Podcast #144: Preparedness Worksheets

Tammy:  Hi everyone, we’ve got a lot of feedback. Here we go, that's a little better, I hope you guys are all doing good today. It is a gorgeous day here in Northern Idaho, we are finally getting some sunshine I just got back from a five mile bike ride along the lake and I feel very blessed to be able to do that, it’s not a common event for me but my Mountain man and the Mountain boy are working this summer up here along the lake so I have the privilege to get out and get a little exercise in a different set of scenery and it is just beyond gorgeous I had a bald eagle take flight five feet away from me this morning it was quite something. Just love it out here, love our wildlife and just love the peace in the tranquility that comes with just living in the middle of nowhere.  But I want to jump on today, we are talking about preparedness and preparedness is something that is very broad really on there's a lot of aspects to preparedness and you know you've got people referring to themselves as preppers and people referring to themselves as homesteaders and quite honestly we fit the mold of both of those but we prefer to look at it this way that for us it's a lifestyle of preparedness.

Everything we do on a day to day basis is something that's going to initially and completely put us ahead of the game for our future. So whether it's canning food and putting food on our shelves, whether it's building a structure for firewood or fording firewood; whatever the case may be-every day we work and put effort forth in our preparedness efforts. For some people whether that is something that's hard to attain or perceive in your mind on how you can be prepared in every aspect of your life and can also be overwhelming. So before we get started today, I want to encourage you to go to our website at trayerwilderness.com that's T-R-A-Y-E-Rwilderness.com and subscribe to our newsletter in doing so you will receive a bunch of free preparedness worksheets as a handout and a free piece of knowledge from us. We really feel it's important to embrace the preparedness lifestyle and for those of you that struggle with it, it should be a great help in starting to help you wrap your mind around all aspects of your life and where preparedness plays a role. As we've progressed weekly on the podcasts you'll gain more and more knowledge on how you can be prepared in everything in your life and in a day to day basis.

The preparedness work sheets include things like a food storage worksheet, medical supply work sheet, essential oil work sheet, herbal pantry work sheet, as well as budgeting and budgeting you know that may throw people off but that's a huge, huge, aspect to preparedness in that you are preparing for your future you are being good stewards of your money and you're also in able to budget things in there to get your preparedness lifestyle and you're prepared needs in check without going over your budget and without putting yourself in debt. So I think these things all go hand in hand and that is why we've created these worksheets; there's other worksheets in there, there are just a few that I've mentioned but it will certainly get you off to a great start. Additionally in the handouts you also find a sheet for recording your medical emergency numbers like we spoke about last week and putting plans in place depending on your needs and your location.

So we're going to branch out and talk about some of the things that you could just simply start preparing for and something would be real simple would be just the power going out. now we don't typically have to worry about that we've had–we've been off grid for seven years and have only been really–have never been without power but we were without power from the sun twice. Once was due to a breaker and once was because a Deer had gone through the yard and caught a wire on our solar. So in essence we are all set and always have power one way or the other whether it's through the sun or whether it's through our generator. But for you folks being on the grid you do run into the situation where you do lose power and when that happens the question I have for you today is are you prepared? You know lights go out, power goes out, do you have backup lighting? You know–so these preparedness work sheets will be really helpful that you can sit down with your family and make a list of all the things you need. I also find that there's a lot of families that struggle with getting the family on board when it comes to preparedness and that will be a whole podcast by itself. But what I wanted to mention is that on a power outage or even if your car breaks down somewhere-because honestly we have the same things available in our home and in our vehicles to keep us well set if something were to happen so we're always equipped but a lot of people aren't. So those two situations can be very helpful in helping other family members to come on board when they go through these situations especially if you are not well prepared when it hits because you will be lacking the things you need and everybody starts to panic when their creature comforts are gone especially when things like lighting and heat and water you know are a struggle those things are the most important things and if you're without them that really makes a bad situation even worse.

So this is where I want you to sit down today with your family or even you know if you're driving right now listen to this just ponder the different things that you have on hand. You know I've run into some friends who you know they were are very well stocked, they run a very tight ship and they keep things very organized and they thought they had candles and were in a situation where the power went out and they were without candles and without the lighting that they thought they had because they didn't restock. So that can happen too so it's a matter of being sure you have your sentinels but also being sure that you keep them well stocked as you go. So it's really important just like with your food that when you empty something you replenish it so sit down and figure out the things you would need if the power went out say for a three day period. So you would need lighting, okay, you would need a way to feed your family so whether it's out of cans or out of boxes or freeze dried food, you need to make sure you have that available. If it's out cans you need to make sure you have a can opener. In addition to the lighting-and one thing I highly recommend is head lamps. We live by head lamps they're just so useful, we also do lanterns and flashlights and solar lights we have a lot of different forms of backup and I know I've mentioned it in other podcasts and in varying things that we do but we typically have three backups for our most essential items if not more but always three just because things fail. So it's important to have those things available. So think out of the box, think about the different things that you need and different forms of lighting that you would like to have but a head lamp or something I highly recommend-these solar lighting is really awesome as well and those last a very long time you can also get them that they have if there isn't solar sun available to recharge it that you can hand crank them. So those are some great items to have available to you as well as just simple matches and candles are a great backup as well. So keep that all in mind if you have lanterns always make sure that you have extra lantern oil you want to make sure that you have blankets and excess blankets because if you're in an apartment or something in the power goes out, that means your heat is going also and typically in an apartment you don't always have backup resources for heat, that's something that you want to consider is if you are in these situations you know what kind of backup heating could you provide for yourself. There's little Mister heaters that are available to use with a little propane tank that you can use from your grill, there are kerosene heaters available. For us we are 100% wood heat so you know throwing a piece of wood into the wood stove is not a problem because we are planned very far ahead with our firewood and try to have multiple years of firewood available on our homes that at all times. So you know you always need to be certain that you have backup measures for all of your needs.

Now when the power goes out you're also going to lose your water, unless you have a water pump outside a hand pump which we will have this summer, you know you will need water. So having backup cases of water bottles, having water jugs on hand when you–if you know that there's a storm coming or you know that there's something on its way whether it's a tornado or hurricane or whatever you can always fill your bath tub with water and fill your sinks with water so you have excess water at least to flush the toilets and for hygiene but drinking water is huge-your body needs water and you will quickly be hydrate. So it's really important to always have extra water around, even if you're in an apartment a lot of people struggle with storage and places to put things but water bottles and cases of water bottles can be stuck in the bottom of closets, under beds, you know so do consider those things. If you have animals you need to consider their needs as well, if you have any family members on medications or if they're on certain medical machines you know there's a situation where you may need a generator because this situation requires that you have power running even when the power's out. So you've really got to consider all these things and really try to make a good list of all your needs so that you're prepared and you go through and make sure you have all these things available to you-because like I said if you are in the situation and you find out that you don't have all your–the things you need you will certainly learn very quickly what you will need. But planning ahead is important and trying to have as much as you can available to yourself and your family for these situations is really, really, important backup means of cooking whether it's a grill or a camping stove or even just a little burner you can get all kinds of different units there's rocket stove, there's all kinds of survival gear that you can pack on out for camping that you could easily use so you've got to consider all these things. How are you going to handle a three day power outage? How are you going to feed your family? How are you going to take care of one another? and what are your medical needs? What things do you need to have available if there is any kind of a medical situation?

So covering these things and thinking about these things and discussing these things are really important. The other thing too is if you are in an apartment and say you have an elevator to your apartment, you know be–if you're not healthy enough to use stairs, what are your options because if the power goes out the elevators are going to go out so you'll be stuck on your floor, so you really got to think about all the things that could apply to you and how you need to work around them. That's how we live, we live thinking about everything and what our needs will be just like I said our vehicles are jam packed with everything that we need. If our car broke down and we were miles and miles back in how we would get around how we would survive, what our needs would be they’re all covered. So we take things to an extreme but there's a reason for that because we're kind of in an extreme location it’s very vast out here and if we were to get stuck somewhere we would be really far away from civilization. So it's important to really, really, think of all your needs all the time and not just yourself but your other family members, your children, your animals. You know all those things apply so I'm trying to create a process in you where you start really thinking of all areas of–and needs you have in all areas of your life.

So we were going to talk about natural disasters, so I chose a power outage which could occur from a hurricane, a tornado-I saw on the electrical lines many things could happen but what you need to really sit down and think about what your needs are in your particular location; what are your needs? And start writing them down and then start stocking up on these things. And as I mentioned, budgeting this is really important as you are stocking up on these things there's absolutely no reason why you can't go to the store and purchase the things that are available on sale versus something else you can budget based on your availability of cash and start stocking up accordingly. It's really not necessary to go in debt trying to get all these things and to start being prepared but it is important to make a list and start formulating it and start budgeting into your monthly routine and your schedule because it is really important to have the things you need on hand at all times and to really be prepared for all situations that could happen on your homestead or at your home or in your apartment. So I encourage you to go to our website and subscribe to our newsletter for those of you that are traveling while you're listening you could simply go to trayerwilderness.com/newsletter and subscribe and you'll receive a separate e-mail with the download available to you.

So I'm going to jump off of here today, those were my quick tips for today start focusing on your preparedness and we will continue with the education every Friday. I know that when we started I said they would be every Wednesday but you can look for the podcast on every Friday, every Monday there will be a new blog post on our website, every Wednesday there will be a new YouTube video on our YouTube channel and every Friday you can find our podcast on iTunes, stitcher and on our website it's archived and additionally you'll find a new newsletter every Sunday sharing tips and titbits as well as what we've been sharing on our blog and so forth. So  I'm really grateful that you joined us today and I'm really happy to have you and just thanks so much have a great week and I will see you next Friday God bless.