Sometimes you get the bear … and sometimes the bear gets you. It’s really frustrating to put time and effort into prepping and only to see the effort fail. It will happen though. We can’t really see the future as we’re trying to plan around a lot of uncertainties, and there are enough details to drop and uncontrollable factors to intervene that some efforts will turn out to be fails. Salty and I have had a few. So how should we deal with them?
We recently recorded a podcast on this subject, be sure to give it a listen!
This tree started the season green and lovely, it put out blossoms, put on apples and then… bad things happened…
Try to make them happen when the costs are low
The picture above is one of my (former) apple trees. It started out with a lot of apples on the make this year, but up and died mid season. Some trees will die young, especially in the hands of an inexpert orchardist (Spice). The good part is I don’t need that tree at this time. I’ve been working on growing up some good permaculture food resources now while times are good. I can afford the fail at this time.
That means good times are Great times to experiment. I can buy potatoes for cheap, so it was a good time to experiment with potato bins. Now I know how they don’t work for me and won’t be depending on resource that looks like a box of potatoes, and the internet said it would be a box full of potatoes, but was really mostly just a box of dirt. You can read the whole story here. The point is, experiment now and find out what is a fail while your need is low.
Test the preps
One way to make sure the fails happen when you can afford them is to be sure to test the preps. A lot of ‘great plans’ fall apart when put into practice. Salty had a major league one of these in the form of a gun purchase. It seemed like the perfect tool for the job … until he tried to shoot it. (Read about it here.)
If that gun had been bought as a prep and stored in its nice protective cosmoline until needed, we’d have had a substandard club with which to beat potential game or attackers over the head. As it was, he got a better answer.
I find camping and survival tips to be especially important to test out. Some of them, like the TippyTap, worked wonderfully once I’d found and fixed the trouble spots. Other things that sounded very good were actually fails, or needed significant modifications. The whole fire starter straw sounded great, but I find a pill bottle from which you can extract your petroleum jelly-soaked cotton is a better answer and less work.
Both these types of containers keep petroleum-jellied cotton twists dry for excellent firestarting. The item on the *right* is not a total pain in the tail to pack.
Have a backup plan
My original plan was for the two apple trees in front of the house to be mutually fertilizing. Then one died.
But there’s this prepper maxim: Two is one, one is none. That lovely tree in the foreground won’t produce next year if it doesn’t have a fertilization partner. The good news is, I planted another potential partner this spring, just around the corner of the house … in case one of the other two died.
Next year, yep, going to have to put in another tree…in case one of the remaining two fails.
Fails will happen; so if an item is critical, have a backup.
Learn from fails
Salty and I had a pretty embarrassing fail early this year. We thought we were prepped for a battery failure in every car … but had just gotten a new car and been sloppy about transferring the emergency supplies to the new one. A critical piece was missing.
The lesson from this was pretty clear; to pay attention to the details to maintain the preps we had. It motivated me to do some other maintenance, such as making sure the stored gas was used and replaced with fresh.
Wow, Salty and I sure came up with plenty of prepper fails over the years, now that I look back on it. Many more plans have worked. As they say, “If you’re not falling, you’re not trying.” Fails are a part of the game, so using them to best advantage is, well… an advantage.
Trees dying and not performing…around these parts, the rose of sharon and crape myrtles just stopped blooming…I noticed mine first of course and then,,,,wow!! no bushes are blooming.
Why?? I have no idea.
I have 2/4/8 year old doing this but even the older bushes in the neighborhood are doing this.
Don’t think you’ll miss blooming hibiscus and crape myrtles? O, ye of little faith.
Now, I wonder how far spread this non-blooming goes and what other bushes have been affected??
Was it a bad weather year in your area? Some perennials will skip a year of reproduction if they’re stressed when the time comes.
No..the year has been great. Normal spring, great summer.
I had well managed my orchard and vineyard and trees/vine plantings were in good productivity. 4-6 year old trees and grape vines, blueberries, etc. We had a couple of years of good harvests, then one day as I was just ready to harvest grapes I noticed a problem. Neighboring farmer had sprayed herbicide and killed numerous grape vines, several apple and pear trees.
All of the leaves on the plants just fell off. All of the plants were at least 100 yards (300 feet) from the closest field. Pesticide folks collected samples and confirmed but no compensation. The bear got lucky. I learned a good lesson.
Ouch!
I have a field adjoining my back yard. Hay field. I wonder what they spray twice a year on it?
Could explain why nothing but crape myrtles live in the back yard…I have pulled up dying things for 11 years. Oh, and, day lilies do well.