Prepping.

.
.
Really?  Sometimes I truly question the notion of prepping.  What is "prepping", first, if you are a little uncertain?  What that term, to me, means, is stowing food, tools, water, and other items to include devices and items to start fires, cook food, live comfortably regarding the weather, gather wood, build whatever needs built (or sustained), and many other things, all without electricity, running water, or any of the modern conveniences we have become completely reliant upon.  If that doesn't clear things up, ask.  And, while it should be plainly evident why such preparations would go forth, it is also a strange thing.  Why?  Because at no time in our living history has any significant portion of US citizenry lived for long without modern conveniences.  So, why plan for something that is, at best, unlikely to current collective history?

What are the odds, living where I do, or even when I lived in Iowa, that a grid-down event would occur that would last more than a few days?  I have seen, first hand, the destruction caused by a class V tornado on a town.  It wasn't so much that houses were gone, blocks of houses were gone, a half mile to mile wide swath of dwellings were swallowed whole, and some of the people in them, even ones in basements, taken, in moments.  But that a) is very rare, b) people were bringing food and supplies in to beat the drum, and c) infrastructure was being repaired and living arrangements were being developed and sustained moments after the thing was over.

Why go forward anyway?  Collective history has failed more people more catastrophically in more places and times throughout history than has it saved.  Actually, living for the moment only works, ever, right up until it doesn't, then failure is absolute.  When Rome fell, when Greece was crushed, when Europe floundered the many times under muslim conquests, world wars, or even great upheavals, people who were not prepared had to sell more of themselves than their pride would ever have foretold.  Sometimes even that was not enough to fend off an untimely death.  It doesn't have to even be global, for a disaster to seriously tender one to the mercies of a hard reality.  A local or regional man-made or natural disaster, of a larger scope, could mean needing to fend for oneself for a not insignificant period of time.  And, more, it doesn't have to be an external problem.  My health, for example, at times doesn't permit me access to stores, thus food, supplies, etc.  I am stuck, right here, on my own.  So, for me, prepping already has applications, there is a real need.

This month I have ordered enough fats for long term food usage to last, easily, two years.  That fat will store out past seven years, if I plan to replace it every five years.  As well, after previewing milk needs, and making some plans that way, I have just ordered a year supply of drinking milk.  Actually, there are two notions on powdered milk.  One, the old way, suggested 75 pounds of powdered milk per annum.  The new way suggests a mere 16 pounds of the stuff per year.  I went the middling ground, for now, with 42 pounds.  Of course, I am actually going to add to that.  What I purchased is drink quality milk, what I intend to add is the LDS powdered milk for cooking.  I have heard that, while the LDS milk isn't as tasty to drink (most aren't), it is perfectly satisfactory with regards to cooking and is quite inexpensive.  So, in the end, I will be stocking the old method.  For now?  I have the drinking part.

It seems, while I have been down, I haven't been spending much money.  And, since that money is just sitting there, I thought I might as well use it.  Oh, I am still enlarging my mid-term pantry selection.  I am beginning to add to my first aid kit.  I am doing this and that, as well, as I am able.  And, I am still saving a bit, here and there.  Plus I am currently maintaining my little nest egg.  Go figure.  It seems that living a more humble life, even with greater expenses, leaves more for what is needed, desired.  And, the food and items are being stored in the proper place, for better long term storage.  Bit by bit the dream I had in Iowa is coming true.  I have yet to climb into the mountains in the winter, to camp there, but this too will happen.  The cold winter wind on my face, the trees and snow around me, and a certainty that I am a living, alive, man of God.  I would never have believed I would find myself in these times, in this place, with this kind of peace and certainty.  It definitely leaves room for the possibility of even greater things, like finding a wife and having children.  Miracles seem boundless, already, and just at this juncture.  What the future holds isn't God's to grant, in a way, true.  We have been given hands, feet, eyes, ears, a brain, and the rest.  But somehow trying to live His will, not mine, has seen... the impossible.  Ignore the complaints... like growing pains, they must happen.  And remember, just that I am still growing and complaining is in itself totally... unlikely.  Heh! 

Oh, by the way, I heard through the grapevine... that I have already outlived one of the first doctors to misdiagnose me.  No, I won't, as I had wondered, dance (or worse) on his grave.  I find it quite enough that the situation is as it is.  Oh, he was a young man too.  Odd how that works out.  I don't know how he died, and I can't seem to find that.  And it could be incorrect.  Still...  Ah, fine, I'll pray for the repose of his soul, anyway.  And try not to smirk too much while doing so.  (If I think God... understands.)

Later.