Gunner Quinn
(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)
Our first home had a gas forced air furnace and a wood fire place. I had a natural gas ventless heater installed in our basement. A few days after our daughter was born, we had another major storm and power outage. With a two year old and a new born we decided to bug out to her dad’s house until our power came back on. Before we left, I turned the ventless heater on low and left the basement door cracked open. When our power came back on just shy of 72 hours later, our house was still 55 degrees in the dead of winter.
Over the years the emergency bags I insisted be in each vehicle have proven wise and useful. Whether it was used for an emergency poncho at a sporting event, or for its first aid kit, everyone always knew to check those bags. For one of my birthdays, my wife asked me what gun I wanted. I was really thinking about a Barrett .50 caliber at the time, she asked how much it would cost, I told her, and she said: “Go buy it.” (See, she is a keeper.) I really wanted that rifle but it was a want not a need. I told my wife that I really appreciated the present but I think there was something more practical to do with the money. Freeze-dried and dehydrated food in number 10 cans was probably the last thing she would have thought I would say. She was shocked that I would give up my “dream gun” for “camping” food.
When Covid started she asked if that food was still any good. Being employed in disaster preparedness and response, I knew COVID was going to be an issue long before those suffering normalcy bias realized it. The Friday that the Pennsylvania Governor announced “lockdowns” we found ourselves in a lawyer’s office doing the closing paperwork on our house that we had just thankfully sold.
The lockdown was all the talk. Everyone regurgitated that “it is just for two weeks to lower the curve.” I was laughing, my wife asked when I thought she would go but to work. My answer was not until the end of the year and that was the best case scenario. Now she was laughing. The next day, Saturday, I went to Tractor Supply to buy chicks and a small prefab coop. My wife was not happy. I told her it was a perfect time to buy the chicks since she and the kids would be home all day and they would be “therapeutic”. Not one of our chicks died, which I thought was pretty good.
As that two-week lockdown turned into months and then soft lockdowns for several more months, my wife realized that our family was prepared and that perhaps I had a clue about disasters. We did not rush out and buy toilet paper or anything else. Okay, maybe chicks. As we have made improvements to our “homestead” she knows that we will have food and it will not cost us an arm and a leg either. Cows in the field, pigs in the barn, chickens running around, fruit trees, and a large garden help us combat inflation and scarcity due to supply chain issues. We are not paying $7 for a dozen eggs here. So over the years, what was being tolerant, materialized into understanding of the big picture, that is prepping was not a hobby but insurance to help insure our family’s health and safety.
A Store of Knowledge
Since I started prepping long before the public Internet, books were very important. Over the years I have assembled quite the survival and homesteading library. I have classics like Bruce Clayton’s “LIFE AFTER DOOMSDAY”, Cresson Kearny’s “NUCLEAR WAR SURVIVAL SKILLS” to Glasstone’s and Dolan’s “THE EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS”, a complete set of the FOXFIRE series and numerous titles from the once great publisher of survival books, Paladin Press. I have many newer survival books. These include the James Rawles books “HOW TO SURVIVE THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT” (given to me by the late Dr. Peter Pry), “TOOLS FOR SURVIVAL”, and “THE ULTIMATE PREPPER’S SURVIVAL GUIDE”.
Besides strictly prepper books, I have gathered an impressive section of medical books, including an early 1900s book on surgery. Books on homesteading and self-sufficiency also take up several shelves. With the rise of the Internet my library contains guides and cheat sheets printed off and put into three-ring binders. And finally, there is my “Dad’s Books of Apocalyptic Knowledge”. I was showing my daughter the books and all the information in them and she gave them their name. What are in these books? These books are about 9×6 journals that I either write or paste useful information in. For example, I have a way to make “Hardtack” written down. I have a small drawing of how to set up lab glass for distillation.
I also have printed off photographs of projects or items that I have seen on the Internet and pasted them into these books. Why just a photograph? Because a picture is worth a thousand words. If I ever want to make a “butter worker” (look it up) I can do it from just looking at the photo. Think of these books like a prepper’s scrapbook. Knowledge is so useful and without the Internet or electronic devices books will be the default storage and retrieval method for knowledge.
Patience
“Rome was not built in a day” and neither will be your preparedness measures. Rushing out and buying “everything” you need, learning everything you need and building everything you need will cause two things: “burnout” and debt. Being methodical and setting goals is a much better strategy. I am thankful that I took the “slow and steady” pace (for the most part) strategy. That strategy was a box of ammunition here, a 50-pound bag of rice there.
There were a few occasions where bigger purchases were done but those instances were a long-term save up for purchase or they were a here is a great deal, use part of the “mad money”. For example, when my brother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, he started selling his personal property to lessen the burden on his daughter on settling his estate. He offered me his silver at spot with no premium. I was not in the market to buy any silver at the time but that was a good deal and it made my brother happy to know he helped me out too.
There are also occasions when I get a text or e-mail from someone I know asking if I am interested in “X”. In the past month “X” has been two older wringer washers, a treadle sewing machine, and some blacksmithing items. Being patient allows me time to find those good deals.
A Jack of all trades
I have, for the most part, been a life-long learner. This learning was not always formal education or even a “course”. Learning does not have to be in a classroom or in any formal setting. For instance, just the other day I went over to one of the local dairy farms to pay for a heifer calf. While there, I chatted with one of the owners who has worked on dairy farms his whole life. Asking a simple question about feed or weaning from this man is an education.
Even at work, I would take a course that I had already taken. I was accused of “just wanting to get out of work” but in reality, curriculum changes. Sometimes for the good and sometimes not. I wanted to know what my employees were being taught. Re-taking a course is also a great refresher, and when you are in a classroom with different people you get different perspectives and experiences. Education/training dovetails into those post-apocalyptic “hobbies” or skill sets, too.
I really like visiting the living history museums like Colonial Williamsburg, and Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village. Many communities have small venues or yearly fairs with living history demonstration like blacksmithing, threshing, barrel making and other lost skills. These are great places to learn. So with a little education and some good resources from my survival library I can tackle a lot of projects around the homestead. I installed the wire and electrical outlets in our pole barn and livestock barn. (I do not connect to the actual breaker box, however.) I have repaired cement floors in the barn, built a outdoor brick wood-fired pizza/bread oven, built sheds, lean-toos, feeding troughs for cattle, and on and on.
After TEOTWAWKI, having a diverse skill set will be paramount. For those who read my article about what I wish I could do over, one of the items was more training. It is not conflicting that education and training end up on both my lists. Even though I am thankful for the amount of training and education I have had, I still wish I could do more.
The will to act
One of my favorite military quotes is from General Patton, who said “You might do the right thing, or you might do the wrong thing, but damn it do something.” In my life, I have seen a lot of instances where people do nothing for fear of failing. These were often political leaders or people in appointed government positions. Do not paralyze yourself into doing nothing for fear of doing it wrong. People forget that this is how we really learn. Yes, sometimes mistakes cost time and/or money but the education is worth it.
My first try at growing potatoes was a complete failure. That was a shock to me since I was told “anyone” can grow potatoes. So I tried again and again until I got a crop of potatoes. If I was discouraged by my failures or I had never planted potatoes for fear of failure I would not have one the most best survival foods stocked away and able to be regrown. Just try.
Keeping a positive attitude
I laugh when I hear people tell preppers they are pessimistic. Really? So many non-preppers will say if there is a nuclear war “they don’t want to live after it anyway” but the prepper who says I can survive a thermonuclear war is the pessimist? The thought is that preppers consider bad things happening that somehow that makes us pessimistic. In reality, preppers of optimist. We believe that recognizing threats and taking steps to lessen the impacts that we can survive bad times. If considering bad things and taking steps to lessen the impacts of bad things makes you a pessimist everybody who buys Insurance would be a pessimist. Keeping a good attitude and not listening to lazy non-preppers is a must.
Homesteading Mode
It took a while, but we finally made the shift into homesteading as part of our survival preparedness efforts. It is not easy. Saving the funds to buy property, planting an orchard and garden, raising various animals for food, and building infrastructure that works off-grid is hard work. But when eggs are selling for $9 a dozen and beef prices are sky high, that hard work pays off very big dividends.
Originally, we bought our bug-out location/homestead as our retirement home. But, fortunately, we decided to move before retirement and that has allowed us to make more improvements and to save money (our homestead was a fraction of the cost of our home in the city and the taxes a much lower by thousands of dollars). With my demanding career I didn’t think I could move out of the city before I retired and make it work but as the old saying goes “where there is a will, there is a way.”
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