What's Trending HOT in Preparedness?

                                                                                                By Jeanette Vale

Several years ago I attended a camp filled with people wanting to test their emergency prep gear.  We’d converge on a massive campground and begin to establish our tent city.  I think we stayed four days, it was a prepper’s dream vacay.

Some guy even arrived in a homemade tank.   I  asked myself, who am I hanging out with?  But It was  nice to be around like-minded people and  their cool gear.

What did I learn and what is trending now?   I still run into these folks.  How have we evolved as a survivor species?

I live in Utah.  I think it's safe to say that Utah is one of the most prepper-minded states in the world.  Yes, I said world.  Aside from the military and the Boy Scouts, we can hold our own, the  women and children included.  It definitely comes from our roots of being run out, starved and hungry, early in our history.  

Well, to be fair, many are not into preparedness.  It’s a strange dichotomy.   A person  either becomes a prepper, or learns to dislike the prepper mindset (because the other side marches and bangs their pots).  It is actually a sore subject in some families here. Oh, a third group:  Ainokea group.  That’s a Hapa-Hawaiian word and if you sound it out you’ll know what it means.

The preppers here  can be compared to the S.S. Minnow and her crew of misfortunates who went on a three hour tour with several months of clothes to change into.    

Didn’t it seem strange how much they overshot that packing list?   I took a three hour tour in the San Francisco Bay and I never packed a change of clothes.  

And why was the millionaire and his wife not on their own private yacht?  If I had that kind of  money I wouldn’t be on a crowded boat.

I just know they were all pretty lucky to have the professor with them!  Were he and Maryann a thing? I always hoped so.

Gilligan’s Island made for great TV.   But their plight could happen to any of us and we need to be ready for the impossible.

Tour Through the Tents

While at this prepper’s camp, I toured many luxurious tents.  People had spent thousands of dollars getting ‘every needful thing’.   We all tried to replicate a home and all of its creature comforts in a wilderness version. This was all very cumbersome to haul.

There were large 'mansion' tents, tubs, foot pump sinks,  and solar panels.

Every tent tour gave us something to "oooh" and "ahh" over.   We’d take notes of what else we needed to buy.

But the years came went and nothing happened.  Literally in 2019  I was lamenting how ‘ready’ I was.  What was all of this for?  It takes up so much shelf space. 

And suddenly we were in lockdown for a year plus…and I remember feeling really calm and grateful that I had gotten ready.  Boy!  Can paradigms shift in an instant!  

And to be honest, I did panic a bit and began efforts in the food production area.  I really burned myself out in 2020.  

By the next summer I wanted nothing to do with gardening, fruit trees or canning anything.  I breathed a sigh of relief at seeing the world open back up yet I didn't fully trust what that meant.

In 2022 I  relaxed further, yet realizing we were, are, in a strange lull before another storm hits.  I think the next ones will be massive.  I feel like the foundations of a society are being destroyed before our eyes, and on purpose. The great Covid-19 Reset.  

The media gives us a play by play from their crystal ball of what is coming next–and none of it sounds bueno.  I wrote a blog about it but it won’t get pushed out.  Too bitter, as I am.

I decided on a lighter tone thus employing the marooned Skipper, Gilligan and their friends.  Like that show, one asks, will this ever end?  Will they ever get rescued? 

So what is trending now with some of us preppers?  The answer is being found across the board among the people I have met.  

We have all gone away from the physical stuff of prepping and began to fine tune our hearing the spiritual messages of how to be ready. 

 I have even pared things down to “what will fit on my metal deer cart?” and that is all I am allowing myself to own.  Slight lie. Ahem. moving on.

The hot new trend is spiritual listening.  

Whether you are religious or not, we are all spiritual.  I have done absolutely no research to guage this, but as for me and my friends here, we realized all of our "stuff" is not going to save us if we are not connected to our higher power.  

I see people all over the world and they are in the same pandemic dance as I am here in my small town.   It is causing me to step back and reevaluate "what am I seeing? Why is this happening?".

Another study has shown that 41% of Americans are not ready for an emergency.  Emergency Zone really exists for those people.  We have ready made kits so you don’t have to think about it. 

But, you need to think about it.  Please go through your packs at least once a year and see what you’ve outgrown,  change out the food you’ve added, know how your gear works.  We sell kits for a family of four. Of two or of one.  Having something is better than nothing.