Thoughts for Thursday

I have been talking to a few of my friends and some of them think the stockpiling is silly. Why would you buy all that food to just sit around and take up space in your house? They understand saving money, but don’t understand the need to purchase larger quantities of items and stockpile them for later use. When I thought about this it is really not too far from the pioneer days. They would have to go to the general store and purchase large quantities of items to last until the next time they could go to town and purchase items again.

People grow gardens and can store their own food. When you can your own food, you don’t just can a few items for the month. You try to make enough to last for the whole year. Isn’t that like stockpiling? You buy enough to last you until the next sale cycle or if the price is right to last through the whole year.

I may have rows and rows of tomatoes in my pantry, but so does my mother. Hers just happen to be fresh and canned by her. Mine happen to be from the store and already in cans. I am hoping next year we will be able to grow and can tomatoes. This year was not so successful. We currently have two tomatoes and I am not sure if they are going to grow because of the heat. I hope so. I would like to get the seeds and grow my own again next year.

My pantry is stocked with more food than it has ever had. I also have food stored on the top shelf in my wash room. If I canned fresh fruits and vegetables I would need more space to store food to last an entire year. In the end we are going back to our pioneer roots as women and gathering food for our families in quantities and storing them for use when they are needed.

What are your thougths on stockpiling?