Wednesday Ramblings: We Go On

 

I follow someone who classifies herself as a homesteader.  Honestly the term amuses me mostly because everyone I knew lived in that manner when I was growing up and no one considered it homesteading, but country living.  Never mind.   That's not what prompted the thinking, but it might well prove to be a topic another day!   

The girl lives in the U.S.   She homeschools and gardens, raises their own meat animals, preserves foods and uses some holistic medicines, etc.  I've learned a good deal from her and her posts but yesterday's sort of tossed me for a loop; she'd just purchased multiple bottles of a certain supplement because she was worried about nuclear fallout.  

What prompted my thoughts was a compilation of her post and a conversation John and I had on Sunday evening while we were eating supper.

We all know the current world news.  I have no educated viewpoint to base an opinion upon.   Frankly, I try to keep the daily news at bay which you all know is a struggle in my home.  I have a heart view and that is deep and abiding sorrow for everyone who must live through this.  Period.  That's as far as I'll go with it.  

John and I have followed a man on YouTube who travels exclusively in former western European Soviet countries.   I like seeing the places he travels, rural and metropolitan alike.  I like when he's able to talk with people, usually older men and women who lived through those days and even live in the Chernobyl fall out region.

So, while we were eating supper, we began to speak of how our grandparents survived tough times.  They all came up in the depression era.  We spoke of the people we'd seen this gentleman meet and speak with in a country ravaged by government.  He went into their homes with them.  We've seen how much their foods costs and what is available.    

As we talked, I told John that having known my grandparents and seen how they managed I felt I could as well.   I went on to say that watching those particular videos had made me more hopeful in light of world news.  "I see these people who survived a war, and the aftermath of food shortages, and lack of goods.  It's true that many of them are poor by our standards still, but they have survived.  Some of them survived nuclear fallout.  They live still in their homes in that region.  They are old people.  They continue to live."   John agreed that it did give one hope.

Then this girl's post the next day.   And a post from another who lamented how rapidly price increases are occurring in her area.  And an email from a subscriber list for a home storage mom who was touting the necessity of emergency preparedness, with an insistence that we must be prepared for all possible emergencies....and I felt anxiety slowly rising... 

Am I prepared?  Can we survive?  Should I order this product and a range of supplies for this and that?  Could I even afford to be that prepared?  What about the prices the other girl reported?  Should I run and stock up NOW while I still could?

Do you know what eventually turned the tide of anxiety?  Two comments.   One of the readers here, Chari, shared what she's paid for cabbage and corned beef and it was half what I paid here.  And the other was reading down a list of preparedness items and I knew without a doubt that some of those things were so far out of my ability to afford right away in order to be prepared that I began to feel laughter bubble up.  Because at some point you just know you've worried to the point of ridiculousness.

How does one prepare?   Patsi at A Working Pantry has done some great posts about stocking a pantry on a budget and being prepared.  Her current seasons is "What's that in your hand?" series of posts that encourages each of us to use what we have right now to prepare.  No pressure.  No anxiety causing urgings to buy things you can't afford.  

I have never considered keeping a pantry as 'prepper' work.  I saw pantries in the homes of my family as I grew up.  They had a repertoire of good recipes that filled tummies and provided nutrition at a lower cost.   Because my family lived in rural areas, they kept basic first aid supplies on hand and they drew up water to use when storms were approaching that might knock out power for days.  Prior to that, it wasn't necessary because a rope and pail accessed the depths of the well just fine with naught but strength to pull it up again!   

As I eyed potatoes and butternut squash and onion, debating what was enough for two and what was too much, I realized too that I'm continually reading about what is required for families that are prepping.  I don't have to prep for a whole family.  I only need to consider myself and John. Two, That's all.   Of course, my thinking also extends to Sam and Katie and their households, but I don't expect to provide everything for them, as I would if they lived with me.  Both households are wise in their own ways of stocking and managing for their families.  

I thought about how impossible it is to be prepared for all eventualities.  We prepare best for what we've experienced first-hand.  I can tell you how to prep for hurricane bugout guests, how to be prepared to live without electricity for a week in the midst of extreme heat or cold without a generator.   I can tell you how to brush your teeth, wash your hair and bathe with just one quart of warm water and a small plastic basin.  Where did I learn that skill?  In a rehab hospital when I was unable to go into the bathroom and desperately needed a good old-fashioned bath and the evening shift was shorthanded.  Years later, when we were waiting on electricity to be restored in the aftermath of a hurricane and all the bugout guests were gone back home, John asked one morning what I was doing in the kitchen.  "I'm taking a bath."  "What?!  How?"  I showed him.  He took a nice bath himself afterwards.

I'd never seen empty store shelves for long periods or experienced a pandemic until recently.   I learned from both those experiences.  I learned how well stocked my pantry was/wasn't.  I learned how to substitute for what wasn't available.  I learned what wasn't a necessity.   

I say, do what you can with what you have.  Don't worry about every possible scenario.  Haven't we any of us learned yet that in life it's never the things we are totally prepared for that occur, anyway?   You can carry all you need to change a flat tire, but it doesn't do much good if the battery is what goes flat.  Be sensible.  Be calm.   Stop listening to fear.  Listen to what a pastor recently called "the knowing in the knowing place", that God given instinct that urges you to buy an extra can or keep the car full.    Maybe the homesteader heard from God and she's done just what he meant her to do, too.  But it wasn't a word for me.  It's not a knowing I was given.   And that's an area where I can only trust that I'm doing exactly what I'm meant to be doing.

We go on.