Prepping « Robin Writes

Last week, I talked about food, water, meds, and storage, so you’re off to a good, basic start. You’ve probably thought of a few other things you might need, too, especially depending on your particular situation.

Let’s start with fuel – how, after all, are you going to cook that food you’ve stored if there’s no electricity? “I have a gas stove,” you might say; that’s fine – but your exhaust fan won’t work and most gas stoves/ovens have an electric start, so you’ll have to light the burner/element. No problem – but you better have a lot of matches in your storage closet!

Alternatives, of course, are wood, charcoal, and propane. Think of it as going camping – and if you have to leave your home, you might very well be camping! You can stock up on all three of these, depending on where you live and the resources at hand.

For instance, we have about 30 trees in our yard and a very nice wood lot. Plus, we have a propane grill, two firepits, and a gas grill we converted to charcoal. If we had to leave, of course we couldn’t take it all – but we also have a place to go that has plenty of trees. The odds of having to go on the run, immediately, are probably pretty small, so we’re in a nice spot at the moment.

Start your own woodpile, covered, hidden, whatever you think best. If you don’t have access to fallen limbs and trees, go buy some a little at a time or find a place that you can, with permission, cut your own. Pick up some charcoal, especially when it’s on sale, and put that in your closet/garage/shed. Propane can be stored, too, but make darn sure you go about it in as safe a manner as possible. Won’t do you any good if it blows your supplies (and maybe you!) to kingdom come…

Back to those matches – yes, you need a supply. Waterproof is good, but of course you wouldn’t need to use those all the time. Get some of both. Small, easy to store, you can’t have too many. And fire starters (unless you’re very accomplished at striking rocks together or rubbing two sticks for a spark) – dryer lint is easy enough to stuff into a baggie and takes up very little space. If you use glass jars for food storage, the baggies of lint can double as a cushion when you pack up. Candle ends work well, too – an old Girl Scout trick. Wrap them in a little wax paper, twist both ends, and you have a great fire starter.

When it comes to cooking, we seem to have a collective mindset that tells us that more food is good; but in a SHTF situation, it’s not. First, you want to conserve your resources. There may come a time when there isn’t enough food to even fill you up, so you better prepare your stomach to deal with less. That also means not stuffing yourself into a food coma. You want to be able to move fast if you have to, and be alert, not sluggish.

Plus, there are bound to be leftovers – how are you going to store them? You certainly aren’t going to throw them away. Refrigeration will be at a minimum, so you’ll have to eat what you cook at the time. You’re going to have to learn to cook less food. Go check out the US food pyramid – if we followed that, especially in the meat department, we’d probably all be a lot healthier anyway.

And to survive, you have to be healthy. Plan a well-rounded food cache so you can get all the nutrients your body needs. Start now, don’t wait. Start scaling down a little – most people can stand to lose a few pounds at least, and it’s good training. Less is more, just make sure that your food is packed with vitamins and protein. Many people are better qualified than I to advise you on this, look around the Web a bit.

The last thing I’m going to cover today is rather personalized: miscellaneous items. These are things like baby supplies, pet supplies, your own specific needs and wants. If there’s something you can’t live without, stock up now. For me, it’s orange cappuccino, and yes, I have a supply at hand – obviously, I’ll eventually need to give it up as it simply won’t be manufactured anymore, but for now…

Think about all the items you use in a day’s time, and buy some extra next time you go shopping. Certain things will wear out, like socks and underwear, and if you have small children, their diaper sizes are going to change. Keep all this in mind.

For example:

You get up, you drink COFFEE. You use the BATHROOM. You throw in a load of LAUNDRY. You cook BREAKFAST. And so on and on, throughout the day. What products do you use? Can you do without? Can you make them yourself, or a reasonable facsimile? Make a list. Make another list. Start getting ready for… whatever.

Yesterday, I talked about REDUCED. So, did you read it yet? Huh? Didja? Sorry, I tend to get a little carried away sometimes.

Probably because of that post, and the follow-up I have today, my sleep was plagued with a few strange dreams. Nothing new there, especially a couple of recurring ones, like the one where I’m in a house and must escape; only I know where, in the ceiling of a closet, the escape hatch is located. Okay, maybe not a hatch, that’s so science fictiony, but you know the openings for attics? Yeah, kind of like a hatch, not a door, not just an opening. So anyway, it’s small, and I have to go out that way; it’s the only route to freedom.

Yeah, odd. I have that one a lot.

And last night, after the usual dream, I had another: we, and I’m not sure who was there besides me, were in a house and we were packing up to leave in a hurry. The bad guys – no idea who – were coming, and I was throwing stuff in a couple bug-out bags, all the essentials. And then, just as we were about to leave and cross an open area to a brick garage-type building, the bad guys blew up that garage.

Crap. We had more “stuff” over there and were planning to grab it too. Oddly enough, the blast didn’t much effect the house we were in, except for a little shaking… I think that’s when I woke up.

So, naturally, I have more fodder for the third book in the trilogy – hmm, should a trilogy have a name? Which brings me to my subject: REUSED.

Once you’ve finished REDUCED, you should really read REUSED. Why? Because you want to find out what happens AFTER – you know, to Abby and Juliet and… but no, not gonna give away THAT part!

Here’s the gist of it:

“Colonel Barton has been replaced, and the new commander is sending his henchman, Major Blake, to scour the outlying areas and remove any insurgents. Abby and the girls have remained in the cave at the camp, relatively safe for now, but plans are underway to eliminate all of them… for personal reasons, known only to the commander himself.

“Soon, however, worlds will collide as Captain Alison Hinson is transferred in from Chicago. In spite of her background, Alison is horrified by the tactics of her superiors in the field and begins to question her own stance on the new government. As she puts together the pieces of the past, she realizes that she and Abby are kindred spirits, faced with a mission not of their own choosing but of circumstance.

“Across the country, while officials and mercenaries live the high life, the citizenry are faced with more sanctions, more regulation, and fewer necessities. Pockets of rebellion are quickly quelled, but incidents continue to increase as more people make the decision to go underground. Literally.

“From abandoned caves below St. Louis itself to a subterranean river winding north into Illinois, REUSED will tell you more, perhaps, than you truly wish to know about the potential for the utter collapse of our civilization.”

So, yes, it’s a continuation. Sequel, remember? And it starts ten years after the “event,” when Abby and Juliet come out of hiding. They’ve been relatively undisturbed for quite some time, but now the choppers are back. And circling. And it’s time for Juliet to maybe see the world, see what’s left and, indeed, see WHO is still in the area. If anyone’s there at all.

This time, they’re heading north, across the river, to a place Abby remembers from a long time ago. Best to remain in a familiar locale, so you can better note the differences and dangers. Keep this in mind if, you know, “fiction or prediction,” and you have to bug out somewhere. If you’re in a metro area, say, back East, you shouldn’t automatically flee to oh, Montana, if you have no clue what’s there.

Of course, based on the synopsis above, you know that Abby finds at least one other person: Alison. And at some point, yes, they go into the city of St. Louis and yes, there really ARE caves beneath it. More than anyone probably really knows.

Every location in my books is a real place – building, park, street. Some, of course, have had their specific names changed. You know, lawsuits and such. Even distances, travel time, and so forth are accurate. I could almost say that, if SHTF happens, this would be a pretty good plan of action.

I suppose that’s up to you, my readers, to decide. I’d really like your opinion, so that’s why, when you’re finished with REDUCED, you should follow up by reading REUSED.

Heh. See how I did that?

But seriously, it’s a good book too – better than the first, so I’m told… And really, you DO wanna know what happens next, right?