The Long Winter

The Thinker has been reading through the "Little House" series of books over the past few months. I cannot count how many times I read the "Little House" books as a girl. Heck, I still read the series every year or so. There is so much to learn from and love about these books.

The Thinker is in the middle of The Long Winter and I have been looking forward to discussing this book with her ever since I got into prepping.

For those of you who may not have read the "Little House" series, shame on you! Get thee to a library and check them out.  In the meantime, here is a quick summary of The Long Winter,which is a mostly factual account of a real event:

The people of the tiny town of De Smet, South Dakota nearly starve to death during the "Long Winter" of 1880-1881. A cheerful topic for a children's book, eh? Back to back blizzards mean the trains cannot run, stranding the townspeople for months without food and fuel. Laura's family heats their home by burning hay and survive on plain brown bread made from wheat laboriously ground in a coffee mill.

There are so many lessons and modern day parallels in this book that I'm not going to attempt to detail them all. These are simply the first ones that struck me.

Provisioning:

The endless cycle of blizzard after blizzard meant that the stock in the grocery stores was depleted rapidly. Folks nearly starved, avoiding this only because of the bravery of two men who managed to find some wheat for the townspeople. It was months and months before a train could finally make it through.

I've heard it said that the average grocery store in America only has enough stock on hand for about 3 days. If there's ever a disaster that disrupts the food supply, a critical situation will assuredly develop. You need to have food storage and be prepared to feed your family for a length of time.

Ingenuity:

The Ingalls family would have frozen to death except Pa Ingalls had the foresight to harvest a huge amount of hay the previous summer. Normally, hay burns up very quickly, but Pa figured out a way to twist the hay into sticks to extend their burning time.

You need to be able to think outside the box and be creative enough to find solutions in a crisis. To be able to do this, you need to have your head on straight, which leads me to my third point.

Mental state:

                   "It can't beat us!" Pa said.

                         "Can't it, Pa?" Laura asked stupidly.

                         "No," said Pa. "It's got to quit sometime and we don't. It can't lick us. We won't give up."

                         Then Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small but it was strong. It was steady, like

                         a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it

                         would not give up.

                    

                                                         -From the chapter entitled "It Can't Beat Us", The Long Winter

The difference between a victim and a survivor often is a matter of psychology. Your will to survive, the belief that you will make it through whatever trial besets you, and a faith in a higher power are key. You can have all the survival gear and gizmos on earth, but if your head isn't right, you'll never make it.

You need to believe you can survive in order to survive.

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I've barely scratched the surface of this book. The Long Winter may have been written for children, but there is enough in this book to interest and educate any adult. Pick up a copy and draw your own conclusions.

What I've learned from those Chilean miners

If you don't know about the 33 men trapped in a mine in Chile, read this first:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1305894/So-Chilean-miners-survive-months-half-mile-underground.html

Now, what I've learned:

1. Miracles can happen. I sometimes need to be reminded of this. Who would have thought that all 33 men would still be alive after 17 days?
2. Prior planning and training makes a huge difference. Miners train for these kind of accidents. This enabled them to make it to their prearranged and supplied Safe Room. Once they made it there, the two days' worth of rations were carefully managed.  As preppers, we need to practice various emergency scenarios and have our supplies in place before we need them.
3. Leadership matters. The miners apparently have selected 54-year old Luis Urzua as a leader. In a leadership vacuum, chaos reigns. You need to have someone who take the reins. Urzua was someone all the miners knew and trusted ahead of time.
4. Sanitation is key. Prior to their discovery, the miners used an area outside of their safe room as a bathroom. The experts above ground are now instructing the miners on how to divide their safe room into different areas - for sanitation, eating, sleeping, etc. In order to survive the next few months, they've got to devise some solution to the sanitation problem. This is one area in which my prepping falls far short.
5. You'd better be fit. The miners' waists cannot measure over 35" to fit through the rescue tunnel they are drilling. Survival is very physically taxing. You better be in shape before a crisis starts.

6. You've got to keep your head in the game. The miners didn't give up hope during those 17 days when  rescue was slow in coming. Now they have been found but it may be Christmas before they can get out. Can you even imagine? You've got to be both physically and mentally tough to survive that. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few months.