Aeldric
I thought I would share a personal anecdote and see who else is experiencing this strange phenomenon.
Almost 3 years ago I started seriously preparing for Peak Oil. I installed water tanks, planted 30 fruit trees in our backyard, tore up a lot of lawn, planted a permaculture garden, installed two giant fish tanks, started breeding edible fish in an aquaponic set-up…. and, well, did everything else I could think of, regardless of cost.
I wanted to move quickly, so I didn’t economize, I spent whatever it took to get quick results. I spent more than $10,000 a year – sometimes a great deal more, I didn’t stop to count the dollars.
My wife was a little disturbed by this, but did not complain – viewing it (I suspect) as a harmless hobby. I don’t smoke, I spend about $10 a week on alcohol, don’t gamble, don’t put anything on credit card, and earn a good salary – so she put up with this sudden, uncharacteristic interest in cultivating fruit, brewing, gardening, aquaponics, etc. because it really wasn’t a hardship for us.
But her tolerance was under sufferance, and Peak Oil was not really something she wanted to talk about. Then, a few months ago, things changed.
My wife saw the price of petrol shoot up. She started reading disturbing stories in the news about food riots, fuel protests, airlines going out of business, trucking firms struggling, and so on. Pretty much exactly what I was talking about 3 years ago.
My first hint that things had changed occurred when we were looking at items that we should be budgeting for in the upcoming month. My wife’s proposals: – $400 for a significant stockpile of food – $690 for more secure gates
She also proposed that next month we earmark $1,000 for better fences and a few hundred dollars for seeds, fertilizer and some bare-rooted grapes.
We chatted until late about strategies for the years ahead, and even discussed Dmitri Orlov’s views about collapse in the Soviet Union. Not a conversation that I had expected, I must say. Nor was it our last conversation in this area.