Why Our Family Prepares for Emergencies

Have we explained why we store food, garden, and work to increase our know-how on all things disaster and survival? No? Ok, here goes MY point of view:

First, the easy one: We garden because we love it! Seeing a little seed change to a big food-producing plant. Tasting a real tomato that ripens on the vine. Pulling a green stem attached to a long beautiful orange carrot. Guiding long, winding pumpkin vines across the back yard. Chasing birds away from the sunflowers. Yes, those reasons, plus gardening to produce healthy uncontaminated food for us for months and months.

Second, we store food because, as individuals in this family, we've known scarcity. It's hard looking in for a can of fruit for your hungry child, or going to a food bank for a couple loaves of bread and rotting fruit. Never again. We store food to make sure we can always have healthy balanced meals and never go without.

Third, we work to increase our knowledge of all-things disaster preparedness because we live in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Example: Hubby and I got engaged Thanksgiving 2006, and planned to spend Christmas together at his home, an hour away from mine. Several hours before Hubby planned to drive down to pick us (me and Son) up, he called my cell phone and said that a blizzard was headed our way. He wanted to come down NOW to get us. We rushed to pack as he headed our way. By the time he picked us up and we headed for Denver, snow had begun to swirl around us. Heavier and heavier. We barely got to his apartment. We unloaded our stuff and settled in. We woke the next morning to snow drifts and a city stopped in its tracks. Unfortunately, Hubby hadn't stocked up any food, so we trudged across the street several times over the next week to gather eats and firewood. When the power went out, we lit candles and logs in the fireplace. Drank hot tea and talked about the wedding and our future together.

We didn't have anything for Christmas dinner, so we bundled up and got in the 4-wheel drive Ford to search out a restaurant. Search. Search. Finally, after driving through for an hour through a closed-down city filled with tall snow drifts, we found an I-HOP that was actually open. (No, not even McDonalds!).

We didn't let the lack of supplies bother us then (throes of new love and all that), but not being stocked up hasn't happened again. And it won't. We are now prepared for almost any emergency: the recent tornadoes just a few miles north this past Summer, another blizzard, anarchy, breakdown of the country's financial systems... yep, almost anything.

However, we're not 100% yet. That's why we're working so hard to get a farm where we can live with another family or two, raising livestock and fresh fruits/veggies, fresh air and room to play, and peace of mind.