Preppers Questions--My Answers

Thanks to Melonie at The Prepared Family for this one! The questions are originally from Chris at A One Acre Homestead in Ohio and are good for some thought provocation! So, as Melonie did, I'm inviting you to play tag. If you don't want to do this, don't, I'm not going to twist your arm, but I would hope if you don't want to post your answers, you at least think about them. For those who want to join in, post your answers on your blog and then leave me a link in the comments so I can read your answers!

Basic Questions About You

1-What is the biggest goal of your lifestyle? Be as self sufficient as possible and able to help others who are not.

2-When did you start this lifestyle? At birth ;) Actually got serious about it around 1997-98 time and have had periods of great progress and slow to no progress since then.

3-What was your main motivation? My sweet family among other reasons. I never want to have to tell my kids I have nothing for them to eat. For more of my motivation, See here.

4-Did you have any previous experience in anything you're doing now? My mom did a lot of what I'm doing, but I didn't pay enough attention when I was younger, so I'm pretty much making it up as I go! :) Definitely no professional or schooling experience (I was a theater major!).

5-Does your spouse/signifiacant other (if you have one) share the same ideas? Absolutely. He was the primary motivating factor in getting going on our preparedness and self reliance.

6-Do your friends and family understand and support these choices? What about your kids? Friends and family, mostly. They don't all know or care what all I'm doing all the time, but most of them know I'm a do-it-yourself junkie. My family mostly is also--guess it's in the genes! :)

My kids are fine with it, they're pretty little, so it's just the way things are. I try to get them involved where I can--I think that helps their understanding about what everything is for and why we want to stock food and supplies. They also know if we run out of something, we can usually go to the "food room" and get more.

7-How happy are you with your achievements so far? Very, although there's always something else I want to have or learn to do, I feel pretty comfortable with where we're at.

8-Are you more of a gardener, homesteader, prepper, health concience, "green"' or a combination of several? Combination, heavier on gardener/prepper. Lighter on "green".

9-Has this change of lifestyle affected your personality? Nope, it's part of who I am at least since I entered adulthood.

10-Has it changed your view of your life before? What life before? Since I grew up in a fairly self sufficient home with a crazy mom who likes to garden/can/raise and eat chickens, rabbits, goats, etc./sew I've been around this type of living as long as I can remember.

11-What about how you view others that don't understand it or naysay? If they want to naysay, I just leave them to it. It's their choice. Most people I've encountered want to learn more about self reliant living, so with them I'm willing to share what I've learned.

12-If you could convince someone to live the way you do in ONE sentence, what would you say? To quote Ezra Taft Benson, "The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah."

Other Questions-

1-How large is your vegetable garden? Not big enough when we're harvesting, too big when we're weeding.

2-Do you grow any fruits, and what and how many? I have 6 baby fruit trees and a strawberry bed living, and grapes, raspberries, and blackberries that all died and need to be replaced.

3-Do you have any animals and what are they? (other than pets) Cat, dog, fish, and a horse. Planning on pigs this summer. We raised a lamb once, but when you're buying milk for it, they are not cost effective to raise.

4-Do you can/dehydrate/freeze/store your own produce? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And anybody else's produce I can get my hands on.

5-Do you work with mainly power tools or hand tools in your gardens and others? (wood cutting, splitting, tiller vs. broadfork etc...) Mostly hand tools for yard work and small jobs. We've got a shop full of my husband's power tools for building/welding/etc.

6-Do you compost? I'm giving it a try.

7-Do you recycle? Some. It's pretty inconvenient around here. The nearest recycling center is at least 2 hours away. So I guess mostly I "reuse".

8-Do you consider yourself energy concious? (conserving to save $) Fairly.

9-Do you make any of your own household cleaners? A couple, but mostly not. Look here! Another area to learn more about! :)

10-Do you make your own bread? Yep. Way better than store bread.

11- If in an emergency situation, are you able to not leave home for a week? How about a month? A year?? Absolutely on the week. If all my utilities were working a month or year would be fine also. Fuel is my major problem with going a year--heating the house and cooking fuel.

12-Are you tired of answering questions yet? Nope. If I get tired, I'll take a break and come back and you'll never know I left.

13-If you prep, what do you consider to be your most useful tool/items- Food, firearms, fuel, tools.

14-Are you able to heat your home without gas or fuel oil? Not yet, but we're working on it.

15-Are you able to cook without gas or electricity? Yep on our camp stove, barbeque, fire pit. Not indoors though.

16-Again, if in an emercency situation, could you live in the wild or out of a tent? ( camping,hunt/fish, cook,etc.) Not comfortably, but we'd get by.

17-Have you ever practiced your prep skills? (turning off main power for a day or 2) How did you do? (this can include a power outage due to weather as a test) Not on purpose, although I'd like to. We practice when we go camping and when the power is out. Still the same problems--heating the house and eventually cooking although we have a gas range, so we can still light it when the power is out, just not if the gas is out.

18-Do you have the knowledge & skills (plus tools) to hunt and fish for food? Definitely fish, working on hunting.

19-If you don't prep, why not?

20-Do you or can you sew your own clothes and make your own bedding? I can sew almost anything unless it's a button on my husband's shirt ;) . Mostly right now clothes are less expensive to buy already made than to buy fabric and notions and make them. But I can if I need to, and can definitely make repairs and alterations.

21-Can you field dress a deer, drink a coffee, smoke a cigarette, make a cell phone call, light a fire, AND answer all of my annoying questions at the same time? lol thanks for playing!
I don't smoke, drink coffee, or have a cell phone, so I'm down to lighting a fire and field dressing a deer while answering questions, which I guess I could do, it just wouldn't be pretty to watch!