by Deborah in the UP

“The best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry“…(with deepest respect to both Robert Burns and John Steinbeck).. And that is how I’m feeling about my experiment to live only off my preps for the month of November. I had good intentions, very good intentions to do this. Perhaps December will be a better.

I did well for the first eight or nine days.. Then the new “tipping point” was revealed, and I once again got nervous. The tipping point, that unknown event that will precede and instigate the slide. What slide? Another unknown, but could be an economic downturn (as if there isn’t that happening already), or an attack of some sort. It’s that date we look back on and say “ah, yes, that’s when it all started…” When is that tipping point? Tomorrow, Sunday, November 14, 2010, or so says the muse. Sooner or later, someone is going to be right in their predictions.

To be fair to myself, I have not gotten too far off my track. I added more cat food to the pantry, a few more bags of chicken feed, another bale of straw. (It’s hard to explain to a dependent animal I don’t have enough food for them.) I had some work done on my car (boy, was THAT expensive!.. And honestly, couldn’t wait), and got a fresh eye exam and new glasses. Oh, and I got the propane topped off. All things that needed to be done anyway, and I would have been kicking myself if something DID happen and I hadn’t done them. Otherwise, I haven’t done ’prep buying’… and that was part of my goal for November.

But I HAVE worked on goals for being prepared.

My pantry storage area is very limited and I’ve been using my spare bedroom for overflow. Overflow? What an understatement , it was getting hard to walk in there. That room also has a set of bunk beds for my ‘what-if’ scenario’s (what-if my son and his family had to move in here for safety? What-if one of my trusted friends needed to shelter here?) My recent project has involved taking those bunk beds down, and storing them out in the barn, then installing shelves in that space. Boy, that sounds simple…lol. Wrestling with those mattresses by myself was likely amusing to anyone watching, and dismantling the bunks themselves.. Let’s just say it was an exercise in creativity! Then the area had to be thoroughly cleaned; and while it was accessible, I washed the window and put up a light barrier for security. After which I could begin to assemble the new shelves, level them, secure them to the wall. Only then could I start on unpacking and organizing all the boxes that were cluttering up the floor. Boxes filled with two summers of canning the excess from the garden. With everything organized now, I can see what I have, what I don’t, where it is, and what to rotate. And I’m totally amazed at how much floor space I’ve gained…plenty of room for an air mattress for that ‘what-if’ …

Winter is getting ever closer as I watch the snow fall here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but I‘m also closer to being ready for it.