Hello

[K9medic]

Just thought I would say hello as Im new here.

Been prepping most of my life, growing up on a border hill farm in the 60’s and 70’s was a good introduction to the subject. I have 3 small (ish) boys and spent most of my free time teaching them to be self reliant.

Wife thought I was mad having a Pantry (she is from Southampton) till the Best from the East hit, now she sees the point.

I’m not prepping for a Zombie Apocalypse, though driving up the M1 last week I thought it had started. I’m more interested in bad weather, personal finance and Health related emergencies.

Bet you have quite a lot of knowledge to share. Hope you can.
Tell us more about what you do to instil self reliance in your kids - what's worked and what hasn't.
A pp has mentioned this before but I think we could all do with hearing even more experience on this. All the best preps in tbe world are no good if the rest of the household has no idea about a bit of resilience.

I'd also be interested to hear more about your prepping and self reliance.
My parents live down the road from me and grow lots of fruit and veg and keep chickens and I often help out so even if there were a zombie apocalypse I hope we'd have a chance at surviving 😂

Sorry but this made me laugh about loud...
Wife thought I was mad having a Pantry (she is from Southampton)

With the boys i have found that i can not teach them anything. But if i make it a game they learn.

The hard work is setting it up so i can introduce the game, rather than just waiting for the off chance to happen.

So walking the dog in the local woods, leads to building a den which leads to who can build the best shelter if its raining.

My wife has worked in restaurants all her life so natural the kids help in the kitchen. This lead to choping vegetables and as i hate blunt knifes they all know how to use the oil stone. Really scary watching them use my best oil stone, its my grandfathers and would be hard to replace if they broke it.

Being from Southampton she is used to popping round the shop when ever she wants. We have a co op in the next village (15 minutes walk away) but if the roads are bad it soon runs out. I was brought up were we had a full pantry because it was a long drive to the nearst town, and in those days it wasnt a bad winter untill you had been off school for 2 weeks.

These days i aim for everything we need for 5 days. I would like to get this up to a month, the boys can eat for England at Olympic level.

Im self employed so financial difficulties is probably my biggest concern.

I get why, as a self employed person, it would be reassuring to boost your pantry. If you have access to YouTube, "Simon, A bloke in the woods" or even "Kent Survival" are nice UK bushcraft channels. Simon , in particular, seems a nice chilled out bloke who often includes his son in bush craft stuff. He occasionally does interesting sewing projects (my dad taught me to sew , so it strikes a chord with me). He and the Kent Survival chap are mates and occasionally combine. It's a nice dynamic. Both also do camp fire cooking including Dutch Oven cooking. I have tinkered with that myself and want to explore it more this year.

I will have a look at those YTube channels.

Bit of a battle in our house, as wife is a Beaver leader so thinks Bear Grylls walks on water and I prefer Reay Mears (and Lofty Wiseman).