This is an issue that I think causes me great concern. I have been in a big city, been a farmer and am now tasting life as a mountaineer. When I am in my happy place, I am just alone in the woods, but that's another story

As a farmer, you develop a mentality about your responsibility in providing for yourself, your crops and your livestock. You take to heart saving the things you know you will need and keeping a well-stocked pantry or larder. When you see a sale on something you always use, you get as much of it as your budget will allow. It's not just about food, it's also about toilet paper, bars of soap, deodorant, fabric, dog food, crayons or safety pins. If you use it, stock up on it.

When hard times come, these are things I will not have to buy, and can give my budget a breather. What might have been grocery money this time last year doesn't have to be used for groceries. I can use that money to fill the car.

I have often been thought of as a doomsayer and nothing is further from the truth. I'll be fine if the recession is finally admitted to be what it really is; a second Great Depression. No, I don't have dry goods and canned goods to last 10 years nor even one. But it gives me a boost in saving and rearranging my finances to cushion me a bit longer than the person who buys groceries as only when they are out of most everything.

If everyone in the country would adopt the farmer's mentality and take responsibility for themselves and be ready for hard times when they come, we could ease the burden on our overall resources.

What scares me is that the media is openly broadcasting that the US is "afraid" of China. What are they thinking?! Our undoing is at hand and we can pretty much thank the freedom of the press for taking us there on an express train. Imagine this country under Martial Law and food rationing with our mainland turned into a combat zone. How many people nationwide are ready for long term isolation?

Our government has been urging Americans to prepare and be ready (ready.gov) literally since 2001. I believe September is national preparedness month. I have to wonder how many Americans have seen the writing on the wall and are ready to shelter in place or get to a retreat when it all falls apart. How many will know how to grow a garden full of vegetables? How many will know how to can, dehydrate or preserve what they grow? It's as old as the story of the three pigs. I believe that was the earliest attempt to get people into the mindset of preparing for the future. Now that the future is here, it's a tad too late to start stocking up on those things you will need for a few months. And what happens when I tried to get others to see the wisdom in this? "You're paranoid!" One of my doctors said that, too. That's why he referred me to a psychiatrist.

I can't help wondering how many people diagnosed as paranoid were or are farmers.