Preppers: Applying Little League Sports To Prepping
Kevin Felts 01.29.18
How many people reading this article played some kind of sports? Rather than talking about high school or jr. high sports, let’s talk about little league.
Why little league? Because a lot of us did not have a choice in the matter. Mom or dad took us somewhere, got us enrolled, picked out the gear, then we spent our Saturday mornings playing sports. Given the choice between watching Saturday morning cartoons or playing in the summer heat, I would rather watch cartoons.
Prepping is something like that. We would rather be doing other fun stuff, but we have to prep. Just as mom got us out of bed early Saturday mornings, so we must force ourselves to do activities related to prepping.
Someone is going to say, “Kevin, prepping can be fun.” Yes, it can be. I enjoy gardening, hiking, and checking on the chickens. It is when we get out of our comfort grooves is when we start to get uncomfortable.
For example, awhile back I was playing around with making homemade superpails. If the experiment did not work, then I lost a lot of money.
That was a lot of time, effort, and money put into a first attempt project. Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers are not cheap. Some of the stuff stored in the bags has remained in good condition, while other stuff has not.
For example, I put bisquick in some small mylar bags. A few months later the bags were swollen. That was a package of bisquick, a couple of mylar bags, and a couple of oxygen absorbers that had to be thrown away. What I learned from those experiments: If something has any kind of animal product in it, the item can not be stored in mylar bags.
Some of my experiments with using a pressure canner has not always turned out as expected. After the jars cooled, some of the lids popped up. It is very disappointing to spend so much time and effort on doing something, and then it not turn out as expected.
This all goes back to little league sports.
How many of us had a coach who would tell us to shrug it off and keep going? Get the wind knocked out of you? Lay there for a minute, catch your breath, then get back into the game. Mom may have been over there asking, “Is he going to be okay?” and dad was like, “He will be fine.”
Even if we did not like getting up on those Saturday mornings, we should of learned a lot. If you practice and do something wrong, practice until you get it right.
Mylar bag did not seal off right? Do it again, and again, and again… until you do it right.
Take the lessons your little league coach drilled into your head about not quitting, and apply it to prepping.
