Something to share and offer as food for thought.
I am an avid hunter an deer hunt on land that belongs ot afmaily my cousin married into. I visit this area (several hours away) a couple of times a year and help out when i can with general farm chores and whatever needs doing at the time I am there, also. The patriarch of the clan, my cousin’s father in law, has always been polite but a bit distant, as he is with most acquaintances. He is a man that makes a habit of only speaking whenever necessary and being directly to the point.
Before going there this year, I was BS’ing on the phone with my cousin’s husband about life in general and we got on the subject of the hunt for .22 lr ammo. He said that there was virtually none there and his dad had been out for quite some time. I decided to throw a 550 count box into my hunting gear and when I got there, gave it to his dad. When he offered to reimburse me for it, I waved it off and just told him it was a courtesy as he had always been good to me and mine when we were there.
I saw a huge change in him towards me on this trip. He began catching me and talking to me about different general subjects and seemed to accept me as more than a guest, even offering to help me skin out and butcher a deer that I shot. It seems that I was moved up in his estimation from just a guest.
To clarify, my motivations were simply to do him a courtesy; I have plenty of .22 ammo and won’t miss that particular box at all. It was also a token of appreciation for him letting me hunt on his land.
My point in this article is this: bartering some small stuff out of our prep stashes can, at times, foster a lot of goodwill now, instead of hoarding it up and waiting for SHTF situations.
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