Döm om min förvåning när junior sitter och knappar febrilt på datorn en dag och när jag kollar till honom, berättar att de har fått i uppgift att skriva om sin hobby. Inget konstigt såhär långt, jag vet. Men det som fick mig att bli varm inombords var att han berättade att han skulle skriva om prepping. På engelska.
Efter att ha läst hans bidrag till studierna kände jag mig ännu mer stolt. Visserligen känns själva bilden som han målar upp aningen mörk och oroande, men det skyller jag på att vi började vår prepping-resa med att låtsas som att vi förberedde oss för en zombieapokalyps.
Häng med och läs vad som snurrar i min tonårings huvud om dagarna. Läraren tyckte förresten att prepping lät intressant och skulle minsann läsa på lite om ämnet! 🙂
//Prepper-pappa Martin
My hobby is prepping, and prepping is almost like preparing for the end of the world but more chill – it’s like camping without electricity. We buy a bunch of different assortments of food like canned food, freeze-dried, pasta and bread because all of those have a long storage time because when the electricity is gone all of the foods that are supposed to be stored in freezers or fridges are long gone and they are super moldy so that’s why we are prepping so that we don’t have to worry about that happening. The freeze-dried food isn’t just pasta and boring stuff there can be porridge tasting like apple pie and vacuum-packed food like pork ribs or beef.
Fun Fact: If you look at a water bottle you can see the expiration date but it´s not for the water it´s for the plastic bottle!
Fun Fact 2: Freeze-dried food lasts longer than normal food, it can last for five to twenty-five years.
Some people might think it´s crazy to prepare situations like crisis in society but it is just thinking further than everyone else. Because we preserve food and we refill our small 10 liter water tanks, we follow the standards in preparedness that the government has told us and we are also making sure that we can live a normal life even if something bad happens.
The thing we do when we prep is to prepare food and water for at least 3 weeks. You can’t survive without shelter for more than 3 hours, you can’t survive without water for 3 days and you can’t survive without food for 3 weeks, this is called the 3:s of prepping.
It’s also very important to have hope for what’s to come the next day or month.
If someone in your family suffers from any illness, then it’s really important to stock up on medicine if they are sick or you know they often get sick out of nowhere and the more people that are prepared the less burden it is on the society.
I like prepping because we get to go out in the wilderness a lot and meet other preppers to chat and have fun while still learning important stuff like making a fire, building shelters or hanging a hammock. The first thing I learned was to light a fire since it is important to be able to be dry and warm in the wilderness and then I learned to light a fire with minimal resources.
Even though it is much easier to light a fire with a lighter you shouldn’t because they can be used as money like trading a lighter for food or tools. Friendship is a good thing to have when everything goes wrong, so that you can use them as resources like they can help you with things and hold night shifts to check so that no one takes your bags or keep the fire alive.
I got to know about Prepping awhile back when my dad told me about it, and I was 11 or 12 years old. It started with just trying to light a fire with a fire rod but then it got bigger and bigger and after we could light a fire, we started practicing trying to light a fire with flint and steel.
It can sometimes be very adrenaline inducing when you walk on a mountain or when you light your first big fire, it feels so exhilarating. But one thing you should not do is to light a fire on a rock or a small cliff because the temperature difference could crack the rock or cliff and that is dangerous.
My future with this hobby is probably going to be nice because we’re prepared for the worst. We have enough food and water for several months and the stuff we buy like saws, water filters are interesting to learn about.
The other things I like about prepping is that I learn a bunch of things like tying knots and how to start a fire from just flint and steel but if you are planning on lighting a fire with flint and steel sometime you should have glasses or something to protect your eyes because the flint can fly in to your eyes (I learned that the hard way by getting a small piece of flint in my eye).