The world is changed, I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air (Elvish translation)
It’s quiet, too quiet.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining. It is just that is seems that the zeitgeist that I feel doesn’t seem to match my reading of the world around me. Clinically, this may be put down as paranoia, but I can’t say as I am exhibiting any untoward manifestations.
I can’t even say that this time it is causing me to go in to prepper paroxysms. No, I don’t think that it is going to be a big blow up, but there is a sea change coming, what we are feeling are the fronts starting to line up. It would help if I knew which direction they are coming.
I am sitting down now at the table in the kitchen. The door is open in from of me, letting the cool air in after the past two days 100+ temps. The boys are upstairs sleeping.
We preppers tend to be pretty stuck in our ways of thought and our beliefs. Store beans and band-aids in the basement, take out the trusty guns and practice your marksmanship for the coming zombie hordes.
Pretty static defense there. I have my cans and vacuum sealed stuff in the basement. I have my pieces in the case, but all these imply that the stand will be here and I will be able to counteract what comes with a defense in place. Hmmm I’ve seen that movie.
So, do I set up a bug-out bag, replete with stocks of what-the-hell I think critical and keep the van filled with gas and haul ass as soon as things start going south? I have seen refugees in Southeast Asia hauling ass to get out of the way. I know for a fact that they started out prepared, but in the process the stuff that they brought with them falls away and they ended up scrambling gratefully into a camp with just the ragged clothes on their back and equipped with a belly with nothing in it.
What do we do? Being paralyzed with indecision does nothing. Being prepared for the wrong thing does nothing. Our world is changing and there is little in the way of evidence to support the idea that we are not on the top of a long descending slope. The ideas and the preparations made in another phase of the cycle might or might not be useful for the next phase.
Good luck. Keep your eyes open and your wits about you.
I’m going to pick some blackberries for blackberry jam.
4 comments:
hi Degringolade...nice to meet you. i found you at Russell's blog (reflexiones finales). i figure anybody who has Russell's blog in their blogroll is someone worth getting to know. i have read this post "Lid" and really like what i see so i will go back and read your other entries. i really enjoyed this post and loved the sentence: "The ideas and the preparations made in another phase of the cycle might or might not be useful for the next phase".
when i first became a prepper years ago, i tried to learn everything that i could. it was kurt saxon that taught me about tire gardening (thank you Kurt) and while stationed for training on a few US bases, i read some R. Benson (he is banned in Canada - jeesh, eh?) but what i learned from a variety of sites and blogs is kind of exactly the above sentence of yours that i quoted. i realized quick that the number one thing is to get out of the city, suburbs, towns and go somewhere that has a small population of tightly-knit mostly white christians (i am not racist, i just prefer to be around my kind). having been born and raised in cape breton island, nova scotia...i was pretty certain that the last place that any zombie hordes would ever end up would be there. needless to say my husband and i spent a few years saving money, paid off all debt and building a food store. i am very happy to announce that since Dec 2010, we are now on 9acres in a community of about 50 people, we fish, hunt, grow veggies, pick naturally-occurring blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, blackberries and dewberries. we are very happy here! we left high-paying jobs in the city because we can live happily off of my small military pension.
all of this to say that i think that if people truly believe it is going to hell in a handbasket, then i think if it is possible, then they have to get themselves somewhere rural and start living with less now. so that you will be ready when the SHTF. that is the advice that i give everyone who asks me.
anyway, again, nice to meet you. you can find me and my hubby here at www.framboisemanor.com - but our blog is not really about prepping, just mostly a record of what we do in a day. feel free to stop by but don't feel pressured.
one last thing - you may like a few of my friends blogs - they are:
Duke at http://downrangereport.blogspot.com
Stephen at http://dixiecritter.blogspot.com
PioneerPreppy at http://smallhold-pioneerpreppy.blogspot.com
Matt at http://talltreeshortrope.blogspot.com
and Craig at http://keepitsimplesurvival.wordpress.com/
kymber
You're not the only one feeling this way. It's downright eerie out there to me, the calm before the storm... Preps, well they are good to have regardless of what happens. Might we have to leave them behind? Maybe, but I won't regret having gotten them. Refugee, well that's a status nobody wants. Ultimately I think the best preps are the ones stored between our ears. Knowledge truly is power...
Kymber, 'Gringo and I are acquainted : )
teehee...sorry Craig...i didn't know that you already knew each other. but whenever i find a new blog, and think that the new blog owner might be interested in some of the blogs that i follow, i tell the new blog owner. based on some of the stuff that degringolade has written here...i thought that your blog would be right up his alley.
thanks Craig!
Craig knows everybody. LOL
The cost of very basic preps is not that great, and the basic preps can be used in a lot of situations.
The bug out, as best I can tell, comes from the idea of getting out of the way of the incoming nuclear bombs. Having alternatives is not bad, but that is when it can start getting very expensive, very fast.
Preps don't do you much good if they bankrupt you.
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