happens a little at a time! Life, Prepping, and Homesteading are a Marathon Not a Sprint – Slow Down and Enjoy the Ride….. But, how about a little hustle!!!

 

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