We’ve Been Doing Preparedness Wrong For A Long Time- Part 2, by Old Bobbert

We’re continuing to take a look at how preppers have looked at “emergencies” versus crises. We must learn the “new old” mindset is that is required. We’ve read about the some of the issues and diseases that caused massive deaths in the mid nineteenth century. Now we are moving on to see what we can do better post-SHTF.

Preppers Must Do More To Prevent Sickness

Whooping cough, bad water, starvation, freezing, you name it, and they had it. They died from it. We who call ourselves thinkers and preppers must do better. We now know how important the washing of our hands can be. Now we know that prevention can be a life savior. Sicknesses like these have been returned to our lives, and now we will have to deal with them again. We can not simply re-establish the poor practices of corrupt government that have crept into our lives. The culture of deceit, of low principles must go. The ignorant youth dependent upon the welfare state and the modern mob rule and votes for sale don’t work.

As preppers, survivors, and re-builders, we must carry the burden of individual responsibility and self government.  We must provide the education and concern for others that was the foundation of our republic. We must rekindle the fires of freedom wrapped tightly in rational responsibility once again in the souls of our children. They will be our future in our new old world.

Prepare To Deal With The Coming World

We must prepare to deal with the new old world conditions we will be living in. Both in our small families and small communities. Either we will manage to work together as responsible brothers and sisters, as a family, or we will die alone in the cold darkness of the failure to live with self discipline and individual responsibility.

We know that it is not just a manageable emergency that we are looking at in the our near future. We know about the coming financial crunch. Yet we are still uneasy at planning on the overnight onslaught of “total non-usage” of any currently usable form of financial activity. None of the current financial transaction devices and currencies, except for simple bartering and pennies and nickels will still be important. Barterers will need small change, like pennies and nickels.

We really do not want to think about how we can “fairly and easily” compensate an industrious adult man for chopping and stacking four+ cords of firewood in the Idaho hot summers to use for our heat next winter when there is no recognized currency. We do not yet know how, after the SHTF, we will “honestly” acquire even simple aspirin for a bothersome headache much less obtain the medical “experience” necessary to suture a serious backyard axe accident that might injure an inexperienced teenager trying to help their family make it through the cold night. Reading a book or watching a video (without electricity) will not qualify or enable a tired and very frightened adult who is desperately trying to prevent the loss of blood that will soon result in the child’s death.

Learning Medical Treatment

Yes, we can, and should, practice suturing on the especially fresh skin of a ripe orange. During that simple practical exercise, do not nick the interior fruit. Make sure that there is very loud crushing music plus someone shouting in your ear as to distract you during the test procedure.

Do not fail to instruct your companion who is holding the orange to move it just very slightly and suddenly every so often. Why? Because that is the real world of post-SHTF homestead medical response. Knowing that you will be the next orange holder, try to make it very realistic practice. This will help you learn now how to save lives later. Do not make it easy, for easy is always a route directly to failure. Train hard now so that your future reality can be a success every time you are tried by a medical situation.

Adjust Thinking To Mid-1800s

We preppers must adjust our thinking and our planning to an overnight reversion to the mid-1800’s, say about 1840. The entire electric grid system consisted of many miles of telegraph lines, and in about 1859 the “Carrington effect” (solar flare EMP) shut down the then total grid system. Letters from California to Maryland often took 3+ months by way of a ship. The postage was often paid by the recipient, not the sender.

Questions To Consider

We need to consider these questions:

• How will we successfully handle the legality of a new marriage, when there are no governmental procedures to be followed?
• How will we deal with death certificate situations.
• Who will investigate civil mayhem and civil strife/conflicts? A sheriff, marshal, or community policeman or police woman will need to be paid somehow.
• Who will be judge and jury when needed?

Awe shucks, here we go again with the tough stuff. I looked to the heavens and said, “I want George to fix these things for me.” And from heaven the answer was, “Sorry, you are George.” Get busy, and fix your problems together. Do it now.

Dealing With These New Truths

Okay, here is what and how we can deal with these new truths in our lives.

1. Resort to prayer. (At the very least try to use the AA solution– dear Higher Power.)
2. Journal/record everything, especially the questions and answers.
3. Never “walk alone”. It’s still a good song. Find your 12 step-type buddy.
4. Do your search engine search for 1840 everyday life aspects.

Research Example

Here is just one example of how to do #4. Simply type into the search section of your favorite computer search application an activity name followed by the date “1840”. An example could be “ shoe strings 1840 era” and then “Google says”.

Information about “Clothing, Jewelry, and Personal Adornment” at Encyclopedia.com said, “… In the Elizabethan era, shoes were often secured with straps, laces, buckles and … through the shoe, were hand-sewn of sturdy thread until about the 1840s, when …”

Now you know enough to finish this type of research piece all by yourself.

Message From My Wife

As a fact of the angst created by the writing of these preparedness articles, my wife has asked me to include for her the two facets she deems to be worthy of inclusion, so here we go:

1. She has prayed for twenty plus years for me to find my sense of humor, and now she prays to understand it. Now the readers are the recipients without waiting.
2. About 25 years ago, shortly after moving from Ohio, Bobbert went to our church pastor and asked about an emergency preparedness plan. He said, “Sorry, we do not have one of our own. We will use the emergency preparedness plan of the next higher level church authority.” We will call this authority the Stake President. So Bobbert went to the Stake President, and he said, “Sorry, but we do not have one of our own, so we will use our city emergency preparedness plan.” So Bobbert went to see the city manager and he said, “Sorry but we do not actually have a preparedness plan of our own. In an emergency we will use the county emergency preparedness plan.” So Bobbert went to the county administrator and asked about the county’s emergency preparedness plan and the administrator said, “We do have a excellent emergency preparedness plan. We are very proud of our plan, and we were able to pattern ours on the standard federal plan model for communities of our size and inherent growth patterns. It really is a terrific plan.” So finally, Bobbert was able to ask someone, “May I have five copies of the plan so I can make it available to the county, the city, and our church on two levels?” And the happy county administrator said, “Sorry, but it is being revised currently, and we expect it to be returned soon.” So Bob asked, “About when do you expect it to be back for use?” The county administer’s answer was, “We are told it will be probably about another 12 to 18 months.” So Bobbert came home and we started our own preparedness plan, and we have never looked back, until now.

My wife just said it’s important to state that we live in Utah, which is known to be very prepared state with a great preparedness reputation, and while we do have a very good rate of preparation, it could be a lot better.

Dangers and Strangers

Actually Utah is not as good as it should be, especially as we are directly in the path of the carefully calculated fall out patterns of the super heated ashes from the super volcano named “ Yellowstone National Park”.

Did you know that in June of 2017, just one month ago, Yellowstone Park had 876 minor earthquakes? That’s 876 warning notes nailed to our front doors. I ask you, did you see your warning?

With tourists all over our state, what happens if the ash comes? Will they knock on our doors? Will you have room and provisions for people caught in a crisis in your area? Think about it, now before they knock at your door pleading for food.

Our Plan To Aid Others and Ourselves

In our home, we currently have a great many 3-ring binders (about 73) with 20+ years of information pertaining to pertinent new old world information and especially how to renew and how to do many of the daily activities we will need to regenerate to have a good life after we get through the early weeks and months of the SHTF event.

Our personal plan is to be the community source of knowledge needed in our new-to-us old world. My home library has 15 years of collected survivalist magazines above the top bookcase shelf. We have many biographies of both successful and historical personages. Our books include many illustrated tomes of “this is how to do it”. And we also have started to quietly accumulate a small variety of everyday inexpensive medicinal and herbal goodies for our personal use and for barter. The contents will be fairly inexpensive and easy to pay for.

The returnable container deposits will be enormous, because we will not be able to manufacture replacement small bottles and jars. I plan to accept silver coins and/or written IOU’s for a certain number of hours of labor. And when they return the empty containers, we can talk with them about their current situations and perhaps help them to help themselves.

After all, we are age 76 +, and I am fully disabled with COPD. I am using oxygen 24/7. In our reality situation, someone has to plant, weed, and harvest our gardens. I have really tried to prepare for our new old world life. Not everyone will have the ability or finances to stock up on medicines, but all of us can at least secure a few month’s reserve supply of the regular medications we are now using for ourselves.

Herbs, Medications, and Information

Those of us who are a part of a small survivalist group can possibly pool an order to purchase medications for a large enough order to make shipping charges per group member lower. There are many reputable foreign nation pharmacies that are very inexpensive with excellent quality meds.

Do your money security and medication quality checking very carefully. Do your homework. We did and the dividends of meds plus peace of mind are wonderful.

We are sure that we are called to be an example and a teacher in the coming hard times after we have survived the SHTF event. And it will be important for all of us to help others as much as may be possible. Information can save lives. Our books on herbal medications and their correct growth and usages will be very valuable to many.

Remember The Five P’s of Real Life Success

Proper preparation prevents poor performance.

In the hope that the bad news start of this article has proven to be a good restart for your preparedness planning, I remain your good buddy.

See Also:

• We’ve Been Doing Preparedness Wrong For A Long Time- Part 1, by Old Bobbert

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

This has been another entry for Round 72 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $11,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

1. A $3000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,195 value),
3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
5. An infrared sensor/imaging camouflage shelter from Snakebite Tactical in Eureka, Montana (A $350+ value),
6. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
7. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
8. Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Second Prize:

1. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
3. A gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
4. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
5. A Trekker IV™ Four-Person Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $250 value),
6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
7. A pre-selected assortment of military surplus gear from CJL Enterprize (a $300 value),
8. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site, and
9. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Third Prize:

1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
2. A custom made Sage Grouse model utility/field knife from custom knife-maker Jon Kelly Designs, of Eureka, Montana,
3. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
4. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
5. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
6. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances,
7. Montie Gear is donating a Y-Shot Slingshot and a $125 Montie gear Gift certificate.,
8. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value), and

Round 72 ends on September 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.