Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. ~ Arthur Ashe
"Preparedness, when properly pursued, is a way of life, not a sudden, spectacular program. We could refer to all the components of personal and family preparedness, not in relation to holocaust or disaster, but in cultivating a life-style that is on a day-to-day basis its own reward." (President Spencer W. Kimball) from Becky's Monday Message on Frugal Measures blog.
Start Where You Are.
I was reading Patsi's blog, A Working Pantry, the other day and she wrote a post worth reading. She ends her passage with these words,
"There is always going to be someone who can do more than you, accept it and move on doing what you can with what's in your hands."
Having myself fallen into the current trend of following homesteaders who do ALL the things and seem to do it with money to spare, I have felt the sense of frustration and yes, helplessness, as I look at our own financial situation and the constraints we have upon our time in our home and realize that I CANNOT do all the things.
I know how satisfying it is to look at homesteader cellars full of canned goods and to hear of freezers packed with various items, and the gardens that produce enough to feed them for a year and listen to others share about bug out kits and long-term food storage.
But remind yourself of one thing before you toss up your hands and say, "I'll never be able to get there..."
You can only start at the beginning. The beginning is where you are right now.
If the beginning looks like you've got enough food to last the week, then that's where you start. If the beginning looks like enough food to last perhaps a month, then that's where you start. If the beginning looks like a home with small children and not nearly enough hours in the day, then that's where you start. If the beginning looks like retirement and limited income and less of that than you'd thought you might have, then that's where you start. You can't begin anywhere else except for where you are!
Let's talk about building up a pantry that can feed you for a month, three months, six months, a year and start right where you are.
This is where I am: I live on a little less than ten acres, and about 3 of it are clear of trees and underbrush. I have no special equipment with which to till up a garden or even create a flower bed. I am, at present, 64, and supposedly retired. I am helping to raise a soon to be 4-year-old boy. My husband and I share our home with this little boy and his mom.
I currently make a few things from scratch, but I could do more, and I know it. However, I have to take into account the time factor because of the little boy. He needs time and attention, too.
I have only had a proper garden once in my life. It was hugely successful but that was ages upon ages ago and not here on this property. My current 'garden' consists of lots of pots and two raised beds and a tiered planter full of mostly herbs. To date, I have harvested 15 tomatoes, a handful of herbs, and currently have carrots and beans and snow peas that were flourishing but not yet ready to produce. We're about to have our first frosts of the year. So the dreams of those plants providing us with a thing are done.
In my youth, I often canned items, but I haven't done that in years.. I have only recently acquired an electric pressure canner and had gotten a hot water bath canner just a couple of years before. I don't do a lot of canning at present. I make jelly and apple butter.
I bake bread and cook from scratch. Over the years, I have built up a pantry, but it's taken time and sacrifice to do it. My 'pantry' is a makeshift area. I took over the walk-in closet of one of my bedrooms when my daughter left home and turned it into a pantry area with shelving and bins. Now my daughter and grandson use that room as a bedroom and the closet needed for their clothing has been an old Chiffarobe and a spare bookcase.
I have passable sewing skills. I've upholstered furnishings. I've learned to use paint and ingenuity to transform things. Over the years, I have learned new skills that have allowed me to do more. Currently I am attempting to cultivate food.
Following 2020, I determined that I could do better in being prepared for medical needs. John, being a paramedic, feels we have what is required for an emergency that might affect wound care. We don't have a full-blown pharmacy, but we have enough to see us and another family member or two through an onslaught of colds and minor accidents.
I've been trying to make my home more friendly for our elderly years. We've had our back deck turned into a back porch with low broad steps at one end on which we might easily place a ramp if needed. We've removed the upper cabinets in our kitchen and are just about to get the kitchen renovated with new lower cabinets in the coming weeks. We're replacing a deep awkward tub in our master bathroom with a walk-in shower that will be large enough to accommodate a shower chair. We don't anticipate needing a ramp or shower chair right away, but the porch and altered bath and kitchen will be just as useful to us now as it will be in the days ahead. I want to be able to stay in my home long term.
If I were to tell you I'm starting today, this is the place from which I would start my journey. This would be MY beginning. You can't start from this place unless you have had the exact same experience and the exact same materials I have right now to work with.
I do have ideals. One of my ideals is that I would be able to raise a majority of the produce we'd typically eat. Because of where I live, I think it would be possible to grow something we might eat fresh year-round. I'd like to have a few chickens. I'd love to support local meat producers. I'd like to be able to can and freeze foods all year round. I'd like to be less dependent upon the grocery store and more able to buy in bulk those items that we must purchase from the store.
I'd like to make still more items from scratch than I do now. That means working harder. And smarter.
I'd like to be better prepared for emergencies such as long power outages. We've survived admirably well for a week several times without electricity in the aftermath of severe weather situations and I've learned a few things because of that, including what we'd need to do it better. The last such outage saw me lose a considerable amount of food from our freezer. I was lucky that my freezer was very nearly full so larger bulkier items were saved.
My ideal includes continuing to improve our home and property. I want flowers as near all year round as I can manage. I would love to have a prettily landscaped yard. It's not important for preparedness but it is important to me because that's the sort of person I am. I need to be surrounded by beauty. I would like to replace lesser quality furniture with better quality items that will see us through the end of our years.
This is my beginning.
In the week ahead we're going to look at how to build a pantry and where that pantry can be located.
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5 comments:
I'm looking forward to this series.
About ten yeats ago a family with ten kids moved into a house on seven acres in our neighborhood and set our to be homesteaders. After all these years they still do not have a clue what they are doing and we have watched thousands of dollars being wasted with all their experiments.
Sadly they are the kind who are smarter than everyone else and do not want help or advice.
When I was a kid we had a huge garden and fruit trees and a huge raspberry patch. We worked every day along side my Mom in that garden and countless hours peeling apples and hot tomatoes, snapping beans and shucking corn, etc. It was a huge amount of work and it cured me of ever wanting to do it myself. Mom said if we hadn't grown and preserved all that food that we would not have eaten. When we moved from Iowa where vegetable gardening was easy to Florida it all changed. Mom planted a good sized garden and spent the summer battling all the munching bugs. We never had a garden again. We really missed the fruit trees and all we could eat raspberries. Those were planted by my grandparents who owned the house in n Iowa first. My grandparents were farm kids and knew how to manage all that.
We get a small harvest from our deck container garden but could not manage more than that ourselves. Honestly it costs more to grow that little bit than to buy it on sale. For us it is easier to source local deals on produce for preservation. We can buy 25 pounds of apples for $12 and boxes of tomatoes for $15.
Canning is something that gets easier over time. It is a harrowing experience at first but now we just dump stuff in jars and into the canner in no time. I did not can when I had children at home and am not sure I would want a big pressure canner going with kids around. The kids love being home and eating from our home canned foods. It does save us a lot of time with meal prep but it has been a years long process of getting to where we are now.
Hubby used to be with a group of Ham radio operators under the EMA. The one said if you only have food and water for 1 day, you are doing good to double it. Baby steps every week will get you to where you want to be
Great post! There's a lot to think about. I feel much less adequately prepared compared to the days when I had a big garden, a mini orchard, and a lot of local connections. But--baby steps! I'm more prepared than I was a year ago, or even a few months ago.
Donna, We are trying to be prepared thanks to having watched several senior members and having been hit by the drunk driver years ago, as well as John's youngest being wheelchair bound, I know too well how inadequately most homes are set up for any type of handicap access.
And hence why I'm working with raised bed planters and pots at present. It seems to me it will be more doable in the future for me.
Anne, Good! I want everyone to be interested!
Lana, My grandparents, great-grandparents and parents all gardened and canned and froze foods each year. We foraged and harvested wild fruits. A pantry was a natural and normal thing for me and the first thing I did as a newly married woman even with a tight tight budget was lobby to get a chest freezer and fill it up with whatever I could put into it!
Juls, agreed. The goal is always to expand by just a little bit more.
Amalia, Since you're still fairly new to your current area of residency there is a great deal to learn about climate and everything else. Like Lana's mom and dad moving from Iowa to Florida. Vastly different growing seasons, local fruits and vegetables, etc.
My pantry is not as deep as it was once upon a time. I've had kids move in and out and when they move out I generally try to supply them with a starter pantry. After 2020 the toll was heavy. I'm getting it back once more.
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