Are we entering of a new era?
This week's question from @ecotrain is What can you do to prepare yourself for indefinite lockdowns without having to leave your home or move location?
This question depends so much on location and situation that it will make for a number of very different answers! It should be really exciting to read. Thanks @eco-alex for another awesome exercise!
smaller every time some new covid-19 development is uncovered?
This is the dilemma, whether we're being fed complete bull shit to generate fear into the masses or not, our world's rules and regulations seem to be taking on a bit of a different face. With more and more restrictions coming into existence everyday, we must ask ourselves if our freedom is at risk.
One scenario I can see taking shape could seriously restrict our ability to move through our environment, for many years to come, until everyone has taken a vaccine. Be it the inability to enter the markets, renew a driver's license or get health insurance without a covid pass, it will be up to us to find the loop holes. It will be up to us to build an underground railroad. Perhaps it is too dark of a path to imagine ever happening in a place like the US, but if it does we want to be prepared.
Prepping for an age of darkness doesn't mean we have to live in fear... There is always a light somewhere!
Here's what we are doing:
(Little disclaimer: We felt something coming for a long time and moved into the country side some three years ago to build a community, and learn to live off the land, with little resource from the outside world, to get out of the rat race, and have the skills needed in case an economic crises were to happen... and here we are, still not entirely ready for what's to come! We spend the winters off the property and rent a small home.)
- Build community
- Grow our own food
- Make our own ferments
- Learn to can
- Bake our own bread
- Meditate
- Do yoga
- Exercise
- Play
- Read
- Make art
- Watch the tube
- Grow herbs
- Create our own medicines
- Make a seed bank
- Cut unhealthy habits
- Be adaptable
But most of all we don't let ourselves fall into the trap of living in fear. We stay informed to what the masses are being fed, because in the end we still need the systems for some inputs... but we don't dwell on things that are out of our control. While the shelves in the stores are still being replenished we are still shopping, but we do it consciously and with a prepper kind of mind. We only buy what we want to eat, making it so that eventually we shouldn't really have to shop but in a blue moon.
I have been collecting duck fat for example, and we have a local farmer that sells us raw butter, I am also looking for hunters who are willing to give us their bear fat the day they harvest a bear... Eventually I would like to stop having to buy cooking oil. The more local and the more wild it is, the better! We're doing something similar with sugar, replacing refined sugars with local honey and maple syrup.
I know these aren't quite things that people can do in large cities, but I write to inspire you to do what you can.
Learning to make bread, we also learned how to make our own levin (sour dough starter). But for this you'll still need to get your hands on flour... thers's one input needed from the outside world.
And here's our lettuce growing in a small corner of the apartment we're in... We used a method called Kratky, once you mix all the ingredients together is a passive hydroponic system! Once again materials have to be bought outside the home but you could very well do the same thing in dirt pots.
As we have already started cutting ties to the dependence we all have on the system, we know a few things but there is so much more to learn. If the last lock down taught us anything, it is that we all depend way too much on world wide imports for our food and medicine.
Here's our little pantry full of mostly what we collected in 2020... wild mushrooms, herbs, seeds, flours, grains and more!
Wherever you are in the world, a big city, or in the middle of nowhere, find your neighbors, get to know them and create your underground railroad. Even if we get to a point where currencies become restricted, you can find a way to barter with your community. Fortunately there' will always be a black market of some sorts and we will have to learn how to use it if we want to adapt to this new world while still living our lives on our own terms!
