Wednesday, July 8, 2009

This, that, and the others

Well, it's mostly been a little of this, a little of that on the food storage front. For example:

--Went out and found salt at $.50/box and bought a few to put in the storage room. Ever since I read Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank, and the survivors were running out of salt, I've always wanted to make sure I had some in storage. Speaking of books, my turn came for One Second After at the local library, but I ended up returning it before I got further than a few pages. I'll have to request it to be put on hold again--I think I have to be in the right frame of mind to read it. Even though I didn't even get to the "after the EMP hit" part, I could already see some of the problems the characters were going to have after it hit. It was interesting reading, but I pretty much expect the hardships that will come to the characters are going to be intense and unpleasant...

--Have stocked up on some more Spam, which is currently $2 at the local national chainstore. So versatile, with such a far-away expiration date, and I actually use it regularly. What a winning combination.... :)

--A while ago, we offered to store some food for some "others" whom we would be basically unable to turn away if an emergency hit. We had asked them about food storage, because we pretty much wanted to know what the situation would be if there were a crisis. The original attitude was essentially that they would go and buy something from the store if such a situation arose. Well.... So we discussed it, and since they don't have much room for storage, we told them if they bought some supplies, we would store it here. They did buy some food storage, and that food storage sat in our house in a few buckets marked clearly as theirs for a little while. They have since asked for it back, saying that they want to rotate it. Thing is, as I understand it, they will take it back sometime soon, but there won't be anything returning here for storage.

To be fair, my understanding is that they do have some storage at their place, though I don't know how much, and there are even other "others" in the area that would probably help them in the event of an emergency. Maybe it's just me....when it comes to food storage, my basic mode is more more more. I can at least say I tried to urge them to be prepared as possible...

Well, that about wraps it up at the moment...sometimes it's all baby steps, but even baby steps are progress....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Marie, I recently had my turn at One Second After and I found it to be interesting. I am a big fan of Lucifers Hammer and this seems to an updated rehash of some of that. But it is good reading.

I buy 10 cans of Spam Lite a month and use maybe 5 so I am ahead there.

Interesting situation with your friends.

Gen-IL Homesteader said...

Good idea about prepping salt. I hadn't thought of that until I read your post and a chapter in 'One Second After'. I'm more than half-way through that book right now and loving it! Definitely pick it up again when your brain is ready for it! I'm convinced I need to step up my preps even more than they are!

pelenaka said...

When I was a child we ate alot of Spam because it was inexpensive. I sure do miss those days.
Good luck with the "others". As we have the same problem here with family. Why prep when we have you ...

Marie said...

Anonymous (who I think may be Carl)--I'll have to look up Lucifer's Hammer--I'm not familiar with that one.
I love Spam, and am glad my family does too. Great that you are getting more in storage--we have a couple of recipes that we can use ours with.
With the "others" you can only do so much. Hope they have more in storage than I think they do...thanks for your comment!

Gen--I definitely plan to finish reading One Second After--just when I saw in the first few pages what kind of problems might come up (don't know for sure, since I didn't get too far) I couldn't get excited about reading it at the time. I think those kind of books can be really beneficial, because they bring up stuff that I never would have thought of, so it is definitely on my list to finish.
Amazing how picturing how an emergency could be serves as great motivation for preparing, at least for me.... :) Thanks for your comment!

Pelenaka--I've always liked Spam, and it's a giant plus that, as you say, it's inexpensive. I like getting new recipes, but really, just frying it up tastes good to me... :)
It may be that I worry too much when it comes to people like the "others" but unfortunately I don't think that's the case. I wish everyone in their situation would realize that it's hard to stock enough for those we are stocking up for now, much less have enough for everyone else who isn't prepared when an emergency comes. Hope people are more prepared than I think they are--every little bit will help. Thanks for your comment!