Day 605 and Inventory

I like to be prepared. It’s my personal opinion that this winter is going to be a bit rough. There is no single issue but rather a patchwork of intersecting crisis points that make me a little edgy.

You’ve got crop yields all over the place from another wild climate change year. You’ve got the rising costs of fertilizers. You’ve got an energy crisis brought on by the war Russia is waging against Ukraine. You’ve got whatever China is up to with its Covid policies. And then of course you’ve got our lingering economic fuckery and well you can see why I’m worried.

I went through our emergency food stores today and did some turnover and replenishment. We didn’t opt to move some things with us to Montana (some items had expiration dates necessitating donation) so it’s been on my to do list.

I’ve got a spreadsheet that includes fats, starches, sweeteners and less glamorous proteins like beans and canned fish. It theoretically calculates our our caloric needs and what is provided for in our supplies so we can more easily assess if we have enough on hand for different scenarios. In reality, I’ve never actually had full inputs clean enough to generate an output I trust. So I kind of wing it with this basic level of precision.

I’ve tried to abide by basic best practices for emergencies. Ready.gov is a surprisingly decent resource even if it might shock you what you should have in hand. You need supplies for a three day disaster like a snowstorm or hurricane. You need three weeks of supplies for an interruption that takes a bit of resolve. And you ideally three months of food on hand if something goes really wrong. The Mormon Church says you should keep a year of food on hand.

I don’t think we’ve quite got a year of food on hand but I have taken a lot of tips from the LDS suggestions for food storage. We’ve got pounds of wheat (and a hand crank grinder). We’ve got 25lbs sacks of rice. We’ve got big jugs of cooking oils. We’ve got sugars. We’ve got spices. I’ve got quite the collection of dried legumes.

I feel like I basically have what is necessary for a bad winter in Montana. I hope we’ve got enough for any supply chain constraints that might make it harder to get things to our modestly more rural homestead. But in truth I’m just following lists and hoping if something happens I didn’t fuck up too badly. And I’d we did well we’ve got shotguns and ammunition and the local deer are a little too cavalier about their safety. For now.