• Politics are not permitted. There's plenty of places to discuss that elsewhere, and a hot pepper forum is not the place. Thank you for respecting the community!

Are you a prepper?

AJ Drew

AJ Drew

I like watching the TV show Doomsday Preppers the way a person is drawn to look at a car accident on the side of a freeway.  I call it Doomsday Poopers cause if the shit ever hit the fan all most of them would do is shit themselves.  Goofiest part, everyone on that show knows the future as if their crystal ball is well polished and tuned into the cosmos.  I am prepping for a global pandemic.  I'm prepping for a commit hitting the earth.  I'm pepping for civil unrest.  I am prepping for ..... oh shut up you do not know what the future holds.

Then one episode made me realize I am a prepper.  It was a show where someone said they were getting ready for the unknown because they dont know what the future holds.  Damn, my entire philosophy right there.

Nope, not stockpiling guns and ammunition.  Not hording toilet paper.  Just figuring out ways to spend less money, first by growing my own food but gotta tell you tackling that water bill is next on my list.  Then there is the electric bill.  Not with solar panels yet, first with a greenhouse / solar heating for the thing to decrease my dependance on grow lights.
 
We probably have half a year to a year of food on hand, but if it were fall a great deal more.  We dehydrate and can, putting up anything we do not eat.  Then, over the winter it gets consumed and this time of the year we share with friends.  In the fall, when we have extra we share with neighbors and try to share with the food bank.  Last year, had none to share so I say try.  So I dont think we are hording food, just enough to get threw the winter till when crops are growing again.

Reading this, do you think you are a prepper?
 
Though I'm not worried about some impending catastrophic event
I do try to grow enough to not only have plenty of fresh food but also enough for Canning, Drying& Vacuum Packing, etc.
 
Does this make me a Prepper ?
 
On a side note...
If someone saw how many Jams & Jelly's I've still got (& more than half what was made has already been Gifted to friends/family/neighbors), they might call me a Preserves "Hoarder" 
:rofl:
 
Serious prep would look more like this, IMHO, of course ...
 
0) secure yeast culture and seed to sprout and make beer.
1) work out many sizes of pointy-stick projectiles and fire-starting kindle using shit from the land (wood and rock, namely, I think).
2) work on a spinning wheel and loom.
3) meditate.
 
Yeah, mostly you need to create drinkable water, prepare to hunt and have fire, and be able to dress wounds ... while not losing your shit over the voices in your head.
 
Sprouts, beer, and calm. At least, that's what I *think* I'd do ...
 
Maybe the line is when you purchase O2 eaters and mylar bags.  Must say, after I read about how many insects can live for years in your dried grains I did buy some.  Dehydrated goods now store in either mason jars or mylar sealed with O2 eaters.  Not that I am storing for 20 years, but because I do not like bugs in my food.  Most of our stuff is eaten or gifted within a year.
 
Grant - You screw me up when ever you open your mouth.  This time it is because I want to learn bier making, have sheep for mowing parts of the lawn.  Never thought of this as prepping.  I just like bier and dont like mowing the lawn.

On water, have been building a catching system but that is because I do not want to pay to water my garden. Do want to get a filtration system so I can run it into the house, but again that is because I do not want to pay for water.

I got it: I am prepping for not being able to pay my damn bills.
 
Nat Geo makes preppers look cuckoo.  Used to be we were all 'preppers' of one sort or another - it's what you had to do to survive year to year.  I don't have a bug out bag or cool flashlights that mount on my guns, but I do have water put up and some grains/dried beans in mylar bags.  If hsit really does hit the fan it will be potable water and fire making skills that will be needed the most.  Well that and an idea of how to grow food ;)
 
SmokenFire said:
Well that and an idea of how to grow food ;)
Click to expand...
Is one of the reasons I call the Nat Geo folk Doomsday Poopers.  They figure they have a seed vault (viability decreasing every year) put up so when shf they will throw their seeds at the ground and have food. Been almost a decade turning clay into soil.  It doesn't work that way.  Now I am impressed with the aquaponic trend, but most of them don't even consider how they are going to water their crops.

Love THP ( you might have noticed ) but hard telling who is growing in a container on their balcony and who is flipping rows and tilling up fields.  Urban or Rural, love em both cause they got the bug to grow.  But have much more in common with the folk who gotta move dirt to plant things.  Hope I dont come off as a snob.
 
ajdrew said:
Love THP ( you might have noticed ) but hard telling who is growing in a container on their balcony and who is flipping rows and tilling up fields.  Urban or Rural, love em both cause they got the bug to grow.  But have much more in common with the folk who gotta move dirt to plant things.  Hope I dont come off as a snob.
Click to expand...
 
I do too.  Also don't care how or how many anyone's growing, but always have a mind to see/inquire/learn how people are taking this stuff into a business realm/making it work for them full or part time.  Because that's what I want to do, or have been dreaming of doing for several years now.  Anyone small or large has to move dirt to plant things.  Hands or disk blades it don't matter.  The spark is the miracle that is seed to fruit.  Get a few of those unda ya belt and forever see the cycle of produce differently.  
 
AJD you don't come off as a snob so much as passionate about the things you love & respect imo.  Also a healthy amount of self deprecating humor - especially about the toe/foot thing if I might add.  Many would use that as the 'final straw' to give up on hsit, so I stand and nod as you glide by - recognizing the warrior within you.  Yer early forays were straight fuct man.  But your actions since have redeemed you in my eyes, and I'm proud to consider you friend.  THP is just like that.  Straight cool....
 
queequeg152 said:
stop buying all the f**king 22 ammo. f**king christ. 3 years now.
just stop.
Click to expand...
If that is a prepper thing it is just plain dumb.  Anything you can hunt with a .22 you can hunt with a damn pellet gun.
 
SmokeFire - By saying I worry I come off snobish on the topic I mean growing in the soil vs. growing in containers.  I don't dislike people who container grow on their balcony.  Like talking to them about varieties and what not.  When I said moving dirt, I mean as opposed to potting soil.

For growing conversations after plants leave your grow room, it is so very different.  I know how to put it, when people talk about pest control here they usually mean bugs.  I have those, but then there are the pests I solve with dogs.  Then there are topics like water catchments n storage ponds.  Most urban growers just turn on the hose.  So very many topics do not generally apply to urban growers.  So don't want to come off thinking I somehow think less of their techniques.  Heck, usually they are much more technical.  Heck, the conversations on nutrients alone boggles my mind.  I call it fertilizer and it usually comes out the ass end of something.

On peppers as business.  To me it is produce that I can sell by mail, so I have a wider customer base.  Same thing as growing tomato and selling them at the farmers market, but if I get it right I do not have to leave the property.  Letter carrier just picks up the flat rates.  Good thing cause cant drive for at least a few months.  If you want to do it, just do it.  What is holding you back?

 
P.S.

SmokeFire - Just noticed your location is Chicago.  Going to guess it is land that keeps you from going for it.  Are you right there in the city?
 
SmokenFire said:
 
Also don't care how or how many anyone's growing, but always have a mind to see/inquire/learn how people are taking this stuff into a business realm/making it work for them full or part time.  Because that's what I want to do, or have been dreaming of doing for several years now.
Click to expand...
 
 
What's the blocker? ... people are digging your product and ecommerce sites are dead simple in this day and age ...
ajdrew said:
Love THP ( you might have noticed ) but hard telling who is growing in a container on their balcony and who is flipping rows and tilling up fields.  Urban or Rural, love em both cause they got the bug to grow.  But have much more in common with the folk who gotta move dirt to plant things.  Hope I dont come off as a snob.
Click to expand...
 
 
wait, what? ... that's blatant containerism ... you can't just drop that anti-containerist shit ...
 
also, this is a very interesting use of the word snob - one which challenges all of of the usual implications ...
 
7467c78954470032f3ea7e25252bc89019062ff4287a41d134a4998f6b22db7e.jpg

 
sans noblesse!
 
Grant, that is right.. I refuse to make a wedding cake for container folk.  On the snob thing, maybe I should call it reverse snobberism.  I think snob is more of a city folk turning up their nose at country folk.  So ye, reverse snobberism.  Think it is kind of like racism or sexism.  When black folk discriminate against white folk or women discriminate against men, people say it is reverse discrimination.  I think it is all discrimination same as its all snobberism.  Either way, folk who are all like I am better than you because X,Y, and Z just sort of put me off.  Just different flavors of the same rainbow.  Taste the rainbow!
 
it's always a matter of scale, anyways ... at a certain point the farmer dude comes back around to the less-physical side ...

at least, if he chooses to purchasing heavy equipment and hired help for every task ...

i'm sure you know a guy who inherited a farm who doesn't literally work his own land - at least i imagine ... right? ...
 
SmokenFire said:
Nat Geo makes preppers look cuckoo..
Click to expand...
 
The REAL shame here is that the once respectable National Geographic Channel has decayed to the point that they air sort of garbage programming. :mope:
 
Following in the footsteps of Discovery is NOT the path to enlightening, educational TeeVee. At the rate they are running their name into the ground, NG may as well rebrand themselves as The Idiocracy Channel and be done with it. 
 
RobStar said:
Here I was thinking ajdrew has finally lost it.
Click to expand...
Finally?  Guy, they sent search parties with no results.

Luckydog, someone has gotta make a spoof of the Dr. Pepper song with preppers.  Maybe people dancing with AR15s and dehydrated food.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top