New Author: Wade

Hello, I’m Wade. I am an avid outdoorsman. I respect and honor nature. I like to keep things simple. I take great pride in the size of my annual REI dividend. I love gardening, cooking, backpacking, mountain biking, road cycling, snowshoeing, and photography. I enjoy working with my hands, being self-sufficient, and solving problems. I am a graphic artist, interaction designer, and software engineer.

I grew up in Utah and currently reside in Lehi with my gorgeous wife and children. I am a member of the North Temple Group where I work as an interaction designer and user advocate for web applications. I also started and administer the Utah PHP Users Group, the Utah Graphic Artists Forum, and the Utah Apple Users Group.

I’ve always considered myself to be fairly prepared. But as of a few months ago, I don’t any more. I have a lot of work to get done. The change in opinion comes from a change in perspective. I spent a week over the holidays filling 340 ten pound cans in my garage. I had a lot of time to think. I thought about how few people are prepared—whether by choice, ignorance, or because they are unable. I enjoyed the good feeling inside (that came with knowing I had another twelve months of food tucked away) for a bit but then started asking myself a lot of questions.

I realized that I was not prepared. Generally, when people talk about being prepared, they talk about having the necessary supplies to sustain their current lifestyle through a temporary emergency (whether that be a natural disaster or simply a personal financial hiccup). There is a difference between having supplies and being prepared though. Having supplies is important, but being prepared is more important. We might have stored wheat but do we know how to cook it? What am I going to do once my storage runs out? Do I know how to hunt? If I am able to kill an animal, how am I going to store it? If I run out of water, do I know how to dig a well? Once my propane runs out how am I going to cook? Where am I going to go to the bathroom? How am I going to heat my house? Can I grow a garden? Am I prepared to protect my family?

I believe the greatest weakness of our current society is that people have very few skills. We purchase everything we need and rely on technology to sustain us. If Walmart was gone tomorrow, what would people do? Even if we choose to not live a self-reliant lifestyle, I believe it foolish to not have the skills to provide for ourselves and families if we needed to. I have a to-do list that I am putting together of things that I need to learn. I need to learn how to store food short term without refrigeration. I need to build a root cellar. I need to learn how to hunt. I’d like to buy a wood burning stove. I need a solution for waste disposal. How do you milk a cow? How do you make candles? How do you make soap? People talk about a year’s supply of food all the time, but what about toilet paper?

I am excited to be included as an author with the others here and look forward to hearing about your adventures and preparedness efforts as well.

19 Replies to “New Author: Wade”

  1. I join BYUMUG, and you’re there.
    I join UPHPU, and you’re there.
    I move into Westbury condos, and you’re there.
    And now you’re here.

    Seems I can’t go anywhere online without running into Wade. :) Glad to have you here and see that you run in these circles as well. I look forward to your contributions!

  2. I join BYUMUG, and you’re there.
    I join UPHPU, and you’re there.
    I move into Westbury condos, and you’re there.
    And now you’re here.

    Seems I can’t go anywhere online without running into Wade. :) Glad to have you here and see that you run in these circles as well. I look forward to your contributions!

  3. Welcome Wade. We’ve asked a lot of the same questions in our family and are working on many of the areas outside of food storage you mentioned. And yes, we store toilet paper! :) Looking forward to what you have to share!

  4. Welcome Wade. We’ve asked a lot of the same questions in our family and are working on many of the areas outside of food storage you mentioned. And yes, we store toilet paper! :) Looking forward to what you have to share!

  5. Absolutely, Michael. And I love gardening. Growing food is one area where I have confidence that I will be successful in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. But there is still the problem of storage. Half my harvest ended up in the trash can last year simply because it rotted before we could eat it. This year, I am going to try spacing out my planting so that everything isn’t ripe at the same time, but in Utah you can only push this so far. Bottling is a way to preserve fruits and vegetables, but in a TEOTWAWKI scenario, you won’t have access to modern bottling methods.

    So, gardening ends up being a perfect example of the points I made in my post. You grow some food, but how do you store it? People lived in our climate thousands of years ago throw all of our seasons. How did they do it? What techniques (like drying out corn and grinding it into flour) did they use?

  6. Absolutely, Michael. And I love gardening. Growing food is one area where I have confidence that I will be successful in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. But there is still the problem of storage. Half my harvest ended up in the trash can last year simply because it rotted before we could eat it. This year, I am going to try spacing out my planting so that everything isn’t ripe at the same time, but in Utah you can only push this so far. Bottling is a way to preserve fruits and vegetables, but in a TEOTWAWKI scenario, you won’t have access to modern bottling methods.

    So, gardening ends up being a perfect example of the points I made in my post. You grow some food, but how do you store it? People lived in our climate thousands of years ago throw all of our seasons. How did they do it? What techniques (like drying out corn and grinding it into flour) did they use?

  7. When it comes to food growing and storage whether it be animal or vegetable, there is an entire wealth of information out there that we sadly forget to tap in to…..our granparents. My wifes grandmother grew up very poor in Arkansas and California in the 20’s and she knew how to do EVERYTHING. If you are fortunate enough to have an elderly person close to you, ask questions, you’ll be amazed what they know.

  8. When it comes to food growing and storage whether it be animal or vegetable, there is an entire wealth of information out there that we sadly forget to tap in to…..our granparents. My wifes grandmother grew up very poor in Arkansas and California in the 20’s and she knew how to do EVERYTHING. If you are fortunate enough to have an elderly person close to you, ask questions, you’ll be amazed what they know.

  9. Wade,
    I read a very interesting book earlier this year (a couple books ago), and it actually kind of discusses some of these problems. It’s called “The American Frugal Housewife”, and is available from project gutenberg or a couple other places.

    The book was originally published in 1832, and discusses a lot of stuff that most people consider “useless trivia” but that I thought was fascinating and potentially useful if there were to be an extended emergency, or if someone just wanted to become completely self-reliant.

    Pretty much, the book was written as a manual for new brides and housewives. It discusses how to save money, the role of women in the family (and what their education should be like), how to make soap, and how to preserve and prepare various foods. It goes very in depth on things like how to create lye, then test the strength to ensure it’s the correct strength for your soap.

    The one area I would shy away from the suggestions is probably with home remedies. Laudanum is not generally a home remedy I would recommend… :)

    Overall, I suggest that if you really want to learn some of these things, you should get a copy of this book and read it. I read it as an ebook since it was free that way, but I’m seriously considering buying the book in a p-back form to keep with my storage stuff. :)

  10. Wade,
    I read a very interesting book earlier this year (a couple books ago), and it actually kind of discusses some of these problems. It’s called “The American Frugal Housewife”, and is available from project gutenberg or a couple other places.

    The book was originally published in 1832, and discusses a lot of stuff that most people consider “useless trivia” but that I thought was fascinating and potentially useful if there were to be an extended emergency, or if someone just wanted to become completely self-reliant.

    Pretty much, the book was written as a manual for new brides and housewives. It discusses how to save money, the role of women in the family (and what their education should be like), how to make soap, and how to preserve and prepare various foods. It goes very in depth on things like how to create lye, then test the strength to ensure it’s the correct strength for your soap.

    The one area I would shy away from the suggestions is probably with home remedies. Laudanum is not generally a home remedy I would recommend… :)

    Overall, I suggest that if you really want to learn some of these things, you should get a copy of this book and read it. I read it as an ebook since it was free that way, but I’m seriously considering buying the book in a p-back form to keep with my storage stuff. :)

  11. Interesting article. The problem is that you cannot know everything. We live in a society where most of teh informatin that we needed centuries does not apply to our current lives. It is being lost since… what good is it if we cannot access it? If we were thrust into a style of living where we did not have any of the luxories of modern society, we would sepnd our time very differently than we do today. We would have to in some cases reinvent ways of survival.

    Then again… some wealth may be derived from the knowledge of milking cows, but the struggle would not be the same as it was for people in the past.

    If the world went to hell in hand basket, the number one thing you would have to worry about is defense. The more urban the more so.

  12. Interesting article. The problem is that you cannot know everything. We live in a society where most of teh informatin that we needed centuries does not apply to our current lives. It is being lost since… what good is it if we cannot access it? If we were thrust into a style of living where we did not have any of the luxories of modern society, we would sepnd our time very differently than we do today. We would have to in some cases reinvent ways of survival.

    Then again… some wealth may be derived from the knowledge of milking cows, but the struggle would not be the same as it was for people in the past.

    If the world went to hell in hand basket, the number one thing you would have to worry about is defense. The more urban the more so.

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