The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: What Makes a Person a Prepper?

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

https://www.facebook.com/RaisingValuesPodcast/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.instagram.com/raisingvaluespodcast/http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.prepperbroadcasting.comhttps://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabWomen Who Prep Conference: Come See GillianSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastGillian and Phil welcome Holli to the show, the winner of the Women Who Prep Conference ticket Gillian gave away on show a few weeks ago. Have a seat and listen as Holli fills the audience in on what started her and her family down the road of preparedness, their struggles and triumphs, and what she is hoping to take away from the conference.Raising Values Podcast is live-streaming our podcast on YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices.family, traditional, values, christian, marriage, dating, relationship, children, growing up, peace, wisdom, self improvement, masculinity, feminity, masculine, feminine

Welcome to the Raising Values Podcast, where the traditional family talks. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can support the Raising Values Podcast through Patreon. Bill and Gillian are behind the mic, and we hope you enjoy the show. Good afternoon. I usually say morning, but good afternoon. And it's not just Phil and Gillian behind the mic. Today we have a special guest and a dear friend, and I love her so much. She makes my heart so happy. Holly Wilson, and she is the winner of our Women Who Prep giveaway that we did. So Holly got a ticket to attend the online conference. And this is where I am going to get all the business out of the way.

And since we are focusing on the Women Who Prep conference and women preppers and all that stuff with this episode, I have to tell you about the conference. So the Women Who Prep Conference is April 20th through the 23rd. It is an online conference. And these are some things that you can expect. It's kind of a lot. Access to 15 plus sessions on various preparedness and homestead topics, a mix of live and recorded conference sessions, community group just for attendees, which is off of social media, pre-conference live chats in the community, giveaways, and you get recorded access through July 2024. So you get your ticket, you don't have to attend on those dates. You have access through July.

And I also wanted to tell you more about the speakers. So it said 15 plus speakers. And so these are some of the topics that we will be covering during the conference. EMP Grid Down. It's a panel discussion by a couple of people. There's going to be on that one. Intentional Homesteading. And let's see. I'm keeping on going. Backup Wireless Communications. That should be a fun one. Intentional homesteading. And let's see, I'm keeping on going. Backup wireless communications. That should be a fun one. Again, with the EMP down. Oh, Abney Acres. I love that.

Skill of suturing demonstrations. So there will be demonstrations. There's also live Q&A. So the assessment of lacerations. Phil and I, we did a session. It's prepping with kids. And then I was also part of the urban and suburban prepping panel discussion. And I might be doing the live Q&A at the end of the conference. I need to confirm that. Then we have creating an herbal medicine cabinet, which I am always, always wanting to learn more of. Northern gardening, cooking off-grid, small space, small space prepping, emergency evacuation preparation, off-grid 101, refuge medical, and how to cook indoors when the lights go out. So as you can see, there's going to be

tons of topics that we will discuss, giveaways, there's sponsors, there's vendors, there's all sorts of things. So if you have not gotten your ticket and you weren't as lucky as Miss Holly here, then there is an affiliate link on our Facebook and our Instagram on the link tree. Use that affiliate link because you love me and you want to help me. Use my affiliate link to grab your ticket for that. And of course, you can buy as many tickets as you want through that affiliate link. I won't be mad. But so yeah, so there's all the business. And welcome, Holly. I'm so glad to, I said before we started recording, I said, I'm so glad to see your face. I wish we got to see each other more often.

But I will take seeing you through a camera if I can't hug your neck in real life. But, oh, and Phil's here. Hi. Hey, Holly. We're glad you're here, too. Yeah, I mean, just the nameless faceless podcast producer well i think i always feel like when me and holly get together and it was for me when um i first met holly around that campfire in arkansas it was like i've known you my entire life and i just want you to know how much i love you

and it was my first time getting to ever meet her. And I feel like it's always like that. It's like, it's like that friend where you may not talk for a year and, but you pick up right where you left off kind of thing. So that's, it is, I feel like that with you and maybe I'm being a little gushy, but that's what it is. So no, I think that's, I think that's one of the things that's so much fun is because I felt the same thing too. And, um, we just instantly felt like we were part of that community and some knew, uh, each other a little better than others. But now, you know, I mean, I think we, we, we pick at each other. We love each other,

all of it. Like we have known each other forever. Y'all are our chosen family. And I mentioned earlier, I know you're here still, but me and Holly are here. I mentioned earlier that it was a day for our patrons and a day for our chosen family because we just went to lunch with Joe and his family who are in from Missouri. They're actually, they went to the coast in Mississippi, and then they came over here this morning for brunchy breakfast, lunch kind of thing. And so we've spent the morning with some of our family from Missouri,

and now I'm spending the rest of the day with you, or not the rest of the day, but at least another hour with you. And so it just reminds me of how blessed we are with this podcast and mainly yours because our patrons have come from you, mostly from the Matter of Facts. But anyway, I will stop gushing. We will get to the point that was almost seven minutes of me rambling. But yeah, do you have anything to say? No, I'm just feeding you the rope. Well, Holly, if you don't mind, just kind of do a quick introduction, just so people know who you are. And we didn't just find some random person to come on board today.

Well, it doesn't get more random than me at times. So, you know, but you get what you pay for, right? And we're not paying for you. I know, exactly. That's my point. So my name is Holly Mack and I live with my husband and my son. We live in Alabama and we are just so excited to kind of be part of the Matter of Facts and Raising Values family. My husband, if you have followed Matter of Facts at all, or if you're part of the chat, you are well aware of what he does. But our jobs are as different as they come. He is in law enforcement and has a background in law enforcement. And, you know, before we started recording, I joked about how I'm in my bougie home office downstairs with, you know, the pink curtains and all the frilly things, which is about the only

frilly space in our house. But I have a little more what I call a bougie job. But so we just love family. We're a big supporter of family. And we love getting together with our friends and all those fun things. Awesome. Well, okay, so that's going to bring us to our first banner. This is where you come in for this show. Okay.

All right. So everyone has heard the story of me and Phil and how we've gotten into prepping. In fact, if you attend the conference, you can hear that story one more time. But what got you into prepping and how long have you been prepping? You know, it's funny because I have to stop and really kind of realize that I've been in prepping longer than what I kind of give myself credit for. Growing up, as far back as I can remember, my mom and dad kind of instilled that in me just a little bit, not to the extent that we do it today. But, you know, I remember anytime we would get in the car, my mom always had an emergency bag. And then, of course, when I, you know, became of driving age, the priority was you're going to learn how to change your oil. You're going to learn how to change your tire. You're going to have an emergency bag of

your own. So, you know, we've always kind of had that emergency bag in the car and then in our, what we call, you know, our tornado safe space. I mean, you know, here in Alabama, we're in the Southeast, tornadoes are a common thing. And we're as used to them as we can be. But, you know, we always talk about being prepared and not scared. And part of that is you've got your supplies, you've got your tornado kits and your tornado bags and all of that. So I grew up being aware of and prepared for those things. And then I have a background in disaster services, both in mitigation and preparation and then response. So when I was a teenager, I began volunteering for a national disaster response organization and did it for about 20 years just as a volunteer before I finally agreed to to take a paid position as the disaster services programming person. And so with that, there was a little more preparedness that existed in my life for me and my immediate family.

But it really wasn't until after I married my husband, Kyle, that that really got ramped up quite a bit. So, you know, kind of all my life in some respects, but a majority of the more dedicated prepping really has been about the past nine years or so. Okay. I would even say that's longer than me. How long have you been prepping? When did you get us started? And see, what I was going to say was that what this sounds familiar to is the story I've heard from a lot of people that when you ask them this question of how long have you been into prepping, there's some kind of genesis point almost in their childhood in a lot of cases where they remember prepping lessons that they never thought of as prepping that they grew up with. But it's often characterized a lot as you said holly like we didn't take it as seriously as we do now our preps weren't as extensive and i would just say that like it sounds to me like your experience

matches gillian and i's where like the methodologies of prepping were there if not exactly the way you implemented like when you grew up in north lou, ice storms and tornadoes, they're part and parcel of living up there. You learn what to do to get ready for them because that's your environmental hazard. Down here on the Gold Coast where I grew up, it's hurricanes. That's our bread and butter. It's like I told the Oliveros this morning. It's not if a Cat 5 hurricane wipes out five zip codes down here. It's when. Because you throw enough of them up here through the Gulf Coast, you're going to catch one eventually. So a lot of the things I grew up with that, like, my parents would never characterize themselves as preppers.

And we never called any of that stuff prepping. We called it getting ready for hurricane season. It was just a normal part of life. And the only difference between what I grew up doing that my parents taught me and what we do now is we've just expanded on it by orders of magnitude. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We'll start seeing the stuff from the government soon, our local governments, because June 1st is the beginning of hurricane season. And now normally, knock on wood, we don't normally see a hurricane until late July, August. Late August is when we'll start to see them. And they really ramp up between August and November.

But, yeah, it's, you know, me asking you, how long have we been prepping kind of thing. But, yeah, now that you think of it, you remind me, I've been a prepper for a long time. But we never thought of it that way growing up. It was, I know this threat will come to my doorstep eventually. I better be ready for it when it comes to my doorstep. And the only difference between what we did back then and what we do now from children to adults is the threats might be multiple. There might be different threats. We're still looking at some of the old threats. We might deal with them different ways. But it's all based on the same methodology of when you have the worst day of your life, do you want to be in a better or worse

position to deal with it? Yeah. Yeah. And you don't get to pick that on that day. Right. You pick that today and you get ready for that day, not knowing when it's coming. So then I think it's safe to say most people start down the prepping road in almost like in regards to their natural environment. they're going to prep for tornadoes. They're going to prep for ice storms or, you know, whatever. Um, and sometimes it sticks and then sometimes it grows. And so that kind of leads me into my next question with how have, hang on, he's got, okay. How, how have your family evolved since you started? How has your family's...

My inner grammar teacher is screaming right now. I typed these up three minutes before we went live. Minus two points here. How has your family's prepping evolved since you started? In my defense, I'm a math nerd, not a grammar nerd. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's life. You know, it's been funny because I think I had a little bit of a background in prepping and Kyle was a prepper in very different ways. And, you know, it wasn't a,

hey woman, you're my wife now, get to prepping. You know, there wasn't any of that. That's what I did with you. Get in the kitchen and rattle them pans. And while you're at it, you know, make me a sandwich. That's right. So I had a specific mindset about what prepping was for me and what it had been for me. And then I think Kyle had a mindset of what prepping was for him. Well, now we're a family and it's a little bit different. Oh, well, now there's other people to think about and, oh, there's other areas in which to prep that I had never considered before. So to be perfectly honest, when we

met and dated and even after we'd been married a little while, you know, I would look at him and think, why are you so crazy? Like, what are you planning for? What are you thinking? What is wrong with you? You know, but it's real, y'all. It is. It's because you know, I'm, I'm thinking, oh, we've got a little extra money in our budget. Let's buy a beautiful piece of furniture for our home. And he's like, I got, I need more ammo and I need this and I need this. And I'm like, what are you, why are you so crazy? Like, why are you, what are you planning for? The apocalypse? Right. But it really, exactly. But it did make me kind of stop and kind of put myself in his shoes and get him to consider putting himself in mine as far as prepping went so it's

funny because it was almost piecemealed in the beginning but now as a family, we are intentional about it. And I will say we're not like super, super methodical. A lot of what we do is just understood and it comes naturally. And we've also, you know, had to be a little bit careful because whereas family is our priority and we're going to make sure that we're prepared. You know, if you go out and say, oh, well, I'm going to this preppers conference and we're spending the day, you know, working on our stockpile or whatever. You know, a lot of people have a misconception about what prepping is. So they think you're those crazy people who were, you know, holed up in a bunker, reloading every Sunday and, you know, things like that. So we have evolved and now we are a family who does really kind of prep together in a lot of ways. Yeah, I was in that same boat. I can remember having a conversation with my father-in-law in his driveway going, I'm a little concerned.

I don't know if he's like gone into the crazy, like we need to send him to the crazy house or whatever, but he's, he's different. He's showing some different putting energy in places that what, who is this man? And then the body armor showed up at the front door. I'm like, okay, I think we need to have a sit down conversation. What the hell are you doing? And what are you planning? And do you know something that I don't know? Although to be fair, because Holly brought up her husband being in law enforcement, having that background. My background is I'm literally a combat veteran i spent a year in iraq and i spent several months in post katrina new orleans yeah so like i don't view body armor as odd like to me that's

literally just tools of my trade you know it might sound a little off the wall to the average person but to me it's like if somebody said, hey, I need to put on my hiking boots to go hiking in the woods. Like, of course, you would put on hiking boots to go hiking in the woods. What else are you supposed to wear? Well, in a situation like what I witnessed in Iraq and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, you want your body armor for body armor moments. Right. But it was still one of those shock factors of okay we've now reached a new level we're no longer just we no longer have like just five gallon buckets full of rice and beans in the frit i mean in the garage and whatever now it was it really was that moment of

he has totally lost all those marbles and they have fallen how much quick what do you need showing up at your door week after week? Really? Well, but the funny part of this is she, she was not at that time aware because back then, like, you know, money was a lot tighter with us than it is now. We were earlier on in our careers and I had a very small prepper budget every month that I would spend that money. And once that was spent, that was it. There were no extraneous purchases because I had to do adult things like

plan for retirement and pay bills, boring stuff, nerd stuff. But that budget got spent every month, whether or not you realized it. So there was more ammunition and more medical equipment in this house than you realized at the moment the body armor showed up. Like to you, that was the moment where you were like, oh no, we've reached a new level. And to me, I was like, if you only understood how much other stuff is squirreled away in this house right now. Well, it got very real for me very fast because right after we got married, we're in our house and we're getting ready to go on a day trip. And our first big purchase together right after we got married was a gun safe, not just any ordinary gun safe,

a very particular gun safe. And I remember standing in the beautiful, the beautiful, the beautiful living room at the house and all the furniture was so nice and it was so pretty. And that day they were coming in to put the gun safe in the only room that could possibly work for this particular safe. And then I was like, how are we going to camouflage this? What are we, how are we going to work around this? And I was like, okay, it's real now, you know? So, so that was in our previous house. And that was, um,, it's real now, you know? So, so that was in our previous

house. And that was, you know, that was kind of that day that I was like, okay, you've either got to embrace it or be okay being a single woman for the rest of your life. Right. It, it didn't, it did take me just a little bit to, to realize that this is coming from a place of love and he is trying to make sure that his family is protected. And while it does seem crazy, at least we're not moved into a bunker. And I have to give credit to my father for like taking that standpoint because, you know, my father and I, I think to this day, we don't see 100% eye to eye, I would say on most things,

you know, like he raised me to have my own opinion. He raised me to be my own person and make my own decisions and deal with the consequences of those decisions. And so when it comes to like my viewpoint on preparedness, he shares some of those views, but then there there's, it's almost like, I understand where you're coming from, but I would never take it that far. And that's fine. like, I understand where you're coming from, but I would never take it that far. And that's fine. You know, he's got his own life situation to account for. But like, I know that when he, when he had that conversation with you, it really was him probably thinking to himself, like, I know my son. Yeah. He's, he's going to do whatever he thinks he has to do to take care of his family. He doesn't care who says anything about it or what their viewpoint is because they're not

the people who have the responsibility to care for his family. He does. And he's going to do it in whatever way he thinks is appropriate. And to give your dad credit, he did talk me off the ledge and was like, give him some time. I don't think he's ready for the loony bin yet. He's just trying to take care of his family so yeah okay you came around i obviously came around because i have now joined you in the crazy um it's not the crazy no it's either that or you you y'all just wear us down who even knows at this point i'm i'm i'm kind of okay with six or half a dozen it's the same same thing to me. Either way, it happens. I reordered these because she kind of started answering this about, you know, are y'all the family that preps together?

But I am curious because I have suspicion just knowing y'all outside of this one podcast episode. Like, do each one of y'all kind of have your own roles or your own like lanes or your own areas of expertise? Cause like, I, having talked to y'all both, I, I kind of feel like I understand the perspective y'all came from. And it, a lot echoes, I think me and Gillian and I can imagine y'all, y'all came at preparedness from two opposite lanes. Right. That's, I think that's so accurate to say that. And it really is true. And, um, you know, these days there's a lot when I say when, when we first got married, there was a lot that I didn't understand. And I thought, you know, I'm like, he, I have married a crazy person. I've made a grave mistake. I've married a crazy person, but you know, now being this, this, um, much farther down the road,

I really appreciate it. And, you know, when I, when I started talking to my husband about why he was doing what he was doing in the way of preparedness and all that, I really began to appreciate it and respect it. It also made me more aware of like why he was more of a prepper and being very cognizant of what is going on around us at all times, not just in our immediate bubble, but the bigger picture as a whole. But we are a family who preps together. We do have our own specific roles. We do have our own specific roles. We have a young son and, you know, we you have the news on in the background, that can be extremely fear inducing for a lot of

folks. But so, you know, we have to be careful how we approach it, but he is still very involved in the prepping. So my husband does kind of have more of the, you know, for lack of a better term, hey, look, if ish hits the fan, I need you to be able to help our family with this. So he is definitely more of the guns and ammo kind of guy and, you know, more of the body armor guy. armor guy and the a lot of the life skills that he already had from just the way that he grew up and certainly you know if he needed to being able to provide for his family you know whether it was food from growing it or are hunting animals or things like that to really knowing how to work with what you have to take care of your family. So that was kind of his background and he kind of carries through with that.

Mine, I'm certainly a proponent of being safe. And in my job, I mentioned I have a very, what a lot of people would call a bougie job. But in my job, I work with a lot of clients regularly, a lot of whom I don't really know ahead of time. So it's important for me to make sure that I'm armed at all times when I'm with clients, whether it's for my protection or mine and theirs. So I do a little bit of prepping in that way as well. But mine is more of the, you know, homestead type prepping and the canning and the making sure that we have the bucket full of flour and sugar and rice and beans and, you know, taking stock of that. Our son has, you know, kind of embraced that when we go to the store, we'll, you know, pick up a few extra things and I'll ask him to pick out some of his favorite things as far as canned goods go.

And he helps inventory things. He has some responsibilities of how to take care of our pets. If we were to get into a situation that warranted, you know, Hey, the grid's gone down. How are we going to respond? You know, I am medicine and food and healthcare. Kyle is the guns and ammo guy. Our son is how are we going to take care of our pets and things like that. So we all do it together. We don't wake up and say today is prepping day,

So we all do it together. We don't wake up and say today is prepping day. But it's something that's just an ongoing thing with us. And we work it in as we can and where we can. I love that. I love to hear how y'all have incorporated H into all of this. And yeah, we've you'll certainly see the that he is going to evolve on his own as he grows older and then his roles will change as well. And it made me think of something that happened recently in our house, um, a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago now, I wasn't sick or anything, but I had an emergency visit, um, where the doctor had to tell me that I just got up too fast. You're just getting up. You're too old now and you just got up too fast. You got dizzy and you

passed out. Well, it happened 5.30 in the morning. It's dark outside, so there's no light in the bathroom. And I had told Piper, I said, go get dad. I don't feel so great. And I passed out in the bathroom. It was so incredible to see how my 11 year old child reacted to that. It wasn't a, she claims that she wasn't scared, but she went into straight on. We need shoes. We need keys. We need this. We need that. Dad's got mom, mom's incapacitated, but I've got these things and they weren't necessarily anything that we had planned for we never truly went over this is your role if mom passes out in the bathroom you don't plan for those kinds of things because you're not going to think about everything but I saw my kid in a whole new light. She had matured through this whole process of being in a prepper family.

And she's been a prepper her entire life. So once I did come to and I was able to hold my own, and once we, you know, especially got into the ER and I was so apologetic. And I'm thinking I've scared my kid. I've passed out. I wasn't able to help or do anything. And I didn't want her to think, oh, mom's dying or something like that. The way that she responded was just so mature and in such true prepper, she takes after her dad.

Shoes, she brought Phil his shoes. made sure the key she had the keys everything she just thought of everything so she at one point like she made the decision as i was walking you out to the truck because like we live so close to the nearest emergency room that i was like if you can still motor under your own power to the truck i can get you to the emergency room faster than an ambulance can get here so let's just like cut out the middleman and just take you ourselves uh one of the benefits of living where we do even though i'd much rather be like 100 miles back in the woods but i'll take what i can get for the time being but yeah she like as i was walking you out she took it upon herself to go looking for her she went to grab the spare set of keys thinking there will be a house key on those i can lock up the front door while dad's

dealing with mom now we don't have a house key on the set of keys she grabbed so she got to the front door and you know wasn't doing her any good but the point is still that like she was she wasn't panicking she wasn't losing her stuff she her brain was fully engaged on how do i get mom and dad where they're trying to get yeah like as soon as i said we're going to the emergency room she didn't say a word she didn't wait for directions she went straight to her bedroom got her shoes on came back but you know i think i think think a lot of the kids that are part of this community really kind of hone in on those critical thinking skills a lot, because I know I think just in the time that we've been around y'all and what we know of y'all and the conversations we've had, it's similar to the way that we work. You know, one of my son's favorite games is, would you rather, would you rather do this or that? And he loves it. And knowing that about him, I started thinking, well, how can we play on

what he plugs into to get him thinking about preparedness? And it kind of evolved from, would you rather into what would you do if, and we give scenarios and, you know, even this afternoon at lunch, we were talking about some what would you do if scenarios that dealt with like active shooters? And what if the house were on fire and you were upstairs and I were downstairs? Yeah. How would you handle that? And, you know, things like that. He really seems to dig in to those critical thinking skills. I think partially because he's still young enough that the world hasn't told him no and no, that's not possible. So in his mind, Hey, anything is possible, you know? And then also partially just because

we run scenarios with him a lot. And, um, when we go out to eat and where we sit in a restaurant, you know, we'll have those conversations. Harrison, if someone came in and did this, what would you do? So he thinks about those things in real time too. And it just comes naturally to him in a lot of cases now. And he's not the weird kid. And it's neat to just be out with him on a regular day and have him think about or say something. And it clicks. You're like, okay, my kid gets it. He gets it. Yeah. Okay. He does. So that's what I need too. Yeah. I've loved watching all of our kids evolve through this lifestyle and figure out what their role, what their real, not real role, but what their role is in the family.

And then what is their role going to be? Because we have friends in our community that was within the Matter of Facts Raising Values community whose kids are a bunch older. They've graduated high school. They're in college or whatever. Some of them are going off to military school and whatever. And so I know that those roles for them have also changed. And it's actually so much fun to watch them grow up. And one of the things that we had talked about when we had

Sarah and Brock on a couple of weeks ago was when we all go to prepper camp, we just let our kids become feral again and let them run off and do their own thing. There's a snake in the woods. Don't have fun. Here's a radio and an emergency whistle in case you need to announce your location to me and I need to find you. Yeah. And I know that we can call up or text friends or whatever and say, have you seen Piper? And they're like, oh yeah, she's down here at this vendor's booth or whatever. So, and so I think that's another aspect of how we raise our children in this lifestyle is we allow them to be feral. We allow them to have those moments where they have to use those critical thinking skills

because mom and dad may not always be there. Mom and dad have sent you off into the woods and kicked you out of the nest, babe. So, you know, if you come across a snake, what are you going to do? Or if you get in a boat and it capsizes on the lake while you're fishing with your friend, what are you going to do? And so it's... But more than teaching specific skills, I feel like what we in this community are teaching our children is the thought process of a person that's preparedness or survival minded. Like the thing, Holly, that you brought up, like playing, what would you do with your son? Like, that's exactly what I used to do with Piper when she was younger. And in big boy terms, we call it war gaming. It's your presented scenario.

What would you do in this scenario? And it's just a thought exercise so that if that scenario ever pops up or something similar to it, you kind of already have a thought process you're engaged in. But at the very least, what we're trying to teach our children is the ability to apply past lessons to future emergencies. fly past lessons to future emergencies. Like with Piper in that scenario you gave, it was, you know, we had never told her if mom passes out, this is what you do. But Piper's been around us in enough smaller scale emergency situations like Hurricane Ida, or like that it's not the first time we've had to take you to the emergency room for something, or take her to the emergency room. And we all know like these are the things we need to do to get this person taken care of.

But almost more importantly for her is the fact that in those emergency situations, she's never observed two parents who were sitting there with their finger in their mouth, not knowing what to do or freaking out or losing their stuff. Like she's observed mom and dad, you know, maybe there's some fear. That's fair. That's well within bounds to be scared when there's reasons to be scared. But she always observed mom and dad, I have a plan. I am executing the plan. I am holding my family together. I am not worried about this little thing right here. I'm still looking far off into the distance so that the next phase of this emergency I'm prepared for. And those are lessons we've tried to instill in her and you've

tried to instill in your son. It's teaching a person how to maintain their calm under pressure. And that's a hard thing to teach, but I find it kind of comes naturally to people in this community for some reason. Like because we've instilled in ourselves, we're naturally going to try to instill that in our kids. Yeah. And as a mom and a teacher, you see that instilling these things in our children now, and it's like we say on this podcast all the time, is we're raising adults.

And so we want to make sure that when they do fly the nest, they are prepared and they can think through those scenarios. Because it's like I told Piper the other day, she was upset about some assignment she had for school. And I said, sweetheart, it is only going to get harder from here. Like you are about to be in high school and this assignment is nothing compared to what you're going to have. So we're going to have to teach you some coping skills. And that is really what we're doing is we're teaching our kids how to cope through the hard, stressful situations that they're going to find themselves in as adults. And now is the time. I mean, that is, we started, Piper was a baby when we started,

you started when your son was a baby. And so, you know, pat ourselves on the back for that. Your son was a baby. And so, you know, pat ourselves on the back for that. I feel like it's something that at least I didn't get when I was a child. But I don't know. I think it's great. I mean, I can remember being fairly young when I got the speech from my dad about, like, my job is to prepare you for the world that I'm not in to protect you anymore. And, like, I couldn't tell you how young I was when I got that speech. But I remember, I remember at the time being like, oh my God, what do you mean you're not

going to be here? Like, you know, that was a concept for me to embrace was that my dad's job is to prepare me for the day I have to live without him, without that guidance and that protection and everything else. And, you know, like I'm 41 years old and I'm not ready to lose him. But I know that if I had to, my family would be taken care of. We'll, we'll get through it. So I think, I think that's, that's a thing that like we prepare our children for maybe younger than some do, but it's just, it's just to try to, you know, like the reason most of us came to preparedness was to take care of our families with the understanding that there will be a day we're not going to be there to do it.

So we have to prepare them and take care of themselves, too. So, Holly, I know you've been prepping for a very long time, but what came naturally to you? And then what would you say is your biggest obstacle in prepping? is your biggest obstacle in prepping? I think what came naturally was making sure that we were prepared for, you know, the pantry, that the pantry was always stocked. That's important. Yeah, that was a very natural thing. You know, it was kind of an easy transition into getting more prepared in that way as far as learning to can. I had never been a canner until a few years ago. And then, you know, my father-in-law is so gracious and gives us tons of fresh eggs and vegetables and all those things. And I thought, well, we can't let this go to waste.

There's only three of us. We're not going to eat all this in a week. What can we do? So I learned how to can and then realized it was not as daunting as I thought it was. I absolutely love it now. But, you know, those kind of things, just making sure that our pantry was stocked, making sure that we were stocked with any medical supplies that we might need, those kind of things, making sure that we had that emergency backup with our finances and access to those things. Because let's be honest, we in 2011 here in Alabama and the part of Alabama where we live, 2011 here in Alabama, in the part of Alabama where we live, we had a major, major tornado that came through during rush hour one day. And it took out all of the non-government agencies that work in disasters, such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, things like that. It took out all the local

police departments, all the local sheriff's departments, all the communications towers, every major, oh, fire stations, multiple fire stations. So all of these people that had always been the first responders were suddenly dealing with taking a hit, you know, at ground zero themselves. How do you respond as a community? Well, guess what? If the first responders can't get to you, how are you going to take care of your family? So, you know, communications really took precedence at that point for our family, those emergency communications. You know, I went through coursework and studying to get my ham license. My husband made sure that we had plenty of, you know, handheld scanners and things like that, ways to communicate if the grid goes down. And let's face it, it's not if, it's when, guys.

Cell phones went berserk just a few weeks ago just a few weeks ago all the you know we saw the meta platform was down and um the cell phone platforms were out so well guess what when you can't use your credit card how do you get gas well if you can't you know get to a gas station and they can't, you know, take money, do you have gas reserves? And, you know, so little things like that. So it was just kind of natural to make sure that we had some of those extra things that we do anyway. Hey, next time you go to the store for band-aids, let's pick up some extra ones, or let's take it a step further and think through if we went something, if we went through something like that again, what could we possibly need?

And let's go ahead and get prepared and have those things on hand. As far as obstacles, initially, I think it was just space. In our previous home, we were, you know, I was already established as a single adult and my husband had been established as a single adult. And then you get married and combine things and move into one household. And so physical space was kind of an obstacle at first that, and again, just the misconception of what it means to be a prepper and to think, are we fixing to alienate ourselves from our friends? Are our friends going to understand what this means? Or are we fixing to ostracize ourselves from our social network? So, you know, that was a little bit of an obstacle.

And again, you know, as Phil mentioned, Phil mentioned, kind of when you're starting out, your budget may not be what it is several years down the road or when you're more well-established in your job. So really having to prioritize what your finances are and what you need and how to marry those things together. Yeah, I'm sorry.

I recently did the Women Who Prep live panel discussion and I probably shouldn't say this, but there was a part on there where we were giving advice to the people listening. And the question was, what would you give? You know, what would you say? And I use the term, you know, how do you eat an elephant? You eat it one bite at a time. And so that is how you have to think of prepping. You have to fit it into that budget. You have to fit it into the lifestyle.

My sister Phoebe had a comment earlier in the show, and she said, where's the best place to store prepped items? And what is the most valuable thing that you prep? This answer changes for everybody and in every situation. And I don't know if Phoebe is still on, but it's really dependent on where you live. There are people that have basements. We don't, you don't. And so our prepping took over a bedroom and our garage for the most part. I mean, our preps are pretty well packed. Well, they're in a lot of places. There are a lot of places. I'm going to think about it.

Yeah. It's true. What I would say about the where do you store prepped items, the answer is wherever you can that it makes sense to like if you have a garage and it's secure and you're willing to go out there and check every so often make sure there's no pests or anything eating on your stuff that's perfectly within bounds um i would say that where you store your things is a very individual situation and you need to take into account what the environment is, is the thing you're trying to store safe out there? Like, obviously, like if it's something that can't tolerate a lot of moisture, I'm not going to leave it out in the garage for a long period of time down here in South Louisiana,

because the humidity is like 110% most of the year and it'd get ruined. I'm not going to secure firearms out in the garage, for example, because they'll rust themselves to pieces. I wouldn't store firearms in the garage anyway because, you know, the garage I feel like is safe enough for some things, not necessarily for other things. So where you store your stuff is, that's a highly individual thing. As far as like the most valuable thing, I'm going to buck a lot of the preparedness community and say it's nothing to do with firearms and ammunition. As important as that is, it's water. Yeah. I knew you were going to say water. Well, let's go back to the tenets of preparedness. How long can you live without shelter, water, food? And the truth of the matter is you can make it about, supposedly, I know this is not a hard, fast rule, but it's three weeks with food,

is you can make it about supposedly, I know there's, this is not a hard, fast rule, but like it's three weeks with food, three days without water, three hours in an inclement condition without shelter. If you're in a home, you have shelter dealt with already. You've got three days to find drinkable water that is going to give you dysentery. So I always tell people, I'm like, you know, optimally you bring all these things up evenly. But the very first thing I always tell people is I'm like, if you don't have water, that's in my opinion, the very, it's one of the simplest things to cross off the list.

And it's one of the most important. Yeah. And if your immediate reaction is I'm on city water, what happens if I turn your water meter off? Yeah. And what happens if a tree falls on your neighbor, neighborhood holding tank, got hit by a pine tree after Ida.

We woke up the next morning with no water pressure. And we got, I mean, like, the water prepping plan that I put together, stretch it out max. It's probably 28 days. It's about what I calculated. Now, that's a half gallon a person. So we're talking about extreme extreme that's like no showering no bathing no brushing your teeth no coffee that is literally like max sustainment but it's still 28 days supply of bottled water yeah which is enough time to get me set up with the the the

stuff i have in the garage that's all collapsed together with some berkey filters and some other things to make a gravity-fed water filter system. We've got 35 gallons out back hooked up to the downspouts, and I'm working on 110-gallon rain catch, too. So long story short, water, most important thing. You're not going to get very far if you don't have clean drinking water. Right. Yeah. So, yeah.

There was, I think, more questions and we'll, we've got about 10 minutes or so. So you'll have to go back to banners. Oh, hi Nina. I'm so glad you joined us. We can go as long as she's, she's got time for though. Because I know that you join us in the mornings and I wasn't sure if you were going to join us this afternoon. So I'm glad you are while you're shopping. All right. So what advice would you give someone that's just starting out? Um, I would say, uh, kind of, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? Um, I would say start with one thing at a time, start small. Um, you don't have to go out and buy all the guns and all the ammo and all the five gallon buckets and fill

them up immediately. But figure out what some of the most important things are for you, for your family and start there. You know, do you have an emergency bag for your car? Yeah. Okay. Easy peasy. Do you have one for your house? If there were to be a weather disaster or some other type of disaster, do you have a little bit of extra food? Next time you go to the grocery store, pick up, you know, a little bit of extra where you can. You know, anytime you see those buy one, get one sales, grab an extra, put it in the pantry or put it in a food grade bucket or some bucket that you can seal and take care of it. Little things like that. I think you would definitely do better off kind of being a little more methodical about it that way than going all in guns a blazing, literally, and running around in a panic or trying to get all the things done at once. Because it's an evolving process. You know, the basics, the basics are important. The basics are so important. The basics are important. The basics are so important. And then once you kind of get the hang of that, you begin to understand what your family can handle or what more specific needs they they would have.

You know, things like that. You definitely don't want to get into a situation where your supplies, as far as perishable things or eventually perishable, go bad. And you have, you know, rancid flower, that's not going to do you any good, you know, things like that. But you begin to realize what things your family might need more of. And, you know, like as far as prepping for our son, when he was a baby, the way that we prepped for him looked very different from the way that it looks now, you know, so it's an evolving process, but, but I would say focus, you know, pick those one or two things that would make an immediate difference and start there. And I would add to that to start with something that comes naturally to you. So when Phil really got into the whole prepping scene and then I started to trudge along

behind him, trudge, I was, I was overwhelmed with, okay, we're preppers. That's what this means and whatever. So I had to get past the stigma of, like you said, of we're preppers. Are we going to lose friends and family because of this? Because they're going to think we're crazy bunker people. I never cared. I know you didn't, but I did think about those things. Al doesn't care either, so that's okay. Well, I've come to learn that I'd rather my family be taken care of than the opinion of other people. But what I started to do is really start questioning, okay, well, he's got the food and ammo and body armor. He's got all that stuff on

check. What can I add to this? So I really started to go down the rabbit hole of medicinal herbs and making sure that if we can't get to a pharmacy, what can I use that is provided in nature to keep my family healthy? And when I tell you a rabbit hole, it's a rabbit hole. And it's so much, you're probably going to laugh at this. I consider myself a green witch now. It's like I'm little witchy vibes going through the forest out next door. Listen, it's funny that you say that because I have a real, like a legit story about that. You know, several years ago, I guess when they got really popular, I jumped on the essential oils bandwagon and my husband has been the absolute worst making fun of me. And he would say, Oh, get out your hippie oils and all that. But let me tell

you what happened. Yo, he's hook, line and sinker in the hippie. Yeah. So my mother, my mother was working in the yard. This has been a few months ago. Mom was working in the yard in her backyard and she had a flower pot and a chipmunk had dug up her flower in this little pot. And she took her finger and she just poked it right down in the dirt and kind of put that flower back in there. And then, you know, a few hours went by and we had gone to dinner that night. We had an event at the local university and we had gone out and her finger is hot and it is red and it is swollen. And it continues through the night to swell. The next day, her one little petite finger looked like about three of mine put together and it was red the skin was

about to burst and we couldn't figure out what was going on so she had to take a trip to the emergent you know emergency clinic and all that kind of stuff short version she ended up on a an IV drip a 24-7 constant drip for her finger and they they said, oh, it's, it's cellulitis that has set in. And, um, she was in extreme pain and it went on and on and kept getting worse, not better. She was on extreme antibiotics, y'all. And you know what antibiotics do to you. And she was getting as many probiotics back in there as she could to kind of help, you know, counteract some of the results of those antibiotics. And it was not getting better. And to the point where we were worried she was going to lose her finger.

Insert the hippie holes. So just, you know, because I'm like that person now, I was like, that's it. I'm going, you know, I now. I was like, that's it. I now grow things. That's new for me. We are not full-on homesteaders, but we're taking steps. And I have a garden every year now. I grow my own herbs.

And so I went and grabbed some oregano. I said, well, I'm cooking dinner and I'm going to put as much fresh oregano in it as I can. And we actually used oregano oil on her finger. Within just a few hours, the swelling begins reducing. The color is coming back in her fingers. She's getting pain relief. Now, this is something that modern medicine had not been able to accurately treat. But pretty immediately, we had an herbal remedy for it. treat, but pretty immediately we had an herbal remedy for it. Luke, okay, maybe, except that we have used that same situation in other wounds and other treatments where antibiotics might be needed. And we've seen bodies resistant to those antibiotics, but we have seen those same bodies. My husband was one of them

respond to herbal remedies. So move over sister. I'm a green witch with you now. Yeah. So that is, that is something that I feel like I bring to the table of prepping and it, it, it really helps with that whole lifestyle within your family when someone, when everyone can play a role at some point. And so like I was saying, so start naturally. Start with what comes natural to you and go down that road. And while you're building over here with that one or two things, research other things. You're going to need to do your research. Prepping is a lot of reading and finding out what others have done before you that worked

and didn't work. And then prepping is also a lot of how people lived a long time ago. I say a long time ago, a hundred years ago, 80 years ago, that's how people lived. And so research and do figure out what worked for them, because the manual has been written. You don't have to rewrite it. It's not that hard. So yeah. I would also say that like, even though there were things that I was kind of already prepping, your input was still invaluable to those. Cause like our food prepping, I would say when I was the only one doing it, it was very one dimensional. It was lots of rice and beans. It was lots of like, what is it going to take to keep my family from starving to death if we have to fall back on this? And to that end, like I had, again, you know, the water was bottled up to about a 28 day standard.

I had the food up to about the same standard, which goes to what we were talking about earlier about how you bring all things up somewhat evenly if you can. And I started out prepping for a three-day emergency and then a week emergency and then two weeks. And then this was about the four-week mark. And then when you came in, you were like, I really appreciate you doing all this prepping and all you're getting all this food put away. But if you don't have baking supplies to make me and your child brownies in the middle of a bad day, it's going to be a worse day. Your child who will eventually be a woman who will need those chocolates and brownies. So as a result, if you want to live through this apocalypse, so the five gallon buckets of beans and rice, you know know they've more than tripled in count at this point like that's still always going to be a good base reserve of calories but to that like we have

i call it the caffeine bucket it's a bucket full of green coffee beans because i roast my own beans and black tea bags it we have a bucket that's nothing but baking supplies, flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder, like everything except for milk. And I actually have some powdered milk put away that I hope I never have to use, but it's there. It's there. And, you know, we keep a pretty good supply of eggs on hand. our food stock in the direction that you were guiding me. Because to me, it doesn't matter, except for maybe a cost perspective, whether I prep this or this for food, except that this will make my daughter and wife a little happier in an emergency situation than this will. Yeah. And that's just one more, of course, layer to throw into the whole survivalism and preparedness lifestyle is if you're going to have to rough it,

rough it and keep morale up. Thrive, not thrive. Especially in a time when you are in control of your preps, try to keep your morale up. Make sure you have some extra underwear or make sure you have the soap in your preps and make sure you have those things that are going to keep you alive from your women that live in the house. Nina, there was a question or something that Nina had said in the comments. Oh, don't fall for the gimmick stuff. Yeah, that's a big one. We are definitely a community that is targeted. And especially if you're new to prepping,

there's a lot of weeds that you've got to get through to figure out what's real and what's not real and what's a gimmick and what's not a gimmick. And that's where I would say podcasts like this and Matter of Facts and the communities that are already established will help you because we've either been there and done that. We've tried out those things. We've seen. And honestly, y'all, you'll see, follow the podcasts or the YouTube channels or whatever and see who their sponsors are. Because a lot of times those people aren't going to be sponsored.

They're not going to go along with the sponsorship that they don't trust or willing to incorporate into their lifestyle. So look at those sponsorships and things like that. So again, do your research. And Nina, I do have to say, I'm super jealous of you because I saw that you have already started on your dandelion salve and you've been working with your herbs already this season and I have yet to see one single dandelion in my yard that I can go and pluck that little flower and make something of so congrats to you for making your dandelion salve this year I'm super jealous of you

I was actually looking across the street yesterday when we were on our date this man was mowing the yard and i was like oh don't mow over that would it be really weird if i ran across the street i was like stop i need to pick these flowers i wouldn't have judged you no but i'm sure he would have been like all right crazy lady get your. I mean, all I would say in that vein is simply like when it comes to content creators, the old rule is that there's not a lot of reality in reality television. There's not a lot of reality in social media and content creation, unfortunately. When you're looking to a content creator for preparedness content or preparedness ideas, I really tend to follow the ones that, A, they're either speaking from experience. In other words, like, this is what I was taught. I tried it. It works.

Therefore, I'm passing it along. And I also say look for the ones that show you their scars. Because, like, I've made a point over the years of coming on matter of facts and saying like hey guys i tried this it was a dumb idea don't try don't do that because like my point of view is is we as a community the rising tide floats all boats this community gets better when we share our experiences with each other and sometimes those experiences are just not going to be flattering like we're gonna screw stuff up i'm i'm gonna have to admit to the entire world after you know the morning after hurricane ida i was a moron for not having a chainsaw on hand that's and by the way boys and

girls they they they mess with me mercilessly for months about not having a chainsaw in my moment of weakness you you incorrigible bunch of jerks. But I fixed the problem eventually. You did. So, you know, I just, I think that's important though, is you have to, you have to look at the people who are willing to show you their scars and say, I screwed up. I didn't, I was not ready for this or I tried this and it didn't work the way I thought it would. And when you find a person that's that genuine, then I feel like they can kind of help you find your path. Yeah. So my last question for you is what are you most looking forward to from the conference now that you're the big winner? Yay. I'm really excited about that, by the way. Two things,

definitely, as we talked about a second ago um one of the courses specifically about herbal remedies and things like that I'm always a big proponent of fixing things naturally if you can let's be honest there is a place for modern medicine certainly but um you know modern medicine hasn't always existed in the way that it does now. And people still were able to heal themselves and their family members through old ways. So I'm really excited about that particularly. But one of the things that I'm really looking for as far as a takeaway is you don't know what you don't know. And I'm really interested in hearing how other people prep.

What have I not thought about before that I don't realize? You know, I know that there's going to be a lot of discussion on the grid going down. That is certainly something that I feel will probably be one of the most valuable topics that will be discussed. So I'm really looking forward to that. But I am, you know, as I said, we're not homesteaders. We just, where we live right now, we don't have that capacity to truly be homesteaders 100% in the way that most people think about homesteading. So we're a little bit limited as far as some of the ways in which we can prep as far as that goes. And I'm really curious to hear about the urban and suburban prepping and see how those things compare. So I think there's going to

be a lot of value just across the board from all the sessions. And I'm really excited to see what things maybe I've never thought of before that, that will, you know, that will incorporate into, into our lifestyle. Yeah. I, like I said earlier, I was part of the urban and suburban panel discussion. And so I got to share about an hour of discussion time with, well, gosh, of course, I can't remember their names, but you need to go follow them on Instagram. But Mother Prepper and Prepped Like a Mother are very much into that. Suburban and urban, especially, why can't I remember her name? Mother Prepper?

Yeah, like her actual name. I can't remember her name. I've never met her. I just follow her content. Yeah, she's pretty awesome and very straightforward and will tell you like it is, and I love it. But I'm glad that you're interested in that, too. I think that is going to hit home with a lot of people because most people live in urban and suburban areas. And it's just like Phoebe's comment earlier, where do you prep your stuff if you live in an urban or suburban area?

So, yeah, so good. I'm glad you're looking forward to those things. I'm really excited for this conference. And I do, I think Allison has done an amazing job with putting on such a huge event. It has become a beast. And I think that she's pretty awesome for taking on such a thing. I do have to always give creds to Prepper Camp. And, you know, that's our home away from home in September. So there's all sorts, I guess what I'm trying to say is there's all sorts of things out there and

all sorts of events and people that are living this lifestyle. Some are very quiet about it. A lot of people don't share that they're preppers because they don't want to be taken advantage of. And then some of them haven't quite gotten past the stigma of being a prepper. You know, it all, it comes with all sorts of weird thoughts and whatever from people. But yeah, I don't know what else I was going to say, but my mind totally went blank. So do you have anything else? I'm glad you were a part of the show today, Phil. I did have one thing that I can't remember if I may have slipped in earlier or not, but when y'all were talking about like getting started prepping and the advice to give to a new prepper, like the one thing I always try to encourage people is, you know, like prep in the way that fits with your lifestyle. Cause if you can't make this a normal

everyday part of your lifestyle, it becomes infinitely more difficult. Like if you're at that age where your child, we've all been there, will not eat anything but chicken nuggets and the little cups of macaroni and cheese, then guess what? You prep chicken nuggies and macaroni and cheese because that's what your kid will eat. Like if you're on a special diet, that's what you prep. You prep to your special diet. If you need, if you have really bad feet, and I'm not judging because I do too, and you need lots of foot powder, you prep lots of foot powder. Like, I don't know a better way to describe it than like, the simplest way I can tell a person to prep is take all of your receipts from the past six months. Yeah. six months. Every time you went to the grocery store or the drug store or the home goods store, everything you bought for the last six months is what you probably need for the next six months. So buy double of all that stuff and you have six months of stuff to put away.

Like people want to make preparedness into this separate thing I do from my normal life. And when they do that, not only does it, is it very easy to write it off emotionally for ourselves, because it's like, well, I don't have the money to prep right now. I have a vacation to plan for. But like I always tell people, and Gillian and I talk about this to this day, like to this day, I still have a prepper budget. I have a line item in my monthly budget that is for prepper stuff, like that's been radio gear. But is that our cat? Yeah, she's mad because Piper has her door closed. She'll get over herself. But you know, that's just one of those things that I try to encourage people of is that you have to make this a normal part of your day. You have to make this

a normal part of your lifestyle. You have to make this part of your habit because preparedness is not an activity. It is literally a part of a lifestyle. And if you treat it that way, it's not weird. It's not something that you, oh, I sacrificed this so I could prep. It's like, no, I prep because I'm a prepper. And then that lesson sticks with our kids better because they grow up knowing if the fire alarm goes off, you run to the mailbox. Leave mom in the dust. But she did exactly what i talked about that exact thing at lunch today with our son exactly should i tell you what though because when when i taught her that that little maneuver she was like what about you and mom and

i said you leave our butts in the house and you get your butt to the mailbox so when when she blitz when she blazed past you on the way home mailbox, she did exactly what I taught her to. I will never forget that as long as I live. I just watched her run out of this house, and I'm like, what about your mom? She's like, do this. See ya. But we got a big thumbs up from the sheriff's deputy and the paramedic

that were in the house that's very true oh man what a good laugh just make make this make this part of your your make this part of your lifestyle make it part of your everyday life and it's not a weird thing and it won't feel like a weird thing and you might even have an easier time kind of getting it across to those friends and family and neighbors that think, you know, preppers are the crazy bunker people. It's be like, well, no, I'm not a crazy bunker person. I just say that, you know, like if I lose my job, it'd be nice to have some savings. Right. Or if there's a tornado, it'd be nice to have stuff to deal with the tornado, you know.

Yeah. Don't make it a weird thing. And it's not weird. Yeah. Well, Holly, thank you so much for coming on today. I cannot wait to hug your neck in June. I know. Thank God.

And in saying that, June is our Family Matter of Facts Raising Value family camping trip. We usually do it in March or April, but this year we moved it after school got out for the summer. There is still time to become a patron. You have to be a patron to go on the Matter of Facts Raising Values Family Camping Trip. So there is obviously some information in the show notes below of how to do that. And then you'll get an invite to be a part of our family. Otherwise, I think that's it. Prepper Camps in September.

Well, yeah, Prepper Camp is in September. It'll be here before we know it. Yeah. Salute to North Carolina. If you haven't made arrangements yet, you're already behind the power curve. Yeah. I don't think they have any... Well... You're going to be looking for Airbnbs at this point. I mean, you might be going as far as Asheville to try to find a place. Yeah. But I would say that for those who are curious about Prepper Camp, even if you can't make it this year, plan to come next year. I mean, it is always, is it the third or the fourth weekend in September? It's the fourth weekend.

Fourth weekend. It's the last weekend. It's always the last weekend in September. It always sells out ahead of the event. The tickets usually go on sale right after Thanksgiving. It always sells out ahead of the event. The tickets usually go on sale right after Thanksgiving. And it is like universally, it's a great opportunity not just to soak up a ton of knowledge from all the subject matter experts that are teaching classes.

But quite frankly, I've come home from there just meeting with people around campfires and sharing a drink with them and BS and come home with ideas just from there. Because it's not just, you know, a thousand people that know nothing about preparedness and then the teachers. I'd say half to three-quarters of the people that come out to Prepper Camp, they at least have some knowledge of preparedness. And like you said, Holly, they're there to learn the stuff they don't know they don't know. So I find very – I mean, I've run into people that are everything from former SF guys who could run circles around me with a firearm all the way to homesteaders, people that are already living off grid now, living off the land because that's just the way they live their life.

Yeah. And then, of course, what the whole show was about was the Women Who Prep Conference. Again, it's April 20th through the 23rd. It's an online event. You don't even have to get out of your pajamas for it. And you can purchase those tickets through my affiliate link on Linktree. And I think that's it. So we will see you next week for another show. Unfortunately, Holly won't be with us unless she wants to, but that's okay. So thank you all for joining us today. We certainly always appreciate it and all the comments that came through on all of our comment feeds. And we will see you next week.

Bye, everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.