# What started your Prepping or self reliant skill lifestyle?



## HappyGarden (Jan 5, 2019)

This is was my start-
Some Preppers are Grandchildren, who spent a lot of time with Grandparents, who survived the Great Depression. Thank God for their wisdom!
I grew up next door to a Grandmother who survived the Depression with 5 children. Her chicken farm barely kept them going and was wiped out in a flash flood. Grandma was loving, but a tough old lady. Her Grand children were not going to grow up without learning how to forage, garden, can, dehydrate foods and herbs, raise and dress out animals for meals.
I can't tell you how much I miss that old women. My childhood was spent in the forest with Grandma, foraging. She made a huge impact on my life and every garden season, it's like she is beside me, encouraging my efforts.


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## Bob M. (Nov 5, 2018)

Life and common sense really. I'm just extremely self reliant , and love seeking knowledge and doing stuff myself. The more I notice others do not or deem themselves unable to do something the more I want to do it, and well, people these days do not do anything or know how to do anything themselves anymore it seems. I mean, I grow a large amount of different plants and vegetables....and everyone I know is amazed about it...its a plant....not really rocket science. granted because when I do things I like to understand what I am doing and do it right, so I also took horticultural classes, so then I understood a lot of the hows and why's. I in no way what so ever think things are going to go critical zombie hunter mode. human nature just wont allow it...but, I can because I get a poo poo ton of food, I learn about power systems because it is just interesting really, and I am into electronics. Sort of a snowball effect, because I am into growing so many veggies and stuff because I have always been into food. and I've always been somewhat of a loner, and into motorcycles so sometimes I'll just hit the pavement and ride and crash in the middle of the woods somewhere...well, used to...it is so much harder these days, real shame. just taking off into the wild and being able to survive and chill for awhile is something thats kept me grounded and sane. Not to mention being able to and fine traveling coast to coast as a road trip easily. not much better than hitting a stream and scoring some fresh fish for dinner, or roasted rabbit on the fly.Heck, I've plunked down and gotten food so easily I've decided to stay for a extra week. granted that was decades ago.


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## Sourdough (Dec 28, 2011)

What started your Prepping or self reliant skill lifestyle?

Moving to wilderness Alaska, to build a homestead.


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

What started my self-reliant lifestyle?
When I could no longer work for employers dumber than I and count on them to supply me with a paycheck.
When I got tired of utility, cable, satellite, cell phone bills.
When I decided I wouldn't allow people who didn't own what I own, yet tax or charge fees for me to enjoy it, to dictate how I would manage my property and possessions.
When I opened the refrigerator and the butter my wife bought from the Walmart two months ago still looked like new, but the jelly that sat on top of it from my kid's knives had green fuzz growing on it.


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## Seth (Dec 3, 2012)

My Granddad, retired coal miner that came up in WV during the mine wars and the depression. He and one of my uncles (Grandad's SIL) are the last of the true outdoorsmen that I've known. They both spent a great deal of their time teaching me.


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## CIW (Oct 2, 2007)

This is the life we grew up in. My family first came to this continent in 1535. Through the generations that spirit of self reliance has somehow been maintained. Each generation supported the next by what they knew. I see it in my children. I didn't know that we were even doing it. But continues like any other habit that is passed from generation to generation.


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## nehimama (Jun 18, 2005)

During my childhood in the 50s and 60s, it was a way of life. As a rural family, faced with feeding and clothing seven children on one paycheck, putting in a huge garden, canning, raising a porker for the freezer, keeping a few chickens for eggs, sewing our own clothing was just what we did to survive.


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## Ellendra (Jul 31, 2013)

I was always wired for the self-reliant lifestyle. Which didn't always work with my urban/suburban upbringing. I've hated living in the city for as long as I can remember.

When I read books like "Little House of the Prairie", it wasn't for the story. I was searching them for survival tips, even at the age of 4. I started saving for my own farm when I was 9. I was around 12 when I first came across books about herbs and wild edibles. Around 15 I first encountered the word "self-sufficiency" and finally had a name for the kind of life I was driven towards. My first full-time job out of high school, I spent my first paycheck on a lifetime subscription to Backwoods Home.

I've had some setbacks health-wise since then, but I'm still moving closer to that goal every day.

I just can't stand living any other kind of way.


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## snowlady (Aug 1, 2011)

I think it is how we lived. My family didn’t prep to prep, we were poor.  Not terribly poor but if we didn’t have to buy food all winter, there was money for heat, warm clothes, a nice Christmas, etc. Ellendra, I, too was stuck on The Little House books. In fact, I just reread The Long Winter last week. I also don’t like to be dependent on others.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

My dad's parents were school teachers that dabbled in various odd crops. My mom's parents raised a commercial garden, sold eggs and raised show quality Hereford cattle. I had an uncle that was a farm manager on a dairy farm that also raised pigs and sheep. I did some home remodel projects in the summer.

But I had no farming aspirations.

My interests were in cars, fast cars. I had mechanical and welding skills. I took some drafting and shop classes in high school. I took some business classes and tool and die classes in college.

I took a factory job and became a supervisor. We made car parts. It was a challenging job. But then the Arabs cut off our crude oil. Car sales plummeted. Half the workers were laid off and I was running a 600 ton stamping press.

It was like a switch was turned on. I was driving a Corvette convertible and a 1969 Firebird. I was building a new home on a private lake. But a downturn in the economy would wipe me out. I was ready for a change.

I sold everything I had. I bought 20 acres of farm land, lived in a 18 foot travel trailer and grew a 3 acre garden. I raised rabbits and chickens. I bought and restored antique furniture for my future homestead.

But 20 acres wouldn't support the work horses that I'd need to get away from fossil fuel power. I located 80 acres, half wooded, half fields. My plan was to grow all my food, grow and feed livestock, including a work horse. But when In visited the property, discovered the soil unsuitable for farming. But while driving around in that area, we saw a vacant 5 bedroom brick farmhouse on 160 acres. Not at all what we'd planned. We located the owner and found they were interested in selling. The house was fully furnished, so we sold our restored furniture and the 20 acres.

My mechanical and welding skills were assets. My carpentry skills helpful. But mostly it was the "never give up" determination that helped the most.


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## debi6241 (Dec 9, 2014)

We moved to the country about 15 years ago. We began our own little homestead on 2 acres with a newly built house. We watched the "Doomesday Prepper" series and started prepping for whatever disaster came our way. Living in Florida that means hurricanes, summer power outages, flooding, fires, not to mention the fear of the unknown!! we have since downsized our house and property and have retired. We still prep and are somewhat ready for just about anything that comes our way.


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## CKelly78z (Jul 16, 2017)

My parents always had a big (50x100) garden, and I helped pick/weed/can/prepare/eat much of our vegetables. I think my wife, and I choosing to live in the country on 10 acres, allowed us to experiment with chickens, green house, firewood, and self sufficiency. We also have plenty of dry goods if SHTF, and plenty of ammo to ensure it stays here.


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## wannabfarmer (Jun 30, 2015)

I have been interested in this for years. I follow politics and don't see our country providing the way that they claim and I've lost almost all trust in the system. I'm not saying good people aren't in politics i'm just saying I don't see them. I love my job and it provides very well but our system could crash at anytime as it has a few times in the past and I don't want to get caught on the wrong end of the stick.


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## keenataz (Feb 17, 2009)

LIving in the country, where in an unexpected October snowstorm we lost power for 9 days and could not drive out for 5. Luckily we had a wood stove and wood, enough food although it was Kraft dinnerand could melt/boil snow for water.

But I am not a true prepper, I have about 3 weeks worth of food. Lots of wood and water though. I figure if it is over 3 weeks, it is over for me anyways.


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## hiddensprings (Aug 6, 2009)

we've always enjoyed gardening and being outside but didn't really start our adventure until our kids were grown and gone. I started taking horseback riding lessons and then bought one horse, then another. We finally bought land to keep the horses on and it grew from there. Every year I'd add something else figuring "well heck, it can't be that hard". Chickens, turkeys, sheep, cows, and dairy goats before we were done and also a market garden. I learned a tremendous amount, worked my fanny off, and enjoy the heck out of it.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

I was raised by grandparents who lived through the depression and had to learn to do for themselves anyway because grocery stores were few and far between. There were no fast food joints within 20 miles. Grandma had a huge garden and canned nearly all our food. They raised chickens and cows. Every year Grandpa would trade work and resources for a pig or two. We didn't eat much wild food because Grandma had to during the depression. But when I was in high school I took a natural resources course at a vocational school and became interested in wild foods. Lived in the city for a few years. Eventually moved to a tiny little piece of land between a big city and a small city. Worked for years to make that tiny piece of land productive. Health and other circumstances have set me back a bit but I am determined to get back to growing a good portion of our produce.


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## brosil (Dec 15, 2003)

I'm a child of the Cold War. I used to have nightmares of Russian bombs following me around , insulting me and then blowing up. Fear comes from ignorance. I started studying nuclear effects, that led to shelters. Then came the Army where I pretty much lost all faith in our government. I started to garden organically. Our family has always grown and preserved food so that was a given. We've always hunted so firearms were a given. Now that I'm getting old, it's getting harder to farm but I'm pretty sure I can feed the wife and I until I die. It's someone else's problem after that.


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## Meinecke (Jun 30, 2017)

I/We see and saw how most of the people around us are...and after having a few contractor experiences, we decided, that what ever they did, our small toe nail could have done faster, cheaper and more accurate...
So we decided not to rely on others as much as we can and started learning...in every direction possible, gained skills, collected tools and experience and now we are able to do most of the things needed our self's (besides stuff where it is legally not possible or just dangerous enough to be willing to waste someones elses life JK)...which than brought us slowly but steady into photovoltaik, gardening, canning, bread baking, outsulation of living space, chickens and so on...its a process that starts slow but all the sudden you are in the middle of "You own your life"
For us a very pleasing and satisfying life so far...and cheap...cause to be honest...who really ate in a restaurant better than at home? We havent...


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

I have always been a prepper but not always with the same intensity. Even in my first apartment which was a bachelor flat - one room with a kitchen and bathroom - I had extra food and other supplies stored under the bed. 

The oil crisis of the 1970s sure shocked people and should have been a warning. But affluence makes people blase. 

When we lived in the country, far from the city and our work, we constantly bought lots of supplies and cut wood because we did not want to have to spend the time we had in the country having to go back to shop for whatever we needed or when the weather was very bad. 

When we moved to this remote location we learned very quickly that stores do run out of a lot of items. This had never been our experience as we live in a country that is rich and well supplied. But not the isolated areas all the time. ahh. The great mayonnaise shortage of 2004.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

> What started your Prepping or self reliant skill lifestyle?


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## 50ShadesOfDirt (Nov 11, 2018)

Bits & pieces, here and there, over my lifetime starting from when I was a scout myself, and then:

1. bought acreage out beyond
2. became mortgage-free, and had no choice but to become off-grid
3. got serious about being ready for things, as scenarios kept happening to me and around me (weather, forest fires, etc.)
4. too many books, movies, & such under the bridge ...

Somewhere in there, I realized I was prepping (and got more serious 

Living the dream ...


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## Meinecke (Jun 30, 2017)

Mortgage free...oh that sounds great...cant wait...(not that it changes the fact that i still dont own the land...since without paying taxes, i am out of there faster that i could blink...so it life time rent)


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## VICKI1 (Jul 23, 2004)

I grew up that way. My family always had a garden, raised our own meat and worked as a family to make it work. We canned to make sure we had food for the winter. My Dad worked hard and my Mom did without to make sure us kids had what we needed. Us kids had chores to do. No questions asked. We always had food on the table and clothes on our back. You didn't waste much. I love to can and sew and work in the garden. I like to take care of animals. All because of the way I grew up. Times have changed I know, but every kid should have the chance to live without going to the store for a soda twice a day and have to learn to save up nickles and dimes to be able to buy a birthday present or Christmas gift for someone or when they do get to a store be able to buy a soda.


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## lmrose (Sep 24, 2009)

Growing up we were so poor money wise that self-sufficiency was a way of life. My dad always had gardens and chickens to feed us. Very little came from a grocery store. Grandma did some jar preserves and bread and other baking was made from scratch. My Aunts and Uncles had a different life style and I was aware of that but didn't envy it. I never considered us poor in those early years. Good thing I learned survival skills at home because by four-teen I was on my own! Everything I learned from growing a garden, cooking from scratch, making my own clothes from flour sack material, washing efficiently by hand, raising chickens, keeping warm in frigid winters, forging for edible plants; stretching dollars to impossible lengths; is thanks to my Grandma who was born in 1880 and my Dad born in 1907. Grandma died and Daddy got sick and couldn't take care of me. What they taught me lived on and I not only survived but thrived eventually. I hope parents today learn basic life skills and pass them on to the next generation. One needs to be prepared for whatever life brings to you.


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## Texasdirtdigger (Jan 17, 2010)

I grew up on a truck farm....Could not wait to get away from it! My Mom had passed and I (at 8yrs old) did all the cooking, cleaning, took care of brothers and my Dad......Then there was those God awful gardens. Life moves along..... 911 happens, I have an awakening.... Talk of how fragile the grid , our water supply, Anthrax etc. Shame on me, I have all those unwanted and unused skills. I suddenly wanted to know where my food came from and who prepared it. I bought an AA canner, went to my nearest Organic farmer, and bought cases upon cases of food. Rounded up canning jars.... hit the ground running. Then came dehydrating.... uh ...ammo.....lot's and much other things. When Dh and I bought the first farm, my childhood of gardening came pouring out.
Then a second AA canner, then a third. I have never looked back...……….Thank you , Daddy


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## HappyGarden (Jan 5, 2019)

Texasdirtdigger said:


> I grew up on a truck farm....Could not wait to get away from it! My Mom had passed and I (at 8yrs old) did all the cooking, cleaning, took care of brothers and my Dad......Then there was those God awful gardens. Life moves along..... 911 happens, I have an awakening.... Talk of how fragile the grid , our water supply, Anthrax etc. Shame on me, I have all those unwanted and unused skills. I suddenly wanted to know where my food came from and who prepared it. I bought an AA canner, went to my nearest Organic farmer, and bought cases upon cases of food. Rounded up canning jars.... hit the ground running. Then came dehydrating.... uh ...ammo.....lot's and much other things. When Dh and I bought the first farm, my childhood of gardening came pouring out.
> Then a second AA canner, then a third. I have never looked back...……….Thank you , Daddy


Our Father has a way of preparing us for hard times ahead. He see's farther down the road than we can ever imagine.


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## Texasdirtdigger (Jan 17, 2010)

Indeed Happy Garden. Indeed!!!


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## COSunflower (Dec 4, 2006)

I was raised by grandparents who grew up in homesteading German immigrant farm families in Wyoming so I was raised that way also.


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## ldc (Oct 11, 2006)

Response to the original Question: economic necessity, poor health, along determination to accomplish a few things.


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## JeepHammer (May 12, 2015)

Farm kid for 17 years, 16 years in the military seeing every crap hole country and how the governments just saved themselves, got rich.
Seeing every big business get richer while the population got killed, starved to death, got poisoned by industrial waste...

When I got out of the military (disabled), I got jobs in food production facilities and saw how 'Food' is processed...
I got an education in the difference between 'Hard' economies (manufacturing essentials, agriculture) and 'Consumer' (false) economies.

Since I was a farm kid, I simply went back to it with an education in the worst humans can do to each other (always money for war & weapons, no money for building & feeding the general population).

The US *WAS* unique until WWII, infrastructure for common citizens was the priority,
While more than 25% of the US budget is spent on the military directly, and an unknown amount (estimated at another 15%) is spent on military research, and infrastructure to support weapons contractors.

If you aren't in the military or upper government that has access to that spending, you are on your own...

-------------

My motivating factor was disabilities, and also aging, I wanted someplace that would support itself, and me, until I died. This is my 'Retirement' plan.
I don't know anything about big business, I don't know how to make a fortune in the stock market without starting with a fortune...
I do know farm land, row crops, livestock, machining & welding, etc. It's a 'Blue Collar' education.
Go with what you know!

MAKE A MOVE!

A good plan TODAY is a better than a 'Perfect' plan 10 years from now.
Go left, go straight, go right, JUST MOVE!

-----------------

I had to define my mindset.
It took a 'Cognitive Recalibration', everything I 'Believed' needed to be re-examined.
I believed Ronald Reagan & pundts like Lush Dimbulb when they said Solar Electric was BS and did t actually work.
I'm 100% off grid, mostly solar PV powered, and not only does it work, but it beats grid energy costs.

There is a learning curve, I backed into solar PV the hard way, and I had to learn about wiring & electricity, batteries, etc.

I home preserve a lot of my food,
Again, this took a complete 180° turn in thinking, and a learning curve to figure out how to make it cost/time effective.
The PROCESS is more important than the equipment, getting an 'Assembly Line' going makes it cost/time effective.

I couldn't get rural water to hook me up no matter the cost,
So I had to educate myself about water filtering, making it safe, and went with water wells after an education in wells/well water.
(With power, deep wells are practical, cost effective, and normally safe without treatment)

Home business that services the local community most times means a steady support base.
Since a lot of it is repair of farm equipment and local business equipment/machines, it's a 'Captive' client base.
People always need to eat, so gardens/crops are income as well as clean food for me & mine.

Since I don't have to worry about power, water, food or shelter, I'm as close to 'Sustainable' as I can figure out without outright doing without...


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## JeepHammer (May 12, 2015)

Texasdirtdigger said:


> I grew up on a truck farm....Could not wait to get away from it! My Mom had passed and I (at 8yrs old) did all the cooking, cleaning, took care of brothers and my Dad......Then there was those God awful gardens. Life moves along..... 911 happens, I have an awakening.... Talk of how fragile the grid , our water supply, Anthrax etc. Shame on me, I have all those unwanted and unused skills. I suddenly wanted to know where my food came from and who prepared it. I bought an AA canner, went to my nearest Organic farmer, and bought cases upon cases of food. Rounded up canning jars.... hit the ground running. Then came dehydrating.... uh ...ammo.....lot's and much other things. When Dh and I bought the first farm, my childhood of gardening came pouring out.
> Then a second AA canner, then a third. I have never looked back...……….Thank you , Daddy


Sounds familiar, but it didn't take 9/11 for me...

I grew up on home preserved food and fresh food, beef that didn't see it's first birthday...
Couldn't seem to get a good steak anywhere and the beans all tasted like wax, the corn would have been livestock feed 'At Home'...
Who knew I was a food snob? 

What I see most...
If you are a lazy, video game playing, internet 'Hippie', you aren't going to make it, no chance at all. A 100% failure rate...

The internet is FULL of big ideas, and lies, but you MUST do hard manual labor without complaining, and it helps a bunch if you actually enjoy the exercise & work.

If you are a self starter, 
Every 'not so hot' or 'fail' result is a learning experience,
If you aren't a 'Science Denier' so you can absorb crop science, mechanical science, etc,
If you know a good idea when you see it (and 'Borrow' it  ),
Then you will probably figure it out.

This is one thing the harder you work, the better the results.
Working SMARTER reduces the amount of work, but just plain hard labor will have results.


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## prinellie (Mar 16, 2016)

Started listening to Glenn Beck on the radio in 2005. I started prepping - flour, sugar, salt, dried milk and eggs. DH didn't even want to talk about it. Finally, when he started to see that the things Glenn was saying came to fruition, he joined in. Now we have a lake, timber, cows, chickens, and like someone else said... the means to keep it. We are pretty sick of others taking our money when they are too lazy to work. When parents are hard workers, it usually follows that the children are. But the same is true when you just collect the govt check. And now with all the technology most of this new generation has absolutely no work ethic. It's going to be a hard day for a lot of people if SHTF... and it's only a matter of time...


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

JeepHammer said:


> The internet is FULL of big ideas, and lies


I agree about that.


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

My neighbor just stopped by to borrow a garden trailer and I asked him the question as posted in the title.
His reponse-
His dad credits Harry Blackmun and Jimmy Carter

He credits-
Bill Clinton
Janet Reno 
Hillary Clinton
Janet Reno again
Obama
Hillary Clinton again

He was still talking and going up the drive when I shut the front door


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Boy Scouts for me. Eagle in 1965.....just always believed in the motto: Be Prepared



JeepHammer said:


> The internet is FULL of big ideas, and lies, but you MUST do hard manual labor without complaining...


Yeah, there are a ton of graduates of "YouTube University" that know it all, but somehow have never done much of anything. Not knocking YT....gotten a lot of good learning off it myself....but the point of knowledge is to apply it, and most of that can't be done with a keyboard.


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## JeepHammer (May 12, 2015)

The paid pundts and 'Prepper' sites all have something to sell...
Funny how that works! 

I learned more from grandparents and the local antique machinery club than anyone.
Seems every problem you run into the old timers already had figured out!
From stump jacking with a horse to preserving food, it's all been done before, and by people with less resources than we have!

I like electricity!
The wife won't live without electricity, so that's probably the one thing the old timers didn't deal with so much, but solar PV makes it much easier.

Some 350 pound neck-beard 'Operator' telling me I won't 'Survive' without the latest 'Tacti-Cool' firearm/gadget or someone trying to sell 'Survival' food are my least favorite...
I started with a '73 Jeep, pioneer tools & my military field pack/tent.

Funny, the 1800/1900 pioneer tools still work just fine 
My home canners (metal cans) were made between 1880s and 1950s and are still working fine. One advantage to pre 1930s can seamers, they often have flangers attached, so you can reuse metal cans.
My pressure canners are 1900s design and still work fine.
I have some of my grandparents 1950s Mason jars, they still work fine.
Funny thing is, buying used from the 1800s/early 1900s is the only way to get some stuff.

Shovels, Axes, post hold diggers, they all work fine...
It's nice to have the latest-greatest power equipment, but as an issue of 'Survival' it's a lie you 'Need' them.

The difference is, in the 1800s/early 1900s the 'Education' wasn't in Facebag, Twaddle, video games, and 'Instant Feedback' was a busted knuckle or a smack on the butt...
People thought I was crazy (or worse yet, a pervert) when I took mentor kids in the machine shop.
Recommended by local teachers, aptitude for mechanical devices, it was hands on experience and a history lesson for the people potentially making things we will use in the future.
If not, they could change a tire, change oil, repack wheel bearings, at least understand the work that goes into machines and more than one went on to trade school for mechanics & machining.
A pretty reasonable living if not earth changing...


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## Ann-NWIowa (Sep 28, 2002)

I grew up poor, but didn't know it because no one told us! Mom gardened, canned, dad worked hard to support us. Mom made my sister and my clothing and did a fine job of it. All the other kids were pretty much in the same leaky boat. When the puppy chewed the bottom off our new wool coats, mom sewed a velvet trim onto the bottom of the coats and made a collar and cuffs to match so our plain brown wool coats became rather fancy. That sort of impromptu thinking has stuck with me and I've often been able to use that skill both at home and work.

However, I think what influenced me more than anything was listening into conversations my grandmother had with four of her sisters-in-law about how they managed to raise their families during the Depression. My grandmother was able to make do like none other. I still have one of her rag rugs made from cast off clothing and she died over 30 years ago. My mom was always nasty about my listening to adult conversations but I was learning important stuff. Those lady's conversation was always "G" rated. Listening to my dad and his brothers was a way different sort of education!!

I got married when I was 17 and my dh gave me a pressure canner for our first Christmas. I started begging jars from anyone who was no longer canning and I'm still using those 1940's jars. Later I went to estate auctions and bought boxes and boxes of jars for $1. My sister and I once stuffed a station wagon full of boxes and boxes of jars for $1 for all. In the 1970's there was a shortage of lids where I lived in Wyoming and my mother-in-law who lived in Missouri sent me a shoe box of them. After that I always made sure to stock up enough for the year ahead. 

When I started reading Mother Earth News (starting with issue #1), Countryside and Organic Gardening, I felt I'd finally found someone who understood what real life was. I jumped into gardening and canning, started sewing clothing, baking bread etc. and finally got the acreage my dh had promised before we were married. (I knew even at 17 the lifestyle I wanted!) Unfortunately, after just two years dh decided it was too much work and we sold it. I've continued to garden wherever I've lived and still do to this day.

Dh passed away so I'm on my own now days. I have to find someone and pay to have the garden tilled, the lawn mowed etc. But I'm determined to keep my home and garden (especially the garden) as long as I can manage to do so. This year has been a very poor gardening year, but I still have plenty in jars in the basement. I collect the Christmas popcorn tins from garages sales and use them to store dry goods in my prep pantry. Totally mouse proof and usually 25¢ to 50¢ so priced right. The newer tins are so thin they lose their shape if not handled carefully, but still mouse proof.


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## JeepHammer (May 12, 2015)

We didn't *Think* we were 'Poor' until the corporate contract farms came along, those guys built 'McMansions' and had the latest-greatest equipment.
Of course, as soon as the market changed, and being so heavily in debt they went under...

I wish I lived closer, I'd till a small garden for a neighbor!
I do a few for the retirees around me now, I don't take pay, but I won't turn down home made cookies or pie! 

When I'm digging out from snow on a mile long driveway, I just chug over and scrape off their drives too. Once the snow blade is on, an extra half hour won't hurt anything.
Again, I won't turn down hot coffee or Coco!

In times past, when someone got married, they got a lot of jared food, or canned food as wedding gifts, and it wasn't considered poor taste to give old canners & equipment.
It got the couple started, used or not, it still worked, and canners have never been cheap.

The used canner, corn sheller, wash tub was better than no canner, no sheller, no washtub!

One of the reasons I liked my wife (once I got to know her) so much is she canned, cooked, sewed, had an education in being a WIFE.
While I do the heavy lifting, make no mistake, she is MUCH better at making a home than me.
Now women complain there aren't any good men left, but what exactly do they bring to the table?
She can SERIOUSLY manage the household budget, knows as much as me about horticultural/gardening science as me, and blows me away with household chemistry.

And she can, and will work, she wasn't waiting for someone to provide everything and bring home money so she could spend it...
She could do just fine without me, but together we make a formidable team!

I scoured antique shops, junk stores, estate auctions etc for tin canning and glass jars, equipment.
I was up and running canning before I broke ground on the house.
We were just starting to date when one of our 'Dates' was canning, she brought her Presto canner and equipment on a date!
I'll never forget her in a sun dress canning away! What a fully adult and grounded woman!


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## longrider (Jun 16, 2005)

Emergency Preparedness and Wilderness Survival Merit Badges. We lived in an area that saw tornado's close by every years so on our farm "thinking ahead" was required.


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## A.T. Hagan (May 1, 2002)

I was one of the "weird kids" in school. Now, I never thought *I* was weird, but there were certainly a lot of others who did. Didn't start out as a survivalist or prepper at first. I just had a lot of innate curiosity and got loose inside of a library where I was exposed to bad influences that led me astray from the way mainstream America was going.

My grandparents all came up through the Great Depression, worse still were farmers, so they had particular attitudes towards self-reliance. For the most part my parents generation (the Boomers) did not, but still I liked gardening and did a lot of it. When I was in my mid-teens we moved to what I would call "rural suburbia" in that there was plenty of room for gardening, animals, whatever but most of the real agriculture were ranches here and there. Citrus groves were mostly to the southern end of the county. We gardened, kept poultry, pigs, a steer or two, and so on. That area is mostly all houses now 40+ years later.

I'm part of the transition years from Boomers to Gen Xers so I grew up in the mid to late Cold War. Read hard science fiction, watched the movies of the day, tripped over "Soldier of Fortune" while in high school, then later "Survive" after I graduated so survival pretty much anything interested me, but particularly nuclear survival. For those of you who have ever read "Alas Babylon" I lived close enough to the fictional Ft. Repose that I could have walked there in an afternoon (there wasn't really a town there). 

Like so many young people do I did not think through very carefully a lot of what I did or bought, but live and learn. Over the years I threw away a lot of junk, learned to think things through a bit more carefully, came to the realization that "bugging out" would simply make me a well-equipped refugee if I didn't have a definite known-value place to bug out to, then still later came to the realization that it was better by far to actually live in my bug-out retreat and did as soon as we could afford to buy it. 

The only resource that is truly irreplaceable is your time. Given that we each have an unknown, but most definitely finite, amount of it to spend has gradually caused me to stop doing some things that I once thought were important while staying with some other things. It's the transition from simple "prepping" to full-blown "homesteading" where one has to decide what lifestyle choices one wants to make.

Prepping is about learning, not about possessions. I have thrown away more junk over the years than I want to remember. Realized I have made mistakes and had to jettison the wasted effort, but I am the richer for all of it. The choices you made ten years ago may not be the best choice today, or maybe they still are.

I'm still learning. Won't ever stop, I hope. 

You're either learning or you're dying.


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## JeepHammer (May 12, 2015)

Clean food, clean water, a home I built myself, not owing anybody anything, doing for myself with my own hands, making my own power and not contributing to the pollution issues already at hand, like the persistent chemicals in the soil...


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## TheMrs (Jun 11, 2008)

Oh, how I wish I'd had the opportunity to learn all the skills as a child! Instead, I came into adulthood knowing how to do the most basic cooking, absolutely zero sewing, and next to nothing on gardening. My turning point was when we had an ice storm and we lost power. I sat in the recliner holding my 6 week old baby on my chest because our all-electric house was getting cold. Fortunately, we were only without power for a couple of hours, but we know many people that were without power for weeks. My mind started questioning, "What would we do if...?" and I didn't like the flimsy answers that I came up with. Around that same time, someone let my husband borrow the book, One Second After. Everything kind of snowballed after that.


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