In the Beginning: Your turn

[BennyMG1]

I’ve shared my story about my early days in this endeavor. My hope was to get everyone thinking about how they got started. I made a lot of mistakes the first two or three years....as I embark in the adventure of homesteading, I’m sure I’ll make plenty more.

I’d like to hear from others about how you got started in this. If you do share, please be cognizant of OPSEC.

[Amish]

In 2006 CDC upgraded to a new warehouse management system.  My company owned the rights to the software for the upgrading system. I was assigned to be a consultant and train CDC national stock pile facilities on the new system. During the course of a year I was able to get a good inside look at how ill prepared our gov’t was to support a crisis. I saw many things that would may any normal person say OMG. After my assignment I knew the federal gov’t could not help me if anything major were to happen. At this point I am thinking medical needs so I started educating myself and put together a medical bag and began stocking away medical supplies, pain meds, antibiotics etc.  At this point I had never even heard the term prepper. I just knew it was something that needed to be done to take care of my family. As I began researching how to self-treat medical conditions I came across many prepper blogs. I was like…. Wow there are more people out there like me but never thought much about it.  In 2010 I joined American prepper network to learn more about prepping.  I began by picking up a few cans every time I went to the grocery store. I never mentioned it to my wife I just made sure the Pantry stayed very full. She would ask why are you buying those we have like 40 cans already and I would always say….just in-case. In 2013 I found Georgia Prepper Network through a link on American prepper network. I started reading the forum and decided to go to a regional meeting that Starlady was having in her area. I was very nervous to go because I was not sure if I was going to encounter a bunch of tin foil hat crazy people.  (Yep I was right she was crazy… she just did not have the tin foil hat)LOL J/k.  I have learned more than I could possible imagine though the camp outs and meetings in the past 6 years from awesome friends on the site. I strongly urge anyone who has not been to a meeting or event to give fellowship a chance. You will quickly learn that Bigfoot is real, we like to eat, all of us were in a boating accident and we can take sarcasm as good as we can dish it out. To all of my friends thank you for your continued support and help when I need advice.

[Starlady]

My grandmother raised 4 kids and housed 2 brothers with her family before, during and after the Great Depression.  My parents would send me to spend a couple of weeks with her every summer since I was about 10 or so and I didn't realize until I was much older how much she taught me.  Economical in every single area, she had to be with so many mouths to feed.  I mean, she never threw away a bread wrapper or a rubber band!  From her and my aunt I learned all the 'old fashioned' women's skills that you can hardly find in most of today's younger women who aren't country raised...…..and some who are.

In the late summer of '78 or '79 east central Florida was hit by a hurricane that left our area without power for nearly 3 weeks.  In August.  I'd always had at LEAST a week's worth of food in the house but that experience 'learned' me to do better not only with food but ways to cook, get cool, get clean, take care of the dog, etc.  Fortunately, our neighborhood came together and we were able to take turns driving to Orlando for shopping needs, etc. but some folks came pretty close to bare shelves that 1st week before we started doing it - banks and gas stations weren't always open.

Working for a software company in '99 and being the office mgr, I was cautious about Y2K and we made a few preparations - not a ton but a bit more than we had...……….just in case.

After my husband died in early 2012, our lovely 3 year old neighborhood of $200K homes went nearly half Section 8 rental subsidies as folks who had been hanging on since the recession finally lost it.  I felt unsafe & threatened if I came home after dark.  Somewhere I came across some articles about the upcoming election, found the old GPN in late summer and it's been all uphill since then.  I panicked, I bought stuff I didn't know how to use, bought doubles of things I already had (you KNOW why, LOL!), stocked food and water and basic meds.  I was in the fortunate position of having more money than brains at the time & figured if the election went haywire I would at least have stuff.   John & I had wanted to have a small farm around retirement time (we'd ALWAYS had a garden in FL - where I taught myself to can), I figured I wasn't getting any younger and after praying for months decided that leaving my beautiful dream house was a smart thing to do.  I didn't see things getter better politically or socially, so I hit the boondocks.  It took 6 months to find my new home and I haven't looked back.

I've taught myself a lot of new things here on the homestead and I'm proud of that but like others who've joined GPN, later SEPN, I've learned so much from others who were better prepared in many areas than I.   One person can't be great at all the things we would face if bad things happened but at least now I have a passing knowledge of problem areas and things I would never have considered.  So many folk were/are so willing to share what they know, I sometimes wonder why our society is so fractured.....but......I digress.  I don't think in 6 years a single person has ever refused to answer a simple question or go deep on a topic if necessary or even share views on a topic we are already 'expert' in.   Tough love, easy love, it's been a pleasure working with and getting to know so many great people, y'all are awesome!

PS - my new hat DOES have tin on it. 

[elandil]

we were always brought up to put back for bad times. Whether or not a freezer got filled during hunting season could determine how lean times were. A night spent fishing was not luxury, it was sometimes a necessity. We never truly went without, but there were times dinner was gonna be "Push-n-Grits..." (where ya pushed yerself away from the table and gritted yer teeth...) We probably ate more rice, catfish, and chicken offal than was healthy for us...but it was cheap and filling...(and why I don't like rice or catfish anymore...but I do love chicken livers...)

But, what really taught my my lesson was the Blizzard of 93. Living in the country, we got hit hard. I was a teenager at the time (just turned 17) and I'd had a coupla friends over at the house before it hit...(one ended up stuck there)... I can remember it being 11pm, and it was not snowing up and down, but sideways....we were standing in the middle of the road, and could barely see the sides going to check on the neighbors. No one came driving thru, no one was brave enough. Power killed right after the snow started, and once the wind died down it got quiet...eerily quiet...until you heard it....CRACK!!....CRASH!!...Pine trees around us were getting so top heavy they were tipping over, ripping up by the roots... We had nothing but a gas stove and stored water....we started saving the stored for drinking and melting snow for the toilets. I improvised a stove in my bedroom to help keep me and my friends warm, with mom having the oven on heating the kitchen and her room. The next day some friends of ours came and got us, and we stayed with them until the power came back on. Some of the people out in our area didn't get power back on for over a week. That set in my mind that Stuff Happens, and I can either be ready for it or deal with not having anything.

Ever since then, I've tried to always be ready, just in case....but one thing I have learned over the years is how Fluid "Ready" is....me being ready at 19 and single was much different than being Ready at 22 with a Fiancee and a toddler...at 27 going thru divorce and moving to middle GA following a woman....coming back home in my late 30s to a sick mother....losing 50% of my vision and more at 40....periods of illness, mine and familys....unemployment....."Ready" can mean so much, yet so little sometimes....

And sometimes the most interesting lessons can be found in the most unusual of places...living in a small place in mid-GA, we had a bad storm come thru one night that dropped a major oak over the only road into/outof the neighborhood....we were trapped, no power, no way in or out without walking, until it was cleared up. As I warmed up a MRE, hung chemlights on my doorhandles in case power crews needed to approach, and settled down on the couch with my headlamp and a good book...I heard the neighbor couple start arguing...the husband explaining to his wife that no, with no power the stove won't work...no, they can't just order a pizza...no, the microwave won't work either....(it was at this point I was about to grab a couple of my MRE's and head over) when he finally told her "look, it's like camping...we'll get some hamburgers out of the freezer, I'll cook them on the gas grill, and we can pretend we're in the great outdoors..." Hearing the relief in her voice that they had a plan, and how much of a hero he was for solving the problem....gives some hope that maybe they took that as their lesson.