What Should I Do?

The experiences of extended power outages of up to a week due to past ice storms in New England showed that my household systems were fairly resilient. I normally use wood for heat and propane for cooking, neither requiring electricity. The town water system that supplies my household has a backup generator at the treatment plant, and my onsite septic system is gravity-only. Minor loads such as a radio and lights can be powered by rechargeable batteries or a small inverter in my truck. However, the inability to operate my refrigerator/freezer during an extended power loss, while not a matter of survival, was a significant inconvenience. Protecting the year's supply of frozen vegetables and chicken produced from my backyard was desirable, especially during warmer months when food cannot simply be placed outside in the snow. » Read more

As we look at preparing for uncertain times, we seek to have the resources on hand to weather the storm and be more resilient in our daily lives.  We store water and put food away for shortages or emergency situations.  We make sure we can communicate with family, friends, and loved ones.  We are all working on building resilience our own ways and learning from each other. 

Knowledge and skills acquisition is a topic that resonates greatly with the Peak Prosperity community. In this article we will explore a critical skill to learn and practice that can help you in really tough times or emergency situations – the skill of making fire. » Read more

When buying water storage equipment and containers, our customers are always concerned about the quality of the container and what is best for storing water for long periods of time.  Some typical questions we get are: Will the container leach chemicals into the water? Are these containers BPA free? » Read more

Under the general topic of growing some (or all) of our own food, we have broken the larger topic down into several knowledge areas.  We think you should understand why growing your own food is a good choice to make, and so “Understand It” is our first general topic.  Following that, “Grow It,” “Save It,” and “Use It” will help you think about the critical topics of how to get food into the ground, how to get it out, how to keep it from spoiling, and what to do with it once you’ve got it on the shelf, in the freezer, or in the root cellar.  Introductory notes in each section will help you choose which books, publications or websites to read first.  We’ve included links in the text, so you can click for more information as you read. Some of the material that follows is fairly basic; other material is more advanced.

Don’t let something supposedly “advanced” keep you away.  Everyone has to start at the beginning.  We all did.  Whether you choose to grow food against possible shortages, or as an economic decision or as part of changing your lifestyle in healthy and rewarding ways, we hope you find this annotated bibliography of the books that have helped us will help you as well.  We’ve included full citations for each book, to help you locate them. » Read more