Prep Monday—What’s Happening in September?


If you follow any kind of prepper sites or individuals, you might be wondering what the big deal is about next month. To be truthful, I don’t know.

There are generally two schools of thought about all the significant events that are taking place in September:

1. Business as usual and all the crackpots are predicting doom and gloom.

2. Doom and gloom are heading our direction and SHTF is imminent.

Me, I’m on the fence.

On the one hand, you might think all the events are perfectly fine, the government is simply taking care of us, and nothing very significant will change. Besides, the media isn’t talking about September . . .

On the other hand, the government’s job isn’t to “take care of us,” not like this, and the non-mainstream media IS talking about it. Of course, a lot of people refer to them as nutjobs, and honestly, some of them are a few sandwiches short of a picnic. And, too, we all know about mainstream media; they’re more interested in the Kardashians, et al, than actual news.

So let’s look at a “what if” scenario, but first, Google “September 2015” in quotes, just like I wrote it. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

 

A lot of information, yes? I don’t expect you to have read it all, or even a fraction. You should, of course, always consider the source and the probability, but really—this isn’t something to mess around with.

It’s just about a month away now that Jade Helm 15 will come to an end. Then what? Some have predicted or are expecting military maneuvers, some have chosen the date of September 15 to be the culmination of all the events of that month, and others believe that things will only begin to go downhill at that time, but rapidly get worse.

Again, I’m on the fence.

I think it’s perfectly possible. Probable? I don’t know. And therein lies my dilemma.

Any prepper worth his weight in supplies is ready or getting there. Me, I’ve stepped up my game. I have a hundred potential scenarios playing in my head, and I need to get a grip and detail the plans for perhaps 2-3 of them.

We have a place. We have supplies. We have transport and routes.

We also have a kid who just started his senior year.

If I had my druthers, I’d be packing and moving over the next couple weeks. But I can’t. The biggest issue, of course, is getting out when you need to, if you need to. Will it be possible? I sincerely hope so.

In the meantime, we’re getting organized. As I said, we have a place and we have supplies there. We have some duplicates as far as clothing or household items and such, but very little because we’d rather spend our money on things we don’t have and need, rather than more things we already have. You follow? Okay.

It’s almost time to pack up the summer clothes anyway, but not quite; so you might see us out and about in the same clothes for the next few weeks. You might notice fewer pictures and things around our house; maybe even less furniture. I hadn’t planned to move these things until we had the exact place to put them in the new house, to save moving things twice, but I’m beginning to rethink that plan.

So, well, you might think I’m nuts. Maybe I am. Some days I feel like it! But, everyone has to do whatever they think is best. If a hurricane were out in the Gulf—and I lived there—I’d be prepping for a “just in case,” right? Might look funny to those who didn’t know about the hurricane, or to those who expected the government to take care of them if something went south, but . . . might not be so funny in the aftermath.

 

Work Wednesday—It Never Ends!


No, no it does not.

Every time we turn around, we find something else that needs to be done. Now, if we hadn’t bought a place that was previously lived-in, things would be different. Not necessarily easier, but different.

We’ve had to clean up and clean out everything that the seller left here, which was a lot. And I can’t emphasize “a lot” enough times to make anyone comprehend, so let’s just say that emptying the house alone took three 10-hour days with three people working. And it’s just 900 square feet.

Now that I think about it, when we first moved to Texas, we rented a 900 square foot house. There were two adults, three kids, and a large dog. Yikes! And I think they counted the garage in the final number!

Anyway, we also had to clean out the barn, 40 X 60, and the yard around the house, the garden area, the pasture, etc., etc. Thank heavens a couple neighbors offered to take down and salvage the old house, or it would still be sitting here too.

Today, my husband worked on both sides of the road near the garden. Tons of junk: more of those infernal air mattresses, wire fence sections, planter boxes, metal and plastic containers and buckets, and of course, rocks. Lots of rocks.

Nothing that we haven’t already picked up everywhere else. Well, except for the snake eggs:

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In other news, we’ve been washing newly acquired boats, putting together a little grill, power washing the house and decks, putting up drywall, skim-coating old drywall, sanding, and maybe—with a little luck—starting to paint. Finally! Oh, and we painted the ceiling too. Amazing. I think it was white at one point, and now it is again!

Oh yeah—forgot the dodging snakes bit. No, not the eggs, those were black snake eggs. I meant the copperhead that greeted my husband on the deck this morning when he reached for a can of bug spray:

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Thankfully, this week there were no surprises—except the rain that finally came, along with strobe-light lightning, all night. And it was a long night, between the puppy ruffing at every noise and the dog trying to get under our bed (an air mattress!). Oy.

So far, anyway, we’ve missed the snakes…