Saturday, May 14, 2011

Preparedness Challenge #8

I wish that I could say I've done a lot on prepping this week, but the truth is... this rummage sale is consuming me. Never again will I let so much stuff accumulate for one sale. I had actually paid for a booth the last two years, but it kept getting rained out and I couldn't do the alternate date, so stuff just kept getting added to the pile. In the future, I'll use the thrift store more!

However, this week I did manage to order some extra baking soda and bulk herbs, plant more potatoes, lettuce, and peas, watch some videos on making tinctures and poultices, and brush up on my sewing skills. (I assessed my fabrics and made a few things which I'll show you this coming week in a post.) 

You may not think of sewing as prepping, but skills are so important to have in times of crisis, particularly economic depressions and recessions, etc. It would be good to take stock of the skills you currently have and consider a list of skills you may wish to acquire. Knowing how to treat your family with herbs, mastering hunting and fishing skills (including how to butcher or fillet), understanding how to start a fire, and having experience with a host of other things can help carry you through when others are still just trying to figure out how to cook a meal from scratch.

And there are people out there who don't know how to do these things but want to learn. You could be the person to help teach them! Forming a local homesteading community group is another way that you can be prepared for hard times. So don't think that you can't do anything to prep if money is tight right now. In fact, the Lord has been putting it on my heart to consider an area that our family can excel in so that we have a skill or product that can be bartered in a pinch. I'm not sure what that is right now, but my mind is churning with possibilities. 

And how about teaching our sons and daughters to master one skill or trade that they can use to contribute to the family and community no matter how tough things might get in the future. Do any young men learn to make things out of wood with hand tools anymore? Or blacksmith? Saving seeds? And daughters... how many of them even consider the possibility of learning to be a midwife, an herbalist, or beekeeper?

I'm just thinking out loud here. A penny for your thoughts...

Won't you join me and link up with how you prepared this week. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment. And if you're new here, you might like to read how the Preparedness Challenge began. Just tell us what you did this week to prepare, be it one thing or several. We're helping each other out here by holding one another accountable!