About fifteen years ago I was a prepper. I was never hardcore about it. At the most I stocked up about two months of food in my pantry, extra first aid supplies, extra hygiene items, and of course specific equipment to hunt, trap, fish, water filtration… you get the idea.
In addition to the items I kept on hand I also had a short list of places I could ‘bug out’ to. Places like my off grid cabin in the remote north woods of Wisconsin, places further north in the Minnesota Arrowhead, as well as locations to the south of where I live. But mostly it involved staying at home and being sufficient for a couple months.
Back during that time I also maintained a website about sheltering at home. It was called Survival Awareness. Nothing fancy, just some basic tips and info on hunkering down at home amid various natural disasters. That website is long gone, so don’t bother to go looking for it – one of the hottest pages on that site back in the day was how to flush a toilet without running water.
I Stopped Being A Prepper!
Then about eight years ago I got out of being a prepper. It was around the time I moved out of our four bedroom home with a huge yard, garages, sheds… and into a town-home. Yep, I downsized big time. When that happened I needed to get rid of a bunch of stuff and so I had a garage sale and the wife and I sold things I wish today I had not!
Yep, I stopped being a prepper. And now that we are the midst of this Covid 19 Pandemic, I sort if wish I never gave it up.
Don’t get me wrong, the wife and I are doing just fine. But looking back there is something to be said about being prepared for natural disasters like Covid 19.
Making A List
As I mentioned the wife and I are doing just fine. The kids and grandkids are too. So no worries there. But, with that said, there are some things I am taking away from this Covid 19 Pandemic. I’ve been making a short lists of a few ‘extras’ that it might be worth having around in case something like this happens again, and it likely will.
No, not more toilet paper.
But things like an upgraded first aid kit, a little extra rive and beans on hand, maybe work a little harder at putting a deer or two in the freezer, maybe getting some portable solar panels, etc…
Learn from this experience.
TD
