Who will you do emergency preparation for?

You know I really wish I knew how to manipulate the font on the post title a little more. If I did, it would look like this: Who will you do emergency preparation for?

We have quite a few picture books around here, one of which is called "Mr. Badger's New House". (Written and illustrated by Robin Muller, published by Henry Holt and Company, LLC, copyright 2002 by Robin Muller. Ah, now hopefully no one will be angered, or worse, come after me... :) The gist of at least part of the story is that Mr. Badger likes his house, but when things go wrong, he ignores the problems, until one day there is a big storm. In the aftermath, he looks at the challenges of fixing what is wrong and decides that he can't do it, so he decides that it is time to move. He purchases a new house, and Grandmother Mouse moves into the old one, despite the fact that Mr. Badger tells her all about the problems that need fixing. She's not worried, and tells Mr. Badger that someone will fix those problems for her.

Grandmother Mouse is right. When Mr. Badger is invited to visit his old home (more than once) he eventually ends up fixing the house for her. There is more than that to the story, so I leave you to visit to your local bookstore or library to find out (while hopefully leaving myself in the good graces of the author--it's a charming book.)

When I read this book lately, it occured to me that this little scenario could be applied to food storage. Then as I have been writing this, it appears that it could be applied in more ways than one---how ignoring problems that are evident can become bigger and harder to fix until they basically become an emergency, how not even trying to take care of necessary tasks guarantees failure, how much we can actually do when we decide to try to do something--you get the idea. However, I'm sticking with the idea that prompted the post title--Mr. Badger wasn't willing to do the repairs that the house needed for his own benefit, even though he really liked his house. But he was willing to do the repairs for someone else. What aren't you/I/we doing in terms of emergency preparation that we would be willing and able to do for someone else, if we would just try?

It's kind of a personal question, so I will leave you to your own thought processes. But for purposes of illustration, I'll share one thing that I have begun doing since I have really started to get prepared that I am willing to do for my family but had no desire to even try just for myself. Many of you may laugh (but hopefully not decide to never read my blog again) when I say that I never wanted to bake my own bread-- among other things, I was afraid that I would kill the yeast. There were many rationalizations for this behavior--way back when bread was more affordable, making my own bread was a lot more time-consuming than buying it off the shelf, etc.--so I ignored the fact that I should probably be learning this oh-so-useful skill. When I realized that having flour and oil and yeast in storage was nice and all, but I didn't know what I was going to do with it all to feed my family, I couldn't ignore the problem that I didn't know how to make bread anymore. I had to roll up my sleeves and try, just like Mr. Badger did. And when I did try, it worked out, just like it did for Mr. Badger. And just like Mr. Badger let things slide when it was just him that was affected, but fixed those same things for Grandmother Mouse, what I am willing to do for my children can be vastly different than what I am willing to do when I have only myself to consider.

Long story short? (Too late... :) I do emergency preparation much more efficiently for my family. Even though my skills are still extremely limited in the bread-making category (ok, I have like one recipe down pat) I can do something with my preparation supplies to make sure that there is food on the table. It's a good feeling. I should repeat that feeling with a bigger variety of bread recipes....

So, back to the post title question--who will you do emergency preparation for? You/we/I may be able to stomach meal after meal of rice and beans/live in temperatures a lot lower than comfortable/have less light to do things by, etc., but what about those for whom we are responsible? How well do we want to be prepared for their benefit? And I have to mention (and hope that it is not too much of a spoiler) that although Mr. Badger is motivated to do the things that need doing by Grandmother Mouse, he does benefit from his own labors in the end, though I won't spell out the details. This will most likely ring true for us as well if we need to deal with an emergency situation--even though we prepare with the welfare of others in mind, it is highly likely that we will share in the good things that result from our efforts. Even if we don't, the ones that we did do the work for will still reap the benefits.

Just something to think about. Thanks to Robin Muller for the story that prompted this post--I highly recommend it. Admittedly, every new effort that I have made has not met with the same success when it comes to my emergency preparation (you can check my previous posts to verify this unfortunate fact) but I would rather make mistakes before an emergency so things will work out better during one. Can you think of something that you can do for others in terms of emergency preparation that you don't necessarily want to do just for yourself?

I, as mentioned, could always improve on that bread-making thing....