Survivalist?

Tonight, a friend and her hubs came over to pick up their dog.

We’re a revolving door for kids and dogs around here.

When she did, she asked to see the chickens and as we were walking around back her hubs saw the garden and said something along the lines of “wow!”

Clearly that was BEFORE we planted, but it does look impressive, no?

“They’re survivalists,” my friend commented.

Uh….

What?

I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant and so I thought I would look it up.  It sounded cool enough.

Um.  No.

We’re no where even close!

Wikipedia defines Survivalism as a movement of individuals or groups (called survivalists or preppers) who are actively preparing for emergencies as well as possible disruptions in social or political order, on scales ranging from local to international. Survivalists often have emergency medical and self-defence training, stockpile food and water, prepare for self-sufficiency, and build structures that will help them survive or “disappear”.

We are not “actively preparing for emergencies.”  This was very evident last week when the power went out.  What we do have in the case of emergency are really good friends who offer us their homes and pool when we have no power in 100 degree temps.  (The one night that we stayed in the house?  We camped in Thing 1′s room.  So maybe that’s surviving?

We have no “emergency medical and self-defense training” unless you count my husband’s EMS experience or the fact that my mother and best friend are both nurses and I have them on speed dial.

Our “stock pile of food and water?” My mom sent the hubs a case of Gibbles pretzels for his birthday…

that’s 16 bags of pretzels.  That’s a stockpile…right?  And we do have a plethora of zucchini from the garden.

While most would eat that, my children chose to beat each other with it.  And yes, we do have chickens, which lay eggs but at this point in time, they are not many and not big.  It took a week for us to get enough to make eggs for two Saturday morning.

And “build structures that will help us survive or disappear?”  We only have one new built structure and that’s the chicken coop.  I would love to tell you more about it, but my husband and I agreed that to remain married we are no longer allowed to talk about the coop… and since he reads this blog – o- mine, I can’t say anything more.

(Except I can tell you that the coop would withstand 80mph winds and if for some reason we decide to get rid of the chickens, the children will have one kick butt, indestructible fort.)

(Oh!  and that it’s pretty safe… if you don’t want to get out… as evidenced here when Thing 1 got locked in the coop….)

So, hearing all of the above leads me to believe that we are not survivalists.  Just two people who like to try new things and have a little fun.  We aren’t hard core gardeners. (Please don’t look at the weeds.)  And we give away more than we eat.  But it’s something that the hubs loves to do.  And so we do.  The chickens seemed like a cool thing and so we got them.

Regardless, it gives me Facebook fodder, something for the children to get involved in… and a hobby.  We have no cable around these parts… what else are we supposed to do?

Until next time…