Tag Archives: covid-19

Practice makes prepper?

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I live in a part of the world where self-reliance is almost literally a religion, though few actually follow through on the counsel given. But one couple, who live about 40 minutes from me, have been preaching self-reliance and emergency preparation themselves for a while. Then last year they decided to test their actual preparedness by not going to the store for 90 days.

Needless to say, when COVID-19 hit this year, they were ready:

“In a day, things went from normal life to, ‘Oh my goodness,’” said Kylene, remembering when everything came to a screeching halt in mid-March. “For us it was very surreal, because of what we’d already been through. We had a plan and we knew what to do.”

Read the entire article here, and check out their website here.

Stock-up items

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In many ways the shortages we experienced a few months ago are fully in the review mirror. One might be inclined to think we’re out of the woods, so to speak. And yet every time my wife comes home from a grocery run she tells me about one or more items that she can’t find anymore, has to buy a different brand, or has to buy a different way.

For example, today she came home with a #10 can of diced tomatoes. Normally she gets the 16 oz. or 28 oz. cans, but today there wasn’t a single can in sight, except for the #10 can. Not a problem for her–she usually freezes the remains of the 28 oz. cans anyway. But now I have to wonder: is there about to be a total shortage of diced tomatoes? Should she have picked up another can while there still are some to be had?

Well, probably not, because we already have a several-month supply of the usual cans. But there are other things, like the particular brand of peanut butter we love, that wasn’t in stores for at least a month a while back, was back for a few weeks, and now seems to be gone again.

Daisy Luther, over at The Organic Prepper, suggests we should be looking ahead with the idea that more shortages could happen at any time. And with the recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases nationally, she may not be wrong. The supply chain was interrupted quite a bit the first time around, when infection rates were considerably lower. Another shut-down of the country could have even bigger impact.

With that in mind, she recommends that we prepare now, by picking up regularly the items most likely to disappear quickly if more shortages comes our way. Every time you go to the store, even if you already have some at home, consider adding more of the following:

You may also want to consider any items specific to your situation, such as baby supplies, pet supplies, or for specific dietary or medical needs. You can also stock up more slowly on other items like paper towels and cleaning supplies (especially disinfectant sprays).

She also recommends saving up some emergency funds, stocking up on supplies for various regular projects (both for work activities and for entertainment), beefing up your home office, and picking up any other items you found yourself wishing you had during the last lockdown. Make sure you have what you need to do most basic repairs around the house.

Wouldn’t it be great if the Coronavirus fades away, the riots end, and the rest of 2020 is free of trouble? Nothing would please me more. But in case it doesn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to not get caught off guard next time.

COVID Confusion

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I found this in our local monthly/marketing newspaper in a humor piece of things the author learned from social media during the COVID-19 quarantine:

In effort not to get sick we should eat well, but we should not go out to get healthy fresh food when we run out and eat whatever pre-packaged food we have on hand instead. However, we should order out at our local restaurants to help keep them in business. Then it’s okay to go out to pick up the food. Your food might be prepared by someone sick that doesn’t know they are sick, but that’s okay if you pay by credit card and take the food out of the container. However, you should avoid going to the grocery store at all costs because you might get sick.

Joani Taylor, “The Social Media Scandal – What I Learned During Quarantine”, Sandy City Journal

If there is anyone left out there who still believes there’s a perfect response to a pandemic, especially one where the details about the virus aren’t really known…well, they’re probably on social media telling the rest of us what we should be doing. I’ve been fortunate enough to live in a state that took a somewhat moderate approach, while managing to keep the death rate fairly low, but the nags and scolds have been everywhere all the same.

Sure, I get it. People are scared, and fear makes people thrash about desperately in search of some way to feel in control. For many people that means lecturing everyone else. But the rest of us, when faced with conflicting information, reach a point where we just have to decide for ourselves which advice we can keep and what risks we are willing to take. Here are a few of the things I’ve learned (or re-learned) from all of this:

  • Preparation buys time. We were not as prepared as we wish we’d been, but we still had at least several weeks worth of all essential items. Even though we weren’t sure how long our toilet paper supply would last, we had enough to hang in there until more started appearing. We didn’t need to panic, spend exorbitant amounts of money to secure the essentials, and could put off even shopping for groceries until things calmed down.
  • People don’t want or can’t handle fresh. When we did go shopping we had no trouble finding fresh fruits and vegetables. Do people just not buy the more perishable items in an emergency? It’s not like we were without power. Veggies keep for weeks in the fridge. Or do people just not know how to prepare fruits and vegetables anymore? Not that I’m complaining. We’ve been able to eat healthy while everyone else, from the look of the store shelves, are existing on flour, pasta and beans.
  • Savings are essential. I am one of the fortunate people who can work from home, even if it’s not my preferred way to work. But even I had been furloughed or laid off we would have had savings to get through this.
  • Flexibility and resilience help. When things like this happen we can sit back and complain over every inconvenience or difficulty, or we can relax, take a deep breath (or two or three), and deal with everything one step at a time. This is easier to do if you’re not worried about basic survival.
  • Cut everyone some slack, including yourself. I’ve had to continually remind myself that people are experiencing widely varying levels of stress right now. On the other hand, if there were people whose stress was causing me stress, I’m not obligated to keep absorbing their stress. There are some where I hit the “social media snooze button” so I wouldn’t have to deal with them until things calm down again. For the most part people have been keeping things on an even keel, and when they aren’t I would try to be kind and remember where they’re coming from.
  • Even introverts need people. While introverts across the world have been cheering about this being the moment they were born for, the truth is, introversion does not mean we don’t need anyone else. Introversion/Extroversion is more a matter of where we get our energy from. Extroverts get their energy from being with others. Introverts get theirs from being somewhat isolated and quiet. We can enjoy social interactions, and even get some energy from particularly enjoyable ones, but most drain energy from us, and sooner or later we need to get away and recharge. Being shut up at home hasn’t been particularly difficult for me, but after a couple weeks I found myself reaching out to people much more than I usually do. I miss the depth, breadth and variety of my normal interactions.
  • Focus on what you can do. This crisis quickly revealed where our family is not as prepared as we should be. The problem is that some of that just can’t–and perhaps shouldn’t–be fixed right now. We found we were least prepared in our supplies of paper products, baking supplies, and a few other food categories. And yet if we’ve learned anything about shortages, it’s that running out and stocking up just make things worse for everyone, so we’ve had to resist that urge. Instead, we identified some things we can procure right now, and we’ve focused on that. We have a much better water storage now, and we’re better prepared for the next power outage (and in our area, there will be one). I feel satisfaction and accomplishment at having done something useful, even if I can’t solve all of the problem just yet.
  • Have a plan for the rest. As I said above, there are some preparedness deficiencies we can’t fix yet. But I’ve learned from sad experience that if I don’t have a plan in place for when we get back to normal-enough I’ll likely forget to do anything at all. I can take this time now to at least come up with a plan so that I know the next steps to take once we can take them.
  • It’s difficult to be prepared for everything. I’ve been a homeowner for over twenty years. In this part of the world we have to be on guard against mice. Right before our state went into quarantine we discovered something entirely new: rats. Mice we could have dealt with. Nothing we had worked on rats. And even after some online research and a curbside pickup purchase it took a long time to figure out what would work.

I could probably go on, but I’m hearing too many heads hitting keyboards already, so I’l spare you. This quarantine experience has certainly given us a lot to think about, and a lot of time in which to think about it. Right now the biggest question we should all ask is, “What do I do about it?” What are we going to change as a result of our experiences? Set a goal, make a plan, and get it done.

Preparedness gap: Water

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“But when it comes to slaughter   
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.”
– Rudyard Kipling, “Gunga Din”

A little over a year ago we got a text from our son at the high school basketball game: the local news was reporting that our water supply was contaminated and the city was instructing residents not to drink any of it until further notice. It turned out at one of the pumping stations the machinery that added fluoride to our water had malfunctioned and dumped a whole bunch of it into our water system. That, in turn, may have stripped the inner layer of the pipes, putting potentially dangerous levels of metals in the water. All residents in the affected area (which included us) were not to drink the water under any circumstances until further notice.

As it turned out they had the problem corrected within a couple days, but in the mean time we became aware of just how much water we use–and just how little we had stored. We had three 5-gallon containers to go around for five people and four pets. Had it gone on a couple days more we would have been in trouble.

We vowed then to get more serious about water storage–but we never got around to it. Fast forward a year, and the COVID-19 outbreak came along and revealed more deficiencies in our emergency preparations. Remembering our experience the year before, water storage got moved to the top of the list. We decided to use our government stimulus check to start improving our circumstances.

After some research and some calculations we ordered enough containers to put us in a much better position should water ever become temporarily scarce again. They should be arriving in a couple weeks. By then I hope to have a few things reorganized around the house so that we’ll have places to put all that water.

When we get everything settled I’ll post a review. My brother and I were discussing water storage a week or two ago, and he’s going a different route with his. Perhaps I’ll solicit him for feedback as well.

It’ll be a relief to have that particular deficiency resolved. Water is not something you want to be without. I don’t want to be lickin’ anyone’s bloomin’ boots, thank you.

Let’s do the timewarp again

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Holy moley, where has the time gone? Today I got a little curious and decided to take a look at just what I have on my Simple Self Reliance Facebook page. There were a bunch of links to content on a website. I had honestly forgotten that Simple Self Reliance had once been a blog. I had forgotten that I had once cared deeply about self reliance.

Thing is, I still do. I didn’t for a while–not so much, at least. Moving to Utah opened a whole new chapter in my life that pulled me off in different directions. And here I am now, nine years later, caring deeply about self reliance again.

Back then self reliance was more about weathering the financial storms of life. The biggest problem I had faced to that point was regular bouts of unemployment. When we moved to Utah I likely thought that problem was behind me for a while. I also resurrected a writing career I had talked myself out of in college, and my blogging attention went in another direction on a different blog.

More importantly I largely forgot about self reliance. In spite of a new job that paid more we never seemed to have the money to put into building up our food storage and getting other emergency items together. The kids were getting older and more expensive (teenagers do more than just eat a lot!), and in spite of what they told me at the time, the cost of living is considerably higher in Salt Lake City than in Boise. We’ve been getting by okay, but perhaps we’ve been too comfortable.

Whatever the reason, self reliance has not been foremost on my mind.

That has been changing, however. Around a year and a half ago I began to realize I was losing control of my finances. Nothing serious, mind you, but I found I was only tracking our expenses, not really monitoring them, and not doing anything to improve our financial situation. I’d been investing in my 401K at work, but my over-all financial goals had largely fallen by the wayside. A lot of unnecessary things had crept into our budget.

A little over a year ago a pumping station in our city water network malfunctioned and dumped some chemicals into our water supply at hazardous levels. We were unable to drink water from the sink for over two days while they sorted out the problem. We had some water storage, but we suddenly had to wonder if we had enough–and if it was still good.

For the past several years our neighborhood electrical grid has been unstable, leaving us without electricity for five or more hours at a time, and usually during prime electricity-usage hours. We had plenty of light, but dinners (we have an electric stove) were a bit of a struggle. Once my wife had to go out to find food from a restaurant outside the blackout area which, being vegans, was tricky to find.

Then, of course, 2020 arrived in all its horrific glory. Last October I was informed my job with the bank would end at the beginning of the year. My most recent round of unemployment was, quite fortunately, also my shortest. The day after my job ended I got a job offer, and I started work a week and a half later.

The Coronavirus caught us a little off guard. We’ve generally been pretty good about keeping a few weeks or months ahead on our food supply, but when our state started implementing restrictions the timing was poor. The panic-buying and hoarding began while we were at a low point in our purchasing cycle. We’ve been okay, but we’ve had to carefully monitor our usage on a few things.

In the middle of all this our metropolitan area experienced a 5.4 scale earthquake. Though we live more than 15 miles from the epicenter and only felt the initial quake and one of the many aftershocks, it was a wake-up call all its own. We live next to a major fault line. We might not be so lucky the next time.

The last week or so I’ve been getting very serious about emergency preparedness. My wife and I have made a goal that we will never be so unprepared again. Finding this blog just now seems too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence. It seems like a good time to start writing again, to capture our journey as we get serious about self reliance once again.