Last post continued...

Looks like the digital may finally be deciding to take decent pics again, so I snapped one of one wall of my new room. This one shows my stock of camp stoves (3 burner fuel, 2 burner propane and single burner fuel), propane, camp cookware, lamp oil, camp dinnerware, heater, 1 of the propane lanterns, 4 oil railroad type lanterns, handheld cb radio, flahslights,perculators, teapot, and hunting & fishing knives. There is still a bit of camping gear in the garage I need to bring in, plus bring down the spare oil lamps from elsewhere in the house. I have plenty of other things to be finished and organized in here, and I'll post pics as they get together....fishing gear, hunting gear, tents, cots, sleeping bags, air matresses, butchering supplies, fire starters, fire extinguishers ( A MUST!), ammo, guns, candles, rope, tarps........I have quite a bit already. Others I have listed to buy.

People I talk to already think we're nuts for the whole homesteading thing, but when I bring up backstocking/preparadness, they almost laugh as most people do to anyone else that does the same thing. It makes it hard to talk about to most anyone. I recently read an article that compared survivalists to Ted Kysinski (spelling?). People do tend to laugh, but when they don't, you get that look, that "you're f**king nuts" look. Tell them we grow our own food and they say "thats great", tell them we have chickens and meat rabbits and they say "ummm ok", tell them we want a wringer washer and they say "why the hell would you want THAT??", tell them we dont own a microwave and they look at us like we're aliens, tell them we want to get rid of the tv and they ask "what will you DO?", but tell them we want to stock a years supply of food and they are ready to call the guys in the white coats with the cute little jacket that lets you hug yourself all day.......Let 'em say what they want, let 'em think what they want, fine by me. They have their opinions and views, and I have mine.

We aren't the folks living in a cabin hourding MRE's, AR15's and 20 different camo outfits, (though I do own several of both), but we're what I would call realist survivalists. We aren't unlike the people from the cold war era of the 50's-early 70's who built bomb shelters in their basements and stocked them full of food and supplies. These people had every right to be scared, and to be prepared for the worst. But just like those who stocked for Y2K, they were a joke to most since they prepared for something that never happened....luckily for them. Just because nothing ever DID happen, it doesn't make them nutcases for preparing for it. That's where we come in. We prep for many reasons, all of which I have said in previous posts. With our current war/enemy status, the way our economy is going, the thought of losing one of our jobs, injuries, illness, natural disaster, power outages, and many others, we want to be ready.

It's not like we stock things we don't actually USE either. We grow and can our own food already; I already had the fishing, hunting,shooting and camping gear; we already use the oil lamps throughout the house, and anything we will buy in bulk we already use. (oats, flour, rice, etc) That's the key to the way we are stocking-stocking things we use and little to nothing else. Sure I don't really NEED all the ammo, but I bought most when it was less expensive; we don't really NEED 2 cases of propane for a 4 day a year camping trip, but it was on sale *cheap*; we don't really NEED 150 lbs of flour, but Lisa bakes a LOT already....so nothing is really wasted time or money. Plus another thought.....someday we'll be at the point where we will have to use up some of this stock so it doesn't go bad....we could easily do a month or better on rotating stock and making room for new alone and not have to visit a store at all for anything but milk. Hows that for a thought??