Greetings from Ireland

Hi everyone!

This is Disaster Cat here in Ireland, writing on what is hopefully a slightly different track from those of us who prep and live in the United States.  As a Native Californian, I may also have some views on the issues and problems that can occur if you decide to relocate to another country. We moved here about 13 years ago now, for personal reasons, but many of the same issues come up if you move countries because or employment or because you no longer feel safe where you are born.

However, most prep sites (including this one) are almost always what I think of as North American based. You get folks from other first and second world countries like Australia, Denmark, Israel, the UK and even Japan; but the majority of the advice is aimed at or for those in the US and Canada. This is not done on purpose to drive other folks mental trying to figure out what a Mason jar lid actually is or does; it just happens because the vast majority of folks interested in the subject on-line (who speak English) tend to be located in North America somewhere.

While this has never been completely true, it's even less the case than it was in the early 1990's when I first started reading and researching things. While there are people in Sweden holding camps like Ragnarök (a survival camp my DH attended that included a log fired sauna as well as knife making classes) and folks in the UK selling MRE's, a lot of the time it is hard to locate them.  Unless you are already in the grapevine in some way, folks can be only a few miles apart and have no idea they are not the only people in the country still looking for 50 pound sacks of flour.

A lot of things are pretty much the same where ever you are, radiation is radiation and protecting yourself is the same in Botswana as it is in Colorado Springs.  But depending on where you are the likelihood of certain threats changes as does the best response.  The same is true for simpler issues like food storage, gardening, animal husbandry or medical care options.

My blog here will tend to focus on where I am (Ireland/Northern Europe) and my interests, which tend to be centered on both Household and historical note when it comes to preparedness issues.  I'm an admitted fiberholic and I spin, weave, knit and sew.  I'm also very interested in cooking and food storage from a historical as well as modern perspective.  As a former history and anthropology student, I'm interested in why cultures or nations work and what trends tend to be happening when they don't.

So, my blog is likely to be an eclectic mix of information, opinion and practical advice.  If folks have questions, they would be welcome, I'll answer the ones I can and try to point in other directions to the ones I can't.  A lot of my information may be useful to just anyone living in a very rural area.  I am often telling DH (a city boy) that some of the things that drive him crazy about our village are not really Irish, just rural.  When I was growing up in a town of 1,000 people in rural California, townsfolk there could spend 20 minutes talking about the weather, the same way they do here.  Even when it's holding up the line at the village shop.

I often get e-mails from people about relocating to Ireland, I'm willing to tackle that one as an early topic.  Though my first response is, unless you have a family tie to Ireland or another EU country or you work for a company with a branch here, right now it's nearly impossible to do.  When we moved here, it was easy, now it's very, very hard.

I've also got a couple of other Google blogs, one on my work as a weaver and fiber artist called The Cat Who Plays With String and one on Barn Cats called The Barn Cat Lady.  In other posts, I'll talk about the roles that fiber production and animals play both historically and currently in the lives of small holders.  But that's for another time.

Meanwhile, I'm very much looking forward to working with this site and I hope everyone enjoys and learns from it.  I'm also looking forward to hearing from everyone.  Together, we can make this site a center for information, friendship and preparing for the future.  No matter which side of the Big Pond we are living on.

Disaster Cat