“Apocalyptic” thinking leads to opportunities

Lately, I have been inundated with ideas and fearful stories about the state of our world, and what is going to happen or could happen (call it the Chicken Little Phenomenon). For me it was hearing about the movie I am Legend because I am far too chicken to watch it myself. While it’s really easy to focus on the bad, scary stuff such as mass chaos, the breakdown of government, and all roads leading to survivalism, this instead is an excellent opportunity to view your life with a different lens, and make appropriate changes.

What would you do if driving weren’t an option?
Chris and I are very lucky that 90%+ of our life is within 5 miles of our house. We can ride our bikes most everywhere. This is a fabulous luxury, slowly becoming a necessity. And it’s something we definitely take for granted.

What if municipal water supplies were not available?
If I couldn’t get water out of our tap I would….yikes. This one requires more thought. We plan on using our tax bribe rebate to get our hands on some rain catchment barrel-type objects and rig them up using the instructions so nicely posted by our friends Meg and Kelly over at Future House Farm. Unfortunately, the rain catchment system is a little late this year since our rainy season is over. But this is definitely a project being mulled over at the moment.

Anyone in the Sacramento area know where we can get barrel-type things that will catch rain? (Call it a rain barrel and the price automatically jumps to $150+ a barrel). I hear food grade plastic containers work well, but then again, there’s the plastic issue… Any thoughts on this?

Along this line of thinking, what would happen, say, if this summer water unexpectedly ran short. Where would we be then if we had no water saved? Guess we might look into 5 gallon carboys from companies that deliver water, to stock up for the summer if need be.

What if grocery stores closed their doors? How would you get your food? What if it was the middle of winter?
If our grocery stores were not available, we’d be out of luck. Seriously. As much as I like to think we grow a lot of food here, we don’t. The beauty of our climate is that we have a 10 month+ growing season. It just takes persistence and constant succession planting, but food can be coaxed from our plot in any month. Once we get it going this summer, the sun will never set in the garden, so to speak, as it will always have something edible in it for our consumption.

What if electricity was unavailable?
Think about all the things you use that require electricity. It’s daunting really. But aside from a fridge (and laptop, haha!), what else do you need that requires electricity? Some would argue that even a fridge is unnecessary, to which they have a point. Electrical conservation may become an even larger necessity than it is now, and may happen even before we realize it.

This is not an all-inclusive list of things to consider, nor are these new questions, but it’s a good list to get us started.

There’s a lot of scary stuff out there right now and rightfully so. But the more prepared we are for something that will challenge us, the better off we will be in the long run, and the simpler our lives will become in the mean time.