weekend prepper 2 of 2

WEEKEND PREPPER 2

Yesterday we talked about how almost all advise about prepping is based on half century old conditions that haven’t existed for almost as long.  Preppers who like history scoff and point quivering fingers of hatred and disappointment at the idiots who fought WWI as if Napoleon was still on God’s side, using tactics outdated since at least the Crimean War, and yet they prepare for the apocalypse like it is 1958.  These are probably the same folks who groan and Tweet all their FLIR mounted AR packing buddies that I’m spouting off about Peak Oil again and they should all run over to any site that features Fracking Fags Forever, instead.  I won’t be eating your dead body the first day of the die-off, as it was formed off of Pespsi, Pringles and MRE’s, and hence will be disease ridden, but I will kick your corpse and spit on it for the sin of being obtuse.

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Sorry, back to the subject you thought was at hand, the weekend activities as a prepper, to really get you ready.  It isn’t turning a one time turning off your electricity and other utilities, to test your equipment on hand.  That only teaches you to buy more alternatives.  Gasoline for the generator and propane for the grill are NOT what is going to help you survive long term.  The same preppers that claim you must buy a quarter million dollar rural retreat, so as to have food from a garden because “eventually it will run out”, are the same folks that prep for everything else, using items that will quickly run out.  Gasoline and oil for chainsaws.  Motor vehicles.  Propane for the cook stove. 

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You need to spend the weekend living without hoarded Carbon Age fuels.  No gasoline, propane, coal, kerosene, paraffin candles and etcetera.  Now, granted, you cannot use everything that is renewable.  You can’t expect to adequately guard your home with a flintlock rifle ( well, maybe you can-I just don’t think the average prepper will ).  If you have enough rechargeable AAA batteries to keep LED lanterns running for twenty years, it would be silly to not use them.  I trust you see my point that you are testing the more robust and long term items.  Not very quickly depleted carbon fuels and not the Forever Items from the Stone Age but somewhere in between those two.

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You cannot plan of surviving with modern camping equipment, but with Old Timey items and skills.  Far better to make yourself a solar oven and learn to cook in that ( not rocket science.  Start early in the day to compensate for failed efforts so as to be able to add time to the endeavor.  It can be pretty hard to actually burn and ruin the food ), rather than pulling out the propane stove.  Need coffee first thing in the morning before the sun comes out?  A mud rocket stove is easy to make and a few twigs will boil water ( and friggin DUH, have some way of storing fuel within reach if you are bugging in, not exposing yourself to danger by going out to collect it ). 

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The solar oven obviously used modern material.  This isn’t a purist pursuit.  The point is to have the tools that are used to make things without modern consumables.  The tools themselves are going to be modern.  You do understand that this weekend role playing serves multiple purposes, right?  It isn’t just about a hypothetical civilization collapse and die-off.  That solar oven can be used in times after imported fuel is choked off and your electric use goes from 15cents a kilowatt hour to $1.  That bicycle you use to go anywhere on the weekend is great for upcoming gas shortages as our JIT system breaks down even more.

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On the weekend, only use the Solar Cloths Dryer ( they used to call it a rope and some clothespins ).  The next time the $1500 clothes dryer breaks, you’ll already know how easy and smart it is to use a clothesline instead of an energy pig machine.  When the sudden gasoline shortages materialize, there won’t be one new or used bicycle to be had nationally, but you already have one AND you are fit enough to use one, a kind of important detail.  This is what the Weekend Prepping is all about.  Getting you used to the tools you’ll need to use not just for the collapse but also for the decline. 

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Did I mention this was an every weekend kind of thing?  It doesn’t do much good otherwise.  You won’t give up suburbia, or on-grid living, so at least you can get the needed practice part time ( rather than None At All ).  Hell, it doesn’t even have to be the full weekend.  I’m sure a lot of you will refuse to miss your Sunday Football & Beer.  Start Friday night and go through Sunday morning.  The point is to practice using a wide range of off-grid tools, because you cannot use them effectively without practice.

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No running water lets you practice living off of the rain catchments system.  Any moron can pour from a jug rather than turn on the tap, the practice comes in the form of learning to bath in less, cook with less, and a bit harder than it sounds, wash dishes and clothes with less.  No TV lets you learn what board games or card games the whole family enjoys using.  You need the practice not having the Internet ( such as, do you have sufficient paper reference books? ).  You need to know what kind of non-electric entertainment fills your day between manual chores.  How about a manual reel mower?  Get in practice now ( it doesn’t save you much money over a gas motor mower, you just need practice pushing that bitch in the heat ).

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You need practice learning how little light the LED’s give you at night.  You need practice using a manual drill and screwdriver and saw, again.  You don’t have to return to a more primitive life.  You can just practice living it a little each week.  It is better than permanently moving to the boonies ( I don’t agree, but I understand how you are thinking ), right?  But far better than just storing off grid non carbon fuel tools and assuming you can use them after things go dark permanently.  Sure, you could do that.  It will work after a fashion.  But look at it this way.  Your world just ended ( even if it is just the electric price skyrocketing, the end of hair driers and deep fryers IS the end of some folks world ).  You are so stressed you are practically crapping blood.  If you are already practiced on your new tools, your stress level is reduced instead of elevated.

( .Y. )

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