Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Stocking Up and Finding Resources


I apologize for the delay in not posting the last couple of weeks. We've had a stretch of good weather giving us a chance to work on our dwindling wood pile and take inventory of our food storage and emergency supplies. We always do this in the fall right before the holiday sale season. We use Kathy Harrison's OAR system. OAR stands for "organize, acquire and rotate." A few times a year we go through everything, especially in the fall, and it helps us to know what we have, what we need, and make certain we use our supplies on an ongoing basis by rotating the older out and the new in. Fall and winter are the perfect time of year to begin stocking up on emergency supplies. During the holiday shopping season some of the best sales of the year happen not only on food items because of holiday grocery sales, but also because it's hunting season and many sporting goods locations have sales on backpacks, dried foods, camping supplies and more.
Sharing about our life as preppers over the last few weeks has been so rewarding and informative. When we first started prepping years ago, there wasn't a large online community of preppers like there are now. There were a few sites here and there and message boards, but now the prepper community can be connected to instantly through social media and for anyone who is wanting to be more self sufficient and work on their emergency plans, it couldn't be a better time to start.

If you're reading this you already know the importance of blogging and how you can get more detailed information and a collection of sources right from one site. That's what we're wanting to do here over the weeks and months ahead. We want to gather in one place all the great information we've collected over the years and share the new things we discover as we continue to work on our own self sufficiency. We LOVE the idea of being able to get what we know out there so others will realize being prepared isn't hard and it's the best insurance policy someone could ever buy for their family.

If you're connected with us on Twitter then you already know what a great resource it can be. We love it because it's a worldwide chat room where we can not only read information about prepping, weather, news updates, homesteading, gardening and more, but we can communicate quickly with other preppers from all over the world. Hashtags like #prepping, #preparedness, #homesteading, #preppertalk, #survival and others can help you find resources you might not have considered or even knew about. You can even follow FEMA and Ready. gov, along with your local emergency preparedness agencies so you can stay on top of updates on what is happening in your neck of the woods.

(Update: I've had some questions about the use of hashtags. Go here to read a great article that will help those who are new to hashtags or for those who want to learn how to use them better. Remember, anyone can use a hashtag in a tweet even if the tweet isn't connected to the subject you're expecting to read about, so use caution clicking links just as you would use when evaluating spam in your email box. Also, note that hashtags can be used by anyone so you may see varying opinions on the same subject. Do your own research and if you don't like what another person is tweeting you can use block to remove them from your Twitter feed.)

Another great place to connect with people who are just starting out or who have done it for years is You Tube. We're a bit shy around here, but we're hoping in the near future to add our perspective about "sheltering at home" on You Tube as well. We're amazed at the enormous You Tube prepper and homesteading communities. If you're looking for information on food storage, bee keeping or home security, from A to Z, someone has done a video on it.

The best part of being a prepper is that you always come across people who are willing to share what they know. Preppers also have a voracious need to know. It becomes a passion so we can learn as much as we can to help our families which will in turn help our community if a disaster strikes because we'll have the resources we need right at our fingertips. It's like the old adage says, knowledge is power. So if you don't know where to start or maybe you have already made your 72 hour emergency kit and want to learn even more about prepping, then dive into social media and you'll find a wealth of knowledge to help you on your way.

Keep safe everyone and happy prepping!

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