I’ve been seeing an alarming number of comments on articles, videos and blog posts that remind me of the childhood story The Little Red Hen. Do you remember how it goes?
A hen living on a farm finds some wheat and decides to make bread with it. She asks the other farmyard animals to help her plant it, but they refuse. The hen then harvests and mills the wheat into flour before baking it into bread; at each stage she again asks the animals for help and they refuse. Finally, with her task complete, the hen asks who will help her eat the bread. This time the animals accept eagerly, but the hen refuses them stating that no one helped her with her work and decides to eat the bread herself. She then runs away with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Hen
In the original version, the other animals are a rat, a duck, a dog, a pig, a cat and a cow. In my version, they are all sheep and they are the ones leaving comments like this one:
Thanks for letting me know you’re stockpiling food, I’ll be heading to your house when SHTF!
Then they usually add a laughing emoji or an lol or whatever. Now I know some are not serious and are just saying these things jokingly or to rile up those of us who take prepping seriously, but chances are there are some people out there whose plan for an upcoming crisis is exactly that. To let the rest of us do the hard work so they can come along and share or, worse, take it all for themselves.
That’s why we always encourage people to have plenty of precious metals like lead and brass along with the ability to use them if necessary. 🤨
I feel pretty lucky living in an area where so many of us are trained up from an early age to be self sufficient and to also store up enough food and other supplies for ourselves and our families to last at least a few months in case of an emergency. I’ve written about this before. Living in a predominantly Mormon community means that most of my neighbors are into canning, food storage, hunting, gardening, etc.
Best of all, Mormons are not pacifists.
We do have a lot of people moving into the area from out of state, though, and many of them came here only because housing was cheap and they were able to cash out their houses on the coast and move here with a pile of money. They are pretty easy to spot and a lot of them seem very proud to wear their “Cali” hats and stickers on their shiny, new cars, which is fine. I get it. I don’t fault them for moving here.
But I also get that they are the ones that will most likely be unprepared to deal with the fallout if food prices continue to rise or if, God forbid, the economy completely tanks because monkeypox becomes the next big pandemic that forces us into lockdowns. Or the war with Ukraine escalates. Or…
You know.
A crisis.
I have to wonder how many of our new neighbors are of the mindset that they need to be self sufficient and not rely on the government or people like us to cover for them if the time comes when they need to feed their families?
I am beginning to notice a trend that makes me skeptical. The neighbors who I know were born and raised here are much more likely to be putting in gardens while the ones that I know came from out of state are busy putting in lawns. The people behind us who bought their newly built, overpriced (if you ask me) home have two little kids and just seeded their entire acre with grass.
No garden space.
No fruit trees.
Nothing.
I suppose sheep can eat grass… 🤔
Empty Nest Homesteading 
“That’s why we always encourage people to have plenty of precious metals like lead and brass along with the ability to use them if necessary.”
Love this. We stockpile lead (when we can find it). My neighbor yesterday “your garden is Sick! I know where I’m going to come if I need veggies…” Or you could grow your own?
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Exactly! We keep encouraging everyone we know to grow food before it’s too late to get seeds in the ground. Right now is that window of opportunity to do it here in Idaho and if they wait too much longer, they will not be able to harvest in time! 😞
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Oh my! I hope you made that comment to them out loud!
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I told her nicely where I bought my plants and that there was still time to plant some because we have a long growing season.
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Oh, my goodness, yes! Appalachia Homestead did a video about that, too. Among the things she says, that I hear from quite a few others is, don’t talk about your preps! (I think that was the title of the video. LOL) Don’t share pictures of your full pantry on social media (granted, I think the canning groups I’m on are a bit of an exception LOL) .
I may not agree with LDS religious views, but I heartily commend the community on their practical recommendations. Some of the best food storage and preparedness resources I’ve found that help figure out what and how much to store, in a realistic and frugal way, are either directly from LDS resources or trace back to them.
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They are also great for genealogy. It was through them that I found my family book and both mine and the hub’s extensive lineages on their website!
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“Opsec” Hubby tells me, never heard it before—operational security—who knew that was a thing?! 🙂
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HA! You are hilarious when you’re snarking! Love it!!
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We have a ‘homesteading group’ meeting locally starting next month and they want us ‘old timers’ to teach them some skills! Isn’t that something. I never thought I’d see such a time around here. It’s a bit of the opposite as your situation there I think, because we are so rural and never had any real tourist industry or large cities nearby. So, a lot of the ‘country traditions’ have been long gone here, moved on decades ago. But now we are getting an influx of younger folks fleeing the coasts and cities, but it seems they are coming with the expectation to actually learn a few things! How exciting!
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I’m almost 32 and it amazes me how little my generation knows about being self sufficient. I guess I was blessed growing up with grandparents who had a half acre garden every summer and chickens. Both my grandmothers knew how to make clothes and household things like curtains and both knew how to can, crochet and knit. But of my sibling and cousin I’m the only one currently doing any of those things. My cousin just bought a house and has already asked me to come help her set up a garden once they close.
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