Independence Days...Covid 2020 Edition ...

   

   Back in the good old days of 2011, I posted several times on the idea of keeping things stocked up and about a book I was reading by a woman named Sharon Astyk. The name of the book is  INDEPENDENCE DAYS.  As fortune would have it, I was able to take an online class she was holding about food storage and preservation. I am better than a lot of people about this kind of thing, and have been a long time.  But she taught me invaluable things and gave me a new perspective about it all.  Rereading my posts from when I was awash in gardens and chickens has made me almost  melancholy tonight.  But Sharon (with a little prodding from her fan base) has started up the Independence Days challenge again...at a time when many of us are fearful of what the future holds. Of course, some of us have been living this lifestyle all along, and others are looking to learn it.  The "challenge" was to report every week on what you have.been able to do (or not do, in some cases)... 

Plant or Harvest something: Not everyone can garden, but many people can, and many others can forage for local greens or fruit, or be involved in gleaning.

Preserve something: Again, I find preserving is most productive if I try and do a little every day that there is anything, from the first dried raspberry leaves and jarred rhubarb to the last squashes at the end of the season. This category also covers preserving and protecting local resources, community resources, things that would otherwise be destroyed. So it counts when you make jam and counts when you work to keep your local drug counseling service in business despite budget cuts.

Waste not: Reducing food waste, composting everything or feeding it to animals, reducing your use of disposables and creation of garbage, reusing things that would otherwise go to waste, making sure your preserved and stored foods are kept in good shape – all of these count. Also dumpster diving, salvaging and repairing items.

Want Not: Adding to your food storage or stash of goods for emergencies, building up resources that will be useful in the long term. Making yourself more economically secure. Paying down debt, finding new sources of income, reducing expenditures and costs, increasing savings. Also reorganizing so that you waste less or use less or spend less.

Eating the food: It is a running joke among gardeners that it is harder to eat the food than it is to grow it sometimes. Making full and good use of what you have, making sure that you are getting everything you can from your food, trying new recipes and new cooking ideas, eating out of your storage! Also, using up food pantry bounty and other food you don't get to choose. Creative use of leftovers, and helping feed others - everything from little free pantries to sharing with neighbors. We all want to know what you are cooking this week.

Caregiving and enhancing community support systems and mutual aid. This can be formal organizations that already exist or working with your neighbors, or caring for your own family members. This includes fundraising, volunteer work, helping out your neighbors, advocacy for better supports and services, political activism, anything you do to make your community a better place. Whenever you step up to protect and care for those who can't do it for themselves, you are doing incredibly important work. Of course, this includes homeschool, helping out senior and disabled family members, helping out people with kids, etc...

Skill up: What did you learn this week that will help you in the future – could be as simple as fixing the faucet or as hard as building a barn, as simple as a new way of keeping records or as complicated as teaching calculus to your kids. Whatever you are learning, you get a merit badge for it – this is important stuff. It doesn't matter if you'll ever make money at it (although that's good too) if it helps you get along, grow, make our new reality better, you should be proud.

Winter is Coming: Finally, whatever you do to make your home and immediate surroundings better for a long and hard upcoming year or few years. What does your home or your life or your job need to make it viable? How are you going to continue to make your home and religious and cultural and family life worth living? What do you need to improve things for yourselves and your neighbors? What are you doing to get ready if things don't get better, but instead get worse? You don't have to believe we're all doomed to hedge your bets on this one.

Hope you'll join me! You are welcome to share, repost, whatever you like. This is one of those "more fun if more people do it" things.

So, there it is.  I have pulled my book out too (That's the cover photo here), to spend some time looking at what else I might need to do. I am going to try to shore up my food stocks, and not forget that I also have some 4 legged family that needs to eat. My garden areas are unusable right now but I vow to have them back in order by next year.  In the meantime I can buy produce from other gardeners and farmers markets and at least spread my money around to people who can use it.  I also have a healthy stock of canned goods and other items from grocery stores.  

  In spite of what you might think, things have not begun to get rough.  It can get much worse than anything we've seen in our lifetimes. Are you ready ???

  A couple of years after I read this book and took this class, my husband and I were in a one car rollover accident. He is the breadwinner in our family and I was on SS.  He broke a vertebrae in his back and couldn't work for  three and a half months.  No short term disability. The company he works for were great, they let him take his vacation and holiday pay for the year. But there was no other income besides my SS.  Insurance paid for the car and much of the medical bills. It was Memorial Day weekend, so not even halfway through the year. I had already taken some measures (per the class) to cut back some of our expenses. I had food stores in place.  I took a pad and pencil; and went through my freezers and my pantries and made lists of meals I could cook with what I had on hand. In the 3.5 months, I spent exactly $37.43  at the grocery store.  For things like toilet paper and rice and olive oil. By the end of it, Old Mother Hubbard's pantry was pretty bare, but we did not go hungry or do without.  And then I thought-- this.  This is why I do this.  Not because of the Zombie Apocalypse or because I'm a doomsday prepper.  But because things happen.  And we need to be prepared for that.  And now we are in the middle of a global pandemic, which makes these things more important than ever.  Am I as ready as I wish I was ?  Maybe not.  But I have tools and I have guidelines and I have support systems. 

  I am luckier than some.