Return of the Prepper #4 : Prepping in Old Age - how to prepare for that?
I am not old, but I am not young. I will be 60 this year and I know life is changing.
My health is not too bad, no major life threatening ailments for either my wife or I. But we both have minor issues that have the potential to get more serious and more impacting on our lives and lifestyles.
Part of our prepping is planning for all eventualities. One of these is declining health, and particularly mobility.
Our style of prepping is very much focused around the bugged-in, homesteading, grow your own, self-sufficiency model.
That does require quite a bit of physical labour - chopping wood, shifting compost, digging beds etc.
While I can still do most of it, a back injury is already preventing me from lifting and carrying heavy weights for any distance. This is likely to get worse over time.
So we must plan, and adapt. Find ways to achieve the same but with less manual labour.
In the garden for example I am, as much as possible, moving to perennial crops that will stay put in one place and continue to produce food year in, year out without much physical input.
I am also moving over to the 'no-dig' method of growing food as promoted by Charles Dowding...
At some point when funds permit it would be useful to invest in a powered wheelbarrow to allow me to move heavier loads more easily.
I didn't even know these these existed until I did a search on Amazon and found there are quite a range of models available. Alas mostly in the region of $1000 and upwards. They are mostly battery powered so potentially could be charged from solar PV.
Something like this might be good...
If we really want to go to town, my dream list would include an electric gator type vehicle for moving around our property. I don't know how much these cost but an adult sized one of these would be good...There is probably a whole bunch of equipment we might want to get in the coming years to make prepping lighter on the body. A log splitter for example would be useful.
Perhaps the ultimate older person's preppring gear will be an exo-skeleton. In my Future Diary 2030 series I thought these were a thing of 10 years time, but I have now discovered they are already arriving in Japan...
The physical labour side will be a major part of prepping in our advancing years but there will be many other areas to consider. Some I am already aware of, some I am not.Building up stocks of any medications we may need to take regularly is one thing to plan for.
We might also need to consider how our diets might change. Also our mobility and what sort of vehicles might be best suited for us.
Most of these issues do have something of a negative twist to them.
However one area where I think there might be some positive gain with getting older will be community networking.
As I gradually move to retirement and cut down my employment, I should have much more time to get involved with local organisations and activities. I am looking forward to taking on some volunteer roles in local community groups. This will be a great way to improve our connections in the local area.
Having a strong and diverse local network is a key element of a good prepping strategy.
As this is a fast approaching area of prepping for me I would be interested to hear of any tips and ideas from other older preppers and homesteaders of how they are adapting in their advancing years.
Thank you.
[ image from pixabay.com ]
Old age is one of the things that is on my mind of late, with my mother having moved to an isolated place over an hour from us and being on her own. I worry how she'll manage and feel like she didn't really prepare that well.
When my father died last summer that hit home to me. He lived alone and we were over 6 hours away.
The importance of local community and hopefully family can not be understated.
I didn't know there was such a thing as an electric wheelbarrow, either! I'm still trying to prep my first aid kit. Almost done, though! :)
Good luck with the first aid kit. With the current coronavirus situation better add some good masks in there.
Just got some last week! :D
Good planning.
Nice post, very encouraging. Live long enough and they will invent all the cures you need and then you're immortal lol. I'm close behind, in my fifties and we all need to prep for the ultimate time of transcendence, when we leave this body. Apparently the state of consciousness at death is important as it determines the destination of the spirit soul.
What comes next is always the question...
I found many answers in the Vedanta Sanskrit texts of India during my travels there.