reused « Robin Writes

This week, I’m going to tell you how it all started and why some people think I’m a prepper. Am I? Maybe…

I grew up on a farm. My great-great-great grandfather started that farm in 1850. We lived there from the time I was born until I was three, then again when I was 13 until I left for college. My earliest memories are playing in the yard around the old farmhouse, washhouse, smokehouse, and in and out of the barns and chicken coop.

Those of you who are wondering about that last, well, my abject fear of birds came later, when I was about six or seven!

My great-grandfather was still farming in the late 1960s and I followed him around the garden and played with his pet squirrel, Curly. My dad took over in the 70s and that’s when the Monsanto connection began. Keep in mind, please, before you shut your browser and delete me from your friends’ lists, this was before the average person – including many farmers – knew about GMOs and what they did.

Growing up, I loved being outside. I camped and rode our horses, hiked, explored. And I was very interested in history and the “old days.” If I’d had a time machine, I would have gone back, not forward.

I’ve been writing for years, and kept saying I was going to write a book. Someday. No one ever discouraged me, and in fact kept telling me to it – now! So, finally, the book that had to be written was started and finished last year. REDUCED came out in late August 2012. REUSED followed in mid-December, and RECYCLED will be released next week.

Three books in one year – I don’t recommend it!

The basic premise of REDUCED is “what if.” “What if” one of these government screws we read about on an almost daily basis reduced the population to nearly unsustainable levels? “What if” everyone had to start over – no electric, no Internet, communications towers inoperable? A lot of people think this could happen, regardless of the catalyst, and the more I read, the more intrigued I became.

As an old Girl Scout, I know the value of “be prepared” so I started doing a little preparing myself. Just a little. I’m not a fanatic or anything, although I do apparently have a crazy cousin who’s planning to gather people to move to Oklahoma at some point.

Anyway, I do some prepping, sure. And the characters in my books did, too. And after it all went down, they had to scramble a bit to survive – although it helps when the competition for supplies has been, er, reduced!

My characters heard about something going down, soon, but there was no announcement, no emergency sirens, nothing like that. And they were ready, for… well, they didn’t really know how bad it was going to be. And they spent the next ten years or so surviving. And fighting back. But, when it’s all over, for the most part, this decade-long crisis, it’s time to buckle down and go back in time and start over. And no, I’m not talking about time travel – back to pioneer days, homesteads, and again, surviving.

Essentially, bartering and trading mean the same thing when used in the same context, which is to say that they constitute the exchange of goods or services for something other than what we know as “money.”

In a collapse situation, money may become obsolete. Oh, probably not immediately, although your access to cash could be limited and check and debit cards may go the way of the dodo when the grid goes down. It’s always a good idea to have a certain amount of cash on hand, nearby in a safe place. Just in case.

It has been suggested that one stock up on a certain product that will in demand and/or acquire a specific skill or skill set that could be useful in trade, as when SHTF, this could be vitally important. For example, if you are a hunter, you could have extra meat to trade for vegetables from those who garden or gather. You put your skill, and its results, to use as a trade.

Or you could stockpile a certain commodity, such as matches. Small, cheap, portable, easy to store. Or aspirin. Or dried milk. When it comes to goods, plan on the aforementioned attributes.

In my upcoming release, RECYCLED, a system like this is implemented on a more formal basis in an area of St. Louis which is being rebuilt by a group of survivors. They, however, ten years or so after SHTF, do not have stockpiles of goods but instead have salvaged items from those who disappeared – or died – in the fallout from VADER.

That, of course, is an alternative. Scrounging and salvaging from others who have bugged out or disappeared or didn’t make it. Not looting, not stealing, but surviving. But you won’t know who or what they left behind until much, much later, so it’s optimal, as always, to plan ahead.

What is your skill? What can you stockpile or produce when SHTF?