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Saturday December 12 2009

A Wilderness Hide Location for a Planned Evacuation, by J.I.R.

A period of lawlessness may prevail after any major interruption of services. We all know this and try to plan. But have we really realistically faced what this means? Once the food trucks stop arriving, US cities and towns have less than a week before food riots and general looting begins. If things get really bad, there are going to be literally millions of people starving, thirsty and sick, willing to do whatever it takes to survive. The simple math points to a huge die-off unless the government can maintain control and re-institute some emergency measures. In the worst case scenarios, almost any preparations you can make seem woefully inadequate. The challenge may come down to surviving the die-off and not becoming one of the unmarked graves.

Face facts, this throng of hungry, desperate people are going to be heavily armed, just like you. Many of them are going to have military and law enforcement experience. Also, remember that every piece of military equipment in the government's arsenal is going to be owned and used by someone. Those machineguns and rocket launchers and mortars are not going to just evaporate. [JWR Adds: It is noteworthy that with very few exceptions, National Guard and Reserve units have not stored live ammo at their local armories since the 1960s. Looters might eventually cut their way in to arms room vaults, and they'll indeed find mortars, machineguns, and grenade launchers, but not mortar rounds, grenades, or belts of machinegun ammo. Their ammo is stored only at active duty installation Ammo Supply Points (ASPs).] The point is, the teeming population is not just going to die off quietly and go away until all of the food they can locate is gone.

Whether these hungry people come at you as small gangs of thugs or as ad-hoc governments equipped with arm-bands, they are going to systematically look for food and supplies. If you are anywhere near a population center, you are going to be looted and perhaps killed. No matter how many buckets of nitrogen packed wheat you have cleverly stored in your basement, you are almost certainly going to lose it all when the local "committee" searches your house for "contraband" or "hoarding".

Single family dwelling homes and apartments without power are nothing more than inconveniently located caves. They are impossible to hide and very difficult to defend. Any determined group of raiders (or whomever) are going to pick your bones if you try to "Custer" inside a modern American home. The very fact that you are living there will be proof that you have something they want. If it looks deserted, they will still search the place thoroughly looking for food. When that happens, you will either have to fight to keep your possessions or you will have to evacuate or "bug out". Where will you go? What will you need to carry? Most "Bug out Bag" plans that I have seen don't measure up. A planned evacuation is a lot better than a "grab stuff and go" emergency. Your current home can be expendable if you plan for it.

For folks with military training, or the willingness to learn, a compromise can be to set up a semi-mobile encampment. This concept is based on a Long Range Surveillance (LRS) "Hide site". Sort of a patrol base for extended stay. For an explanation, see the Wikipedia page on LRS. Most LRS hide sites are used for a maximum of two weeks, but their occupancy can be extended for months with additional supplies. If you use your head setting up a hide site, you can avoid having to fight to keep your things. It's much better to hide than fight. Setting up a site is relatively simple if you follow sound tactical principles. With a little luck and discipline, you can stay invisible for extended periods.

The reference document for LRS hide sites is US Army FM-7-93. Appendix E contains a lot of good source material. While most of this field manual will not be appropriate for simple survival, it contains a lot of good ideas if you have no experience and have never considered this topic. You don't have to create a site as extreme as the FM describes to have a survivable hide site.

The location you select is the most important factor. Ideally, you need a patch of wilderness that offers nothing that anyone wants. Parks and national forest lands are good choices. The only resources there are firewood and perhaps game animals. If you can find an area that has neither of these, you are better off still. The point is this: Find a place where nobody is going to go looking for something they need. Desperate people are not going to walk randomly, they are going to drive if they can and walk if they must. They are going to follow lines of communication that have a reasonable chance of taking them to resources. If you can find a place that is isolated away from roads and undeveloped, you are half way there.

You need to choose an area within half a tank of gas to your home, but a mile or so from the nearest road or anything most people would want. It needs to be close enough to a creek to carry water and as rough and remote as you can find. At such a site, you could conceivably remain for months without being detected. With a little planning, you can build a hide site in a matter of hours and it will be stronger tactically than any normal dwelling. Plus you can make it as undetectable as your imagination and discipline will let you.

If you already have a well stocked retreat or working farm with dozens of acres, consider pre-positioning most of your goods in hidden caches on your own property, and setting up a hide site in advance. When (not if) your retreat is attacked, you will have someplace to run and supplies that remain available. You can even use your existing well or water supply if you plan well. Remember, if you make your retreat too comfortable, someone may take it from you and keep it. Try to make it look like any other house without water or power and looters will probably just move on once they sack it. You can move back in later and tidy up the mess instead of having to fight. Hide your comforts and supplies well.

I recommend "digging in" three different sites, within rifle range of each other, all of them concealed and preferably booby-trapped. (LRS teams always carry a lot of mechanicals, like Claymore mines. Finding them is hazardous to your health and killing them is even harder). The basic hide site is low and hidden. Any tarps you use must be as close to ground level as possible and well hidden from view by covering them with dirt and debris. Setting up inside stands of scrub brush is a common tactic. Digging most of it underground is also common. The goal is to make the site as invisible as you can make it, even from close range. You want a casual intruder to walk right by it without noticing anything.

1st site. A kitchen area/living area/kill zone with fighting positions dug-in for emergencies. Make it as hard to find as you are able. Use brush and natural terrain features to mask it from casual view. If attacked or discovered, the guard post (described below) will be your ace in the hole. If your site is discovered or someone approaches, dive for cover and wait them out. If your kitchen area remains undiscovered, all is well, but If you absolutely have to fight, being dug in with a real fighting position will give you a major edge and your guard post will come as a very nasty surprise.

2nd site. A Guard post/sleeping area/fighting position well hidden. It should overwatch both other sites and have a good field of view covering likely avenues of approach. These two sites should be able to provide supporting fire for each other. You also need to provide a covered egress route of some kind in case you have to evacuate the site. Radios to communicate between fighting positions are very handy and so are night optical devices of all kinds. During hours of activity, this site remains manned by a guard with a rifle. At night it is the only manned site. One person stays on guard and everyone else can sack out.

3rd (or more) sites. A cache for most of your stores within rifle range but completely concealed. If you lose your entire hide site, you can always double back in a few days and pick up your stuff. The third cache is a life saver if you really have to run for it. This site should be completely undetectable. That means buried and carefully camouflaged. A good reference for establishing a cache is Army TC 31-29/A

A Fourth site for the truck(s) and other vehicles should be established about a mile away. Make your vehicles look abandoned and drain them of fuel. Make no mistake, they really are abandoned. You may be able to recover them, but you will probably lose them. Once you occupy your main site, you must not keep visiting your vehicles. [JWR Adds: It doesn't take long to remove their batteries. This further disables the vehicles to discourage theft, and those batteries could come in handy. And even more elaborate measure os putting vehicles up on blocks and removing their wheels to hide them separately. That will truly make them look abandoned, and make it very difficult for the vehicles to be stolen. ]

You should be able to carry water to the kitchen area and purify it, do all your cooking and eating and living there. Generally do anything there that is hard to hide. Sleep off-site at the sleeping area in case the main base is discovered and attacked at night. If you have at least three adults, you can keep a guard at all times and still get all the chores done. Fewer people means you will only occupy your sleeping site at night. Six or more adults would be needed to make a hide site into a fortress, so you are depending on stealth for most of your protection. If you are alone, stealth is all you really have.

Cover your tracks. Don't wear a path between your sites. You don't want discovery of one site to lead to discovery of the others. This goes double for your water source. There should be no way to tell someone is using the creek, well or pond. This takes a lot of discipline.

Your kitchen area is the hardest to hide. Smoke from cooking fires is the biggest danger. You can avoid detection by using a propane or other type of cooking stove and cooking only non-smelly foods. (Odor from grilling meat can carry for miles, but simmering cracked wheat is not so bad.) If you plan to cook something smelly, consider cooking it up to a mile away from your hide site to avoid detection. In any case, no food should be eaten or prepared in the sleeping area. The sleeping area and guard post must remain undetectable at all times.

If the kitchen area is discovered while you are sleeping, you can either choose to fight or give them the kitchen. You may be able to lay low and avoid detection even if a whole gang shows up and discovers your kitchen/living area. They will only get a portion of your stocks and everybody gets to live another day. If you have access to Claymore mines and/or M16 bounding mines, you can probably use the kitchen as a kill zone and wipe out many times your number in bad guys, but remember, stealth is your biggest defense and any fighting entails a lot of risk.

Strangers that stumble upon your site can be dealt with in several ways. Simply hiding is a good approach if you can pull it off. If hiding is out, you will either have to talk to them or fight. If they are hunters and seem fairly well provisioned, be friendly and show them as little of your site as possible. Under no circumstances, show them your main food cache. Everyone has limits, so don't tempt them. They should not see anything they are willing to fight to possess. A couple of buckets of food are probably not worth getting shot over. If they are a small group and desperate, consider adopting them. Most people are pretty decent and if they see a good reason to team with you, they will do it. If you are all trying to survive and they see you as an ally, you are probably fairly safe. The added security of a few extra people could be a real plus. If your site has been compromised, remember, you can always move. You can even leave your cache in place and simply move your other two sites a couple of miles and you may be safe again.

You will need some supplies and equipment to hide in relative comfort. The suggested bug out bag for this scenario is a whole pickup truck load of stuff: Even if you wind up going to a shelter or a community center, you won't be showing up hungry with your hand out.

Weapons: In order to fight realistically, you will need a good rifle and of course ammunition for anyone in the group with skill. I personally prefer an old scoped Ishapore 2A1 [Enfiield] chambered in 7.62mm NATO, but almost anything will do as long as it is robust and you are skilled with it. Also a pump shotgun with lots of buckshot can be a real killer in a night fight. Night sights of some kind on the rifle are really useful. Modern thermal sights can be devastating. With luck and discipline you won't ever need to shoot anything, but having any firearm is much better than having none at all, and a rifle always beats a pistol at long range.)

An extra rifles to cache, with ammo, might be handy if you can keep them weatherproof.

Lots of buckets of storage food (Keep it all cached except one or two buckets at a time). 10 or more 5 gallon buckets of food per person is not excessive. The more food you have with you, the longer you can stay.

A case of MREs for each person, stored in the sleeping area. Also, your packs need to be wherever you are at all times. Remember to store water in the sleeping area. More than you think you need.
A main kitchen and backup stuff to keep cached. (in case you lose the kitchen).

When you are setting up your site, you will have to make multiple trips from the vehicles, but the more food you have, the longer you can stay hidden. Multiple caches can be strung out along an escape route or the route back to the trucks. Also, you will need basic camping gear and water purification, field sanitation supplies etc.

For each adult:

Backpack with frame : This is your last ditch bag and should be near you at all times.
Water filter (PUR backpack model) is a good one
polar pure Iodine crystals in every pack. They are light, cheap and essential.
Several plastic garbage bags. These have multiple uses. You can't have too many.
2 x canteens with cups. This allow you to carry some water and cook if you must.
6 x MRE in the pack (12 more at the cache or sleeping site)
P38 can opener
2 butane lighters
2 camping candles or other heat source
Box of self striking fire starters are sometimes handy

* LED light and spare batteries (rechargeable) can come in handy
*Someone should carry a 4 watt solar battery charger. These are important to have along [to charge batteries for night vision, communications, and intrusion detection gear.]

Generator radio AM/FM/Weather (with cell phone charger and LED light) This is a critical piece of equipment, so have two of them, but be careful not to play it out loud. Ear buds or head sets will keep you from giving your site away. Boredom is your biggest enemy and a radio can be a great way to stay entertained and silent [when not on a watch shift.]

A good sleeping bag is a must. It's cold underground or when you aren't moving.
Insulating ground pad is also a must.
1 emergency blanket/poncho
1 poncho liner (Army. Great piece of gear!)
1 x large drop cloth and a roll of heavy plastic are handy for underground living.
1 hat and wool glove inserts
1 set of thermal underwear (tops and bottoms)
An extra set of clothing. BDUs or other outdoor wear and a spare pair of boots (Clothing can be rolled up inside a plastic sheet and put into a laundry bag and carried outside the pack). Remember, extra socks and underwear are always needed!

Ka-Bar sheath knife (7 inch) or equivalent.
Leatherman Multitool or a Swiss army knife
Small machete (at least one in the group is very handy and has multiple uses).

Medical Stuff (I recommend keeping this with your last ditch bag)
Spare eyeglasses if needed
First Aid Kit for minor wounds
sewing kit
aspirin
Imodium for emergency treatment of diarrhea (packets of salts are even better)
iodine swabs
burn cream (not much is needed, but if you need it you will be glad you have it)
Anbesol
Chap stick or petroleum jelly
white tape
emergency blanket (cheap is fine)
Scalpels or Razor blades
Safety pins
Large bandages (2 or 3 can be life savers if someone is shot)
Dental floss
hand sanitizer
Insect Repellant
small lock blade knife
tweezers
Prescription medication
ID cards, credit cards, cash on hand

A pistol of some kind. I highly recommend the Ruger SP101 in .357 Magnum and a couple of speed loaders.

Other stuff to load in your truck or large car:
A bicycle! You can load a lot of stuff on a bicycle and cut down on the number of trips required from the vehicles to the hide site. Bike tracks are a giveaway, so make sure they start at least 25 meters from your vehicles and erase them as well as possible after the last trip. Whatever you use, be prepared and willing to haul everything by hand from your vehicles to the site. Without a bike or dolly, its going to require something like 12 trips. You can improve on this by using a cargo carrier of some kind. Vary your route between the vehicle and hide site to minimize your tracks. You might want to unload and then move your vehicles to avoid anyone tracking you.

Shovel, crosscut saw, axe or hatchet and pick axe (army E tools are light, but not as good as full size tools). All tools should be loaded in a bag that you can sling or tie to a bike.
100 ft roll of repelling rope may be very handy. 550 cord is also handy.
A roll of wire for rigging noise makers and rigging brush and shelter

Food: You will want 10 or 11 buckets for each member of your group:
6 buckets of wheat, 2 buckets of beans and 4 gallons of oil.
2 buckets of rice (and a bucket of sugar if you wish). and 2 pounds of salt. Spices and bullion are
very nice to have, but beware of odors!
This will be the bulk of your provisions and will weigh something like 400 pounds per person! Don't begrudge the weight. It will get lighter soon enough.
*24 rolls of toilet paper (in a plastic bag) You will miss this if you don't have any.
At least one grain mill. Two is much better. You can hide the extr aone in your cache.

(Split between 2 Duffel bags per 2 people): (this is your kitchen/living area stuff)
24 x MRE
Sterno stove + large candle heater in a can (12 face-inches of wick makes a lot of heat)
Fuel (10lb, paraffin to recharge cooker. Each pound will burn several hours with care )
If you are going to burn wood for fuel, use a hobo stove to minimize smoke and light.
4 pots. (2 for cooking, 1 for cleaning and one left with the food cache.)
A dutch oven is really handy. You won't regret the weight long when you cook with it
Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Gatorade powder
Tobacco (2 x 6 oz cans with rolling papers) (for those with a monkey on their backs)
Water, 6 liters (12 x 1/2 liter plastic bottles)
plastic bags. 20 heavy trash liners and 20 freezer storage bags
Spare batteries (12 x AA. Mostly for charity)
Soap, washcloth and towels (2 large ones)
4 large Poly Tarps (camo) and 550 chord
Fem pads (for that time of month. Include at least one bag per female per month)
Deck of cards
Bible and other reading material. Boredom will get you killed. Depression will too.
It might be worth the weight to carry a lot of books. Reading is a quiet activity and could keep you from going out of your mind!

In a suitcase or preferably another bucket that's waterproof (keep in the sleeping area.): Hat and wool glove inserts for each person. Extra clothing is good to have.
A wool sweater and outer cold weather gear. Blankets will be handy.

If you can manage to set up a hide site with these few essentials without anyone observing you, you can probably stay hidden for up to 200 days with care. That six month breather will allow you ample time to assess the conditions of the local area and plan your next move. More importantly, if a major population die-off is going on, a well stocked hide site will allow you to miss most of it. Hiding outdoors is not easy or comfortable, but it may be your best way to keep breathing.

[JWR Adds: Even the best defended retreat can't expect to hold out against a determined and well-equipped fighting force. If you hear that the muy malo hombres (or a nearby polity with kleptomaniacal intent) is heading up the road, abandoning your retreat may be your only choice.

As I have mentioned time and again in SurvivalBlog, pre-positioning supplies at your retreat is essential. You will not have time to pack. If you are fortunate, you will have time to put on your shoes. Having a hide prepared a half day's hike from your retreat, with food and gear already there, means you could avoid having to choose between an untenable fight and starving in the woods. Having a hide prepared could give you a couple weeks in safety to see what develops. You could then return to (or retake) your retreat, or abandon the area entirely, at your discretion.]

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Wednesday December 9 2009

Feeding Your Family Well During Hard -- and Harder -- Times, by Lin H.

We can all agree that at the very least hard times are here, for way too many of ourselves, our friends, our family members, our acquaintances. And most of us here agree that harder times are a’coming. And I’ll add  another basic human agreement: we all need to nourish our bodies with food, preferably good-tasting and health-sustaining food. I’d like to address and share my thoughts on this basic human requirement. I am not an expert in food nutrition or preparation. I have no college degrees in these areas: my credentials are only a little common sense and 30 years of feeding my family, as well as possible, on the smallest dime possible.

So first I’ll address hard times: feeding your family on as little as possible during normal hard times. I have a few “rules” for thrifty cooking: (1) basics are better; (2) beans, rice and pasta; (3) meat is a flavoring agent, not a main dish;  (4) if it’s on sale, buy a bunch; and (5) use your imagination.

  1. Basics are better. I’m talking basic cooking ingredients like flour, sugar, salt, oatmeal, baking powder/soda, spices/herbs, oil/shortening, bouillon/broth, dried milk, eggs, vinegars and soy sauce, basic vegetables etc. Learning to cook from scratch using basic ingredients will save you big bucks, is healthier, and can bring you immense satisfaction.  Learn to bake bread (I recently discovered the wonderful new “no knead” bread recipes: as easy as it gets, and makes delicious bread). Practice making scratch biscuits, cornbread and pie crusts. Play with serving flavored oatmeal for the kids’ breakfasts, instead of the expensive store-bought cereals. Try creating different soups and stews using the various spice and herb possibilities. Experiment with making a “kitchen sink” casserole or stir-fry, using different combinations of ingredients and flavorings.
  2. Beans, rice and pasta. These should become your kitchen “go to” staples. They can be purchased affordably in bulk and can stretch any meal far beyond the usual menu ideas. Countless sauces and toppings can be created and stretched by being served over rice or pasta; all three items can bulk up soups or be the basis of warming and nourishing casseroles. I understand that if your constitution isn’t adapted to bean-eating (and carbohydrates in general) you may have intestinal distress - so start now on adding some bean dishes to your family’s diet. They’re cheap, tasty and healthy. Learn to cook a perfect pot of rice. It’s not hard, it just takes a little practice.
  3. Meat is a flavoring agent, not a main dish. Meats tend to be the most expensive part of any meal, so get away from the “meat-n-potato” mindset when planning menus. Less meat, mixed and stretched with sauces, vegetables, broths, and the aforementioned beans, rice and pasta, etc. gives you a similar satisfaction, and good taste, for a lot less money. It’s healthier too. An example: I’m going to fix Sunday brunch for my family of five. I have a pound of bacon, which if I fried and had a basic meal of bacon, eggs, potatoes, toast, juice - we’d eat most, if not all, of that bacon. So instead I only fry up 3-4 slices, and stir it in with beaten eggs, potatoes, veggies, flavorings etc. and bake it for a breakfast casserole. I now still have 2/3 of the bacon, so for supper tonight I might use another 3-4 slices to flavor a pot of beans. With appropriate side dishes, it‘s another whole meal. And the last third I can use for another supper - a skillet of bacon/veggie  fried rice. We’ve eaten 3 wholesome and satisfying meals vs. 1 meal using the same pound of bacon. This is just one example, but you can see how a little thinking about your meat usage can really stretch a food budget.
  4. If it’s on sale, buy a bunch. This is self-evident. If your grocery budget is very tight, start small on stocking up on sales, but start. Buy fruit and vegetables that are in season and therefore lower in price. Pay attention to grocery prices so that you’ll know what a good price is. In my area of the country, the price of a pound of cheddar cheese (which we use a fair amount of) can fluctuate from $2.69 all the way to $3.89. I know, from price-watching, that $2.99/lb. and below is a good price. So I always buy at least two at those times (four if the budget allows). Cheddar freezes excellently, I always have it on hand, and never have to overpay for it.
  5. Use your imagination. I’d like to suggest a paradigm shift here: when planning your main meal of the day (let’s call it supper), don’t ask yourself in the morning “What sounds good for supper tonight?” Rather, you should ask “What do we have around that needs used up for supper?” Are there any leftovers in the fridge that could be adapted to a casserole? Any veggies that are starting to look bad, but could still be thrown into a pot of soup? Something you could “sauce up” and eat over rice or pasta? The possibilities are endless, and the creativity of trying to come up with a tasty meal using a little bit of nothing can even be fun!

And now we address harder times, or serious hard times, which is much more difficult because it’s theoretical. But we are all here on this most excellent Survivalblog.com because we at least see the possibility of food shortages, hyperinflation, loss of basic utility services, theta. So we’re stockpiling. Later, we may have to make do with the foodstuffs we’ve stockpiled or can otherwise forage. We may need to dramatically stretch small amounts of food. And we’ll want to be able to feed our families as healthily and tastefully as possible with what we’ve been able to put by. If we’ve already practiced the tips I’ve stated above regarding thrifty frugal cooking, then those ideas will also stand us in good stead in the event of serious hard times.

(For the purposes of staying on-topic, I have to assume that those reading this will have already addressed the basics of water procurement/storage/purification, and having at least three sources of a cooking method, in the event of serious hard times.) So back to:

  1. Basics are better. I have stockpiled my own personal list of dehydrated veggies, herbs/spices, canned meats, and kitchen staples. Your choices would probably be different than mine. But the point is that stockpiling basic kitchen ingredients, rather than only prefab meals, means my choices in feeding my family varied and tasty meals dramatically increases.  Using my stores of basics I can bake bread, or use a bit of oil to make flatbread. I can prepare either cornbread or johnny cakes. I can make a breakfast of oatmeal, or even a treat of pancakes, because I’ve learned to make my own pancake batter and maple-flavored syrup. I can make noodles to stretch a pot of broth. Rather than deciding which can of soup to open, I can cook any  of a number of types of flavorful soups, stir-fries, or casseroles, using different ingredients and spices. My personal “A-list” of stored veggies is dehydrated celery, carrots and onions. I can mix these same three ingredients into a beef stew with potatoes; or I can use them with a bit of canned bacon or ham and make fried rice; or I can layer them with a flavored white sauce, a bit of canned ham or tuna,  some peas and some pasta for a hearty casserole; or I can cook them in a chicken broth with some beans, corn, rice, tomatoes, garlic and cumin for a tasty Southwestern soup. Same basic ingredients, infinite possibilities.
  2. Beans, rice and pasta. Because I’ve stored quantities of these foodstuffs, my ability to stretch my stockpiles has also increased. I could open up a can of chili and feed 2 people, and rather minimally at that. Or I could heat that can of chili along with a cup or can of cooked beans, a cup or can of tomatoes, some garlic, oregano and cumin, serve a dollop of it on top of bowls of rice, and feed 4-5 people with plenty of flavor and satisfaction.
  3. Meat is a flavoring agent, not a main dish. I can guess that meat would be in much shorter supply in harder times, and I am afraid to depend on electrical power to maintain stores of meat products in this event; therefore I’ve concentrated my budget on canned meat stores. This is expensive stockpiling. (Many people pressure-can their own meats; this is something you may want to look into.) So of course I would be rationing those precious meat stores to the greatest extent possible. Because I already cook our meals using smaller amounts of meats, I am in practice of imagining meals using meat more for flavoring than as a main dish.
  4. If it’s on sale, buy a bunch. Saving money on my grocery budget today helps enable me to prep  foodstuffs for a possible harder-times tomorrow.
  5. Use your imagination. This will be more important than ever in the event of serious hard times. I will have to substitute and make do with my stores. For instance, I have been researching sourdough bread-making, in the event that commercially-produced yeast isn’t available. I have been practicing bread-biscuit-and-pizza-making both in the charcoal grill and over (and under) the fire pit. I have been researching the foraging possibilities in my area - trying to learn what grows wild that I may be able to use to improve the nutrition of our meals. (Or even simply to keep us alive.) I’m thinking about the possibilities of “you bring me some of your venison and I’ll cook and stretch it three different delicious ways, using my stores, and we’ll share”. 

Entire books have been written on just small areas of what I’ve touched on here. Because the subject matter is so vast,  I’ve only hit the high points, hoping to give a learner somewhere to start, some things to think about. Every cooking skill we learn today, when grocery stores are full of affordable and available foodstuffs, could come in very handy later if shortages occur. Knowing how to create an edible and good-tasting meal from available little-bits-o’-nothing could become an important skill-set to have and share with others. Indeed, having this knowledge could someday be essential toward keeping ourselves and our loved ones alive and healthy.

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Tuesday December 1 2009

David in Israel Re: Distilled Spirits for Barter

James,
When I was in the US I stored taxed Everclear and the less expensive off brand of 190 proof grain alcohol in new non-breakable Nalgene laboratory plastic containers since it could be used for festive food/drink or various medical purposes and is still useful as a stove fuel (alcohol stoves only) or primer for kerosene and diesel fuel stoves. Currently I keep a few bottles of methanol poisoned ethanol paint thinner for my ultra light stove and priming the heavy fuels stoves.

For those with the cheap hard liquor food grade charcoal filtration will remove the nasty volatile organics found in home moonshine and cheap liquor, filtration often is cheaper than the better liquor.

As a urban and rural firefighter/paramedic my experience was that ethanol addiction was both in quantity or abusers and severity of the secondary medical problems worse than the second place bad guy drug heroin. The body stops producing the neurotransmitter GABA which alcohol mimics and it can literally kill a badly addicted person to go cold turkey. That said the demand for liquor as things get worse would likely be huge for those who wish to self medicate their depression. These combined with the dominant American zero responsibility culture make me hesitant to suggest trading drinkable ethanol to unknown persons and only to friends on a very limited scale. I would just set out small amounts for a lech chaim (toast) at special events and otherwise stay mum so you won't get liquor beggars. Shalom, - David in Israel

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Monday November 30 2009

Letter Re: Distilled Spirits for Barter

Hello,
Here is a "barter material" idea your many readers may find of interest. I am located in Kansas City and, after telling friends who are also into "survival" my idea it caught on such that one liquor store here is suddenly the largest reseller of this liquor in North America.

I have friends who, for their store of barter items, have stockpiled extra food, ammunition, guns and other items people would want in a breakdown of society. But they are all items that may only have a storage life of a few years, takes up a lot of room or are items you can't have enough of (i.e. food).

After writing down all of the "musts" the answer suddenly came to me - liquor. The "musts" are (1) a shelf life of 10+ years, (2) relatively compact, (3) easily broken down into individual items that would not be expensive and, as a plus, it would probably go up in value. And, most important, something that you would not need to survive: Liquor. My cousin owns a liquor store and he suggested Luksusowa Polish vodka. [Wódka Luksusowa. or "Luxury Vodka".] Airline size bottles come 120 to a case. Liquor might even go up more in value than gold in a TEOTWAWKI situation. A cloth bag of 50, or
so, of these bottles can easy be carried around. Try to get change using a one ounce gold coin after buying bread and milk from the back of a truck! Good luck! And worry about others seeing you have one gold coin so you must have more at home. You put yourself at great danger.

Why Luksusowa vodka? It's half the price of any other vodka and tastes just as good (I'm told). They are selling cheap in the United States trying to use price to build a market. They are a small company so they don't have the money for advertising. Liquor stores may carry as much as a case but any liquor store in a major city can order as much as you want having it for you within 48 hours. I bought 50 mil airline size bottles for 90 cents each. The bottles are thick glass that could probably be dropped on anything short of concrete and not break. And well sealed so shelf life is probably at least 20 years.

I'm guessing people will not care what brand of vodka you have to barter. They also come in two larger sizes. My cousin gave me a special price but buy enough cases and you can probably get it for close to 90 cents a bottle. So instead of a room filled with canned goods having to rotate them to beat the average one or two year date code on each can or trade away items they
really need as much as possible of (like food and ammunition). So I have a floor space in my basement of about a yard square of cases piled to the ceiling that is all the barter material I should ever need. Not a room full of much more fragile items with shorter shelf live and might not go up in value. Personally, I can't think of anyone that will be in demand in such situations other than ammunition and food. One caveat - anyone who has anyone in their group who has ever had a problem with liquor consumption should not do that. Personally, I don't drink due to an illness (Lyme disease) that makes liquor taste like acid to me. I never drank much before contracting Lyme disease.

I hope this idea is of interest to your many readers. I know every person I've mentioned this idea to has quickly loaded up on ten to a hundred cases of Luksusowa small airline size bottles. Best Regards, - Gary Y.

JWR Replies: I'm not much a drinker--I'm a "one beer a year" type--so I don't feel qualified to comment on storing particular types of sipping barterable. Also, after seeing alcoholism ruin so many lives, and wrecking so many families, I have chosen not to store anything more than a few bottles of Everclear. And I consider that supply multi-purpose: for medicinal/sterilizing use, for making tinctures, and for emergency fuel. It is too strong for sipping, but I suppose that it could be used very heavily diluted in mixed drinks. As I mention in the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course, there are two varieties of Everclear sold: 151 Proof and 190 Proof. The latter (which is 95% alcohol), is the most versatile for preparedness. Everclear is not legal in all states, with the most common restrictions on the 190 Proof variety.

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Saturday November 28 2009

Letter Re: Sources for Food Grade Buckets

Jim,
I have found that Dairygold dairy (and probably also other) dairies in Boise, Idaho will sell once used HDPE #2 Food Grade buckets with lids inexpensively. (These were $2 or $3 the last time I bought a bunch of them.)

These were used for bringing into the dairy the flavorings for ice cream, so you might have to wash out the strawberry syrup or whatever. These are HDPE #2 and Food Grade marked.

They also have some food grade 55 gallon drums, metal and plastic that they will also sell. The same should be true of other large dairies all over the US and Canada that produce ice cream. - Terry in Idaho

JWR Replies: As I mention in the the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course, there are innumerable sources for food grade HDPE buckets. The phone is your friend. Keep calling until find someone that has a big pile of them, available free, or nearly free. Also, be sure to watch Craigslist, like a hawk.

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Friday November 27 2009

Two Letters Re: Sources for Food Grade Buckets

Greetings JR-
Regarding the discussion on the mother lode of seed buckets: Be aware that seeds meant to be placed in the ground are almost always treated by industrial seed firms with a pesticide that is designed to protect the seed and give it a greater chance of making it out of the ground from such enemies as rodents, weeds and fungus' etc. For the same reason you don't want to eat seed grains if they are treated as seed materials, you might want to make sure that you are able to adequately wash or remove the pesticides that might still remain in the buckets. Oftentimes the seed treatment will be [with a dye that is] a bright neon colored orange or reddish color. If possible contact the seed company on the bucket label and find out what the pesticide is...If possible -educate yourself by reading the warning label and you might have second thoughts -but that decision is yours to make. Your local county extension agent can also be a great help if you have questions.

FYI, our area of Idaho/Oregon is one the seed growing capitals of the world and several international seed firms are located just a few miles from here. Sadly, most, if not all are hybrids products. - RBS

Dear JWR:
I don't know if you respond to such e-mails, but if so, I would like to know if a bucket stamped HDPE#2 is certain to be a food grade bucket. I have seen buckets stamped as such at stores like Lowe's, but I was not sure if their being stamped HDPE#2 was in itself a guarantee. If you can answer this, I thank you. Thank you. - Daniel Miller

JWR Replies: I appreciate RBS reminding our readers of that hazard. (It has been mentioned a couple of times in the blog.) As I explain in the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course, contamination of food grade buckets is one issue, but an equally-important issue is the suitability of buckets themselves, as they come new from the factory. Determining whether or not a particular used bucket is truly food grade can sometimes be a challenge. I've had several readers and consulting clients who have mistakenly been told that the the number 2 (with the number 2 inside the "chasing arrows" recycling symbol) refers to Food Grade HDPE, but that is not true. Not all "2" marked plastics are food grade! Let me explain: The "food grade" designation is determined by plastic purity by and what mold release compound is used in the injection molding process--not by the plastic itself, since all virgin HDPE material is safe for food. For paint and other utility buckets, manufacturers sometimes use a less expensive (and toxic) mold release compound. For food grade they must use a more expensive formulation that is non-toxic. Unless the buckets that you bought are are actually marked "food grade", (or, marked NSF, FDA, or USDA approved), then you will have to check with the manufacturer's web site to see if they make all food grade buckets. For more details, see the information at this barbecue and brining web site. If in doubt, then mark the suspect buckets to strictly non-food item storage, such as for storing cleaning supplies or ammunition

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Thursday November 26 2009

Two Letters Re: Sources for Food Grade Buckets

Mr. Rawles,

I'm glad that I bought the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course! It has a ton of great information. I followed one piece of advice in the course, and I struck pay dirt: I went to three local bakeries (one was actually part of a supermarket). All three had food grade buckets available. At two of these bakeries, I got charged just $1 each for five gallon buckets with lids. Most of them had already been cleaned. They also threw in a few extra [bucket]s with no lids, for free. And at the other bakery, the buckets and lids were absolutely free. "Just remember us, if you ever want to order a cake," was all they asked in return.

Thanks again for putting the preparedness course together. When I first ordered it, the price seemed high, but it is now plain to me that having it is going to save me and my wife thousands of dollars. Thanks for all that you do with your blog and books. It is nice to see that you still offer all the stuff in your archives, free. You are a saint. God Bless, - P.D.K. in Cleveland

Dear James,
Many of SurvivalBlog readers look for or mention places to find food grade buckets for their long-term food storage needs. I have tried many of them myself (supermarket deli's, ice cream parlors etc.) with some success, however one place I recently found via a Craigslist posting ended up to be my new "motherload" source for these buckets. It was a local vegetable farm. Unbeknownst to me, the seeds to plant various crops just so happen to come in bulk quantity in either five or six gallon plastic HDPE #2 food-grade buckets with rubber gasket lids and sturdy metal handles. I paid the farmer one dollar for each bucket, including the lid. The buckets were dusty but clean, had no traces of any odors, and a quick wash and rinse with soap and water was all it took to prepare them. The farmer told me that he had over a hundred available, with many more to come during the planting season. He said that most all of the local farmers had so many buckets that they just ended up throwing them away in the recycle bin. He told me that his young daughter had suggested trying Craigslist. He told me to stop by at anytime if I needed any more (which, rest assured, I will).

With the price of these same buckets going anywhere from five to eight dollars (plus shipping) on e-bay and other sources, one only have to make a few enquiries at any local produce farms. You may end up be pleasantly surprised.

Wishing you and all of survivalblog.com readers a happy and Holy holiday. The late Memsahib, your family and your good self will be in my prayers. - Bill M.

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Wednesday November 25 2009

Letter Re: B&M Baked Beans and Canned Bread

Jim,
Being born and raised in Maine, I was introduced to B&M baked beans at a young age. Beans and brown bread were our standard fare on Saturday nights for many years. Over the years, I have grown increasingly fond of them, although harder to find in the Midwest - they seem to get crowded off many grocery store shelves in favor of lesser rivals.

In particular, I love B&M brown bread (with or without raisins) - rich, moist dense bread made with molasses and packaged in a can. It is heated inside the can (hint: slice it cold, before heating). A pat (or two) of real butter melting on it makes the meal complete.

From a preparedness perspective, both the beans (available in glass jars or cans) and brown bread are a treasure. The manufacturer confirms (below) that their standard freshness shelf life is three years from date of manufacture (longer is still good, I'm sure). Given that we regularly eat it, there is no problem adding this to our "rotation". And in the case of distress, we have the ability to heat the meal right in the can - the original MRE.

When I had trouble finding B&M at my local grocer, I wrote the B&G Foods and purchased several cases directly from their distribution group.

Blessings and love to you and your family. - BeePaw

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Tuesday November 24 2009

Letter Re: Seeking Advice on Safe Food Storage, and Recommended Sources

Mr. Rawles,
My test indictor for properly functioning Oxygen Absorbing Packets while packaging bulk storage in food grade buckets is the downward pull on the lid. If a good seal is formed by the lid (which is imperative for any method of purging the Oxygen) the packets will cause a vacuum to be created in the bucket and the lid will be concave. It may take up to three (3) days for this to happen. I have had one bucket so far not seal properly and it did not display the concave lid. I replaced the lid and absorber packets and the lid then showed that a vacuum had been created. This is also how I determine if the seal is holding over the long term.

A good source for the absorber packets is Walton Feed [in Montpelier, Idaho, near the Wyomimg state line]. They sell packets of 100 at a very reasonable price along with buckets, lids, and bags. Not to mention all the other bulk foods at good prices for those of us located in the Pacific Northwest. I drove from Montana to their location in Idaho to pick up my first large order and saved twice what the shipping would have been over what I spent in fuel to make the drive. I also liked not having to explain to anyone about a large delivery of food. - K.L. in Montana

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Monday November 23 2009

Three Letters Re: Seeking Advice on Safe Food Storage, and Recommended Sources

Jim:
For anyone in Northeastern Ohio, look into taking advantage of the resources in and around Amish country. Lehman's Hardware in Kidron, Ohio is an excellent place to find non-electric household and farm equipment. They do sell some bulk grains to be used with their wide variety of grain mills, but I would also suggest looking at Swiss Village Bulk Foods in Sugarcreek, Ohio. They run sales weekly, and there are often coupons and additional discounts offered in local newspapers. There are many other similar resources in the area, but these two stores are the largest, and the ones I most often shop at.

Mr. Rawles, I would like to personally thank you on behalf of my husband and myself for all the work you've done via SurvivalBlog and your books. While we are on a very limited budget, we are surely and steadily working ourselves out of debt and acquiring the skills and materials to better prepare ourselves. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have any suggestions for newlyweds on a limited budget who are renting? Also, any prep suggestions for those who travel for a living --my husband is long haul semi driver-- in a SHTF scenario?

May God bless and keep you, - Mrs. A.


Dear Mr. Rawles,
I wanted to give some input regarding buying food items in bulk. For folks who live in areas where there are larger populations of Amish, often you can find bulk food stores that cater to their needs. In northeastern Ohio, I frequently shop at The Ashery Country Store, near Kidron (not too far from the Lehman’s Hardware). They also have a satellite store in Heath, Ohio, called Ashery Farm Store. I often buy items in bulk (50 pound bags) from these locations. Prices for spices are the best, too, often one-quarter of what I would pay at a grocery store.

Also, I found another source for bakery supplies. I contacted a local mom-and-pop type bakery and asked them who supplies them. They gave me the company name and phone number and this bakery supplier has been willing to sell to me and my friends. I pick up the items at the local bakery when the delivery truck arrives. I am able to buy flour, shortening, oats and other supplies for cheaper than what I would pay at the bulk food store. I also bought a 50 pound bag of baking soda (and I have been stocking up on cream of tartar) so I can make baking powder and to have on hand for cleaning.

Thanks for all you do for the preparedness community. Be blessed! - Star K.


Hi,
One good source to buy bulk dried corn, wheat and other grains is at a store that sells farm supplies and animal feed in bulk. You can buy 80-100 pound sacks (save the sacks, they are very useful) and the price is low. I purchased several tons of grain years ago this way. Tell them that it is for human consumption, not for animals or seed. You don't want it treated in any way. You can buy food grade buckets or barrels online, or find cheap or free used ones. Check bakeries, grocery store delis/bakeries, restaurants, etc. Avoid buckets that held anything like mayo or pickles, the bucket will retain the smell and your food will pick it up. Good buckets are often free, or maybe a dollar or so. Invest in a tool to open the lid (Emergency Essentials sells one). The buckets are usually clean, but clean them again to be sure. Use a screw driver to carefully pry the rubber gasket out of the lid and clean that area thoroughly. Make sure everything is dry before you fill the buckets.

You can get food grade Mylar bags from Emergency Essentials. These will be necessary if you use barrels. When you open a 55 gallon barrel you can remove one bag without exposing everything to the air, moisture, etc.. Also you can put multiple things in barrels and separate them. Full buckets will weigh 40-60 lbs, barrels can weight 450-600 lbs. You can stack buckets and barrels (loading the top barrel after stacked). You will need to invest in a hand truck if you plan to move those barrels. Whole grains should last nearly forever if stored properly. Do not buy flour unless you intend to use it within a year or two. The shelf life is short. Once wheat is ground the nutrients are lost fast. For short term use we store some flour, but our bulk supplies are whole grains. Invest in a quality grain grinder to make your own flour (Lehman's).

You will need to pack your buckets using some dry ice. A Google search for the nearest city and dry ice should turn up a nearby dry ice company. You can learn the dry ice method by reading Making the Best of Basics by James Talmage Stevens. We have tons of self-stored grain, for over 20 years. We use some of it periodically to check it, and it is perfectly fine. A family can buy an extensive supply of bulk food this way at a very low price. Gather the buckets and barrels first and plan for some work to haul and bucket things up. Then enjoy the security and peace of mind of having all of that food. - Don in Ohio

JWR Replies: The containers to look for are 5 to 6 gallon HDPE food grade plastic buckets. If any of them come without lids, don't worry. since you'll surely want to have a few to equip with Gamma-Seal lids. These lids have a screw top that makes them very convenient to access the bulk grains and legumes that you use the most often. In the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course, I describe a couple of methods for creating an oxygen-free environment for bulk storage foods in plastics. I actually prefer the dry ice method over using commercially made oxygen-absorbing packets. This is because there is no way of knowing if an O2 absorbing packet might have inadvertently been exposed to atmospheric oxygen, thereby rendering it useless. When you buy O2 absorbing packets, buy only from the most reputable dealers. Less reputable dealers have been known to repackage O2 absorbing packets that they have had on the shelf for months or years. In contrast, with the dry ice method, you know for certain that you are creating a bucket full of CO2 that critters can't breathe.

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Saturday November 21 2009

Letter Re: Seeking Advice on Safe Food Storage, and Recommended Sources

Good Evening,
I recently purchased your book, How to survive the end of the world as we know it. I wanted to say that I have found it to be extremely useful and very helpful. I have been researching everything that I need to do to keep my family safe WTSHTF, but I have not been successful at finding information on how to properly prepare and safely store food for my larder. My second problem is were to find a store that sells bulk oats, wheat, flour etc. I live in northeastern Ohio and have not been very successful at finding a store. If you have any suggestions on were to look or what exactly to look for I would greatly appreciate it. I have tried other books from other authors but yours seemed more common sense to me. Heck one of the books tried to tell you how to catch and cook rats and mice if you really need to, while this may be helpful at some point, I am much more interested in getting stuff together before it is to late.

I am not a total idiot when it comes to knowing how to survive. I am ex military, and did the whole Boy Scout thing for most of my life, so I have some general knowledge.

Thank you again for any help you have already provided and anything else you maybe able to help with. - Rick G. in Ohio

JWR Replies: The information that you are looking for on safe long term food storage methods can be found in one place, in the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course, which is presently being offered at a sale price. And if you are willing to take the time to dig, much of the same information can also be found in the SurvivalBlog Archives (which have grown to nearly 8,000 archived posts).

As mentioned in the preparedness course, many of the bulk foods that you'll need, most notably rice and beans, can be bought quite inexpensively at the major "Big Box" warehouse stores like Sam's Club and COSTCO. Check your local Yellow Pages for "Restaurant Supply" stores, many of which are open to the public, or at least to anyone with any sort of business license. Contact your local Latter Day Saints (LDS) church, and ask if they have a cannery that is open to the public, and their hours. These "dry pack" canneries sell bulk wheat, rice, beans, and other foods at cost, and have #10 Can sealing machines, with cans and lids again available at cost. You just add the labor and a bit of clean-up time.

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Tuesday November 17 2009

Two Letters Re: Long Term Food Storage Package Now Sold at COSTCO

Hi Jim,

You've probably already seen this storage food now sold by COSTCO but it was news to me. Is that a sign of the times or what? In Him, - Karen H.


Jim,

I just noticed that Shelf Reliance "Thrive" brand food is being sold at CostCo.com.

I love your site, - Robert C.


JWR Replies: With a few supplements, the Thrive food storage system would make a very good "core" food storage system for someone that puts a premium on their time. These are top quality products. You would of course want to add other foods for variety and to up the calorie count to compensate for the rigors of doing lots of physical work in a disaster situation. Don't overlook having additional fats and oils, as these are often lacking in many of the commercial food storage systems. (Too many lean meats and not enough fat and other nutrients can induce Rabbit Starvation (aka protein poisoning) --where you can have plenty of protein-derived calories, but still starve to death.) Adding a good quality multi-vitamin supplement and/or a sprouting kit is also important. And, needless to say, if you store wheat, you will also need to buy a hand wheat grinder.

If you do your own CO2 packaging (as I describe in the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course) then you can set aside a one year supply even less expensively, and tailor the choice of foods to match your own preferences. In the course I describe in detail how to shop for nearly all your storage food items at "Big Box" stores like Sam's Club and COSTCO. By buying in bulk and re-packaging, you will end up with foods that are more palatable, and close to what you are already eat on a day-to-day basis.

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Monday November 16 2009

Over-Planning: Get Thine Act Together!

I occasionally hear from consulting clients that get stuck in the rut of "over -planning". They do so much planning for training, and planning for stocking up, that they never seem to get around to doing either! Lengthy "to do" lists are worthless if they never get implemented. This sometimes reaches absurd lengths, as illustrated by one of my clients that showed me a spreadsheet on his laptop PC, in which he not only compared prices from various vendors for ammunition, but also tracked the changes in their prices, over the course of two years. I asked him: "Well, when did you buy, and how much did you buy?" His reply: "Well, none yet, actually, but I've found the best sources, and I've logged their price increases, shown in dollar prices here, and in percentage terms, here. Look here: This company has increased it prices by 12% less than these others. Now look at this column: their prices are up an average of only 21% since this time last year." So, while he was busy fiddling with his spreadsheets, the purchasing power of his money went down by more than 20%. He would have been ahead by at least 20+ percent, if he had just bought ammo a year earlier. But instead, he sat idly by and watched the value of his dollars melt. And these were dollars kept in a typical bank account, perhaps earning only 2% interest. (If he had invested precious metals, then he would have at least stayed ahead of the price increases on ammo.)

The foregoing instructs an important point: Avoid infinite planning cycles, and get started with some concrete steps at preparedness. Clip some coupons and go to you local discount grocery store or "Big Box " store, and actually lay in some supplies, when prices are favorable, of course. If you are not sure exactly what you should buy, or about the shelf lives of various foods, or how to repackage them in oxygen-free sturdy containers, then get a copy of the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course. The bottom line is that a good plan today beats a perfect plan, tomorrow. Or, as we often used to quote in the US Army: "Better is the enemy of good enough."

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Letter Re: A Bulk-Buying Solution--Form a Buyer's Club

Hi Jim,
The bulk-buy solution I settled on was to start my own food co-op or buying club, as an associate of a bulk supplier. They send out a monthly price list and can deliver weekly in my area with only two days' notice. My orders must meet a minimum of $350 each and I must be present when the truck backs down my driveway in order to properly receive and write a check for the shipment. The driver calls me an hour ahead of time so I don't have to wait around all day.

My aim was to make the buying club available to other nearby preppers strictly for bulk orders of long-term storage items but so far I have been the only one to use it.

The great advantage I see in a buying club is that it permits large purchases that would seriously raise eyebrows in a grocery store if they even permitted you to clean them out of the items you sought. (Some stores at least have threshold policies.) It meets the needs of procrastinators who finally decide that now is the time to stock the bunker. Also, the supplier's wholesale warehouse would not be mobbed as early as grocery stores would after TSHTF because few consumers would even know about it.

A downside of the co-op approach would be curious close-by neighbors witnessing you receiving scores of bags, buckets, and boxes, possibly coming over for a nosy visit while you are unloading. This has not been a problem in my location due to my long driveway but would present OPSEC concerns to many. Members of a buying club club who pick up their orders at the drop-off point might benefit from unloading their vehicle while the neighbors are gone or asleep. Another potential downside is that authorities or criminals could seize the bulk supplier's membership list in a search for "hoarders" of food supplies, an excellent reason for creating off-site caches. - Jim McC.

JWR Replies: Thanks for that suggestion. Two more caveats: Depending on your locale, you might need both a business license and liability insurance. We now live in a very litigious society. It is sad but true, someone that merely strains their back while on your property might file a lawsuit. So if you decide to operate with liability insurance, I recommend that you do not open up the organization to anyone except your relatives and trusted friends.

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Saturday November 14 2009

Letter Re: An Alternative to COSTCO for Storage Foods

Dear Mr. Rawles,
I have just ordered your preparedness course. I can't wait for it to get here. I've been reading your blog for about a year now and it has changed the way that I look at everything. My husband is slowly getting on board with the preparedness thing, but he has a long way to go. Our house burned down over 2-1/2 years ago and we have been fighting the insurance company and contractors ever since. We still live in a trailer so I don't have much space for storage. But, we have found many places to hide 5 gallon buckets of food and thousands of rounds of ammo.

My point to this e-mail is that I have a suggestion for an alternative to big box stores like COSTCO, etc. My husband is a commercial beekeeper and buys large quantities of granulated sugar to feed his bees in early spring and late fall when there is no honey flow. Stores like The Restaurant Depot are an amazing deal. If you have one in your area, membership is free. The only requirement is that you have proof that you are a business. It doesn't matter what kind of business you are. This place is food storage heaven! 100 pound sacks of rice, beans, flour, corn meal, etc! It's much cheaper than COSTCO! Plus other shoppers don't look at you like your insane when you are buying enough rice and beans to feed an army. But we still have a good time messing with people in the store.

Thank you, Thank you , Thank you for writing this blog and "Patriots"! Although my family now thinks that my cheese has slipped off my cracker, I know that if the time comes, I will be able to provide for them.

Many thanks and prayers for you and your family, - Tricia H.

JWR Replies: Thanks for that suggestion. As I described in "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course, I have found that COSTCO, Sam's Club, and similar "Big Box" stores are a great place to stock up on bulk food that you can re-package yourself. (Typically done with 5- or 6-gallon food grade HDPE buckets. Commercial vendors like the one that you mentioned are a great option, but their selection seems to be much smaller, and the condiments that they sell are in either ridiculously large or small containers. (Such as one gallon bottles of mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, and mustard, or itty-bitty single-serving packets) Another option that I mentioned in the preparedness course is ethnic food stores. You'll often find the very best prices on rice there, and they do such a large volume of rice sale, that their inventory is usually very fresh.

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Seven Letters Re: How Can I Make and Store Dog Food?

Mr. Rawles,
My husband's grandmother often told about her busy days during the depression, raising seven kids with almost nothing. At the end of her busy day, while cooking supper for her family, she had to make two or three pans of cornbread to feed her husband's hunting dogs. The dogs were valuable because they helped her husband bring in rabbits and squirrel which sometimes were the only meat the family ate. I've always figured if I could no longer afford dog food, I would try Grandma's cornbread solution. - S. in Indiana

Sir,
One way to feed your dogs is with vermin. Every rat you catch can be cooked and fed to the dogs. When you clean fish there are lots of leftovers such as the head and guts. All of this can be ground up in the sausage grinder and boiled. I had a big black dog who would dig up moles and swallow them whole. She would also run down rabbits. So the right dog can be somewhat self supporting, not to mention they can be a big part of helping in hunting game. A hungry dog won't turn his nose up at much. - KJG


Hi!
I don't have a dog and am kind of afraid of them so I have no experience with dog food but I wanted to encourage the writer to use coupons if they have time. I have four cats and a HUGE stockpile of cat food. Most of it I paid only tax for or $1 per bag + tax. To get head start this coupon is $3.50 off any Purina pet food. You can also call Purina they will send you coupons for dog food and maybe a coupon for a free dog treat bag that don't expire for a while. One nice thing about PetSmart is there deals are all month long so you have time to order coupons from a clipping service. YMMV but our PetSmart accepts competitor's coupons. So if you went to hotcouponworld.com (it's not my site - I just find it so helpful) and printed the Target store coupons and then combined with them a manufacturers coupon with a sale you could get a great deal. (Store coupon + manufacturers is okay at many stores, you just can't use two manufacturers for the same item.) You can get manufacturer coupons from a clipping service from a n Internet site or eBay instead of a Sunday paper.

Every store/area is different so me telling you about my grocery store pet food deals won't help but once you learn how it works you can find the best deal for your furbabies. There are a lot of helpful people on that site who know their area stores could guide you through your first deals while you learned. I would encourage you to start out slow. See if you can find free dog treats first or a buy one get one free can of dog food.. that way you won't waste money buying too much from a clipping service for a deal that doesn't work out. Once you learn it's easy..you will be giving dog food to the animal shelter. - Lisa E.

Jim,
In reference to your answer on home made dog food: My grandfather used to have corn and wheat ground up at a mill
and he always referenced additional meal ground up more coarsely for "Dog bread". They used to actually add ground up bones and leftovers as available and bake it (mostly corn meal) as dog bread. I envisioned it as something like a dog biscuit. I later did some research and found that domestic dogs differ from wolves in three key aspects:
They bark at intruders. Wolves don't bark.
They can digest grain and starches (wolves get sick)
and dogs like people.

If you look at the ingredients on cheap dog food, it sounds almost identical to my grandfather's recipe. - Jon

Jim.
As to dog diets, I have already reverted, upgraded actually, to a post Schumer dog feeding program. I raise all of my own food for me and all of my animals including fish , rabbits, egg layers and meat chickens.. Here's what my dogs eat on a daily basis (on most days):

Mornings
Rice with 2 sunny side up eggs fried in bacon grease and one banana or plantain mixed in.
About 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of honey go in.

Evenings
My butcher friend gives me his meat scraps and I save all of my rabbit and chicken innards so in the evening they get this. I make my rice water from broth made from the carcasses. Bone marrow, brains etc is great for carnivores.

Rice, about 2 cups with about 2 cups of whatever meat I have for them. A handful of finely chopped green beans, a small handful of carrot and some type of root whether it be yucca, potato, sweet potato, malanga. It depends what we are eating that night. Instead of root it may be a portion of the many types of squashes that I grow. Do not forget to include a pinch of salt. I have fish out of my pond a couple of times a week and boil the carcass after I filet them. This slurry gets mixed with their rice, and a bit of milk, on those days.
My dogs will eat oranges and bananas out of my hand and those are their daily treats ! Mine too.

The vet says the blood work is superb and all is well. He has actually added some of my items to his personal hunting dogs diet. These are 100 lb American bulldogs. I'll never buy the "poison in the bag" [commercial dog food] again. Peace, - Mr. Orchid in Costa Rica

 

Mr. Editor,
We have been cooking for our dogs (Weimaraners) since the dog food contamination scare a couple of years ago. While they no longer like 'real' dog food they do go back and forth easily.

We cook them pretty much what we eat but our basic receipt for them is rice with mixed veggies and meat. Any meat, hamburger, scraps from leaner cuts and chicken. Thighs and legs are very cheap and boiled supply broth to cook the rice in. They also like fried 'taters and one of our dogs really likes carrots.

When we have a surplus of eggs in the summer we scramble lots of eggs for them with old bacon fat. They love this version of fried rice. Our bitch has puppies right now and is doing very well on this diet and the puppies are fat and happy.

I've enjoyed your blog very much as it reflects in many ways what my husband and I have always thought/planned. I will say it can be a tad depressing on occasion. - Jeanne G.


Hello James Wesley,
Back in the day when I went to stay with my Grandparents on the farm, they never bought dog food as far as I know. The dogs were fed what was left over from the "Mush" in the morning (Oatmeal), the bacon always got finished. In the evening the dogs got a mix of potatoes and carrots or corn with a little fat, broth, or gravy from our evening meal. I would caution you against too much protein and increase the starches, just read the ingredient list on the back of a dog food bag. It is lots of grain and veggies and a little protein. God Bless, - Bucko

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Friday November 13 2009

Letter Re: How Can I Make and Store Dog Food?

James,
I read the blog regularly and have noticed people mentioning the value of having a large dog on a property--for protection, extra set of ears, etc. Having recently purchased a German Shepherd puppy and seeing the costs of dog food rising, plus the looming dangers of hyperinflation and disruptions of supply chains, I'm wondering if anyone out there can share the recipe for a nutritious food for a large breed puppy/dog--especially a food that can be made from common items and stored. Otherwise, when the storm hits I may have a great dog, and no suitable food for her. Probably many people out there are wondering the same thing. Thanks for all that you do to assist people like me. - Scott S. in Colorado

JWR Replies: Dog food--as we now know it--didn't become popular until after World War II. Dogs didn't starve before then, although their diets were not nearly as uniform as they are in the present day. In the old days dogs were just fed table scraps, butcher scraps, and the occasional excess milk and eggs (in judicious quantities, of course, to avoid making a dog vomit.) Most dogs can revert to this traditional diet, especially if the transition is made gradually, over the course of a couple of weeks. Here is an illustration: Two decades ago, The Memsahib and I temporarily foster-homed a "rescue" Great Dane that at first refused to any dog dog food unless it had fried beef livers mixed in with it. Transitioning that pampered pooch took more than a month. My first attempt at having it just going "cold turkey" was a failure, as the dog starved itself for three days. Bad idea! So then I decided to just gradually reduce the amount of beef liver that it got each day. By the third week, it was down to just a bit of beef liver juices. I simultaneously tapered its daily ration by 30%, to increase the dog's appetite. Finally, after a month, the dog was on a pure diet of moistened dry dog food, and was soon back to a full ration.

There are are several recipes for "do it yourself" dog food on the Internet, but in my estimation, that is only a stopgap, for true preparedness. There is no way to store enough dog food for a couple of large dogs for an extended disaster situation unless you have a huge budget. And unless you live in a permafrost zone, this would also require a huge backup generator and a couple of chest freezers. That just isn't practical for most of us. You really need to be ready to transition your dog to a traditional diet. This necessitates keeping a two month supply of your dog's currently-used food on hand, to effect a diet transition. In warm climates, rancidity can be a problem, so if possible store two-thirds of this supply in a food grade plastic bag, in your freezer and rotate it, just as you do your other frozen foods.

Using the worst cuts left over from our from deer and elk butchering, (such as the strips from between ribs, and pieces from near the knee joint that are too sinewy to include in our elk-burger and Bambi-burger), I have made "dog jerky". This is made just like any jerky for human consumption but with a bit less salty brine, and no fancy seasonings. As with our other jerky, it is dried in our old workhorse nine-tray Excalibur dehydrator. If you will be feeding a dog jerked dry meats that are lean (such as venison or rabbit), then don't neglect adding essential fats and oils. You should do so only shortly before they are used. (Again, to minimize risk of rancidity.) OBTW, some of my dehydrator recommendations as well as some important notes on fats and oils are included in my "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course.

Most of our stored cooking oil here at the ranch is in the form of frozen olive oil, and a bit of coconut oil. We've never had problem with plastic oil bottles rupturing, when frozen. Most of our stored fats are in the form of butter, again, frozen in our chest freezer. But we plan to experiment with using some canned New Zealand butter, next year. (That is available from several SurvivalBlog advertisers, at a surprisingly affordable price, considering that it is shipped from the other side of the planet.)

When times get Schumeresque, I plan to transition our dogs to a diet of table scraps, dog jerky, and butcher scraps. This will be supplemented with small amounts of excess milk and eggs from the barnyard. Oh, and one word of warning: Never let a dog watch you break eggs and put them over its food. Dogs are intelligent! Crack the eggs, whisk them, and pour them over the dog's food, while the dog is in another room. You do not want to train your doge to become an egg thief!

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Thursday November 12 2009

Letter Re: Why I Began to Prepare

James Wesley,
In September 2008 a chain of events began which got me thinking about food storage and survival. Living in a small bedroom community to a moderately large city we’ve always had food, water and electricity, except for an occasional day or so when we have a storm. However things changed when Hurricane Ike rolled through the Ohio Valley (along the Ohio river). We had power outages and destruction city-wide of the magnitude of what you would normally see from a tornado that hits part of the town. But in this case a city of 1.5 million was without power for weeks and 24 Kroger’s grocery stores had to throw out all perishable food in dumpsters and were closed for close to a week. Add all of the businesses and school and transportation closings food wasn’t being delivered. Although our problems were never as bad as Katrina or Galveston it really drove home that we were not prepared.

During the storm I couldn't stop thinking of “my kids”, Boy Scouts in the poorer part of the town. They had no utilities and little food. I was a day away from taking a cook stove and setting up a mini food kitchen at a church near where they live. But what could I buy in bulk at Sam’s that they could cook on a fire for them live off of? Rice and beans, beans and rice, as Dave Ramsey says. (But I hate Dave’s arrogance).

An then the stock market crashed 9/29/08. So in three weeks what was a reality only on television had come to my town… to my front door. A probable economic meltdown. A lousy choice of Presidential candidates, one that was very anti gun, and the other that was looking to close the "gun show loophole" as well as not being versed in the world political arena. It felt like end times.

As the man of the house I realized how ill prepared I was to take care of my family. I had been talking about the future of gun control due to our potential next president but I didn't have food storage or anything resembling survival preparedness on my radar.

In the beginning months I have put several $100 of short term food, can goods, bags of rice, beans, sugar, salt, etc “on the shelf”. I bought two Mosin rifles and then to celebrate the election of our new anti-gun President I went out and bought an AR-15 the day after the election. Then I bought an AK and then I bought another AK, then I bought son .22’s and on and on.

I began adding a few hundred worth of food each month to “the bunker” as we jokingly call the garage. My wife is actually impressed that we will have food on the shelf that she can go get when she doesn’t have something in the house. The goal of course is to pack away a year of food supply and then some.

As far as long term food I did order and receive 2 of the 5 gallon sealed Red Wheat buckets, but at about $150 delivered for both it will be slow for me to stock the long term, air sealed, supplies.

One of the first things I ordered was a dozen 100 hour emergency candles from BePrepared.com. Being a Boy Scout for over 40 years made be appreciate their domain name, but the final price of $3 each got me to order from them. I also got a very nice wheat grinder from them too. I looked at a lot of wheat grinders on the Internet but in the end came back to BePreparred.com and trusted their expertise and recommendation and ordered from them.

Next I just purchased received two of the Vario Katadyn Dual water filtration water filter hand pumps. As we do a little backpacking and camping I felt I could justify them with the wife. By the way the Katadyn’s came from ManventureOutpost.com.

Now a few times over the first 12 months of prepping I’ve ordered Mylar bags, oxygen absorbers and diatomaceous earth from SurvivalUnlimited.com. I purchased got a 20” 5mm bag sealer from DougCare.com. I’m now vacuum bagging many food items as well as stocking spices, cereals and other supplies like matches and such.

I’ve also read a lot in many forums about survival guns and have standardized the majority of my firepower on 9mm handguns and rifles, 12 gauge shotguns and a 22 rifle and 22 pistol for small food hunting. For 9mm handguns I already had two Rugers and a Kel-Tec pistols but I did add a nice Springfield XD9 to the collection. I’ve since been blessed to purchase a Springfield XD9 subcompact, which is now my carry gun. On the rifle side I also wanted to stick with 9mm and already had a Highpoint 9mm carbine, so I picked up an Olympic Arms AR-15 in 9mm [Parabellum]. For a shotgun I went with the Mossberg 500 Deer and Field 12 gauge with two barrels which is at Dick’s for $340. My son has a Remington 870. In the 22 family and I chose a Savage 22 LR Bolt action and a Savage semi-auto, each about $160 at Dick's. For the pistol I got a 22 Ruger Mark III which I believe many forums list as a very reliable 22. My son and I also bought a few Mosin Nagant M44 rifles (WWII Russian surplus we bought at $80 each). We had been buying 300 round tins of 7.62 x54r ammo for $64 a tin every few months which now are selling for about $100 a tin. This are great rifles and a blast to shot. Many armies used a variation of these rifles for over 75 years and they have proven to be very reliable and extremely accurate at 300+ yards. Now that I have met my basic armory equipment list the goal is to sock away about 10,000 rounds of each cartridge or shotshell. After I get this all laid in and my year food supply then I’ll come back and look at different caliber guns, but for now I want to keep the ammo shopping list simple. The other thing I’m looking to do is duplicate all of the guns I purchase so I have parts if I have a breakdown of any kind. On my shopping list is to purchase a 5.56mm AR-15. I did just buy a 30-06 Winchester at a gun show recently. I noticed that with all of the ammo shortages .30-06 ammo never sold out at Wal-Mart. It seems to be good hunting ammo and capable of some good ranges.

Some other items I purchased are two small generators of the same make and model, once again so I have a backup. I also purchased an 1980s step van that has provided me with 6 months of storage and transportation for my Scout Troop. If things ever got bad I could dump the Scout gear and head to land we access to about an hour away.

I’m sure there are several other little things like that I’ve ordered over the year. I know that some of this makes me seem like a nut but I’m not going to be the man God wants me to be if I don’t protect and provide for my family, parents, and in-laws.

If my wife ever did the math on what I’ve purchased, more than $3,000 in guns, $3,000 in food, $1,000 on a generator she would be upset but I also know that she respects my desire to protect my family in the best way I can. She also knows that this has made me confident and secure in my daily life and that will go a long way to help me more successful in my job and life.

The biggest confidence builder for me was to take the two-day Appleseed rifle training program. I never had any experience hitting a target (I just pointed the rifle down range). Appleseed has given me all kinds of confidence and a skill to build on.

Lastly, I read several blogs and visit several forums. SurvivalBlog is certainly where I start most evenings. Then I’ve got a list of about five forums that I try to read daily. I’ve added this forum to my list as it makes sense to support those around me and build friendships.

I’ve broken my Survival preparation list down into the following and listed each topic on a separate Excel Spreadsheet where I can collect information and do calculations on: Quantity, Food Shelf Life, Shelf Space, Cost Per Unit, and Equipment to Buy.

Lastly I signed up for Life memberships with the NRA and GOA, and $3 per month for your Ten Cent Challenge. Periscope up, head down. - Don E.

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Tuesday November 10 2009

Letter Re: Food Storage--of Mice and Moths

Mr. Rawles,
I'm writing both a thank you and a warning. First, thank you, thank you, for putting together the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course. By getting almost all of our storage food at Sam's Club and packaging it ourselves in 6-gallon "super pail" food storage buckets, we saved hundreds dollars, versus buying commercially-packed storage food. That alone made the course worthwhile. (Not to mention the ton of other useful information it includes.) I have also loaned our course binder to both my sister and to my sister-in-law, so the course has also gotten triple the mileage!

Now here is the warning part, for SurvivalBlog readers: When we bought most of our food (in the Fall of '08), we didn't have quite enough buckets to fit it all. So I thought, "Well, I'll just leave out those bags of rice, spelt, beans, pasta, and use them up first, before we use what's in the buckets." Logical, right? Well, a couple of weeks ago, I got into the back of our pantry, and pulled out a 5-pound bag of rice, from the top of the back row [on the shelves]. It spilled all over the floor A mouse had eaten a hole in the back end of it. Then I looked more closely, and I found out that a family of mice had built their house, behind a wall of plastic-bagged and cardboard box[ed] food! They even made a bed out of food and some fluffy material (probably furniture stuffing, I haven't located that destruction yet). And not to just be content with opening a few bags, they chewed holes in almost all of the bags! So as my kids and I were cleaning up the mess--nearly filling a plastic garbage can, I found that among the few bags and boxes that the mice hadn't penetrated, some moths had. There were weevils! I was practically in tears, ready to scream. So I had to throw out nearly everything else that wasn't in the thick buckets. Crumb!

The good news is that the mice and moths did not get into any of the stack of big [6-gallon] pails that we had stored with the dry ice [CO2 packing] method you taught in the course. (Which is 90 percent of the food we had stored.) So we learned a valuable lesson, and luckily not too costly a one. Mostly just a big, sickening mess. I just wish that I had taken your advice and put all of it in the pails. I have found, that just like you said, the Gamma Seal screw lids make it very easy to get into the buckets on a regular basis. If I had just bought a few more buckets and Gamma Seal lids, I could have avoided all that waste, mess, and clean-up time. Y' all learn from my mistake, people.

Thanks again or sharing your wisdom and knowledge! - Jessica in Raleigh, North Carolina (Still Learning!)

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Monday November 9 2009

Two Letters Re: Food Grade HDPE Storage Buckets

James,
Some time ago mention was made on the site regarding "square buckets" [that are food grade]. I came across this deal which readers may be interested in (I have no relationship with these folks). The company is called Five Star Preparedness, in Utah. God Bless, - Bob B.


JWR:
I have searched your great site, and the Internet in general for more info on storing grain (such as wheat) inside good used food grade plastic pails.

So far I have learned that a mylar food grade bag should be used inside the [sealed HDPE plastic] pail to put the food in, And a small (thumb size) piece of dry ice should be placed on top of the food and allowed to "melt" until almost all gone, And then seal the bag for long term storage.

What I cannot find out is if the dry ice should be applied directly to the foodstuff, or onto a small piece of cardboard etc to keep the extremely low temperatures away from direct contact with the food?

I live out in the boondocks where it is very difficult to obtain actual "dry ice" However, I have been picking up used (But still charged) CO2 fire extinguishers at rummage sales, etc for years and now have plenty of that source of "dry ice" available. Can that source of dry ice be used for food storage? (Of course I would clean up the inside cone of the extinguisher, etc before use to eliminate dirt, bugs, etc.)

If that source of dry ice will work, How big of a "pile" of dry ice from an extinguisher would be about right for a 5 gallon pail of foodstuff?

Any other comments about this source of dry ice, And it's possible uses?

Thanks again for your great web site! - K9

JWR Replies: Brief direct contact from dry ice will not harm most grains and rice, using a square of cardboard works, fine, if you want your grain to be pristine. Starting with piece of dry ice that is about one cubic inch is sufficient for a five gallon bucket. As I describe in the "Rawles Gets You Ready" family preparedness course, wait until the piece of dry ice almost completely sublimates to fill the bucket with CO2 (displacing the normal atmospheric air. The piece of dry ice should be be allowed to "melt" until it is a disc about the size of a nickel. Do not pound the lid in place with a mallet any sooner, or dangerous pressure could develop in the container.

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Sunday November 8 2009

Letter Re: An Overwhelmed Newbie, Catching Up at Prepping

Mr. Rawles,
I'm fairly new to your blog (three months), and still feeling a tad bit overwhelmed. I'm a 5th grade school teacher, and my husband is a former truck driver, now a truck dispatcher/supervisor. Not just am I realizing that I have a lot of catching up to do to get my family prepared for the rough times ahead, but I'm realizing how much my husband and I have to learn, to be truly ready! I've taken your advice and have asked my mother to teach me how to do pressure cooker canning. That was something that I had always been "too busy" to learn, when I was a teenager, being more engaged with academics and chasing boys. We're also scheduled for taking three classes from the Red Cross, in quick succession. When I mentioned the Appleseed shoots to my husband, he said "Yes, that for us!" He didn't even play his usual cop-out of waiting for better weather in the Spring or Summer. We are gong to the first one available, though the weather will be uncertain, and its a 130 mile drive. My husband was in the Marines, so he has the gun thing covered. But he wants a refresher [course], and wants me to learn to shoot "under stress, out to 300 meters." He bought us a pair of silver [stainless steel] Ruger Mini-14s, and he also has antique Springfield "O-3" [Model 1903] that belonged to his dad. He has more than two dozen extra [Mini-14] 20 rounder magazines (made by Ruger--not the cheapie copies that jam) now ordered, plus Mollie [MOLLE] pouches to hold 16 of them in. Our twin daughters (now 9) are getting Ruger .22 rifles for Christmas, and he found used wooden stocks on eBay to "cut down" to fit them. (Under $10 each--the shipping cost just as much [as the stocks]!)

I've already bought a food dehydrator and meat grinder both very inexpensively on Craigslist and a wheat grinder from Lehman's. One of those "Food Saver" vacuum packer-sealers is next on my list. (I'm hoping to get one used on Craigslist, since they are expensive, when bought new.)

The other thing I've done (following your wife's guidance), is to buy two copies of Carla Emery's book [The Encyclopedia of Country Living]. I've dived into that book, head first. The Memsahib was right. What an amazing reference! Owning that book is like having a country aunt on "speed dial" that you can turn to, to ask just about any question about the old-fashion ways of doing things.

Since we are members of both Sam's Club and Costco (discount memberships, through my husband's work, and my school district) we plan to buy most of our bulk foods at those places. So I'm getting a copy of your ["Rawles Gets You Ready"] prepping course. I'm sure that will fill in some gaps that Carla Emery didn't cover, like details on food shelf lives and modern food packaging. Most important, it is perfect for people like us that want to be able to stock up [on food storage], just [shopping] at supermarkets or the Big Box outlets like Sam's [Club] and Costco.

OBTW, my husband devoured your novel. It kept him up 'til 3 A.M.!

We are selling off our "fluff stuff" on eBay and Craigslist, to get cash for prepping. So far, we've sold my collectibles and some vintage clothes, our Bose sound system, my husband's stamp collection, and more than 200 music CDs, in batches of 10 to 15, [sorted] by genre. We dropped our dish television contract--no time for that sort of time-wasting and mind-numbing entertainment! Next will be selling our Nautique ski boat. Fishing will replace water skiing as our summer hobby, and we can do that from the shore or from kayaks or inflatables that will fit on our Excursion's roof rack. The side bonus is that selling the boat and trailer is that clears one whole section of our garage. That will surely be filled with prepping shelves, shortly. My husband has a source for used industrial-weight shelving and pallet racks for about the price of scrap metal. (They buy shelving from failed companies.)

Thank You, Mr. Rawles, for extracting our heads from the sand. Semper Paratus and Semper Fidelis - Jessica and Ron, in the Non-Amish Part of Ohio (Wishing I lived in Kidron, next door to Lehman's!)

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Three Letters Re: How Much Food Storage is Biblically Justified?

Sir,
Knowing your Christian beliefs are similar to mine -- Calvinist, reformed -- I thought you'd want to know that the article you linked to is from a cult organization. It follows doctrines generally referred to as "Armstrongism" -- denying the Trinity and salvation by grace alone, and more false prophecies than can be counted.

Here's a write up from a cult watch group describing the doctrines:
Armstrongism: The doctrines and religious movement originating with Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986), who founded the Worldwide Church of God (WCG). Armstrong rejected such essential doctrines of evangelical Christianity as the Trinity, the full deity of Jesus Christ , and the personality of the Holy Spirit. Armstrong taught British Israelism and believed that worthy humans could eventually “become God as God is God.” Teaches salvation by works predicated on Sabbatarianism , tithing (20-30%), and keeping the Old Testament feast days and dietary laws. Under the leadership of Armstrong’s successors, Joseph W. Tkach and his son Joe Tkach, the WCG has undergone a radical doctrinal transformation. Scores of splinter groups, such as the Global Church of God and the United Church of God , continue to teach various forms of Armstrongism.

Though the article may have some merit re: survivalism, [linking to] it also could also lead some into this cult and away from Christ. With this in mind, you may wish to remove it from your site. With respect, - Chris B.

 

Jim:
He starts by tipping his hat to survivalist foresight, but it degenerates into "Forget all that survivalist stuff, put your faith in God and God alone."

I'm in agreement with that in part, but God also told us to take care of ourselves and others.

"God actually wants us to recognize and overcome our tendency to trust ourselves. He is measuring the coming destruction of America and other nations because of our sin, our faithlessness, our self-reliance, our ignorance of Him and our belittling of His power. And if you understand the Bible’s prophecies about the severity of that destruction, you realize that no private bunker will be safe for long. No one is going to escape the coming tribulation—descending on the nation because of God’s wrath—through survivalist moxie.

Those who plan to weather the coming storms through their own foresight and ingenuity are underestimating the savageness of the time ahead. More importantly, they are misplacing their faith."

He wrapped with...

"Above all, God seeks repentance. And to those who turn to Him with supple hearts, He offers individual protection—escape—from the worst of the coming storms (e.g. Luke 21:36). That is the only sure place to invest our faith."

Okay, I'm in agreement with that too, but only after I've done all I can.

I can't imagine that God would have given me the mind I have and sent me down the paths I've gone down to just roll over and go cockroach waiting for the redemption when it comes time.

That would be a really cruel joke. I know bad things happen, I'm pretty sure it's humans at work. The duality of our souls. I don't think God is mean for the sake of it. Probably more disappointed than anything. - Jim B

Hi James -
I am sure you are aware of the recent post on the Trumpet web site detailing their particular view on preparedness. I am not a member of their denomination, nor do I agree with their viewpoint that the Bible precludes preparation and storage of food for more than a few weeks. Did not Joseph store seven years’ worth of wheat in preparation for lean times? It seems to this preparedness neophyte that the Lord has provided us with the precious gift of life and loved ones, and that for us to knowingly waste these gifts would be an affront to Him and his gifts. When the final tribulation comes and we are all called before Him, will it matter that I left behind six months of freeze dried food that will go to waste? More important is how I lived His gift, and how I shared the storage with those whom He has placed in my life. Perhaps I am missing something. Thanks for your great service, - Hunkajunk

JWR Replies: Yes, I 've seen that article. The author (Joel Hilliker) misinterprets Matthew 6:19-2 ("Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth"), in trying to apply it to food storage. Storing grain for your family's sustenance in hard times does not constitute a "treasure". In the modern context, I think that "treasure" is far more applicable to 48-inch plasma HDTVs. But it is certainly not applicable to the large quantities of wheat and rice that I have in my basement. The extra quantity (beyond my own family's needs) is there for us to distribute in charity--not something to gloat about, or run my fingers through, cackling, just to admire.

In his conclusion, Joel Hilliker also quotes a 1966 article written by Herbert W. Armstrong, as if it were authoritative. Obviously, Armstrong's writings would only be credible if he had made accurate prophecies. But in fact he had a horrible track record as a prophet, and he was fortunate that the Old Testament laws on false prophets (Deuteronomy 13:1-5) have not been enforced in modern times, or he wouldn't have lived to write that piece in 1966.

I've noticed that people tend to throw around terms like "hoarding" very loosely. Let's get something straight: Purchasing storage food before a crisis does not constitute hoarding. That is because it doesn't take food from anyone's mouth. But if someone tried to amass their supplies after the onset of a crisis, then that would be hoarding. Simple logic dictates that every citizen that is well stocked represents one less individual that will rush to the supermarket to clean out the shelves, when disaster strikes. Hence, instead of being part of the problem, preppers are part of the solution. As I've often stated in radio and television interviews, I don't consider my family's three years worth of storage food a three year supply for one family. Rather, it is a one year supply for three families. Charity is essential, and Biblically mandated for heads of households.

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Letter Re: When Does the Other Shoe Drop?

James:
I was having a conversation with my survival think tank buddy tonight and he asked me when I thought the dollar would collapse. I answered that it was like asking when the next ice age would come. It's due in another 1,000 years but we could be off by century or a millennia. It's the same thing with the dollar. It is impossible, mathematically speaking, for it to continue in it's current valuation indefinitely as it is in a non-sustainable negative spiral for reasons people reading this blog are well versed.

A collapse could happen tomorrow but is could also be delayed for years. This is because the timing of the collapse is not something that can be calculated by mathematical formula alone. It also has a great deal to do with psychological and political forces. As an example, Mr. Obama could authorize the sale of missile technology to China in exchange for buying our debt or not dumping the dollar. The media could continue the party line about a jobless recovery (a euphemism still makes me chortle) and people could continue to remain in dollar denominated assets. Banks could continue the counterintuitive action of not moving forward on foreclosures so as to avoid having to put the losses on their books or do upkeep on the property.

The same holds true for gold. As long as the majority of the gold players are willing to take profits in dollars rather than demanding physical delivery of gold contracts the price of gold can be manipulated.
Then there is food. While food commodities can be manipulated, unlike gold, food is continually consumed and we are running out. You can hide the weak dollar by continuing to 'double down' at the world casino until your credit line runs dry. You can hollow out gold bars and fill them with tungsten as long as no one cuts them open. You can even sell the same serial numbered gold bar to 10 people giving them identical warehouse certificates and as long as none of them take delivery, you've just 'multiplied' your gold holdings by tenfold.

This cannot be done with food that is eaten. You either have it or you don't. So, my long winded answer is that you'll know that the gig is up when the food runs out. - SF in Hawaii

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Saturday November 7 2009

Survival Preparation on Low or Fixed Incomes, by Shawna M.

So you’re convinced that the free ride is over, that things are getting worse, and when the worst happens, you want to be prepared. But you have a problem—you don’t have a lot of money for prepping and day to day living. Maybe you only make minimum wage. Maybe you make a little more than that, but you’ve got a lot of bills. Maybe you live on a fixed income, or have irregular self-employment. Regardless, don’t assume because you can’t afford expensive classes or pricey gear that WTSHTF, you’ll be unable to fend for yourself and your family. My husband and I make less than $10,000 (I’m disabled, he’s self-employed) a year, but we’ve already got a good start on skills, tools, and storage, have plans to expand, and it wasn’t difficult at all. Being on a low or fixed income can help you with a survival mindset, because you’re already used to making do with little, or having to get creative with what you have. You just have to expand what you have, a little at a time, and, before you know it, you’ve got a pretty good cache of supplies and abilities that can help you and yours no matter what comes down the pike.

Skill acquisition can be one of the easiest and cheapest things you can do to help yourself if you’re low on money. Ask family members, especially older ones, and if they could teach you these skills. Family with military backgrounds can be invaluable resources. After I found a Girl Scout survival camp wanting, I talked to my Air Force dad, and he gave me some of his old survival manuals. Friends are also good to ask for help learning things, and sometimes you can trade what you know for what you want to know. I’ve taught friends of mine simple things like gardening and cooking, in return for training in such things as knife sharpening, hand to hand combat, or camp cookery.

If you’re visually oriented, the Internet can be one of the cheapest ways to learn new skills. There are tons of things out there online that are free for the asking. Through various web sites, I’ve learned to make soap in a blender and on the stove, make apple butter, picked up free crochet and knit patterns, gotten gardening tips, and gotten advice on animal care, for a start. Plug in what you’re interested in learning into your favorite search engine and take off. It’s good to check out more than one site for certain skills, as a hedge against errors, and to expand your repertoire.

Books are another great way to teach yourself things, and you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars at the local chain bookstore, either. Check out your favorite online preparation sites and see what books they recommend, and make a list. Then hike down to your local library and see what they carry. Inter-Library Loan (ILL) can help you find books that your local city/county library system doesn’t carry. Some libraries provide this free, others charge extremely low fees (our local system charges a dollar per request, and you can request multiple books at one time). This way, you can see what books have the information you’re looking for, and which ones you would like to own. Even a book that you don’t like might help you glean some information that sends you on your way.

After checking out books at the library, you might find that there are some books you just have to own yourself, but you don’t want to pay out full price for them either. Used bookstores can be a Godsend here—I’ve managed to pick up the useful Foxfire series at local used booksellers for a quarter of the current cover prices. Auction sites such as eBay frequently sell books that are hard to find other places, and sometimes you can get whole lots of books in extremely good deals. Online book dealers often have sections for ordering used copies. I’ve used Amazon.com’s used services to get books like The Encyclopedia of Country Living for less than ten dollars. Talk to friends and see if you can swap books with them, and there are great places online where you can swap books all over the world for only shipping.

If you’re one of those people who learn best by doing, there are a lot of places where you can learn skills for cheap or free. A lot of my survival skills I learned from seven years in Girl Scouts, which sounds funny, but because of Scouts, when the major ice storm hit a few years ago and knocked out our power for almost two weeks, I was able to keep my husband and I fed with hot meals because I remembered how to make a hobo stove out of a coffee can with tin snips and a bottle opener. Other things I learned: how to chop wood, how to make an emergency shelter, and how to identify edible plants, and that’s just for starters. Offer to volunteer for your local Boy or Girl Scouts, or, if you have a child in Scouts, look through their manuals or ask them to teach you what they’re learning. This also works for children who are taking classes home economics or shop classes.

Your local county extension society, which connects people in your county with the latest information from your state land-grant university can be a great resource. Many people are familiar with the Master Gardener program they run, which trains people on every aspect of horticulture, so they can work as volunteers to the gardening public. Ask about scholarships to the training classes. Our local Master Gardener program usually costs $150, but when I asked if I could pay in installments, they gave me a full scholarship. County extension programs also help out farmers, administer county 4-H programs, and have a whole home economics department. That division at my local county extension gives out free handouts on many topics like budgeting and food preservation, and sells copies of the latest edition of Ball’s Blue Book of Food Preserving. Some extension societies also offer a Master Food Preserve program, which is administered much like the Master Gardener program.

Many churches offer programs that could help you learn skills for free or cheap. Most people know that the Church of Latter Day Saints helps people get together a food storage program, so ask your Mormon friends for help, or contact the Relief Society of your local Mormon ward for more information. The LDS [Provident Living] web site also has free links to information on preparation and food storage. Other churches have similar programs. A local Catholic Worker house in a city near me grows fruits and vegetables for the poor and homeless, and they are always asking for volunteers to learn how to care for the plants, in exchange for some of the produce. Again, ask around religious groups in your area, or scan the religion section of your local Sunday paper to get ideas.
Here’s a secret about learning survival skills—well before the economy tanks, the bomb is dropped, or what have you, you will start saving money. Learning to garden has helped my family eat better for less, learning to can has kept our pantry full in tight times, learning to make soap has helped us stay clean and healthy, and learning to sew, knit and crochet has kept my family warm and looking good. The money you save with your skills can be reinvested in learning more skills, or, as we’ll get to next, getting tools and supplies.

Tools and supplies for preparation can be an Achilles’ heel if you don’t have a lot of money to spare, but if you’re willing to look around in places you might not usually go, you’d be surprised at what you can find and for how little. Get an idea, first, of what you would like, again, make a list, and ask around. My mother in law gave me a sewing machine she wasn’t using when she heard I was learning to quilt. When I mentioned to one friend I was looking for yarn for knitting and crocheting, he said his grandmother had some she didn’t use anymore, and came over with three enormous boxes full of yarn, from wool to crochet thread to specialty yarns that retail for almost ten dollars a skein. When a neighbor moves, ask if you can have what they don’t want. One of our neighbors, before they left town, gave me a nice cast iron skillet that had just been taking up kitchen space. I was astounded when I checked online and found out that it was worth $80!

Garage sales can help you score fantastic deals. I got two huge cartons of canning jars and rings in many different sizes for $5, just two blocks from my house. I’ve also gotten embroidery hoops, sewing supplies, and out of print books just to name a few. Churches often have annual rummage sales that can be the place you find that one of a kind item that’s been eluding you. I’d searched three years for a used bread bucket (a metal container with a hand crank and a hook that kneads bread), and found one at a local church for $7. You can often dicker at garage sales, so if you see your dream item, but don’t quite have enough cash on hand, give it a whirl!

FreeCycle is a fantastic program online which matches people who have things to give away to people who are looking for free things. Go to their web site, which will direct you to your local program, and, through the mailing list, see what people are offering, and offer things yourself. For the price of bus fare or gas, I’ve gotten art supplies, kitchen helpers, and even more books for the taking.
Let friends and family know about some of the things you’re looking for and request them as holiday gifts. When I decided I wanted to learn canning, I asked my husband for a water-bath canning starter kit as an anniversary present. He thought it was odd, but after three years, he really appreciates the jams, jellies, pickles, and salsas! If people aren’t quite sure what to get you, tell them you’ll gladly accept gift certificates from a local or online store. And don’t hesitate to put items on a gift registry for large events—sure, people thought it was odd when my husband and I asked for archery supplies for our wedding, but they knew it’d be more useful than, say, a lemon zester!

Online auction sites can be a good resource for tools and supplies, but I recommend you research what you’re looking for, ask the seller questions, and don’t hesitate to complain about problems quickly to get replacements and/or refunds. I’m still kicking myself over a pressure canner I bought on eBay that I didn’t touch for months. By the time I learned that it didn’t work, it was far too late to contact the seller to complain or get a refund. However, I’ve gotten canning jars and rings in quantity on auction sites for a fraction of what I’d pay brand new, so just be careful.

Don’t be afraid to step outside of the usual places for tools and supplies. Army surplus stores can be heaven, especially for camping and survival supplies. Dollar stores can sometimes turn up with the most interesting things. One of our local dollar stores got a shipment of lamp oil in, and we stocked up on several bottles. One place that has turned out to have hidden gems for us is ethnic stores and supermarkets. I picked up a great grain mill at a local Hispanic market for $30, and it works great on wheat. We’ve also got our eye on some cast iron cookware at the local Asian supermarket.

If you look around, one of the best places overall to get tools and supplies are resale shops that sell items that were rejected from megastores because of damaged packaging or one item was damaged in a lot. Resale shops nearby have landed us great things, like 11 jelly jars with new lids and bands for $1, or a high quality four-man tent for $20. The best deal we’ve gotten so far was a food dehydrator that was brand new but didn’t have a box or a manual, for $25. Three minutes online and I’d downloaded and printed off the manual and several recipes, and it’s the best $25 I’ve ever spent.

Food supplies for stockpiling can be had for the cheap in many places. Dollar stores that carry canned food have been a great place for us to stock up. Off-brand stores are another wonderful place to get loads of canned goods. Even large chain supermarkets can have great deals on their store brands. Warehouse stores can be a good place for bulk-buying staples that are far cheaper than little individual packages. When I saw how cheap flour was in 25 pound bags at Sam’s Club compared to the grocery store, we started buying them and keeping it in a plastic bucket by the kitchen. While membership fees at these places can be high, go in with friends like we have and you can have a year of bulk-buying for maybe $5 apiece. Again, ethnic stores can be a bonanza for cheap staples. After seeing the price of 50 pounds sacks of rice at an Asian supermarket, we’ve got another plastic bucket filled to the brim with rice.

Some people might shy away from storing food if they don’t have a lot of room, but if you’re willing to think outside the box, you’d be surprised at what you can put away where. Part of my linen closet houses reused 2-liter pop bottles with an emergency water supply. The space under beds is frequently wasted space that can hold several cases of canned goods. You can even turn some of your storage into cheap décor—one book on home storage I read showed that you can stack up a few boxes of cans, cover it with cloth remnants or an old sheet and voila! You now have an end table.
When I first felt led to prepare for TEOTWAWKI, I was worried that our very low income would hamper preparations. But one thing that many people who have little have had to learn is something that we all need to learn: prioritizing, making the most of what you have to get what matters most. Many people spend out thousands of dollars a year for habits of a moment when they could be storing up skills and supplies to last them the rest of their lives. If it is important enough to you, you’ll make the necessary adjustments and start looking around for what you can get and learn.

Changing your habits and being open to learning new things not only changes you, it can change the ones around you. While my husband and I make very little compared to a lot of our friends, we are frequently the ones they turn to when layoffs hit or disasters strike. They’ve started taking notes, and many have asked us to pass on what we’ve learned, so they, too, can be prepared. Should things go south for whatever reason, perhaps our cheapest but greatest resource will be a group of friends that have many skills and supplies that can enable all of us to survive, come what may.

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Letter Re: Once a Prepper, Always a Prepper

Mr. Rawles,
The following describes my background and how it shaped me.

My Parents' Influences
My parents were from the south (Eastern Tennessee)
They were also children of the Great Depression, their families were farmers and it was normal to prepare for winter or hard times.
Both my parents could can food, especially vegetables and fruit.
My father was an avid hunter and trapper.
I learned from a young age from my parents, never take anything for granted, prepare for good and bad times.

My Childhood
My parents moved to Ohio for work, where I was born.
I spent my youth (from birth to 15 years of age), I lived half of the year in Tennessee and the other in Ohio.
I helped out on uncle’s farm in Tennessee, where my Dad and Uncle taught me to work the land, process livestock, harvest honey & wild fruits and vegetables.
My Uncle and Aunt were children of the Great Depression, yep they were preppers too.
Why this is important, this was the late 1960s to early 1970s.
Their farm was on a route road, where electricity was iffy at best, no city water and the closest store was 25 to 30 miles away, it was natural to just prepare, stock up and be ready instead of heading out on long peat gravel back roads, especially in the winter.

I lost my father, uncle, and aunt in a close span of time together when I was 16 years old. But my Dad, Uncle, Aunt and my Mom gave me some great gifts on taking care of myself.

Young Adulthood
We didn’t get to Tennessee to much after the deaths of my Dad, Uncle and Aunt.
My Mom lost the drive to prepare, can and such.
I did for a while, but once I started working two full time jobs I stopped prepping.
I was working maintenance and training to become a deputy sheriff.
But I still prepped with can goods, drink powders and well water.

An Evacuation
In 1986, we had an industrial accident that affected the region, that started me back to be a prepper
A freight train hauling industrial materials derailed, some of the cars were carrying Phosphorus,
Which caught fire and released a poisonous gas, this caused more of the small towns along the rail line to be evacuated, including our town.
This was my first experience in seeing the baser instincts of human nature take over.
You have to remember, these were small towns, not vast urban areas.
The looting and robbery and loss of the rule of law began.
I saw people fight with police at road blocks.
I saw people nearly run officers dow with their cars.
As in New Orleans during Katrina (several years after the derailment event), some cops didn’t show up for duty, because they were worried about their families.
Our town had not been evacuated as of yet. I was told not to report to any of my jobs, and I wasn’t called up to help.
In fact most law enforcement pulled out of the area to a central location.
I decided to send my mom and younger sister to a family members home outside of the affected area.
And I stayed and protected the home and cared for the animals.
This is the first time I used an Israeli gas mask. It worked quite well.
This was 14 years before 9/11 attacks.
I sealed the windows, doors and any other exterior accesses with towels and duct tape. That worked great.
I set back and watched the circus unfold on television and listen to the scanner, with my Ruger Service Six on the couch.
After the evacuation, the scanner traffic slowed down, a lot of local departments were working their bases out of the county seat in a safe area.
We lived near the town square, so I watched this small but busy town turn into a scene from a nuclear war movie. The traffic stopped, the traffic light in the middle of town wasn’t working due to a car wreck.
Then slowly the cloud appeared, white, thicker than fog.
I was stuck in the house for two days until the fire burned out and the cloud dissipated.
According to police friends, several looters arrested, and one was shot and wounded by a home owner.
One of the evacuation centers at a school turned into a free for all and the police had to shut it down.
So I guess I have a taste of the TEOTWAWKI experience. I hope I never have to experience it again.

Prepper Anew
That experience renewed the prepper instinct in me.
But things had changed, I now lived in a more residential area.
Not much room for a big garden to can or live stock to keep.
So I started looking and what the Boy Scouts and military were doing.
MREs were just a dream, C rations were expensive if you could find any.
So I started with civilian canned goods.
Canned goods available in stores keep an average of one year, maybe up to two years if they are kept in a safe, dry place. This works great if you consume the products and rotate in new during that time.
Some people want to get something that will last 5 -10 -20 years, that’s fine, but I think you should check your stores more often.
Presently, I have a mixture of Dehydrated, freeze dried foods, canned meats, seeds (non-hybrid), food bars and MREs.
55 gallon barrels of potable water and a rain barrel system.
I’m working on a 4x4 vehicle, just in case I have to make a run for it.
I prepare to stay, but I have food bars and portable water, brigade first aid kits in a bug-out set up.
Go to the Dollar stores, you can great deals on basic medical, sanitary, and food products.
Don’t be a snob, it all works.

Guns
I don’t know about you, but I’m a working stiff, no longer a sheriff’s deputy I work in the trades. (Another gift from my family upbringing, I can fix just about anything.)
I can’t afford $1.000 to $1.800 weapons. So if you are in a similar financial situation, I would advise you to check your local pawn shops.

I’ve found great deals on used guns. Here is what I've bought, and my costs:
A Interarms Star M30 9mm 15 shot DA/SA auto pistol, a design once issued to the Brazilian military $299.
Mossberg 12ga 20” barrel pump $150
Taurus Mod 66 .357 $169
Hi-Point C9 9mm $130
Ruger 10/.22 $199
The guns at shows are now often much too expensive.
Don’t be a gun snob. Functionality is key, not a gun's looks.

A gun is a tool, if you can’t buy a S&W, then buy two Hi-Point pistols and have money for the ammo.
In the heat of combat, a gun jams and I can’t clear it, I'll leave it, whether it’s a S&W or a Hi-Point,
Plus the more of the same weapons you have, the more extra parts you’ll have if one goes bad.
The cheapest and easiest to get ammo right now is for shotguns and .22 LR rimfires.
No matter what the caliber, bullet placement is the key to survival. In my police training, I was trained to aim for the Instant Neutralization Zone. This starts with ocular window and runs down to the lower edge of the solar plexus
One other important lesson from my training was to stay out of the Immediate Threat Radius. That is anywhere within 10 feet of an armed opponent.
If you are in the Immediate Threat Radius, even if you get the first shot off [with a handgun], you’ll probably still get shot or stabbed by the bad guy.

Tools
Tools are just like guns, if you can’t afford Klein or Snap-On brands, then buy Stanley brand and buy more of them.
Learn to work on everything.
Stock up on fasteners, extra wood, and any thing else you use at a regular intervals.
Store some gas, kerosene what ever you use.

Faith
Get a Bible, and study it.
Most important have faith in God and in yourself.
I pray every day that none of this prepping will ever be needed.
Of what I’ve seen of the baser side of human nature, if the world goes to he**, there will be a lot of death and sorrow that will touch everyone.
Don’t ask for war, things will go their way by nature and will happen in their own time.

Remember;
“The Angels of the Lord encamp around those who love him.
The Lord will deliver him in his time of need. "

Wishing SurvivalBlog Readers God's Blessings - Gary J.

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Friday November 6 2009

Letter Re: Preps and Minimizing My Debts Paid Off When Unemployed

Dear Mr. Rawles,
With all the bad news reported every day and your personal heartbreaks I hope I can reassure you about our future just a little by sharing my story with you. I started reading your blog three years ago, during the good times. I'm a 23 year-old man from the liberal north east, some college under my belt, married, and willing to dig in and work to secure my family's future. I had a good job with a subsidiary of a major european telecom, I worked every hour of overtime I could and pushed myself to excel at any challenge thrown at me. I rose to the top of the EE techs at my former employer, but that still didn't stop my being laid off when production was shipped to China.

It's been a year since I've been able to find work, and in the intervening time my wife and I have struggled to stay afloat both financially and physically as my wife has Multiple Sclerosis. Thanks to what I had learned from your blog and Patriots, we've made it. When my wife and I were married two and a half years ago I made sure we paid off debt, were smart enough to skip buying an overpriced house, and built up our food stores.

Thanks to you when I watched over the past year the price of homes crash and energy skyrocket we were relatively secure in our apartment debt free and chopping up all the deadfall I could find out in the state owned land behind us to burn in our fireplace. I must have saved a thousand dollars last winter heating with wood and more importantly got myself into shape. Once again thanks to you when inflation hit food prices I dug into our larder to get us past the rise in prices. And thanks to you for getting me to take an interest in emergency medicine because I've been able to keep my wife stable during health scares a couple times now as we waited for the emts to arrive.

We made it through the rough times, thanks to you and the survivalist community. Today my wife is healthy, our persons secure, and my family while not rich will begin to prosper again. I've found a new job, I enlisted in the US Air Force and am shipping out in two weeks. I'll miss all the holidays this year but I'll know my family is celebrating safe and in peace.

Next to good planning, the most important lesson I've learned is to never quit. So through all your trials Mr. Rawles, I hope you can take heart knowing that you and the Memsahib have touched lives from afar for the better. Sincerely, - Brent S.

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Tuesday November 3 2009

Letter Re: Some Ground Truth--The "Us" and the "Them" in a Societal Collapse

Mr. Rawles,
I am a retired Army warrant officer working for the Army teaching Electronic Warfare and Signal Intelligence. I only started reading your blog last week. It's addictive, but slightly disturbing.

Having worked for the Army for 27 years in a number of different failed countries I may have a unique perspective on survival that I would like to share with your readers. I believe most of the "survivalist community" is vastly underestimating the impact that other humans are going to have on their plans. Hunkering down and waiting for everyone to die off is a simplistic plan and I believe has almost no chance of working. You may be able to hide your retreat, but you can't hide the land it sits on. That land itself may become a scarce commodity if the US transitions to an agrarian economy.

Food is the key resource. Most communities are at risk because they simply don't have enough calories stored to get them through any kind of crisis. But, storage is no more than limited capital to allow people time to grow more food. Food production requires land....if your retreat is sitting on farmable land, it will be a scarce resource.

Carrying capacity of the US using non-petroleum farming techniques is far lower than most of your readers probably think. Also, most areas of the US, especially cities, don't have anywhere near enough farm-able land to go back to some kind of agrarian pattern. Without public infrastructure and modern transportation, we are going to experience a huge die-off caused mostly by starvation. In a total collapse scenario without immediate restoration of the economy, basically everyone who lives in a city is doomed unless they can take over some kind of farm land.

If you live in an area without enough farm land, you will be a "have not". Period. I don't care how much food you have stored in your basement.

Here is my key point. These teeming millions will not just starve and go away. I believe that anyone who thinks they can defend a working farm against raiders is deluding themselves.

1. People are dangerous. They are the most dangerous animal on earth. You can never lose sight of that! In almost any society breakdown scenario you can think of, you will be surrounded by starving predators that are much more dangerous than tigers. In the USA, every one of them (or at least the vast majority) will be armed with firearms. The ones currently without firearms will obtain them by any means necessary including looting government armories. These are thinking-breathing and highly motivated enemies.

2. Raiders, defined as "outlaw looting groups" may be a threat for a very short period, but I really don't see groups of more than 4-6 ever forming...they will be quickly replaced by much larger groups of "citizens" doing essentially the same things, but much better armed and organized.

An Example: A few hours after Albania's political crisis in 1998, (which was caused by a national lottery scam), almost every adult male in the country procured an AKM from government stocks. Armories were the first targets looted. I flew into Tirana packing a pistol and a sack of money, naively thinking I would be able to move around the country and defend myself. What a laugh. Everyone had me outgunned, and the vast majority of them had military training of some sort. I never got out of the capital city. Every road seemed to have roadblocks every few miles, blocked by armed local citizens.

3. Without central authority, people don't just starve and go away. They form their own polities (governments). These polities are often organized around town or city government or local churches. They may call it a city counsel or a committee or a senate. The bottom line is, "We The People" will do whatever "We" have to do to survive. And that specifically includes taking your storage goods.

4. When (not if) a polity forms near you, you had better be part of that process. If not, you will be looked upon as a "resource" instead of a member of the community. The local polity will pass a resolution (or whatever) and "legally" confiscate your goods. If you resist, they will crush you. They will have the resources of a whole community to draw upon including weapons, vehicles, manpower, electronics, tear gas, etc. Every scrap of government owned equipment and weaponry will be used, by someone. Anyone who plans to hold out against that kind of threat is delusional.

5. The local polity that forms is almost certainly going to make mistakes. Some of them are lethal blunders. Odds are, the locals will probably not have given a lot of serious thought to facing long term survival. They will squander resources and delay implementing necessary actions (like planting more food or working together to defend a harvest). They may even decide to take in thousands of refugees from nearby cities, thereby almost insuring their own longer term starvation.

A much better approach is to be an integral part of the community and use the combined resources of the community to defend all of your resources together. This would be much easier if a high percentage of the community were like minded folks who were committed to sharing and cooperating. Because any community with food is likely going to have to somehow survive while facing even larger polities, like nearby cities, counties or even state governments. Don't expect to face a walking hoard of lightly armed, starving individuals. Expect to face a professional, determined army formed by a government of some kind.

A small farming community can probably support a few outsiders, but not very many. The community will need to politically deal with outside polities or they will face a war they can't win. Hiding the fact that you are self sufficient is going to be hard. You can't hide farm land.

Defending your resources against the nearby city will be even harder. You may be able to save the community by buying protection with surplus food...if you have prepared for that. You may indeed have to fight, but stalling that event for even a year could mean the difference between living and being overwhelmed. In any case, your community needs to go into the crisis with a plan. You may be able to shape that plan if you become a community leader instead of a "resource". With Very Kind Regards, - R.J.

JWR Replies: You've summed up some essential truths quite succinctly. Your points square nicely with the scenario in my first novel ("Patriots"). It also matches my premise of gemeinschaft kampfgeist, in the context of cohesion in the "we/they paradigm."

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Monday November 2 2009

The Flash to Bang Count: Observations on the October Indonesian Asteroid Airburst

A few days ago, The Telegraph reported:

"An asteroid that exploded in the Earth's atmosphere with the energy of three Hiroshima bombs this month has reignited fears about our planet's defenses against space impacts. On 8 October, the rock crashed into the atmosphere above South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The asteroid was around 20 meters across and hit the Earth's atmosphere at 45,000 mph. The blast was heard by monitoring stations 10,000 miles away, according to a report by scientists at the University of Western Ontario. Scientists are concerned that it was not spotted by any telescopes, and that had it been larger it could have caused a disaster. Luckily, due to the height of the explosion - estimated at between 15 and 20 km (nine to 12 miles) above sea level - no damage was caused on the ground."

Later reports mentioned and estimated 5 to 10 meter diameter for the asteroid. Let's consider the implications of this event. If this had happened in the skies over a First World nation, or if the explosion had taken places at ground level (or near ground level, a la the 1908 Tunguska event), then there would be a huge clamor and calls for early asteroid impact prediction, and greater preparedness. But since this took place above what most consider a backwater nation, and there was no visible damage on the ground to photograph, this news story was resigned to "minor headline" status. And what if the object had been 100 meters in diameter, instead of 20?

We've previously discussed asteroids with Earth-crossing orbits--also known as Near Earth Objects (NEOs)-- and the consequences of potential impacts in SurvivalBlog.

Asteroid impacts are one of those "low likelihood but high disruption" events. The chances of one occurring in our lifetimes is relatively low, but if one were to happen, the implications would be huge. In anticipation of future asteroid impacts, here are some factors to consider:

  • An asteroid impact could cause short-term climate change that could in turn cause multi-year crop failures on a hemispheric or even global scale. This means that it would be prudent to have multiple years food storage
  • The importance of living in inland areas. Let's face it: coastal areas anywhere on earth are vulnerable to mega-tsunamis, if you factor-in the threat of asteroid impacts. Unless there is some massive intervening terrain, don't live at less than 500 feet above sea level if you must live within 25 miles of an ocean. A 300+ foot high tsunami might seem hard to imagine, but just ask an astrophysicist. It is possible, and in fact there is some geologic evidence that that mega-tsunamis have occurred in the past 6,000 years.
  • Never underestimate the implications of mass hysteria and misdirected government reaction to a crisis. News of imminent crop failures might inspire executive orders mandating the collection of "hoarded" food. Hint: This will probably include food that you started storing years ago--long before any imminent threat warning or post-incident panic buying. So I must again warn my readers that it is wise to keep a low profile about your preparations.

I have been studying the threat of asteroid impacts for many years. NEOs represent a "wild card"scenario. Since a fairly complete orbital path tracking database probably won't exist for 20+ years, this threat will remain an imponderable for the foreseeable future. Until a fully-populated database is developed, this will remain a quasi-voodoo science. The Indonesian event illustrates just how easy it is to get blind-sided. And even after we have complete tracking data, it will be decades longer before we start to proactively develop a program to "nudge" the larger NEO asteroids into safer orbits.

But again, keep in mind that this is one of those "low actuarial risk/high consequence" events. Plan accordingly.

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Sunday November 1 2009

Letter Re: Comments of Storing Coffee and Grinding Whole Wheat Flour

Jim:
Buryl misses the point to storing coffee. Freeze dried blocks of ground coffee wrapped in aluminum foil pouches and vacuum packed is my preferred method, but I also store instant coffee crystals.

I recommend not getting addicted to coffee. I can take it or leave it. But it is a wonderful trade/barter item. Especially after six months or a year or more have gone by after the SHTF and there is no coffee to be found anywhere, a stash of coffee will be good as gold with its purchasing power. Storing jerked meats and especially honey as barter items are favorites of mine. Of course one has to be ultra careful who he trades food and ammo with. I would never trade with anyone I didn't know or not from my home area.

I also recommend stockpiling ammo, especially 22 Long Rifle (LR) ammo, because I think it will become the currency post SHTF. It is light, easily portable, and you can carry a bunch of it. If each cartridge has about the same purchasing power after the SHTF as a dollar has now. And with the scarcity of such ammo and supplies post-SHTF, I think 22 LR ammo will be worth its equivalent weight in silver. People that now can't afford to stockpile gold can still stockpile ammo, especially 22 LR ammo at 3 or 4 cents per round. - R.L.

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Saturday October 31 2009

Letter Re: Comments of Storing Coffee and Grinding Whole Wheat Flour

Sir:
I suggest kicking the coffee habit. Coffee offers very little actual nutritional value. It is mostly a comfort food. While that is important, consider the drawbacks:

1. Sleep pattern changes
2. Increased anxiety
3. Staining of the teeth
4. Effects on pregnancy and menopause
5. Cholesterol (French Press method can use trap cafestol and kahweol which may raise LDL levels that paper filters capture)

Regular use may lead to "habituation"; that is, no net benefit from use but, rather, a negative effect if the drug is not taken.

Too much caffeine can produce restlessness, nausea, headache, tense muscles, sleep disturbances, and cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeats). Because caffeine increases the production of stomach acid it may worsen ulcer symptoms or cause acid reflux ("heartburn").

I'm sure there will be plenty of people who respond that coffee is healthy and has many benefits. I'm skeptical. - Buryl

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Thursday October 29 2009

Letter Re: Comments of Storing Coffee and Grinding Whole Wheat Flour

Mr. Rawles,
In your new book ["How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It"], which I ordered on "Book Bomb day" you mention that coffee is hard to store, and suggest using the vacuum-packed bricks. I have found that the key to stocking up on coffee for the long term is to buy green coffee beans that have not been roasted yet. They have the potential to keep for up to two years in just a burlap bag, or much longer if actually packed like you would wheat berries. Roasting can be an art in itself, or as simple as frying in a pan. (Just the beans, no oil of course.) A source for roasting information and ordering of green coffee beans is Sweet Marias. I roast my beans using a Fresh Roast II coffee roaster every few days, and plan on roasting them in a cast iron skillet, should TEOTWAWKI occur. Wholesalers of green coffee beans exist, and the beans can be had for from $2.50-$3.50 a pound in 130 pound bags. Not to mention, fresh roasting the coffee beans actually improves the flavor about three times as much as fresh grinding the coffee beans do!s

The second item regards sifting fresh ground whole wheat flour in order to obtain fluffier whiter flour most people have been led to prefer. Legend, Inc. offers Geologic soil sifters in varying grades of fineness. A #20, #30 and #50 allow me to obtain flours fine enough to bake cakes from hard white wheat berries ground with a Country Living grain mill. I still make whole wheat bread most often, but it's nice to have the ability to make a nice cake or French bread. Some day without power and from a hand cranked mill, a nice cake could be a real morale booster. Thank you and God Bless, - Edward T.

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Two Letters Re: Protein Powders as Emergency Survival Foods

Mr. Rawles-
D. in Dubai has made an excellent point in regards to protein powders/meal replacement drinks. You are correct in that the 'Ensure" and other medical-oriented drinks are a bit more balanced; however they tend to be lower in protein per ounce than the 'sports' type of drinks.

That said, The bulk purchase of a powder that is palatable to you and your family is an excellent means to balance out your bulk food stores, such as pastas, rice, etc. There also tends to be excellent vitamin and mineral contents in their drinks as well. A caveat: go to a store and ask for samples to taste - this is important! Some are simply nasty, some are delicious. Also, start small. Begin with just a fraction of a serving, and use it regularly. This will adapt your digestion to a new food, and the transition will be much smoother.

Once you find one you like, stock up. The prices are reasonable now, plan accordingly! - Sled

 

Mr. Rawles,
The recent Ensure powder link to Amazon (for one of their partner retailers) at $92.34 + $5.90 shipping is more expensive than buying it directly from Abbott Labs (the manufacturer) at $65.93 with free shipping on orders over $50. I've also seen it on the beta test of the grocery web site for ChinaMart (Walmart.com) but it's not there today.

Abbott also has offers on their site for "Buy three, get one free" coupons for local brick-and-mortar retail purchasers.

They also offer free sample coupons and other discount coupons.

In my opinion, the Butter Pecan is the best and Cafe Latte is a close second. But avoid the strawberry flavor! Thx. - Kent M.

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Wednesday October 28 2009

Letter Re: Protein Powders as Emergency Survival Foods

Mr. Rawles,
I've been following your site for some time and thoroughly enjoy it. The information provided here is outstanding. I'm writing to make a suggestion for a short term and possibly long term survival food.

A quick premise. I've been working out and lifting weights off and on for the last three to four years. I lifted weights when I was much younger and I needed to incorporate them to get back into shape. Now that I'm a little older and wiser I've been using the internet to find out more about fitness and physical development. I'm by no means one of the monster lifters you see at the gym but, I am relatively fit and what is termed a "hard gainer" or ectomorph somatype. That means gaining muscle mass is difficult for me as my metabolism burns through calories very easily. I'm the slender guy all women hate because I can eat and eat and not gain weight.

As I began to learn more and more about weight lifting techniques and routines I began to learn more about the types of nutrition that would benefit me to include protein powders, shakes, or meal replacement shakes/drinks as they are called.

Most are loaded, or claim to be loaded, with whey protein, as well as other nutrients needed for maintenance and development. These same nutrients are essential for consumption in an emergency and no one goes running to the store for them once the shelves are empty at the super market. Only your most hardcore lifter will be stocking up on mass quantities prior to or during an event/incident. If you come across this guy, stay out of his way. He's apparently really serious about lifting. LOL

That being said, in an emergency you can buy them without having to fight off the mob at your local vitamin and supplement shop. Many of them recommend drinking them one or two hours before a workout to have nutrients available during your workout and then again within one hour of completing your workout to feed the muscle and begin repairing it from tearing it down. In two servings the caloric intake is between six hundred and one-thousand calories. Some are loaded with even more calories per serving and that can be very helpful for life sustaining nutrition. I can gulp one down very quickly. Those that have been in the military can attest to having limited time to eat and MRE let alone heat one up while on patrol.

All you need to make protein powders into a "meal" or "shake" is water or milk, a measuring cup, and a hand mixer or shaker. You don't need power to cook or prepare it. Measure water or milk into your shaker add the powder and shake or mix well. You can even measure the powder into small individual ziplock snack bags and put those inside a shaker for storage in your B.O.B. or kit for emergency use.

Now be warned, some of the products I've tried taste awful. I know that what I enjoy as far as taste and flavor go more than likely isn't the same as what anyone else is going to like or enjoy so, I'd advise buying some of the smaller containers to start and see if you can find one that you can enjoy if you intend to use them as an emergency food or supplement. Don't buy any of the Ready To Drink or "RTD" products. These must be kept refrigerated for whatever reason and they taste horrible. The powders of the same product taste much better. I've no idea what they do to make the RTD shakes but, whatever it is they should just stop.

The one I've finally decided to use exclusively is Cytosport Muscle Milk. It can be a little more expensive than most but, I get three hundred calories from a serving of the powder with water. It comes in multiple flavors, tastes fantastic, like a shake should and when I mix it with milk it can almost double the calories per serving. Cytosport has multiple products and varying prices. Some are loaded with calories and that can be very helpful for life-sustaining nutrition.

No, it's not loaded with a ton of sugar, even though in a stressful situation you'd burn through them quickly. Sugars are the enemy of weight lifters to a degree, and more than likely it will be loaded with essential vitamins and minerals needed for survival.

These can be utilized on patrols as well. Mixing the shakes with water and having them in a shaker in your pack makes for a fast meal while on the move. Leaves no garbage behind as you just toss the shaker back in your pack and keep moving. Two or three and an MRE and you can go for a couple days if need be. Where I am they have smaller shakers than I'm used to in the US. These would be very handy for just such a use. Just make sure if you make the shakes ahead of time, the lids/tops are on securely.

I can't vouch for the shelf life of the powders. I'm sure that they are fairly stable and may store for quite a while. I would wager no one has ever asked companies that manufacture them to test to see how well they keep over time. Usually, they are produced and consumed. For myself, I'll pack more than few of the large jugs away for when TSHTF.

When I buy them I do so mostly through the Internet. You can save a lot of money like that as opposed to buying in the store. In an emergency you'll have to take what you can get if you haven't already stocked some in. I buy the large five lb. jug and I get quite a few shakes from it. I'd estimate I get from thirty to forty shakes out of one jug going by the directions.

One more thing. When using these products and working out (or surviving TEOTWAWKI) your body will more often than not be burning up calories like a blowtorch burns through oxygen. Even without using this, more than likely you may experience some constipation. I know how a stressful or drastic change in environment can kick your body's metabolism into hyper-drive. Even if you drink a gallon of water a day you can still get bound up. Be mindful of this or you'll be very unhappy when the time comes to make a sitting head call. - D in Dubai

JWR Adds: I have read that liquid meal replacements that were originally developed for the elderly such as Ensure powder offer more complete and balanced nutrition than do the weight training liquid food supplements. In powder form, they are more compact for storage, and have a longer shelf life than the liquid form. They are also less likely to cause constipation than the weight training supplements.

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Monday October 26 2009

Letter Re: Survival Notes from the Dominican Republic

Jim,

I've recently read several of your books and found them both interesting and educational. I would like to offer some personal insights based on my experiences from living in a small rural town one of the larger Caribbean islands. Most of my notes are cheap solutions used by people in developing nations all over the world. There may be better ways, but these work and cost next to nothing.

Water:

There is something especially disturbing about opening the faucet and hearing a sucking air sound. Not being able to shower, flush, or wash dishes is the worst.

One or more 55 gallon drums and 5 gallon plastic buckets are essential items to have. When you see that hurricane on the news, put the barrel it in the shower and fill it up right away. Add a few capfuls of bleach to make it keep longer. Expect the quality of water from the town water supply to drop. Rainwater collection should be set up right away. If possible the roof should fill a large cistern with a pressure pump. A gravity tank should be put on the roof.

Washing up from a bucket is easy enough. A small plastic cup and a five gallon bucket makes is easy. If the water is cold don’t try to heat up all the water. Bring a good sized cooking pot to a near boil and add it to the cold water. A person can wash easily in 2 gallons of water.

Pouring about two gallons of water rapidly into a toilet from a 5-gallon bucket will flush a toilet.

Washing dishes from a bucket without using gallons of water is tricky. It takes some practice to do it right. If you don’t stack your dirty plates and wash them right away, you only have one dirty side and no dried food.

It is very easy to contaminate your water supply. Dirty bucket bottoms and careless bathing are common causes, be vigilant.

Food:

Our community is an exporter of meat, milk, eggs, rice, vegetables and we have a 365-day growing season. Most families have a garden plot to supplement household food. Storing food is always wise but not nearly the problem it is in some other locations. Much of our farming is done with hand work.

Power:

We have daily blackouts here and most houses have invertors with battery backups. Since we have occasional power most people do not have generators but just charge when the lights are on. Most businesses have diesel generators.

A 2.5 KW inverter system with 4 deep cycle batteries will keep a few lights on, a laptop and a fan or two for about two days and costs about $2,000. The better systems run on 24 VDC. Here we are all very aware of vampire appliances [aka "phantom loads."]. All those VCRs, TVs, microwaves, wi-fi boxes, alarm systems, clocks, all pull a significant load. You need to learn your house circuits and unplug and turn off the breakers for things you don’t need. Low wattage bulbs are essential.

Running a generator for about 4 hours will charge most battery systems. Your generator will need to be at least twice the capacity of your inverter. Operating like this you can have basic lighting for the cost of about 2 or 3 gallons of gasoline a day. Running a refrigerator off a battery backup system is just not cost effective. Many people have put up both solar and wind systems as a way to produce some additional power to keep the batteries topped off.

A few simple solutions: Computer UPS systems usually operate on a 6 or 12 V battery. It is very easy to open one up and connect a large battery by running wires through the back of the case. This will give a much longer run time. While you have the case open, take a pair of pliers and crush the annoying power alarm beeper. The charger on these systems is very small and will take a very long time to reach a full charge. An off the shelf battery charger will speed things up. Alternativel,y your car can be used to charge the batteries (12 VDC only)

Guns:

While being armed is important, life is so much easier when there isn’t a conflict in the first place. Some people always seem to have problems wherever they go and need to pull out weapons while others seem to walk through the valley of death without a care in the world. Spend some time researching body language, and read books on interpersonal relationship skills. Besides improving your life right now, it could change a potential fatal firefight into a new friend.

Police:

When we have a crime wave, the police set up road blocks coming into and out of town. Rarely does this cause any real problems for honest people but you do need to have your paperwork for your car or firearms on hand. A smile and a friendly face makes things go much smoother. Acting aggressive or angry will get a messy and thorough search of your person, passengers and your car at a minimum. Knowing your local police makes a big difference. Sometimes we are asked to “help them out” which is code for a bribe. Either pay it with a smile, say sorry but you can’t today, plead poverty, or turn back. Fighting it just is not worth the trouble.

Crime:

Most traveling gangs are small and short lived. They rarely survive an encounter with police. It is very hard for a crime group to survive outside of their own neighborhood where they have local knowledge, a place to sleep and the support of family and friends. On the flip side the crimes committed by these people are usually the most brutal.

Local criminals gangs are much harder to control. Often these are well-connected individuals or gangs who are very good at remaining undetected. Some of them are drug smugglers, cattle thieves or burglars. Persons who are well liked and respected in the community are usually left alone. If you see large gangs forming, seriously consider leaving the country as it is a no-win situation.

Home Security:

This is a very safe country, but it is safe because people here do no depend on the police and protect themselves. With that in mind I have noted some of the more common security precautions here.

My experience here is that a house with lights on and occupied is the house that is left alone. Your best defense is to be the least interesting but hardened house in a occupied community. Vacant houses attract soft criminals and people who need a place to sleep. Most Dominicans always have someone home in the house. Night time home invasions are rare but they do happen. People who do this time of crime are extremely dangerous experienced and hardened criminals.

Isolated houses are at the worst risk for the most serious attacks. A gated community, walled yard, electric gate, bars on the windows, dogs, even armed security guards are all common place here. Country people live in small groups of three or more houses with the fields surrounding them.

Your most vulnerable time is being ambushed entering or leaving your home or car. When designing your landscaping, don’t build easy ambush points for attackers. This sort of thing doesn’t happen much in a small town.

Protests/Strikes/Riots:

Occasionally when the power or water is out too much, the citizens will organize a protest/strike/riot. Often the organizers are union leaders or other non-governmental community leaders. The usual format is to shut down the with road blocks and burning tires. Much of the bad behavior is more for show than reality but trying to pass the road blocks will result in getting your vehicle wrecked by the strikers. It is important to know why people are protesting and to be sympathetic to their cause (in many cases it is well justified). Their intention is to cause just enough of a disruption to get government the government to resolve the problem without getting arrested. Trying to pass the roadblock means that you are disagreeing with the reason they are striking. Know your local area for alternate routes and don’t try to travel during strikes.

Dogs:

Good dogs are essential. A pair of large dogs of a known breed are a very significant deterrent. Rottweiler, Doberman, German Sheppard, pit-bulls are recognized and avoided. Dogs differ widely in personality. Be sure yours matches your needs. Be aware and realistic of their shortcomings. I know too many people who depend entirely on a easily circumvented dog for security. Professional thieves routinely outmaneuver, poison, or shoot dogs.

Don’t overlook the value of small "yippy" and intelligent dogs like Chihuahuas. They are light sleepers, a second set of eyes and ears and are cheap to feed. They often work well with the bigger dogs.

Watch your dogs. If your dogs suddenly become sick, it may mean they were poisoned and you should expect a robbery that coming night or the following day. Look for your dog before you pull into your drive or get out of your car. If there has been an intrusion it may be hurt, nervous, missing or dead. This will often be your first indication of an awaiting problem.

Community

After a disaster (hurricane, flood, earthquake) the best thing for everyone is to keep the community together. Building a good reputation and personal relationships with neighbors and community leaders will make all the difference when resources are scarce and people are scared. The people who are capable leaders and community contributors often get first dibs on any help that does arrive and the right to make decisions on how goods are distributed.

Filling sandbags, organizing relief, passing out information, providing power, clearing roads, etc will make friends and build relationships that are not soon forgotten. This sort of thing can really bring a community back together in a hurry. We all depend on each other and leadership through positive action is a great way to rebuild. Just as looting is contagious, when people see others working together and helping, they are apt to join in. I have seen this numerous times here.

Transportation

Propane is subsidized here and is significantly cheaper than gasoline. Many people have adapted cars and trucks to run on both fuels using a special carburetor. As propane stores well this is a good emergency option for transportation, cooking, and power generation. Additionally propane machines can run on biogas and syngas.

While horses are very common here there would be a shortage if things really went bad. They did become proportionally more valuable as the price of fuel shot up.

I rarely see wood gasification mentioned as a alternative fuel supply. (See the Wikipedia page on wood gasification) This is an excellent modification that was used heavily in Europe in the 1940s. In my opinion, for most people this is the best solution to combustion engine power after a complete breakdown. Both alcohol and biodiesel require working farmland and refineries.

Post crash employment:

Anyone who can provide alternative sources of food, power, fuel or light will do well. A little Google work will show what technologies work on a small scale and provide business opportunities both now and after. Additionally, people here who can repair things never seem to make much money here but they always have work and food on the table.

Currency and hyperinflation:

After a major bank failure here, the currency here devalued by a factor of four in about two years. As the slide begins there are lots of opportunities to buy up things at old prices as many people price things based on what it cost them, not what the replacement value is.

As prices shot up, wages lagged way behind. Interest rates sky-rocked. Food prices shot up. Skilled labor prices went through the roof. The economy stopped dead because it becomes impossible to price things and nobody wants to work.

At the end of the slide the asking prices for everything got just crazy high, and the bid prices so low that almost no transactions took place except as acts of desperation.

Three years later, the currency has stabilized. Interest rates on loans are still slowly retreating. Merchants learned to price goods on replacement cost. Prices are often quoted in USD instead of local currency. Asking prices never really came down, but bid prices slowly rose up and as the spread reduces the economy starts to move again. Salaries are paid in local currency, but pegged to the USD for stability.

I wasn’t expecting to write such a long letter but maybe some of this will help people prepare and know what to expect. Sincerely, - S.H.

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Sunday October 25 2009

Letter Re: Portable, Minimal Prep. Emergency Foods

Sir,
Here is a list of the food suggestions that we made for our kids families. This list only deals with the food and not any implements or utensils needed for preparation and consumption. We already supplied them with what was needed kit wise and it was up to them to provide the food of their choice.

  • Trail Mix
  • Jerky
  • Dried Fruit – Raisins, Banana Chips, Etc
  • Small Pop Top Canned Meats - Vienna Sausage, Deviled Ham or Tuna
  • Small Jar Peanut Butter
  • Crackers (large round ones can be stored in “Pringles” tube)
  • Granola Bars
  • Candy (but consider the melt factor for any chocolate type)
  • Instant Oatmeal
  • Coffee Singles
  • Cocoa Mixes
  • Tea Bags
  • Sugar and Creamer Packets
  • Individual Packets of Gatorade, Lemonade, Punch
  • Cans of Stew, Chili, Chunky Soups or Beans & Wieners (pop tops)
  • Knorr Lipton Rice and Sauce Mixes (add water only type)
  • Knorr Lipton Pasta and Sauce Mixes (must have milk powder)
  • Small Cans of Ham, Chicken, Etc (to add to rice or pasta)
  • Small Cans of Green Beans or Corn (to add to rice or pasta)
  • Envelopes of Instant Mashed Potatoes (add water only type)
  • Instant Gravy Mixes
  • Ramen Noodles
  • Non Refrigerated Pudding Cups
  • Fruit Cups

Regards, - Jim and Glennis

JWR Replies: Because of the large amounts of refined sugar in many of these foods, some cannot be recommend as healthy foods for long-term use. But even these have utility in a short-term "bug out" situation for your G.O.O.D. kit, where the sheer number of calories will trump most other selection factors.

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Thursday October 22 2009

Comments from Michael Z. Williamson Re: Storing Food in Commercial Storage Spaces?

Dear Jim,
Several years ago my wife and I were resident managers of a self-storage facility. Here are some useful facts:

Check them out first with the Better Business Bureau. The company we worked for, sad to say, was and still is rated very poorly for failing to respond to customer complaints. They operated on a model of "Get every penny they have." The rent was reasonable, and we were on site as "Security" with the usual corporate garbage that we never have anything resembling a weapon in the office or on duty.

The problem came with late fees. As soon as the doors closed at the end of the three day grace period, the computer would apply a penalty. On the 15, another penalty would apply. After 30 days, a "Collection fee," and rent, and more fees. A month late would cost a customer about $100 (in late 1990s dollars) in addition to rent for each month. Their lock would be cut to determine if the space was abandoned, and then overlooked, with a fee to have the lock removed. (All this was handled by the corporate office. We had no choice and no authority or ability to help anyone on hard times.) We were not allowed to provide any contact info except the P.O. Box number to complainants, who'd of course sometimes threaten to "inform our bosses" who made it clear they didn't want to talk to customers. They would never respond in any fashion to a customer unless lawyers were involved.

At one time they stripped and auctioned property through a local auction house, then switched to the "Bid on the open box" plan. So the result of three months lost rent, lots of filing, certified letters, late fees and loss of the use of the space in the meantime would typically be $20 or so.

Keep in mind that almost every place writes leases from the first day of the second month and pro-rates the remainder of the first month. So if you move in on the 20th and pay a full month's rent, you will owe the pro-rata for ten days (20th to end of month) on the 1st. If you miss that you will be in arrears.

Be aware that even the reputable ones do not provide trash service. If you are caught tossing trash into their dumpsters, you will be fined. Obviously, you shouldn't be paying to store trash, but it's amazing what we cleaned out of abandoned units:

A mo-ped
A laserdisc player
A new recliner (Still wrapped)
A new microwave
A case of mixed liquor, sealed bottles
Various tools
Furniture
A full set of fine china
Car stereos
Construction materials
Literally tons of good clothes, shoes and books. (Which we donated to the local Goodwill.)

All of which were left in unlocked, unpaid units, often with the customer's blessing to help ourselves.

Which would be my last point: don't fall into the trap of just tossing stuff into the warehouse. Get the smallest one you need and plan for (as you mentioned) cold, heat, wet, vermin, and occasional fires. Never store anything crucial with personal value or legal value in one.

I can concur that property stored at these facilities is generally safe. Most of what is stored is not worth stealing, and what is worth it is too hard to sort. However, keep in mind that in grid down or other disasters, the facility may be closed, or wrecked by rioters. And once the first goblin figures out there's "Free" stuff, then all such properties are at risk. So I would not recommend using them except on a short term basis, while transporting your gear to a more secure location. - Michael Z. Williamson, SurvivalBlog Editor at Large

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Tuesday October 20 2009

Letter Re: Preparedness for Families that Move Frequently

Mr. Rawles,
Just finished reading your book "How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It. I finished it in one long sitting, and have plans to go over it again with highlighter and pen and paper to take more detailed notes. Great work!

As a member of the Armed Forces, I face a difficult dilemma in that I understand and can clearly see the need to prepare/plan ahead, but my family and I feel hamstrung by our relatively transient lifestyle. I've been in the service for just over four years, and in that time I have been relocated every 18-24 months. This makes it extremely difficult to build up a deep larder and establish a self-sufficient infrastructure and a live-in homestead. How do we work around this?

We have a few things going in our favor:
- We are debt-free, with about $60,000 squirreled away in a Certificate of Deposit (CD) that will mature next year; we intend on using that to purchase a piece of fertile land in a quiet corner out west, and are working with some like-minded family members to pool our resources for collaboration and (hopefully) get a better deal. One thing we have discussed is that there are some very good deals on land in Canada - would could by twice or three times the amount of property than we could buy stateside with the same amount of money. In your experience, do you see any advantages/disadvantages in buying in the US or Canada?
- After all the bills are paid, we have enough left over to put about $1,000 away in long-term savings and another $500 left for preparedness purchases. I have a running list of prioritized items (firearms/ammunition, long-term food/water storage equipment, etc.), and as the money comes in I purchase them.
- We are currently renting a small farm property (seven acres) in New England near my duty station. While here, we are taking the time to use it as a practice ground for growing a vegetable garden and small-scale haying for livestock. This will give us valuable experience once we do have a piece of land to call our own. We are coordinating with several friends to learn canning, cheese making, and small scale home brewing to improve our self-reliance.
- We do have two horses, mostly for pleasure riding; I intend on trading out at least one for a larger Draft cross - much more practical for farming/homesteading. My landlord also agreed to let us keep some poultry, so I will use the winter to build a coop for some chickens.
- Deer are abundant in our area, and several wander through our backyard on a regular basis. I'm going to pick up a deep chest freezer this week, and hope to put one or two deer in the freezer this fall/winter.

In summary, my two questions are then:
1) Canadian versus US land?
2) How to build a deep larder in a nomadic lifestyle?

Thanks for everything, and keep up the great work! - MPJ

JWR Replies: Yes, your situation is a challenge, but you are not alone. The good news for you is that the weight allowances for military PCS moves go up, as you gain rank.

Given an option, I generally don't encourage retreats in Canada because of their more stringent gun control laws. It is fine if you already live there, and have structured a firearms battery that takes full advantage of some loopholes. For example, buying M1 Garand rifles. (The only semi-auto that is an exception to the absurd 5 round rifle magazine capacity limit.) But to voluntarily move from a country that has fairly favorable gun laws to one that does not, just doesn't make sense to me.

For folks that move often, I generally recommend building up two stockpiles of food: A larger one with very long shelf life food s(such as hard red winter wheat and Mountain House(or similar) canned freeze dried foods) that is kept your intended retreat, and a smaller one with shorter shelf life foods that you will keep with you, as you move from place to place.

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Thursday October 15 2009

Perspectives on Roughing It and Covert Car Camping, by Jolly

I was a Boy Scout, and later did a fair amount of camping when I toured the US by motorcycle in the late 1980s. My tents started floorless and without mosquito netting; progressed to canvas umbrella tent with both. Later still, I was able to go to ripstop nylon "pup" style tents. Advancing, finally, to modern shock-corded aluminum poles and nylon.

After a long gap of 20+ years, my son is now a scout, and I'm on the "no-other-parent-can-go-and-we'll-have-to-cancel-if-you-don't-volunteer" rotation for his troop.

I just completed my second camp-out, and have noticed a few things that both dismay and encourage me.

Following is a stream-of-consciousness review of my reentry into the roughing-it world. Please bear in mind that emergency preparedness has been on my mind for a couple of years, and I didn't go into this a complete neophyte. That said, I didn't actually do anything other than car-camping since about 1993.

Buy a backpack one size smaller than you think you need. It's amazing how much crap a backpack can hold - inside and out. If you actually physically cannot cram another gizmo into the pack, then you'll have to leave that gadget behind. That will always focus your mind on what's truly important.

The single most important article of clothing you need in an emergency is a hooded rain poncho. Even in mild temperatures, you can lose a lot of body heat when you're wet. A rain poncho will help against wind and rain, and can double as a tarp if necessary. I have found two good sources: Jacks-r-Better and Camping Survival's "GI Plus". You should spray both with silicone to enhance their water repellant properties. Don't rely on cheap plastic or vinyl ponchos. During testing I quickly destroyed both of these varieties.

Second most important article of clothing is hiking boots, followed closely by a full brimmed waterproof hat. I have the Tilley nylon winter hat, with retractable ear muffs.

Craigslist is the best place to get camping gear cheap. To date this year, I have picked up two tents, a backpack, a Coleman stove, camp kitchen, tarp, and several other things. Usually, the price is about 10-25% of retail. In the case of the Coleman stove, it's an older model (1973) and built much better than the modern cr*p (which I also have). A $15 repair kit, and $20 for the stove, and it's in brand-new condition. I got a $300 North Face tent for $75 - and it was brand new with original price tags.

Craigslist is a wonderful resource, but there are some rules you might try. First, look for a solid month before offering to buy anything. That way, when a bargain shows up, you'll know it instantly.

Second, if the item is really hot - don't make any arrangements to pick it up more than a day out. I lost the chance to acquire a pair of Wiggy's brand sleeping bags because I tried to schedule pick up four days away. The lady sold them to somebody else because he offered her a deal she couldn't refuse. That's $1,000 worth of sleeping bags I could've had for $50 and I was too cheap to just pick them up ( about 80 miles away ).

Third, as hinted at above - when purchasing from Craigslist - calculate your time & mileage into the price of the items. A bargain that's 50 miles away becomes much more expensive with gas and driving time tacked on. Ask if the seller can meet you half way.

And fourth - generally low ball an offer on the item unless it's already too-good-to-be-true priced.

Break in your emergency / hiking boots. I have two pair of excellent quality boots that I've had for about eight years. I've worn them on occasion, but never really broken them in. This weekend, I pulled down a pair and used them on this trip. Socks were too thick for one thing - these are Goretex and Thinsulate boots, and a bit thicker as a consequence. My feet were miserable yesterday as the socks were too tight, and I ended up hobbling about like an old man by the end of the day. Today I went without socks (as my second pair of socks were just as thick as the first), and was much better, but had the other problem of rubbing the wrong spots you'd expect to have when going sans socks.

Test your equipment. Every camp-out is a test bed for my equipment. This particular trip I tested a Craigslist-purchased North Face one man tent ( Canyonlands ), and a newer sleeping pad ( Thermalite Prolite Plus ). The tent was wonderful. Bigger than my small nylon tent used when motorcycle camping (though not by much ), and an excellent performer. It's my current favorite. The mattress also was quite nice - and made in USA.

That said, I think I understand the popularity of inflatable camp pillows. My older head and neck didn't appreciate the stuff-sack-filled-with-a-towel-and jacket pillow that worked adequately 20 and 30 years ago. I had a nasty headache when I awoke this morning, and I know I was head higher than feet on the gentle slope. My 18 year old sleeping bag, however, worked well.

Sitting down is the main problem for old knees and feet - especially in the rain. I don't want to sound like a whiner, but it gets tiresome standing around with a coffee cup because the ground is too wet to sit, and there aren't any rocks nearby. I'm open to suggestions to fix that. On my first trip, I had cut a section of the closed-cell Thermarest pad ( they're green and purple, and do not compress well at all). It helped a lot placed on a rock. This time, I didn't have that, as I was using a different ( more comfortable )pad.

Erect a tarp so you have a dry place to work. Tarps are cheap, light, small to pack, and generally easy to erect. If it's raining, put up your tarp first so you can unpack necessities where it's dry. You might even need to erect your tent under one. Later, you can cook under it, and generally live under it until bedtime.

Put lanyards on everything. A recent fetish of mine is parachute cord. I get mine from Supply Captain in 100-foot lengths. I put lanyards on my pack zippers, multi-tool, flashlights, LED lanterns, etc. I use different colors and locations to help me know which of the myriad zippers it's attached to. For example, to get to my emergency whistle, I can tug on the blue & yellow one. For my tactical light - the olive drab. Multi-tool is black, et cetera.

There are different sizes of nylon cord. Get the smaller stuff for many jobs. If I wish to erect a tarp, use a 100 lb test cord instead of the 550 paracord. It's far smaller, lighter, and easier to work with.

There's a tension when purchasing emergency equipment. Bright-and-visible vs camouflage. Bright orange equipment, or ACU digital camo? Or something in between? Currently, I've been getting innocuous black or green equipment. If I need to be seen - I can always whip out mylar space blanket, or build three fires, or use the whistle, etc..

Anybody who thinks that anything more than bare-bones survival is feasible with a shiny space blanket hasn't actually used one in the woods. I'm very ambivalent about these things. I can see a use for them, I guess, to help reduce heat loss, but can't imagine they're effective in most situations I'm likely to encounter, with one exception.

That exception would be as a blanket put on a injury victim to prevent or mitigate shock. Any animated person is going to tear the damn things or find they're too small to really do anything well. They really are just barely useful. Especially for big people such as myself.

I'm going to experiment with a sleeping bag version put out by Adventure Medical called a "Heat Sheet." I probably should've tried it last night, but I had too many other tests going on, and didn't want any more variables. The next trip is early November, and might already be too cold for a decent test. I hope to have my Wiggy's winter bags by that time.

The Heat Sheet is interesting because it's a full sleeping bag and you don't have to worry about coverage. I'm a big guy and coverage is important. I've heard it's warm but keeps moisture trapped inside.

Lower that pack weight! Did I mention that people try to carry too much crap? One of the younger scouts packed two tents (actually a Hennessey Hammock and a Sierra Designs Tengu 3!), plus one of those nylon full-sized camp chairs. His pack weighed a ton.

One patrol had so much stuff, they used a child's wagon to carry what wouldn't fit in their ( giant ) packs. Part of this is not their fault - the Scouts don't allow liquid fuel stoves, and therefore, the scouts have to use propane. Of course when I was a kid, we used only wood. But, many camping areas do not allow campfires any more.

Carry only one extra set of clothing, except, maybe, socks. In addition, carry two layers, or more for winter. If you get one set of clothes dirty or wet, then just clean and dry them while wearing the other set. I prefer nylon and polyester. Believe it or not, Boy Scout pants and shirts are among the best I've found, for a decent price. They come in sizes up to XXXXL, too. Just ensure that you have very high quality and tough clothes.

Don't take any mess kits made out of plastic. Use only metal so it can double as cooking equipment. I hate to say this - I bought the entire family colorful mess kits. Each had their own color, and they come with plate, bowls, spork, cup, etc. And for car camping, they're great! But, for hiking / camping, they can't do double duty as cooking equipment, so they're leaving my pack. I'm replacing the set with a stainless steel mug of 20 oz, and a lidded 600 ml pot that can be used as plate and bowl. Less equipment = less weight.

Did you know that you can take a prophylactic dose of Ibuprofen to minimize swelling when you know you're going to hit the trail [on an arduous hike]? I learned this from a doctor at an Appleseed event. It's very effective, but don't drink alcohol 48 hours before or after the dose. Ask your doctor for specifics.

Take a hike with a full pack. I'm good for about three miles before I worry about getting an infarction. Part of the problem are the shoes, but general lack of fitness is kicking my butt. I used to ride a bicycle 300 miles a week in the 1980s, but the last twenty years I've been a software engineer and my fitness has plummeted.

How are you going to cook food? Planning for an emergency, you have to ask yourself questions such as, "What will I be cooking? How long in the woods? How many people? Car camping? And so on.

My cooking plans are pretty extensive. If I'm staying put in my house, the main plan includes a Coleman stove. My wife actually prefers cooking on one of those to our electric range. It's also useful for car camping. One gallon of Coleman fuel will last an amazingly long time. Refills are available at most gas stations with yellow-bottle Heet. A single burner camp stove is great for motorcycle camping.

Next tier down is wilderness camping - for that I prefer alcohol burners / stoves. There are myriad choices, and I won't go into all of them. I even tried to invent my own and found that I couldn't do a better job of it than a dozen others I've purchased. The best, in my opinion, is the Trangia "Spirit Burner" from Sweden. Not pressurized, no moving parts. Built like a tank, but pretty light to carry, too. About $10.

My own system marries a "Sterno" stove with a Trangia burner, and I get a full-sized pot and pan platform with a windscreen for about half a pound. I use two of these side by side for two burners to cook most anything. Total cost for both is about $35. Buy some denatured alcohol and cook some meals on your porch to get the hang of it. That is part of fully testing your equipment. Please note that there are two kinds of Trangia burners. The military surplus version fits the Sterno stove perfectly. The civilian version requires support. I use a tuna can. If you invert the tuna can, the burner is closer to the pot. I don't do that myself, and have found the heat transfer to be completely adequate. You can also just use a Sterno can, obviously.

A lot of people prefer "canister" stoves - using butane, propane, isobutane, or other variants. Yes, these are great. They work anywhere. But, they are expensive to fuel and it's harder to find refills. Also, most butane systems have tiny pot stands, making them very easy to knock over. And if you're cooking with large pots or pans - they're almost unusable.

Whatever you decide upon - stock up on fuel, and place that fuel in several caches, both cars, bug-out bags, etc. If you're using volatile fuel, such as white gas, ensure you insulate the can against high heat. In cold weather, keep a 4 oz bottle of alcohol inside your jacket to ensure easy lighting.

Buy a windup radio that charges cell phones. These are down under $50 and will give you two types of communication. I have the Eton FR360. These also charge any USB device, including iPods and most music players. This weekend I used it to keep my iPhone charged, and while a bit tedious - it worked.

How to Covertly Sleep in Your Car
I'm fairly frugal. Several times I have worked out of state. I hated giving upwards of $100 / per night to hotels so I developed a system for sleeping in my car that ensures that I would not be noticed. The first vehicle I used was a pickup truck with a bed camper top - not a real camper, just a top with windows on the side. The second vehicle was Chevy Suburban. Both vehicles were reputable looking, and not too new or old - completely innocuous.

Cover all the windows on the inside with large sheets of butcher paper (white) or brown wrapping paper. Both can be found for cheap at Wal-Mart. It's important to do a neat job of it so there are no wrinkles, holes, or other damage. I use clear wrapping tape, and cut to fit. On both vehicles, the windows covered were tinted, and only a close look would you even notice they were blocked off. They just look - blank.

On the Suburban, I bought a bungee cord and tan curtains for $10 - again from Wal-Mart. String the curtains on the bungee cord. Then, attach the cord to the coat hanger hooks behind the driver's and passenger seats. Make sure they hang straight and neat. There will be a gap at the top of the curved roof, but it's nothing to worry about.

The last step is to turn off your car's interior light if you can. On many newer cars, this is done with a switch on the driver's console. Other cars have a switch on the light itself to prevent the light coming on with an open door. If all else fails - disconnect the light bulb.

The hard part is finding a place to sleep. Here is one time when you cannot sleep in Wal-Mart's parking lot. You're not driving an RV, just a car. And "empty" cars will be scrutinized by flashlight-wielding security or police.

In a large metropolitan area, the best places are large apartment complexes, preferably straddling a street. Park in the street right behind another car already there. I did this for well over a year without any problems at all.

In the drive-in apartment complexes, ensure there's a lot of extra spots, and that the one you pick is not marked in any way. Usually, I try to pick a spot that the front of the car faces a wall, or the garbage dump area. You don't want to face a park or sidewalk. You want your car to be one among many. Don't park way off to one side - dog walkers may be too common and wonder about the car with curtains.

Small office parks are another good choice. Here, the opposite of apartment complexes is wanted. Park the car as far from the building entrances as possible. Here it's easier to face a wall or line of bushes. People will do anything to shorten their walk to work.

Going to sleep is not normally a problem - I usually went to sleep well after midnight. Whatever you do, don't dawdle when entering your sleep area. There may be people that notice a slow-moving car driving slowly through a parking lot more than once. Scope several places in advance, and have a primary and secondary location for the night.

The two most observable times will be going to sleep and getting up. Usually, you'll be more visible during daytime, obviously. But, getting noticed depends on what time you're leaving and where you parked.

If you can wiggle into your driver's seat without getting out of the vehicle - you have it made. Neither time was I able to do that. I had to leave the car to get into the driver's seat.

I left small flaps in the paper on both cars and would open them to look in all directions (as necessary) for pedestrians and security vehicles. When you're sure you're clear - make a very fast exit, and get your feet on the ground. After that, if required, you can pretend you're retrieving something, and take a leisurely pace. Unless somebody was looking directly at your car when you exited, they will almost assuredly assume you just opened the door, rather than popped out of it.

In an office park, ensure your exit is on the opposite side from the office buildings. Imagine a bored secretary staring dazedly out the window. Suddenly - a scruffy looking man with wild hair pops out of a car door, walks quickly around the hood and drives off. Not good. In my favorite park, I was between a wall and a tree break. Though I finally got noticed after six months, and had to use backup.

Do not stretch, or scratch your head, or hang around at all at this time. Get into your car seat. Start it, and leave at a normal pace. I don't know about you, but it you're like me - you'll be way too scary an apparition for most people. You should have also designated a place to go in the morning to do the ritual wake-up duties such as bathroom, teeth, hair brushing, etc. I usually use McDonald's. I then repaid them for their facilities by buying breakfast.

Other items to remember are ventilation and security. The pickup was no problem - I just left the windows open a crack, including the back panel. This allowed me to hear my surroundings pretty well, too. On the Suburban, it was more problematic. One inch on each window was left open at the top, and I didn't leave the back open. I also engaged the car alarm.

Unfortunately, one morning I forgot about the car alarm, and opened the door causing it to go off. I had the key in my hand, and stopped it very quickly, and I was sure the whole world had noticed my faux pas. Alas, nobody even hears car alarms anymore, and I didn't have to abandon that spot.

Never, ever go to rest stops on the interstate to sleep. While traveling, if I couldn't find an apartment complex or office park, or other suitable location, I'd park on the onramp of a highway - many times between trucks doing the same. I got rousted three times by cops over the years. Technically, it's illegal to park there. Each time I told the truth - I was very tired, and unsure I could proceed to the next motel location. Two of the three times, the cop said that's fine, and go ahead and stay. The third time, he helpfully noted that the very next exit had a motel.

If you have a regular route, other considerations might come into play. For me, sleeping in a tiny Honda Civic, I would have problems with biting insects - and very warm nights. Both problems were solved with an onramp location in an extremely windy spot next to San Francisco bay. (Parish Road off of I-680 in case you're wondering ). My pattern was to arrive about 2 am on a Sunday night and sleep until 7am Monday morning. I then proceeded across the bridge and went to a Burger King in Walnut Creek. I was rousted twice in a six month period.

I have less experience in rural areas. Though extreme familiarity with a route can help by allowing you to identify good spots during the daytime for possible use on another trip. For example, I used to drive between Oregon and Pahrump quite often (on my way to attend training at Front Sight). I spent one whole day identifying likely spots for impromptu camp spots.

One spot, south of Tonopah was a short road that led to some kind of a relay station. I'm pretty sure it was a microwave station, but it doesn't matter. The small fenced-in building was partially hidden behind a hill from the main road, and clearly was not visited very often. The road leading to it went further around the hill, leaving a nice void hidden from the station itself.

Between Tonopah and Hawthorne, I identified two spots very similar to the first, though both were very windy. North of Hawthorne, Walker Lake had parking spots that I felt comfortable enough to use without hiding.

Rural terrain will dictate your choices, too. In South Carolina, I identified two spots on US-25 north of Greenville that looked pretty good. Their characteristic? They were both old houses that had been completely covered in kudzu! I could literally drive under a canopy of kudzu and hide the entire car.

Finally, etiquette inside the car. I always wore gym shorts and T-shirt in a sleeping bag. Never anything resembling underwear. I never used a flashlight or listened to the radio. I was there strictly for sleeping. I didn't eat, cook, brush teeth, or anything else except sleep. The human eye is especially tuned to see movement. Even with covered windows, a brief movement might catch a dog-walker's attention enough to wander over and look at the car. Not a good thing.

I estimate I've saved more than $10,000 in motel bills over the years.

The main thing is to have people assume the car is empty, and belongs to somebody nearby. Obviously, in a serious crisis, extra thought may be necessary to keep below the radar of both security and nosy people.

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Tuesday October 13 2009

Food Storage--A Necessary Preparation, by Melanie G.

An important resource to have in times of need is a good food storage.  When I have talked to others about having an emergency supply of food in place, I have received laughter and ridicule.  I even had a neighbor to tell me when he needed emergency food, he would just come to my place.  I jokingly informed him not to bother as I had a supply of ammunition as well.  Too many people have come to rely on the grocery store.  But the threat of a snow storm here in Kentucky clears out the milk and bread in record time, this should be a testament of what it might be like should the trucks not come.

From childhood, my parents taught me the importance of having an emergency supply of food in place.  I grew up in eastern Kentucky where jobs were not plentiful.  As a result, my father changed jobs a few times.  Fortunately, the pantry that my parents filled in times of feast, fed our family of five in times of want, until my father found the next job.  If there was such a thing as unemployment or food stamps back then, I never knew.  My dad would go out and find work quickly and mom would continue to squirrel away food to feed us.

There are some guidelines for emergency food storage.  It is recommended that you have two weeks of water per person and year’s supply of food, clothing and if possible, fuel in your storage.  A first aid kit is also recommended.

An important part of any food storage system is to have on hand the basics:  flour, grains, beans/legumes, oils, rice, salt, sugar/honey, and water just to name a few.  These basics can help you to sustain your life if you are prepared in every needful way.   

My mother taught me to store items, in addition to these that families will eat every day.  Therefore, my storage not only contains these key items, it contains items that are foods we eat every day.  I store condiments, peanut butter, soups, jams, jellies, canned vegetables (both store bought and home grown), cake mixes, pasta, pasta helpers, nuts, fruits, crackers, oatmeal, canned meats (store bought and home canned), etc. etc. 

The key to a good food storage is usage.  If you store something you don’t use or eat, it will eventually go bad and you will have to replace it.  If you store something you use, then you will just replace it as you go along and your food storage will stay fresh and replenished. 

Replenishing your food storage, especially in light of rising food prices today, can be an expense.  I have my pantry to a level where most of my replenishing can be done cheaply.   I get the sales ad and purchase what is on sale.  If ketchup is on sale, I buy several.  We use this item, so it won’t go to waste.  If cereal is on sale, I get several boxes.  If ground beef is on sale, I load the cart down, go home and prep several meatloaves and throw them in the freezer.  Then over the next couple of weeks, while these items are no longer on sale, my pantry is stocked with them and I can go to the next item.  Let’s say next week, pasta is on sale, or sugar.  That is the week to stock up on that item.

To make the deal even sweeter, you can go online to your favorite coupon list and search for coupons that you can trade for and use on the sale items.  Before you shy away from this, read on.  With a good sale and coupons, you can save thousands of dollars over time.  Once, I went to Kroger’s and using coupons, I actually walked out with $100 worth of groceries and $30 more in cash than I had when I walked in.  This doesn’t normally happen, they normally won’t give you cash, and I asked the head cashier repeatedly if she was sure she could give me money.

Also, the Kroger’s supermarket cash registers print coupons out at the point of sale.  I have found free drinks, free eggs, and other items free or cheap.  There are a lot of complexities to using coupons that I haven’t even explored myself.  But it is a good resource.  Check out www.mycoupons.com, www.hotcouponworld.com and there are so many more free sites.

Another good thing to do is utilize your own back yard.  It doesn’t matter if yosu own 100 acres or a back door terrace, grow something and preserve it for later use.  Or, better yet, eat it now to save your reserves.  Fresh grown vegetables are so good for you and they don’t have all the chemicals and preservatives added to them.  You know what’s in them, because you grew them.  Nothing tastes as good as something you grew yourself. 

Even in a small confined space, you can grow in containers or boxes.  For years, I have grown straight from the bag.  I take a bag of dirt and cut an “X” in it, flip it over and cut the plastic out.  Nestled up against my house or out building, I plant two tomatoes in the bag.   I add composted manure to the dirt in the bag.  I also place worms there to enrich the soil.  I also grind up my kitchen scraps and pour around the soil.  I repeat this process every year and eventually I have built very rich vegetable beds.

This year my husband and I canned several jars of green beans, pickles, pickled okra, tomatoes, salsa, strawberry jam, grape jelly, beef, pork, chicken, soup and chili.  It was so much fun and fills you with pride knowing you have actually put away healthy food without harmful preservatives for your family. 

Another trick that will add to your storage preservation is eating your weeds [from un-sprayed areas].  A lot of the plants that are found in the wild are partially edible.  I have just begun researching this and have discovered several varieties of wild plants in my yard that are edible.  My backyard is covered in young poke salet, which I have tried.  My mother in law used the young leaves and cooked it with eggs.  This is a traditional dish in eastern Kentucky.  I am very leery of this plant as it can be very toxic is not prepared correctly.  Perhaps this is a plant to put on the “If there is nothing else to eat” list.  There are many other plants that are edible, and this would be a good skill to learn in order to survive.

This month, we will be getting a local raised cow.  The cost will average $2 per pound.  This will be mostly canned, but some frozen for later use.  Another advantage to canning meat as opposed to freezing it is that you can open it and eat the meat straight from the jar.  If frozen, you will need to thaw and cook.  If we are in times of survival, having the meat ready to eat can mean life or death.  I have friends who told me they have stored canned meat for eight years and counting and it’s still good.

If you watch for good deals and sales in the stores, use coupons and augment your stores from growing, local food, and even eating your weeds,  you can have a wonderful food storage that will sustain you and your family through most any crisis.

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Sunday October 11 2009

Letter Re: Where to Store Food When There is No Simple Answer

Mr. Editor:

Like Margy, I also found myself building an 'above ground cellar' for temperature stable storage of food and other goods. Working with a detached three-car garage that had just a two-car door, I converted the extra 'bay' to a bonus room. With standard framing and insulation I noticed that that room remained noticeably more even in temperature throughout the day.

I also have warm summers, 100F and occasionally more. Winters rarely drop below freezing for more than a day or two.

I did some research once on passive temperature control and learned that water has a high specific heat and in significant quantity can stabilize the temperature of a given space. I acquired several 55 gallon plastic drums and placed them in a row along the interior wall of my room. I filled them in place with water I treated with bleach and sealed them. Within days I noticed that the temperature remained nearly constant regardless of time of day. The barrels are about 3' high by 2' deep, and it is easy enough to construct shelving above them.

I improved on this further by adding more barrels and increasing the insulation. I bought 2" thick foam panels at Home Depot, the kind with reflective metal coating. These I cut to shape for the windows and blocked them off. I also bought a box fan and some furnace filters. This I mounted in a window on a clock timer. The fan pulls cool night air into the space, pulling air through a furnace filter and an exterior screen. Now that the summer has passed I have disabled the timer and will cover the fan assembly with an insulation panel as the temperature drops. I may even use it to pull warmer afternoon air in during winter.

With these steps and no significant heat sources inside the insulated envelope I have found that with no energy consumption I have managed a cool place for long term storage.

Water is cheap and readily available. Once purified, it requires no maintenance when properly stored. - Vlad

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Saturday October 10 2009

Where to Store Food When There is No Simple Answer, by Margy

It’s been almost two years now since I became serious about preparing for TEOTWAWKI. In that time I’ve followed the instructions of the Lord upon the death of my husband to “shore up and seal up my house” but there was always one haunting question. That was, where would I have enough space to store adequate food for my family that I could control the temperature.

Living in a mild climate in the heart of America, we have long hot summers that sometimes kiss the thermometer in excess of 105? making outdoor storage of any kind almost impossible. I’ve always stored extra paper products and a few canned goods in the garage but due to the heat, I knew I couldn’t successfully store food there for a long period of time. Soil in our region consists of a high content of clay so digging a root cellar is not a fruitful enterprise.

Although I have a relatively large three bedroom home, I wasn’t willing to fill closets with survival food, plus I wanted it to be hidden from eyes that didn’t have a need to know. I worried about this at length, feeling that I had been instructed by the Lord to make preparations for my family of eight.

A friend of ours who is a construction person often does odd jobs around the house for me. He is someone I trust like a brother and whom I attend church with. We were standing in my garage one day as I expressed my dismay over the food storage situation when he pointed to an alcove in the garage and said, “You have a closet right there. All you have to do is wall it off.”

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it previously, but the moment he said that it became very clear this would be “the” place. Within in a few days, I had my son in the garage with a measuring tape, pencil and paper and we figured the supplies I would need to make the closet come into fruition. He went to work and I went to Home Depot to arrange for a delivery of 2 x 4s, sheet rock, insulation, electrical boxes and wiring, light fixtures and screws and the complete list to make a well constructed, insulated closet with electrical outlets and ceiling fixtures where tool laden shelves once stood.

The process of moving all of the shelving and items stored on the shelves was exhausting, but I could see the benefit of this project and knew I would either get rid of what was stored there or find another place to put it. Luckily, most of the shelving was the heavy duty steel shelving on casters that we had bought at Sam’s a couple of years before. They were easily rolled across the garage and out of the way of the construction crew, their contents in tact.

The next weekend, my son and his friend came with tools in hand and began a long day of construction on a simple closet, fifteen feet long by five feet wide. Once their equipment was brought into the garage, the door went down and stayed there during the construction process. Although my neighbors are nice people, they are not on the same political thought process I am and I didn’t think they needed to know what was happening in the garage, nor did the city inspectors!

Two by fours were affixed to the concrete garage floor with a Ramset HD 22 single shot hammer device. Once the 2 x 4s were securely fastened to the floor where they would serve as the grounding base for the wall studs, the 2 x 4s for the studs followed and were stabilized by being attached to the ceiling. Next came the exterior sheet rock wall and insulation. I did hire an electrician to do the wiring of the closet as well as additional dawn to dusk lighting around the perimeter of the house.  In addition to the extra lighting in the ceiling of the closet, we added two outlets in the interior and one on the exterior wall of the storage closet so I would not lose the capacity to plug in extension cords for electrical outdoor tools. The closet door I selected was a metal exterior door already set with a lock and key arrangement.

We installed a silvery [Reflectix] insulation that was about 1/4" thick with bubbles sandwiched between the aluminum-looking [mylar] layers. We completely wrapped the walls of the storage closet with the insulation in hopes that it would solve any temperature problems. We  lined the room with it as tightly as if we were hanging wall paper, stapling it to the walls with an electric, heavy duty stapler. It looked good, clean and professional. My nine year old grandson stepped into the room and asked “Wow. What is this place for.” We dubbed it the “beam me up Scotty” room and have jokingly referred to it as that ever since. I put two thermometers in the room – one at each end –  and watched with dismay as the red line continued to hold at 90?. This was a problem that would only shorten the longevity of the stored food.

Once the closet was done my other son came to begin building shelves. My original plan was for wooden shelves but he wasn’t long into the project until he convinced me to buy metal shelving from Home Depot. We purchased three sets of Workforce Five Shelf Heavy Duty Steel Shelving Units that would hold up to 4,000 pounds. These free standing shelves were easily put together, very strong, and by using two units, I could make them tall enough to go from the floor to the nine foot ceiling. Each unit cost around $89 which was a little more than I had originally budgeted, but now that they are in I’m thrilled with them and very glad we went to this plan. The shelves are clean, smooth and without splinters and I don’t worry about weight loads plus the shelves are adjustable if I so desire.

My hot water tank is housed in a small closet inside the food storage room. I knew we had put the tank in almost immediately after we had moved into the house eleven years previously and it was a ten year tank. While I had not had any difficulty with the tank and found it still supplied me more than adequate hot water, I felt as though it would be prudent to have the tank replaced now, before the closet was full of food and shelving units. Also, I didn’t want to take a chance on the tank going out over a weekend or some other rushed time and I would be at the mercy of an unknown plumber to come fix it. Instead, I bought the tank and hired my construction friend to install it at his leisure, knowing full well I could trust him to be discreet about the contents of the closet.

Continuing to be concerned about the lack of control on the temperature inside the closet, my son and I climbed into the attic and put a roll of pink panther R-20 insulation in the area immediately above the food storage room and then a layer of pressed wood over that for flooring, thinking it would also work as additional insulation. Because of the layout of the roof line and the fact that the support beams for the ceiling of the garage ran crosswise instead of lengthwise, we weren’t able to get the insulation into the low lying areas under the eaves of the house. This worried me and I stuck as much of the blue polystyrene foam insulation back into the small crevices as possible.

As the weather began to get warmer, my concerns for the temperature of the closet room grew. Although my son had heavily insulated the new wall when he built it and I had a circulation fan going in the room at all times as well as the added insulation in the attic and on the exterior walls, the thermometer was showing an increasingly large red line. I knew enough about the longevity of  dried food to know this was not good and I would have to take evasive action.

My next venture was to add a stand alone room air conditioner. I did my research on line and bought one from a company in Austin, Texas. It looked like a great idea but looks weren’t enough! The information said it needed to stand near a window so it could be vented out like any other air conditioner. While I didn’t have a window in the room, I figured we could cut a hole in the wall of the water heater closet, run the venting tubing through that closet and up and out the vents in the attic.

My sister and I set about making this happen. In the early morning hours, before it got hot, she crawled into the attic with tools in hand and began cutting an opening through the ceiling of the hot water tank closet and pushing a very long length of flexible insulated dryer venting through the hole and then through the new hole we had cut in the wall of the closet. Pulling fifty feet of insulation isn’t an easy task, but we worked hard at the project and got it pulled through and affixed to the wall with metal brackets so it would be stable.

We followed the instructions on the stand alone air conditioner and attached the venting system to the flexible dryer vent and rejoiced when we turned on the unit and it dropped the temperature two degrees, almost immediately. We congratulated ourselves, went into the house and cleaned up and crashed in the family room. We were both very hot and exhausted but feeling good about our accomplishment as we drifted off to a well deserved nap.

A couple of hours later we went out to check our handiwork and were frustrated to find the room hotter than it had been before we began the project with the thermostat on the air conditioner showing 93?. We checked all points on the venting system to make sure nothing had come undone. I turned off the unit and set the fan back in the room; she went home. I thought about it over the weekend and tried to figure out what we could do to solve the problem. I had spent over three hundred dollars on the stand-alone unit that was only adding to the problem. Not only could I not afford that, it was maddening to think about.

After further research I came to the conclusion that the stand alone unit really is only a supplemental unit to be used in an area that already has some air conditioning but not enough. I’m sure it would work very well in that situation, but not in ours. On Monday, I called the company in Texas and told them I was returning the unit only to be answered by a Brian who wasn’t very nice about it and informed me that not only would I have to pay for the shipping back, which I expected, but I would now have to pay for the shipping to me as well since I wasn’t buying another product from them. That turned out to be about one hundred dollars down the drain. An expensive lesson in futility.

We were able to repackage all of the venting materials we used and return them to Home Depot for a refund, accompanied by a smile. At least they were nice about it which reinforces the virtues  of buying locally.

Several years before, I had added insulation to the attic of my home so I called that same company and had them come out to add more insulation, this time to the area above the storage closet in the garage as well as the original garage walls. To do so, they had to drill holes in the walls but I didn’t think that mattered - the idea was to keep the room cool enough to prolong the life of the food. It was an arduous task to remove all of the food, shelves and supporting items from the closet into another part of the garage, cover them with thick plastic to hide the contents from unwarranted eyes. Once the insulation project was done, I had to reverse the process and put everything back into the room.

Even with the added insulation, the room still wasn’t maintaining temperature below 90? on the hottest days. Although this was frustrating, I now knew I had to install a wall unit in the room. I decided the only acceptable thing I could do was to cut a hole in the new wall and put a small, one room, 120 VAC air conditioning unit in. I felt this was a gamble as well, but I now had several thousands of dollars worth of food in the closet and I didn’t want to gamble with losing it and not having food for my family.

Adding the 120 VAC unit was the smartest move of all. While they, too, are designed for windows and to be vented outside, we’ve been able to make this work. The condensation from the unit drains into a small plastic pan I placed on a shelf under the unit on the garage side of the wall. After a period of accumulation I pour that water into an empty recycled bottle, mark it “distilled” and set it aside for my iron. I’ve hung a small clip-on fan on the metal shelves, also on the garage side of the wall, next to the air conditioner. The fan blows across the unit and downward where the hot air is picked up by a larger fan and blown toward the garage door that I keep raised about two inches for circulation. 

All in all, the addition of the closet is amazing. I learned a lot of hard lessons along the way but knowing what I know now, I would have started with additional insulation as the second step in the entire process. The room is maintaining a temperature of 60 to 70? now, depending on how much I run the little air conditioner, which is normally shut off at night. I’m trusting by the end of September I won’t have to run it at all.

The closet has been constructed in such a way that I can completely disguise it by rolling steel shelves that we purchased at Sam’s several years ago in front of it. Those shelves are loaded with my husbands tools, chain saws, porta potty and anything else that is necessary for a normal life. In as little as five minutes, the garage can be made to look like a normal American messy garage where nothing could be found easily. Unless someone is looking for the closet with a metal detector, it would be very difficult to find.

The addition of the food storage room has cost me approximately $500 for building materials; $375 for additional insulation; $150 for wiring; $400 for shelving; $100 for air conditioning; $100 for shipping back the stand alone air conditioner, but the peace of mind is priceless.

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Tuesday October 6 2009

Is Prepping an Insurmountable Task?--The Beginner's Primer, by Gary T.

Once you realize the importance of being prepared for coming hard times, you may ask yourself, “How can I possibly prepare for any scenario?  This is an insurmountable undertaking.”  The more you ponder this, the more the reality of this seems to be confirmed.  Let not your heart be troubled.  As with almost any endeavor, the road to success begins with the first step and continues one step at a time.  Consistent, prioritized, careful preparation over a period of time, preparation built around what your personal situation (budget, job, family, medical needs, etc.) will allow, can get you in a position in relatively short order to weather the scenarios that are most likely to occur.  The mere fact that you have considered the possibilities of what may lay ahead can very quickly put you ahead of the vast majority of the population.

Consider the possible scenarios whereby preparedness would prove to be literally a lifesaver.  These scenarios range from very geographically localized events, either natural or man-made, to the proverbial TEOTWAWKI.  The likelihood any of these events occurring generally becomes decreasing likely in a given time frame as the geographical scope and severity of the event increases.  Therefore the occurrence of a total multi-generational societal collapse, requiring the maximum amount of preparation is far less likely to occur over the next year or two or five than relatively local, relatively short term events such as tornados, hurricanes or floods, or even some major terrorist events, all requiring far less preparation than TEOTWAWKI situation previously mentioned.  This should be considered in the early stages of preparation as priorities for investment are made.

Therefore, your preparation should follow a well planned, measured, prioritized process that enables you to be positioned to go through the most likely scenarios first followed by progressively increasing severe scenarios.  Ongoing preparation will build on the past.  No effort goes wasted.  This should be encouraging to the beginning prepper.

How should you start?  Start with a careful analysis of the most likely localized events that may occur in your area or region, or events from another region that may impact your local area (remember passenger air service after 9/11).  Shutdown of transportation systems, especially trucking and rail should be of paramount concern.  What is the probable time frame that these events may cause you to rely on your own resources?  Make a list of all the items and quantities you will need to get through that period of time.  This constitutes the Phase I physical resources preparation plan.

Prioritize the list and within the constraints of your budget begin to acquire the items you have listed.  Keeping an Excel spreadsheet makes this task much easier and allows you to see at a glance exactly how much physical resource preparation you have achieved, how much you still need, the value of those resources, the cost to complete your initial Phase I purchases, etc.  Your spreadsheet should include rows listing each item with columns for:

  • Priority
  • Category or subcategory
  • Quantity Needed (for the given preparation Phase)
  • Quantity on Hand
  • Difference Needed vs. On-Hand (Calculated Value)
  • Cost Each
  • Acquisition Cost (Calculated Value)
  • On Hand Value (Calculated Value)
  • Total Value (Calculated Value)
  • Percent Complete for the Item (Calculated Value) – you can color code this Red/Yellow/Green for and at a glance dashboard view
  • Subtotals as you feel appropriate for each Category or Sub-Category

In the same way you used Excel to track your Phase I resources preparation status, use your spreadsheet to list categories, sub-categories, items and quantities that you wish to acquire for future Phases, up to and including a Phase for TEOTWAWKI.  This allows you to systematically build your level of preparedness a Phase at a time.  As you start with Phase I, you can also see how well you are gearing up for future Phases as well.  Remember, on-hand quantities, pricing, etc, can carry from the Phase I sheet to the Phase II through Phase “n” sheets so redundant data entry isn’t required!  Don’t forget to make hard copies of your files and save them in a three ring binder.

Additional Tips for getting started.

So you have determined what you need to acquire and have begun to do so.  But prepping isn’t just about acquiring tangible goods. 

It is also about skills.  It is especially about skills.  Even what I have called “Phase I” preparation should include training in the plan.  A diversity of skills within your group (which may start out as just your family) is important.  Take advantage of any relevant training available to you at low or no cost.  Programs available in many communities include CERT, First Aid, CPR and similar.  Use these opportunities to increase your skill base.  These are great skills to have in normal times and are great skills to build upon.  Even these basic courses could prove to literally be lifesavers in “normal” as well as tougher times.

Learn to garden.  Even if you don’t have a retreat with the space, perfect soil, and water supply, you should garden on a smaller scale in your city or suburban back yard.  This will give you a head start in knowledge and experience (i.e., harvesting and saving seeds for future years) when you are able to move to that retreat location.  Plus, fresh garden vegetables are healthier and taste so much better than what you purchase from the store, especially if the store bought vegetables are poured from a can!  Nothing beats enjoying a hand picked, vine ripe tomato fresh from the garden (and I confess, I take the salt shaker out back with me!).

Put away the foods you eat today.  Nitrogen packed survival foods are expensive and likely should and may be a part of your plan.  However, many foods that you eat today can be more immediately utilized to kick start your storage pantry at moderate cost while you save for other more expensive longer term options.  You can buy or easily build out of plywood a FIFO rotation canned goods rack, set it in a pantry or closet and start loading it up today with the foods you already eat.  This accumulation can be done for little perceived cost if done over time.  Simply buy a little extra of what you already purchase each time you are at the store.  You will be amazed at how quickly you can build up a 30, 60, 90 day supply of canned goods that will never go bad because they are what you currently eat so you rotate them via the FIFO system into your daily meals.  Canned vegetables, meats, soups, fruits and sauces can all be stored in this simple way.  All at very moderate expense.

Learn about your firearms.  Practice with them as much as you can afford to.  Get professional instruction.  Basic courses for novices are available at moderate expense.  There are NRA sanctioned courses for basic safety, handling and shooting skills.  Work toward completion of an NRA course or equivalent in self defense in the home and self defense outside the home.   If you are or once you get to be more advanced, get even more advanced training.  If your budget doesn’t initially allow this, do the best you can but plan for more advanced tactical training in a future Phase.  The key now is to get what you can afford and build on that.  Practice, practice, practice.

Don’t think you must necessarily purchase a complete set of new firearms right out of the gate for your survival armory.  Conventional wisdom suggests .45 ACP pistols for carry, .308/7.62 NATO semi-autos for your MBR (with expensive red-dot optics), a good .308 bolt action for long range and / or large game hunting, and perhaps a more expensive shotgun than you have budget for.  If you already have 9mm pistols, that AR-15 you bought a few years ago “because you wanted one”, the scoped .303 you inherited from Dad and an old but functional Remington 870 Express in 12 gauge, you are good to go for now, as a beginner prepper.  Make sure that adequate ammunition is part of your plan, but with this or a similar adequate set of calibers and shotgun you are set for your initial Phases of preparation.  Early on, food, water, medical supplies and the like are likely a higher priority than new firearms.  You can upgrade in a future Phase.  Focus on firearms training at this stage.  It’s about prioritization.  Besides, later phases prepare for scenarios that will be more likely to require the capabilities of upgraded firearms.

A basic principle.  Standardize.  If you pick .45ACP for your personal carry weapon, it is advantages for all members of your group to do the same.  The same principle applies for your MBR, self defense and hunting shotguns, etc.  Ammunition and magazine plans will appreciate this.  Try to standardize on 1 or 2 battery types for your battery operated devices.  Or more correctly standardize by using devices requiring only 1 or 2 battery types.  You don’t want to have to store and/or maintain charges on AA, AAA, CR123, C, D, N and CR2032 batteries, when you could be more efficient and effective with perhaps using only AA batteries.  This principle applies to anything that you have more than one of.  Radios, flashlights, etc.  Remember the axiom, two is one and one is none.  Standardization means simplicity, efficiency, spares.  There may be exceptions, but take standardization into consideration when you develop or modify your plan.  Initially, you may have to have a wider assortment of devices depending on the devices you currently have, but have a strategy to standardize.

Plan to read or more correctly, to learn by reading.  Whenever you come across a useful article, print it out and save it in a three ring binder with other useful articles you have saved.  Even if it is something you can’t purchase or do or use until a future Phase, save it now and add it to the plan now.  There is an incredible amount of useful information in SurvivalBlog.com.  Read and save (and purchase through Jim’s site when you decide to purchase goods from one of his advertisers).  Jim helps us so we should help him where we can.

If you have relatives or friends in a rural location that you can get too and who are willing to take you in during appropriate events, have a G.O.O.D. plan.  This includes hard copy maps with routes and alternate routes.  Practice all routes before the big day.  Practice your load out plan, again, prior to the big day.  Search SurvivalBlog.com for loads of information on G.O.O.D.  There are many concerns related to evacuation in certain scenarios.  Educate yourself and make educated decisions.

This article is the tip of the iceberg with regards to beginning prepping, but hopefully it has a few pointers to get you thinking and to get you started and is an encouragement that this can be done, that you can successfully prepare for the future.  You don’t have to purchase all nitrogen packed long shelf life survival foods or the perfect arsenal with one of every conceivable firearm type for every circumstance (in fact limiting (standardizing) models and calibers has some clear advantages) in order to successfully prepare for the likeliest of scenarios.  Remember, methodical, prioritized preparing is the way to go for those of us on a budget.  Start small, build your knowledge base, supplies and skills, and very soon you will be in the enviable position of weathering the most likely calamities to occur in the next few years.   If you continue this methodical, ongoing process, you will continue to improve your situation and continue to put your self in a position to weather increasingly more severe and longer lasting scenarios.  The important thing for those on a budget is not to wish you could do it all now by immediately trading cash for all the tangibles and training you need, but to start and to start now and to consistently build to our plan as we can afford to do so.

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Friday October 2 2009

Letter Re: Putting the Fats Back Into Non-Fat Powdered Milk

In regards to the letter on powdered milk, the method described in the web site works, but does not produce milk that tastes very good (depending on the oil used).

Growing up all over the world we often were in places where tuberculosis (TB) was endemic in the cattle populations. As a result you could not drink milk but could drink/eat yogurt based products (the process of conversion to yogurt will kill off the TB). Of course to this day I always test positive for TB because I ate the yogurt -- even though I don't have it -- as a result of the dead TB bacillus in the yogurt I developed antibodies to it.

As a result my mother researched how to make "real" tasting milk from powdered milk. What we found (and the method that was used by the military to reconstitute milk in many places even today) was that if you added one can of evaporated milk per gallon of powdered milk you got "real" tasting milk with a decent fat percentage. She also found that mixing the powdered milk using hot water (and then cooled overnight) actually made a major difference in taste.

The only time we tried the method described (using oils) was when the supply plane we and the rest of the mixed military/state department expat community relied on, was very late. To this day I remember the taste of powdered milk mixed with olive oil (the only oil available locally in Ankara at the time) -- even with copious amounts of chocolate milk mix (Ovaltine) it was still nasty. - Hugh D.

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Thursday October 1 2009

Letter Re: Putting the Fats Back Into Non-Fat Powdered Milk

Hello Mr. Rawles,

Here is a link to Chow How that I thought some of your readers might wish to print out and add to their preparedness manuals.

It tells you how to add the fats back to powdered milk (with oil) to make whole milk. It is important that toddlers have the fat for proper brain growth. It would also be a good idea for pregnant women to have the extra fats.

Hope this link is helpful to some of your readers. Sincerely, ~ Garnet

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Monday September 28 2009

Five Preparedness Lessons Learned, by Allen C.

I was speaking with a friend recently who mentioned he still has a generator in the box taking up space in his garage.  It has been there for ten years.  He did not know what to do during the Y2K panic so he spent money to make himself feel better.  I am not knocking the value of a good generator.  I have used mine for almost twenty years.  However, purchasing a generator he did not know how to use without at least buying some gasoline to go with it was a waste of money.  It has been said the humans are the only creature that move faster once they realize they are lost.  I am sharing my experiences for the benefit of those who do not have a lot of training or experience in preparedness that they may go just slow enough to make good decisions while moving fast enough to be effective.

I was first referred to as “a survivalist” twenty-five years ago by local authorities during a routine traffic stop.  Still a teenager, I had saved my Christmas money to purchase my first rifle, an AR-7 survival rifle.  I had to explain to the nice officers why it was broken down in the back seat of my father's car.  I dressed like the cover of a survival magazine during my high school and early college years and my appearance had brought me the attention I thought I wanted.  This teenage self-expression included camouflage pants and a black T-shirt accented by a defused hand grenade hanging from a chain around my neck.  I quickly learned the attention this drew was not in my best interest.  Today I look like every other clueless rat in the race.

It is not just the blatant activity described above that draws unwanted attention.  Someone asked recently how to keep their nosey neighbors from watching them bring in supplies.  I advised her to buy several identical plastic tubs.  Each time she goes out, an empty tub will go with her and return full.  The world sees just one tub going back and forth and incorrectly assumes it is the same one each time.  Absent evidence to the contrary, people tend to see what they expect.

Lesson One: Lay low and don't make the big mistake.  Appear to be someone not worth noticing.

Throughout the years I grew in my training and expertise.  I became a firefighter and HazMat technician, shooting sports and wilderness survival instructor.  The same skills for which I was previously viewed as a threat now brought me acceptance and admiration.  After 911 they honored me at events and put me in parades.  My key to success was preparation in both skills and provision.  The most expensive piece of equipment in the hands of someone who does not know how to use it is worthless.   The converse is also true.  The more skilled one becomes, the less likely they are to think they need the latest gadget.  Over the years the tools in my fire gear and my survival kit became more refined allowing me to do more with less.

For example, knowing several ways to purify water without spending several hundred dollars on a filter system allowed me to allocate first funds to food storage and firearms.  If tribulation should come before I am fully prepared (if that is possible), I can provide food, water, and protection for my family.  I would love to have a bigger filter system, but because of my knowledge level, I am able to better prioritize.

Lesson Two: Knowledge makes a little provision go a long way. 

The other day I went to visit a friend from high school that I had not seen in years.  He proudly showed me not only his gun collection but those of a mutual acquaintance who keeps his at his home.  Some were sitting in a wooden gun cabinet with a glass front.  Most were lying in gun racks mounted to walls in the spare bedroom.

In my home you will not see one gun or a large cabinet that would be a bullseye for any thief who might kick in the door.  Those are kept safely in a secure and innocent-looking location that would not get a second look.  An inexpensive assemble-it-yourself bookcase with a few inches cut off the back of most shelves makes an excellent cache.  Trim the back panel to fit within the frame of the bookcase and use a hook and eye lock to secure the top of the bookcase to the wall.  This hidden cache holds several guns locked to the unit and the wall with a cable lock through the trigger guards. 

Lesson Three: The best defense is to not become a target in the first place.

Many of my friends are buying and storing a year's supply of freeze dried food as they did for Y2K.  I am not doing so now nor did I in the Fall of 1999.  I personally do not enjoy eating freeze dried food.  Perhaps it is because I was raised in Amish country, but I have always stored and rotated my food.  This is not to say that I never buy food for long-term storage, but that I am selective in buying those things which I can get locally, inexpensively, and actually want to eat.  The rest I rotate through my pantry. 

The other day a friend of mine sent me a link to a web site where I could purchase fifty pound bags of grain for three times what it sells for locally.  It has not been specially prepared for long-term storage nor is it significantly different in quality.  In the Bible, Joseph stored grain for seven years without packing it in nitrogen.  This grain is marketed as a preparedness product at a price that covers shipping and a higher profit margin.  To most efficiently allocate my funds, I segment provisions into three categories:

  1. Bulk items I can buy locally and inexpensively that can be stored for the long term
  2. Items I usually eat that can be stored in a pantry and rotated through over several months
  3. Things that must be purchased from preparedness providers because they are the only source

Using this method, I can provide variety and nutrition for my family for less than the average family spends going on one vacation. 

Lesson Four: We don't have to spend thousands of dollars on food we don't really want to eat.

Rule number one of wilderness survival is Don't Panic! This warning is equally relevant in any survival situation.  While time is of the essence, I would not recommend anyone without experience  quit their job in the city and move directly to a secluded retreat.  I have talked to several people who just this year planted their first garden.  The quantity of errors and problems they experienced are too many to include here.  Although I am from the country, I married a city girl and currently live on a postage stamp in a small city.  This permits us to continue to earn money and improve our country retreat until the last possible minute while visiting on the weekend.   

I have found the best way to buy and own retreat property is through a housing cooperative or land trust.  Although seldom used for rural land, cooperatives have successfully owned and occupied housing in New York City since the 1800s.  Instead of an individual purchasing a few acres at a premium price because each parcel must be surveyed, title examined, deeded, etc, a cooperative is a group of people who together purchase a large tract of land by forming a nonprofit corporation.  The property is deeded to the corporation with the rights to occupy individual parcels guaranteed through an occupancy agreement.  Advantages of a housing coop include lower price per acre, anonymity of ownership, and protection for creditors. 

Lesson Five: Don't Panic – One small preparation every day will produce the best long-term results.  

Whether surviving a wilderness emergency or social unrest, our attitude and ability have a lot more to do with our success than the products we purchase.  We do not have to drastically change our way of life until circumstances change it for us.  These small things done over time will produce great results.  While there are necessities to secure, the most valuable asset we have is ourselves.  An investment in us pays the highest return.

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Tuesday September 22 2009

Letter Re: Grub and Gear--Lessons Learned from an Alaskan Trapper

James,
Going through some old gear last month, I found my food supply lists and notes from 1976-79. I thought the old list might be of interest and the lessons I learned during the first three years in the remote Alaska bush may be helpful to a few of your readers. I do not recommend Alaska for a TEOTWAWKI retreat but the lessons I learned the hard way may be helpful to any one in a cold climate.

I grew up in California listing to stories from my grandfather about Alaska and the Yukon. When I graduated from high school my grandfather gave me his remote trapping cabin in Alaska. At 18 I had a lot to learn and discovered many things the hard way. I was lucky to survive the first year.

When I got to Alaska I met my Grandfather’s old trapping partner. He told me that the cabin was fully stocked with everything including food. Enough food and supplies for at least one winter. When I started asking him questions on how to trap he told me “sonny I have not got the time to teach you and since you don’t have to build the cabin you will have time to figure it out. He added half under his breath” providing you do not fall through the ice or freeze to death. He also said something to the effect that if he had not owed my grandfather a favor he would never give his ½ of the cabin to a long haired hippy kid from California. I had to promise the old Sourdough that I would have all of his traps flown back to town at the end of the trapping season or buy the traps from him.

My first winter was a disaster.

Before this the longest I had been in the wilderness was a 23 day Outward Bound survival class that I attended the year before and I had never spent a winter in a cold environment.

To get to the trapping cabin it was at least a two week walk from the end of closest dirt road or a 1:20 hour flight in a bush plane. The cheapest way to fly to the cabin was in a Piper PA-18 Super Cub on tundra tires. The pilot told me he could carry 1 passenger and 200 lbs of supplies or a total of 400 pounds of supplies and no passenger.

When the pilot dropped me off he told me “If I am in the area I will check on you” He did not have any charters that way so he did not check on me that winter.

I got out of the plane with a full back pack of gear, a duffel bag of supplies and a 30-06 rifle. I had to walk a few miles to the cabin. I left the duffel bag in a tree to retrieve later. With a full back pack and my rifle I walked as fast as I could to the cabin. I was excited to see “My cabin” at last. What a shock I had when I saw the cabin! The old Trapper had lived many winters in the cabin and told me it was built strong. What I found was a small log shack with a dirt floor and sod roof. In the cabin a wood stove, a hand built bed frame and table. A old bed mattress suspended by wire from the rafters. There were traps, snow shoes, ax, bow saw, one man cross cut saw, files, a lantern and the other basics that are needed to survive the Alaska winter as a trapper. The trapper had not been to the cabin for four years. At least 60% of the food supply that I was counting on had been eaten by rodents or had spoiled.

First lesson learned! If you count on food to be there when you need it, You better have had your food stored in a very secure way or you may go hungry. Theft is also something to be considered in today’s society and in TEOTWAWKI losing your food cache would be disastrous

Most people think it must have been boring spending 4 ½ months alone in a cabin. The reality is I was too busy just trying to cut enough wood to stay warm and skin the marten, fox or wolf that I trapped or shot. I was cold, hungry and exhausted most of the time. I never had the time to get board. Being a green horn at trapping I only averaged 1 animal a week and it was usually shot instead of trapped.

The first winter at the cabin.

As soon as I walked into the cabin I I knew I was in trouble. I did not have the 4-to-5 month supply of food I needed. I had a topo map of the trapping area only but did not have the maps to get me back to the road or town, Second lesson! Make your Egress plans ahead of time and have at least 2 good contingency plans.

Thankfully in the cabin there were two steel drums with snap ring lids that were full of dry goods and on the shelves were some cans of dried goods that were also still good. The following list is what was still edible in the cabin as best as I can remember

  • 50 lbs Bisquick
  • 50 lbs Beans
  • 25 lbs Rice
  • 10 Lbs Lentils
  • 20 lbs Oatmeal
  • 10 lbs Coffee
  • 2 lbs black pepper
  • 10 lbs Crisco
  • 4 lbs Honey
  • 25 lbs salt

The supplies along with a young moose I shot did keep me alive but it was no fun. I had youth and enthusiasm on my side and knew the situation was temporary. I decided to just make it a challenge and kind of live some of my grandfather's stories first hand for myself. I had in my pack 1 roll of toilet paper but there was none at the cabin

Third Lesson! Birch bark, snow or small pine cones work but make a very poor substitute for toilet paper. I also learned later that winter that at -40 your butt will freeze to a wood toilet seat in the outhouse. Make a toilet seat for the outhouse out of hard blue Styrofoam for winter will make using the outhouse less of a pain in the butt.

As fall quickly turned to winter the lake next to the cabin froze and the temp continued to drop. The high quality mountaineering boots I had used in the high Sierra mountains of California and Nevada were not anywhere near warm enough and did not have removable liners so the boots were hard to dry.

Forth lesson Pac boots with 2 sets of liners or bunny boots are must have items for cold environments.

Many times during the winter I could have shot Grouse or Ptarmigan If I had a 22 pistol. That would have added much wanted variety to the menu. The other problem I learned is if you get a wolf or wolverine in one of your traps a 30-06 blows too big a hole in the hide and destroys most of the value of the fur.

Fifth Lesson! a .22 rifle or pistol is a must have item.

After 2 months my clothes were in bad shape. Most Light weight high tech clothing used for backpacking or mountaineering is not designed for day to day hard use and does not hold up to rigors outdoor work for the long haul. High quality wool clothing does a lot better over the long haul and is not susceptible to melting next to a fire like nylon is. Yes wool is heavy and takes longer to dry but in my opinion for working in the woods wool is the way to go.

Sixth lesson ! clothing made for loggers, Surveyors and commercial fisherman may be heavy but it last a lot better than sporting gear. Filson is the best.

My diet was boring and I was always hungry after two months. I started getting sick and my teeth seemed to be getting loose. It finally dawned on me that I had no intake of Vitamin C. I may have had Scurvy. Remembering something I learned from my grandfather I started eating rose hips that were dried and still hanging on a few bushes near the cabin. Thankfully we did not have deep snows that year so I could find a few rose hips. I was lucky! Seventh Lesson! make sure you have a source of Vitamin C.

Every time I took my rifle inside the warm cabin it would condensate and the rifle would get wet.

Eighth Lesson If you bring a rifle into a warm cabin from a below freezing environment it will condensate, this promotes corrosion in addition the moisture in the bolt may be frozen the next time you are outside in the cold. If you do bring a weapon in from the cold strip it down, dry it and clean it. I left my rifle outside next to the door for most of the winter and only brought it in to clean. This would not work in a TEOTWAWKI so other tactics will have to be developed.

One morning there was a small earth quake that got me to thinking of my family and the outside world. Started felling very alone. Starting thinking what if the Russians had dropped “the bomb” I would not know it.

Lesson #9! Being able to at least hear what is going on in the outside world helps your mental attitude a lot. A radio to listen to the news was smoothing I longed for.

Snow shoes are easy to use and most anyone will figure them out quickly. When you are working on snow shoes you will fall now and then. Lesson # 10 tape the muzzle of your rifle to keep snow out of the barrel when you take the invariable header into the snow. I use electrical tape or put a condom over the muzzle of all my rifles in the field to keep everything out of the barrel. It will not affect accuracy unless you are shooting over 300 yards.

The winter was full of hardship and big education. I did enjoy it but given a choice I would not want to repeat that Winter. In the spring I sold my furs in Anchorage. The fur buyer could tell I had never trapped before as the way I had prepared the pelts was poor at best. I got .20 cents on the dollar for my pelts and I think that was generous on the part of the fur buyer. 4-½ months of hard work and after paying the bush pilot along with the money I still owed the trapper I would have less than $100. The trapper met me at the fur buyer after paying him for his traps he was now very friendly and asked me many questions. He encouraged me to go back for at least one more winter. He told me to go get a bath and haircut and meet him at the White Spot cafe down the street in downtown Anchorage and he would buy me a good meal. While eating he handed me a the following list

  • 90 lbs bisquick
  • 50 lbs Beans
  • 50 lbs Rice
  • 25 lbs Salt
  • 25 lbs Lentils
  • 20 lbs oatmeal
  • 10 lbs Sugar
  • 10 lbs lard
  • 10 lbs powdered milk
  • 10 lbs split peas
  • 10 lbs Tang [freeze-dried orange juice powder]
  • 10 lbs coffee
  • 10 lbs noodles
  • 1 case tomato paste
  • 5 lbs strawberry Jam
  • 4 lbs honey
  • 2 lbs pepper
  • 5 gal White gasoline
  • 4 large boxes wood matches
  • 24 large Plumber's Candles
  • 8 rolls toilet paper
  • 6 lantern mantels
  • 7 Lbs Trapping wire
  • Gun oil
  • Trapping lures and scents

This was the list of supplies that the trapper had the pilot bring to the cabin each spring when the plane came to pick him up. This filled what would have otherwise been an empty plane. In early April the lake next to the cabin was still frozen so the plane would land on skis and taxi next to the cabin. The pilot and trapper would put the supplies into the cabin then the pilot flew the trapper back to town.

The Trapper then informed me that he had purchased the supplies for me and was having them flown to the cabin along with 2 more steel drums to safely store the supplies in.

The "Rifle and a Backpack" Myth

I often get a chuckle from people that think they can fill a back pack and head into the woods and survive long term with what is in a back pack. Until recently I spent most of my life guiding in Alaska and in Africa. I spent an average 110 days a year living out of a back pack under a tarp or in a pup tent, and another 180 days each year living in a remote cabins without electricity or running water.

In an uninhabited game rich environment with a rifle and only a back pack of gear I could survive for a period of time. How long could I survive? I do not know as there are too many variables.

What I do know is in the case of TEOTWAWKI where many people would be fleeing the cities and overcrowding the wild places looking for food I could not survive trying to live off the land with only a back pack full of gear. There will simply not be the recourses available. If a skilled person had no ethics they could take to stealing, looting, probably murder/cannibalism they might make it long term starting with only a back pack full of gear. For me and my family I believe in preparing now and stocking up while food and supplies are available and reasonably priced.

In the early 1980s I bought a lot of my supplies from a sporting goods/gun store in Anchorage. The store maintained an excellent inventory for hunters, trappers or survivalists. The store manager could talk the talk on both survival and hunting. One fall he hired me to take him on a 14-day bow hunting trip into the Alaska bush and film the adventure. He also hired a young guy that had just moved to Alaska from Georgia to help carry camera gear. I was concerned regarding the greenhorn from Georgia and even more concerned when I saw his marginal gear. The Georgia greenhorn however did fine and was a huge help on the trip. The trip however was a complete failure. The store manager had every neat gadget I had ever seen and many that I had never heard of. His pack was too full to carry any of the food or camera gear. He was out of shape and his pack was also too heavy for him to comfortably carry. After the float plane dropped us off on a high mountain lake we planned to walk for a week to my cabin hunting Dall Sheep on the way. Then at the Cabin we planned to hunt Moose and Grizzly. During the first 2 days the store manager left a lot of gadgets and some much needed gear on the trail to lighten his pack. I was stunned as I thought this guy knew his stuff but he was totally bewildered on how to apply his knowledge or gear in the field. One of the things I still clearly remember is he actually dumped all of his extra socks and his rain gear at the first nights camp. Leaving that gear behind cost him dearly. The Greenhorn from Georgia was a farm kid and was able to adapt to the Alaska bush even with his marginal gear and lack of knowledge of the Alaska bush. The store manager never made a single stalk on any animal as it became a challenge to just get the store manager to the cabin. By the time we got him to the cabin his feet were so badly blistered he could hardly walk and could not even carry his own pack or bow. This rambling story actually has a point. I had heard the store manager tell many people before our trip that with his properly equipped backpack he could easily survive in the bush indefinitely. My grandfather use to say: "Ignorance is bliss but it will not put food on the table."

My Second Winter

I still had a lot to learn but this winter was a lot better. First thing when I arrived at the cabin was to see that the supplies were all there and in fine shape. I also had topo maps and now knew 3 different routes to get back to civilization. It was at least a 2 week walk but I at least knew the routes to get there.

In a TEOTWAWKI situation if you are at your retreat in the winter you will probably also get into a routine. That could be both good and bad. Think security and mix the times up so ambush is harder for the goons to set up.

Winter set in, an in my second winter in the cabin, it did not take long to get into my routine. Every day starts the same. At approximately 6:00 A.M. The alarm clock goes off. What I mean the stove has only a few coals left and the cabin is freezing so I have to get up and stoke the fire. Then step outside into the extreme cold. Cut a log into rounds and this is done in the dark. Then go down to the lake still in the dark (batteries for the flashlight are too precious to waste and so is gas for the lantern) carefully chip the ice around each of five fishing lines with a hatchet. Pull up the hook hoping for a burbut (fresh water ling cod) reset the bait, haul water back to the cabin. If I had not caught a fish for breakfast then on the meat pole next to the cabin I used the saw and cut off a frozen chunk of caribou. Still dark and I am cold, step into the cabin warm up my frozen hands, dry my gloves and cook breakfast on the wood stove. Then put the dutch oven with beans, lentils or rice on the wood stove to rehydrate while I am gone for the day. Pack my lunch: two pancakes with a slab of cooked caribou meat in the middle, also put one tablespoon of tang into my insulated water bottle then fill it with hot water from the pot on the stove. Warm tang makes a nice mid morning warm up on the trail and is a source of Vitamin C.

As it is just starting to get light strap on the snow shoes and head out pulling the sled. If it has not snowed I can walk on top of the packed trail with the snow shoes on the sled.

The day is spent dragging the sled checking and resetting traps while constantly looking for a wolf, fox or wolverine to shoot. During each day I must also find a dry standing dead spruce tree to cut down and limb with the ax then using the sled haul it back to the cabin. Must always be on my main trail with everything tied onto the sled before it is completely dark. Days are short: the mid-winter sun is only up for 4 ½ hrs. I used my flashlight is only for emergencies.

Following a packed trail is easy in the dark just remember to get behind the sled on any downhill or the sled will hit you in the back of your legs and could break a snowshoe or your leg. Usually get back to the cabin long after dark.

Lesson # 11 Cross country skis are no substitute for snow shoes.

The snow shoes at the cabin were old and on the last legs of useful life. Instead of bringing a new set of snow shoes I had purchased a new set of back country cross country skis to the cabin. I thought I would use the snow shoes as a backup. Learned that skis are not as good to work on as snow shoes for doing chores or trapping. Skis have a place and can save time but are not a replacement for snow shoes. In snow country snow shoes are essential and skis are a nice luxury.

Each night when I finally arrive at the cabin I am tired and hungry. First thing is to start the fire then fix dinner. After dinner if I was lucky that day I can light the lantern and skin whatever I had trapped or shot after it has thawed. 9:15 PM is the highlight of the day! I get to listen to the AM radio for 45 minutes.

Lesson #8 and had brought a radio this time. Always hoping Caribou Clatters has a message for me from my family. Allow myself 45 minutes to read by lantern or candle light. 11:00 PM re-stoke the fire and collapse on the bed. The radio, dinner and sleep are the reward of a day’s hard work. Around 2:30 AM the fire has burned to just a few coals and I get cold, get up put more wood on and go back to sleep. The next thing I know it is 6:00 AM the fire has burned to just a few coals and it is freezing in the cabin and the day starts all over again.

Lesson #12 In a cold winter climate Use no oil in the bolt or trigger assembly of your rifle as it may freeze. I tried to shoot at a wolf (a wolf hide was then worth $450) when I pulled the trigger on my rifle it only went click. The firing pin would not strike the primer with enough force to set off the primer. After the second try and another click the wolf ran off and out of range. That was only an expensive lesson. In a TEOTWAWKI it could have been some one shooting at me and I would have had a useless rifle.

On my daily trips to check the fishing lines and get water I knew the ice was 28” thick and still getting thicker each week. A December day the temp was -27 F and I was crossing the outlet end of a small lake to check out some tracks. Not worrying as I thought the ice was 28” thick everywhere I fell through the ice and found myself waist deep in water. This was two miles from my cabin It was all I could do to make it to the cabin.

Lesson #13 any out let or inlet of a frozen lake may have thin ice also a warm spring or other things can cause thin ice. The fire was out in my stove and no coals were left. I had a very hard time getting a fire started and as a last resort used white gas and almost burned down the cabin.

Lesson #14 have the kindling and all the fixings of a fire ready any time you leave your cabin. You never know when someone may be at the end of their strength and need to get a fire going.

One evening in early January I returned to the cabin to find a note and care package on the table from the bush pilot. The pilot had brought me a bag of oranges, a fruit cake and a newspaper. He also left three letters from my family. It was if I had won the lottery

As the snow got deeper during the winter I started finding that many animals liked to use my packed trail. I learned never underestimate the danger of a moose particularly in the winter if they are on a packed trail they may charge you instead of going into deep snow. I had a cow moose chase me up a tree then stomp my on sled and break one of my snow shoes.

Lesson #15 Moose are dangerous, especially late winter

In early February I came across Grizzly tracks in the snow. I was shocked as I thought that bears would be in the den all winter. I followed the tracks and found the bear had made a moose kill.

Lesson # 16 Grizzly bears and black bears do not truly hibernate and may be out of the den during any month of the year. Over the years I learned if a bear is away from his den in the winter it will be hungry and grumpy.

As a kid I loved watching western movies. It seemed to me cowboys wore their handgun in a low slung fast draw holster and I thought that was cool. The western style fast draw holsters I tried in the bush were useless. I now see that some law enforcement and military teams are using a thigh mounted holster. I am not disputing the tactical points of that method but if you are working in the woods you will occasionally fall into snow or mud. That is when you want your hand gun in a full flap holster or in a normal holster worn under the last layer of clothing. Getting your hand gun into your hand fast is of no use if it will not fire when you need it.

Lesson #18 Select holsters that will allow you to comfortably carry your hand gun with you at all times and will protect the weapon from the elements. I have tried over 40 different holsters and method of carrying my handgun. I strongly suggest you experiment now on how to carry your own handgun. Find something that works for you. I presently use three different holsters:

  • A holster that I use to carry concealed when I am in a city environment.
  • A holster when I am working in the bush.
  • A holster when I am flying float planes.

In March, the bush pilot landed on the frozen lake with 400 lbs of supplies. He helped me put the food into the steel drums for the next trapping season then flew me back to town.

I had spent 160 days alone in the bush trapping. I sold my furs to the fur buyer in Anchorage. After paying the bush pilot for the supplies and flights to the cabin and back I had cleared $2,700.

I learned a lot that winter and over the years refined the old trappers list to keep me well fed and a lot happier.

A More Complete Supply List

After my experiences the first two winters, I composed the following list. This is for one man for five to six months. It was refined for my personal taste and needs in the Alaska bush. The old trapper that I got my first list from made do with a lot less than what I took. This list is tried and true and not a just theory that someone made up. I had around 200 traps and ran the line on snowshoes, foot and skis. Cut my firewood by hand (no chain saw) and hauled my water from the lake in buckets. It was hard work 12-15 hours a day 7 days a week and I burned a lot of calories. Using the following list I ate well and always had plenty of supplies left in the spring:

  • 50 lbs Flour
  • 50 lbs Bisquick
  • 25 lbs Pancake mix
  • 35 lbs Sugar
  • 50 lbs Pinto Beans
  • 25 lbs Rice
  • 40 lbs Salt pork
  • 25 lbs Salt
  • 10 lbs Dried prunes
  • 10 lbs Raisons
  • 10 lbs Dried apricots
  • 10 lbs Dried apples
  • 10 lbs Dried peaches
  • 25 lbs Oatmeal
  • 10 lbs Honey
  • 2 cases Tomato paste
  • 25 lbs powdered milk
  • 15 lbs [canned] Butter
  • 25 lbs Corn meal
  • 25 lbs [canned] Cheese
  • 20 lbs Spaghetti Noodles
  • 10 lbs Crisco
  • 15 lbs Hot cocoa mix
  • 10 lbs Dried eggs
  • 5 lbs Strawberry Jam
  • 3 lbs Apricot Jam
  • 2 boxes Pilot bread
  • 1 gal Maple Syrup
  • 180 Multi vitamins
  • 180 Vitamin C
  • 1 lb [powdered dry] Yeast
  • 180 Tea bags
  • 1 lbs Pepper
  • 1 lbs
  • Baking soda
  • 8 lbs
  • Dried onions
  • 1 lb Baking powder
  • 1 lb. Corn starch
  • 24 oz Garlic powder
  • 12 oz Vanilla
  • 2 rolls aluminum foil
  • 1/2 gal Dish soap
  • 5 bars non-scented soap
  • 36 Canning lids (to can meat if we had a winter thaw or for leftover in the spring)
  • 8 oz Hydrogen peroxide
  • 2 oz Iodine
  • 12 rolls Toilet paper
  • 2 Small sponges
  • 2 Scrub pads
  • 1 roll Duct Tape
  • 4 boxes of wooden Matches
  • 24 Plumber's candles
  • 500 rounds .22 long rifle hollow point ammo
  • 100 .308 ammo 125 grain hollow point varmint ammo
  • 20 rounds .308 ammo 180 grain (for Moose or Caribou )
  • Trapping license and regulations
  • Hunting license, moose tags and caribou tags
  • New snowshoe bindings
  • 1 truck inner tube
  • 3 New hacksaw blades
  • 2 New Ax handles
  • 8 Bow saw blades
  • 36 oz Lanolin
  • 6 Disposable lighters
  • 12 gal White gas [aka Coleman Fuel]
  • 12 Lantern mantels
  • 6 oz. Gun oil
  • Trapping Lures, urine and musk
  • 10 lbs Trap wax
  • 2 rolls Survey ["flagging"] tape
  • 1 pair Heavy Neoprene trapping gloves
  • 7 lbs Trapping wire( 50% 12 ga and 50% 14 ga)
  • 50 ft Trap Chain #2 and #3
  • 24 Links
  • 24 Swivels
  • AM Radio with 8 extra 9 volt batteries
  • 8’ New stove pipe for cabin stove
  • 4 Leather awl needles and 50’ waxed thread
  • Extra shoulder straps for pack frame
  • Extra hip belt for pack
  • New lid for fry pan 14”
  • 100’ - 3/8 nylon rope
  • 12x18” glass to replace cracked window
  • Personal items
  • 1 Wool Jacket
  • 2 Wool pants
  • 2 Work pants
  • 1 Pair insulated Carhartt coveralls
  • 4 Pair work gloves
  • 2 Pair heavy winter over mittens.
  • Winter trappers hat
  • 1 pair
  • Pack boots with 2 sets liners
  • 1 pair Bunny Boots
  • 1 Wool sweater
  • 4 pair long sleeved wool shirts
  • 3 pair Wool long john pants
  • 3 pair Wool long john shirts
  • 8 pair Wool socks
  • 8 pair Cotton socks
  • 6 pair Underpants
  • 1 Bible
  • 2 flying ground school books
  • 6 Short sleeve Cotton shirts
  • Tooth brush
  • Tooth powder
  • 2 rolls dental floss
  • Carried or in an external frame pack:
  • 1 .308 rifle
  • 1 22 pistol (Colt Woodsman)
  • Rain coat
  • Rain pants
  • Insolite sleeping pad
  • Sleeping bag
  • 10x12’ and 4x8’ light nylon tarps
  • Flashlight
  • Flashlight batteries
  • Binoculars, 10x40
  • Green River skinning knife, caping knife, boning knife.
  • Small stone, small file and small diamond steel
  • Compass
  • Topo maps 1:250,000 scale
  • 2 Candles
  • Matches in waterproof container
  • Lighter
  • Small cook pot with lid
  • Water bottle
  • 100’ Parachute cord
  • Small First aid kit with Large suture needles and suture, in sealed pack
  • Mini channel locks (Snap-on) used for sutures and other things
  • Pack repair kit
  • ¾-length Hand ax. (Estwing)
  • Small shovel
  • Bow saw with extra blade
  • 1 pair wool socks
  • Wire snares
  • Fish hooks and line
  • 25’ .042” stainless wire
  • 1 lb Dried soup mix

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Monday September 21 2009

Letter Re: Storage Food Cookbooks

Hello James;
I was just today shopping at the good ol value village and saw this book called Cooking With Stored Foods by Carlene Tejada and Carroll Latham. It contains great tips on storing foods and cooking stored foods. It lists also the shelf life of stored foods and there are diagrams for gravity fed can storage systems. I got it for ninety nine cents but your readers can find it on amazon.com for as little as $0.67 [plus postage]. God bless and many prayers for the loss of your Memsahib - Eric L

JWR Replies: Thanks for that recommendation. Another book on using storage foods that I consider a must is Making the Best of Basics - Family Preparedness Handbook by James Talmage Stevens. I heard that the 11th edition is about to be released.

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Saturday September 12 2009

The Disaster Garden--What's Not in the Can, by C. the Old Farmer

“I’m going to garden if the Spinach hits the Fan…I’ve got my seeds in long term storage,” my prepper friend sighed with an attitude of  that’s taken care of now, thank goodness!  I asked if he had a garden.  “No, but I’m ready to start one if I have to.” As a homestead gardener of over 30 years from a long line of homestead gardeners, here is some practical advice culled from my years of experience growing food. 

There is no instant garden by digging up the back yard.  I wish it were so!  Lawn grass is one of the most time-consuming weeds you’ll ever meet, and you’ll have to eradicate it if you plan to plant. 

Now, what’s under that grass?  Most of us have heard of ‘crop rotation’, where the same plants are not grown in the same place every year because they strip the soil of certain nutrients and encourage insects and diseases specific to those plants.  Think of grass as a crop that hasn’t been rotated for…how long?  The soil’s pretty depleted.  Although you’ve maybe been fertilizing it, you have a root mat that encouraged just top growth because lawn fertilizers are high nitrogen for fast greening.  Hopefully you’ve not been putting on serious pesticides in order to have the perfect lawn – or the previous owner didn’t!

If you have a season to spare, put a big sheet of black plastic well weighted down over the future garden, effectively cooking the grass.  You may have to hire a commercial tilling outfit to do the first run through, or plan to spend lots of time with the shovel developing those arms and shoulders.  The reason?  Rocks.  They get stuck in tiller tines or break the shear-pin, over and over (have extras) unless you live in a location (like Dallas) where they actually truck in rocks for lawn ornaments (then you’ll be amending the heavy, clay soil to make it lighter).  Grass should be raked out.  ‘Dead grass’ is an oxymoron – I’ve never seen such a persistent plant.  It grows under the snow and will come back from the root with a little water, even lying, dried, on top of Agri plastic. 

Let’s say my prepper friend goes as far as to ‘cook’ his grass and get the spot tilled and raked.  The ‘old farmer’ (me) strolls up and takes a handful of soil.  Unless his yard was a very fruitful garden not very long ago, the soil will dry quickly and when I squeeze it, the ball will fall into dust.  There isn’t a worm in sight.  I prescribe compost – mountains of it. 

At this point most people think:  Compose pile!  But you have to have one, more than a little spot where you put the coffee grounds, potato peels and old bananas and let the critters dig through it.  The best compost is from animal manure and it takes time to be useable in the garden.  Only rabbit manure can be put directly into the soil by the plants (called ‘side dressing’).  In the short term, you should have a bag of 10-10-10 and one of  5-10-5, the first for foliage crops and the second for root crops while you work in every scrap of leaves on your land (chopped by the mower while you have one and the gas to run it) and grass clippings that do not have seed heads in them.  (By ‘work in’ I mean till or dig in a thin layer of these things.  A thick layer of leaves laid down in the Fall will still be a thick, soggy layer in the spring.) 

In the long term, start a pile and plan to manage it.  Although compost rots quietly on its own, it has certain requirements, like the amount of ‘greens’ and ‘dry’s, and it has to be turned.  If you continually add new items, especially thick stalks, etc., you’ll never get finished compost, so that means one pile at a time or several working piles. 

You may think of getting some compost brought in, so you should know that not all compost is equal.  The guy with horses who is just looking for a way to get rid of the poop has compost of a very different nutritive value than the compost I get from a local homestead when mine runs out, made properly from animal and dry ingredients and covered when there’s too much rain.  His compost may have a lot of hayseeds in it, too, which means weeds to you.  Heed this warning!  Find out if he’s using hay or straw for bedding.  However, before you get out the truck, stroll your own property.  Neglected piles of leaves (rotting down in the same place for 5 plus years) can yield some real gold if you are knowledgeable about fixing the Ph deficiencies.    Years ago we bought a home with a sloping backyard where the previous owners had raked the leaves downhill for who knows how long and the result was incredible soil under the trees, several inches deep.  I moved it into the garden, of course, gloating over every chocolaty shovel full!  

Some people think having topsoil trucked in will do the trick.  It may be decent soil, but it will not have the amount of organic matter incorporated that helps to hold water and provide nutrients plants will access over time.  Topsoil here in the Northeast comes from building sites where they scraped off the top few inches on a potential building lot; in other words, just what you already have at this point and must amend, so I’m hoping this writing will keep you from making that mistake.  My formula is half a barrow of soil and half of compost, with lime or whatever other minerals you might need sprinkled on top, then mixed in the barrow and dumped in where you plant to plant.  You don’t need to amend every inch of the fledgling garden – concentrate on the places you’re going to plant and mark them, so you’ll know where you put them. 

Good plants cannot grow without a full day of sun.  A future garden may mean you’ll have to take down trees.  It would be better to do this before you need your garden (and definitely before you put up a fence!).  Trees may also have long roots that forage in the areas you plan to grow in.  I don’t know the exact number of feet from the trunk, but I’d say 20 to 30 feet from the drip line would be safe.  In dry years trees will suck up all the water and nutrition you put on your plants if they’re too close.  .

Timing for planting is critical.  A good gardening guide will tell when the best window of opportunity is for planting each variety in your area.  If you plant too soon the seeds may rot and you’ll use up more than you expected.   The length of your growing season matters:  you may be able to get successive sowings, or you may have to plant special short season varieties.  I laugh when I hear the ad that claims you can grow 5 acres of ‘emergency garden’ with their seeds.  Do they allow for washouts, mistakes, unexpected cold snaps, thinning, losses to late frost, damp-off in the flats?  Never plant all your seeds at one time! 

Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and some other long-season plants must be started indoors in most places.   You need to be prepared with the proper, sterile starting mix, correct light and temps.  Now is the time to make the mistakes, lose a whole batch to damp off as I’ve done and be able to get more at Wal-Mart.  Plants also have to be prepared for the new environment by ‘hardening off’.  Good gardening books will tell you how and most I’d recommend are already listed on this site.

Peering into the can I see there’s no fences in there.  Too many nice gardens wind up being forage for the deer or other animals.  A fence of the proper type will keep out rabbits and small animals that don’t dig well – (nothing keeps out groundhogs, so I hope you also have a .22 varmint gun).  Milorganite, a fertilizer from the sewers of Milwaukee, repels deer, but don’t use it on the garden.  Instead make bags from old nylon stockings, pouring in about ¼ Cup of the Milorganite then knotting them off into bags – you’ll get about three from a single knee high – and tie or wire them at 4 – 5’ intervals on your fence and on fruit trees at about nose height, or on stakes near plants you want to protect.  This works.  You’ll have to renew the bags each year. 

Why not have a ‘fence that keeps the deer out’?  Deer consider a fence under 8 feet a suggestion, and I’ve heard of taller fences not doing the job.  Fencing is sold by the foot and gets pricey over 5’.  So make your Milorganite bags.  Save the scraps you don’t use from the nylons to tie up plants – they stretch as the plant grows and decompose in the compost pile eventually, too.  Human hair and other ‘deterrents’ don’t work as well as this does, and a bag of Milorganite keeps forever and goes a long way, since you’re not using it for anything but deterrent.

Fencing is an investment.  Garden wire (with ‘varmint netting’ at bottom) is the cheapest and might last you 4 or 5 years, going up to chain link as the sturdiest and longest lived.  For years I ‘made do’ with scrounged fencing and metal stakes, a Rube Goldberg construct that needed constant vigilance.  As soon as I could I paid a fence guy to put in something reliable and solid.  If you’re looking for an investment in your property, a well-built garden fence will pay you many times over.  Don’t forget gates at both sides or you’ll do a lot of extra walking even though they cost extra.  And the fence can provide places for some vining plants to grow.  In the event you have garden thieves as the economy worsens, a strong fence can have barbed wire added in tiers and can be locked.

You may also need netting and mirror strings to discourage birds, and traps for small rodents, like chipmunks, that can devastate a berry patch .  A mirror string is two small mirrors (get from craft shops or online) sandwiched with epoxy every  4“ or so on center on a piece of heavy fishing line.  A loop at each end allows the string to drape between branches or stakes.  The mirrors create a flash of light when half hidden in the foliage of raspberries, tomatoes, etc., and look like predator eyes.  This works on most birds and is easy to do – ahead of time.  Forget the fake owls and high tech deterrents.  If you have to trap critters, do it under the net or put the trap, baited with a ripe strawberry or whatever they’re going for, in a can or barrel half buried.  I’ll never forget the only bird I caught in a rat trap set for voles – watched it light and couldn’t get there fast enough.  Speaking of birds – a wren house will pay back your effort in building it tenfold.  They are voracious bug eaters as well as vivacious songsters and often return year after year.

Pests – if you can’t identify them and don’t know what to do when they arrive, you’ll lose valuable food.  Rodale puts out an excellent pictorial guide, and I’m sure there are others.  It makes great winter bathroom reading!  By spring you’ll be an expert.  Don’t neglect the small bugs, like aphids, lurking under the leaves.  Turn leaves over and you’ll find your enemies, a mosaic of aphids sucking the life out of your plants and spreading disease, or squash bug eggs laid out like a Chinese checkerboard.  If you can’t stand bugs, use gloves.  After a year of you-eat-or-I eat, you’ll hate them enough to use your bare hands.

Weeds:  You wouldn’t think you’d need to know your weeds. But some are a real menace and must be eradicated by destroying the whole plant.  Some can’t be hoed because the pieces will make new weeds.  Mulching is your best weed control, and it’s cheap if you don’t mind hard work:  The simplest type I know is newspapers covered with mulch, grass clippings or leaves, and it rots down…to Agri plastic held down with rocks or bricks that you can take up year after year and store is nice to have.  If you decide to get Agri plastic, invest in the thicker mils.  The stuff that’s like black plastic bags is a joke, and the other ‘weed barrier’ that looks like fabric only works if it is mulched on top.  Plants need light to grow and weeds won’t get it if you smother them and their seeds.  

Gardening doesn’t require many tools, but you’ll need a hoe (I have two, one with a small head for working near plants and a larger, heavier one for bigger weeds), a shovel, an iron rake, a trowel and some hand cultivators.  These tools should be sharpened, so you’ll need a file.  Buy the best tools you can afford.  I also invested in a ‘wheel hoe’ last year and I’d do it again.  For scalping off weeds before planting, weeding between the rows or laying good furrows for planting, it’s a time saver.  Mine’s Amish made and has several attachments.  Hoes, shovels and hand cultivators should be sharpened like any other tool, so you’ll need a file.

There will be hand weeding in the rows. though  – sorry.  Don’t invest in a toy tiller that claims it will make your garden weedless – besides the rocks I mentioned before, which may make it completely useless where you live, if you till too close to the plants you’ll cut their roots.  Tomato plants put out roots for a couple of feet.  Weeds grow faster than food plants, have vast root systems for their size, and suck up nutrients.  If allowed to go to seed (or if you foolishly till weeds with seed heads in or blow grass into the garden with a mower) they’ll be back for a second crop very soon.  Pull them out and pile them in a separate place away from the garden. 

Water:  Peering into the can, I don’t see a water source, but you can’t have a garden without it.  I have a 250 gallon oil tank that was properly cleaned out and sits under the downspout from the roof, and another that fills from the curtain drain.  An adapter made it possible for me to retrofit the spigot at the bottom for a garden hose – go to the local plumbing supply in the off hours and explain your dilemma to get the parts.  Plan your garden downhill from water sources if you possibly can:  siphoning is a wonderful thing and works with only a small height difference between the water source and the garden, although the more height difference, the better flow you will have.  If you have a stream you might be able to take advantage of a ram pump (see Lehman’s catalogue for details).  A lot of people have never heard of these, but if you meet the requirements, they’re great. 

Absent the big tank, 55 gal plastic drums or even heavy duty trash cans may be arranged so that when one is full the run-off goes into a second, and third container.  Siphon off from the top, or if you have ones that open, you can install a spigot at the bottom with a hose adapter.  Use that wonderful thing, Plumber’s Goop, to ensure a watertight seal.  Take precautions to keep mosquitoes out and you’ll even have a bit of water pressure when the barrels are full, depending on how far uphill you are. 

We’ve had good luck with soaker hoses attached to the siphon system – they don’t need high pressure and it saves an enormous amount of time watering.  Don’t forget to drain everything before the first freeze and stuff as much as you can in storage:  hoses, tomato trees, Agri plastic, etc.  Nets and plastic can overwinter in trash cans.  They will last a lot longer than if you leave them out in the weather . 

Crop failures:  Expect some.  It’s my experience over the years that if you plant a lot of different things some will do well no matter what the conditions, and that’s what you’ll be eating.  The weather is in God’s hands, but He mercifully made plants that do well in all kinds.  While I don’t recommend planting things your family doesn’t like, if all they like is tomatoes and you have a bad year…you get the idea.  Also, some things preserve well (tomatoes) and some don’t (squash, Brussels sprouts), some varieties will root cellar well (butternut squash) and some don’t (acorn squash). 

Varieties to grow:  a lot has been written about this and you should take it seriously.  The current debate is about ‘heirloom’ or open-pollinated varieties vs. hybrids that don’t breed true in the second generation.   While having plants you can save seeds from is good, some vegetables may have no variety that is sufficiently disease resistant in your area for the plant to get to the seed-making stage of life.  These you should stockpile from seed companies.  Obviously the plants that live to harvest are the ones you want, the biggest and the best, and save the biggest and best seeds.  Not all hybrid seeds will fully revert, and some heirlooms will gradually change into your own special variety as you plant them year after year – that’s where these things came from in the first place.  Years ago my mother and a few other gardeners planted a tomato that was a local version of the old oxheart tomato.  Over the years it picked up some disease resistance, but not enough for me to stop planting Park’s Whopper and other reliable varieties.  Remember, also, that some plants, like carrots, cabbages, parsley and Brussels sprouts, are biennials and will not bloom until the follow year, so they have to be over-wintered for you to get a crop of seed.  Again, never plant all of your seeds.

Frost and extending the season:  Beware of the first still, cold evening in the Fall when the sky is clear, especially if there has been rain but now there is a pale, apple-green tinge in the West at sunset where the sky is clearing at the front line.  This is nature’s Frost Warning!  I could go on a long time about knowing the weather, but this is sheer experience.  Nothing will survive a hard freeze, and some crops (like basil) won’t even take a light frost, but many crops, if covered with old sheets, etc., will live for several more weeks before the final freeze.  There are lots of ways to extend the season – the only one I’ve used is a cold frame.  Like everything else, these take care and maintenance.  You’ll have to lift the glass daily on the warmer spring days as the sun gets hotter or you’ll cook your plants.  Research, build and use it now if you have a mind to.  

I strongly recommend linking up to someone who already gardens.  Some folks who have large gardens will trade knowledge for work.  Over the years I’ve had an amazing array of helpers and all of them had to be trained, even the Vo-Ag student.  The only thing that builds practical knowledge is doing. 

When times get tough people will be less likely to let you on their land, so identify and start getting to know someone who has the knowledge you need ASAP.  Look for gray hair, stained fingers and the tell-tale ‘gardener’s tan’ that stops at the short sleeved T-shirt.  If you’re invited into the garden, do not arrive in shorts and sandals!  Wear long pants tucked into your socks and sturdy shoes or boots, close all gates behind you, watch where you put your feet, stuff a small notepad and stub of pencil into your pocket, and at the first opportunity, offer to tail on to a hoe or shovel.  And for heaven’s sake, don’t mention that you hope to get your next garden out of a can!

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Friday September 11 2009

One Woman's View of Budget Preparedness, by Lisa L.

I wanted to write something for the contest for other ladies with children were in the same situation with wanting to be more prepared but not having the means to do so like the books recommend. I've had my frustrations but I've learned and bought gradually and wanted to share. :) It always upsets me when I hear in the media or from people their point of view that people are helpless due to their income level. This is what I've learned so far, how to cook with wheat, stockpiling shampoo for very little and ways to acquire some supplies for a 72-hour-kit inexpensively.

1. Educate yourself! I was able to get every preparedness book I requested from inter-library loan. Now I have high speed Internet and there are so many videos on YouTube. I was interested in learning how to use wheat so this is my experience. :) There are so many other preparedness topics and skills on youtube and in books.

Long Term Preparedness - Using Whole Grains

2. Learn about whole grains and different ways they are processed. Learn about red wheat, white wheat, oat groats, buckwheat groats, rye, and barely. Learn about the benefits of milling flour at home. There are so many different types of beans to learn about too!

3. Find where you can make a small purchase of whole grains. You can buy a #10 (large) can of whole wheat and cracked wheat from online retailers. If you use an EBT (Food Stamp) card, try a health food store's bulk section. The point here is not to use a lot of money until this is an item you and your kids consume. You can learn with a small amount. :)

Try to eventually purchase wheat in different forms like whole wheat berries, cracked wheat , bulgar, whole wheat flour, and whole wheat pastry flour. Purchase items found at regular the grocery store too like oats, beans and rice.

4. Learn how to use your grains. Cooking with whole grains is a skill but it's not complicated. A simple crock-pot makes it easy to cook wheat and other grains. One of the best cookbooks that helped me a lot is "Cookin With Wheat" by Pam Crockett. You can use wheat in other ways besides it's flour form and baking bread. She has a lot of recipes that use wheat cooked in the crockpot in there. As far as using whole wheat flour, I found baking bread to be very time consuming but I always put whole wheat flour into prepackaged mixes like brownies and muffins. Make oatmeal cookies! Serve oatmeal for breakfast and try it with different fruits and nuts. Learn how to cook and season beans. Something simple like a ham bone gives them a lot of flavor. I use allrecipes.com for new ideas. I like that site because I can convert recipes for two people.

5. Once you are using whole grains, consider purchasing grain processing equipment. This step was a long one for me. It was four years from the time when I learned about using whole grain and wanting a grain mill until I was able to purchase one. The IRS made a mistake on a previous tax year and sent me a check with interest so that allowed me to purchase an electric mill. I have the Marcato Atlas Grain Mill/oat roller (it manually flakes grain) and the Wonder Mill (electric grain mill to make flour from the whole wheat). Both have pretty good resale value compared to the initial cost [if purchased used] on eBay if you ended up needing to sell it quick to pay a bill. I use the grain flaker to crack wheat and turn oat groats into oats. I use the Wonder Mill to make whole wheat flour.

6. Buy wheat in a larger quantities like 25 lbs or 50 lbs. At this point you will already be using it in your meals. You can do this from the same place you bought it in a small quantity before. Do this even if you don't have grain processing equipment but are cooking it on your crock pot. Look into buying other grains in the large quantities too like beans, rice and oats. Sam's club has the best price on Bastmati rice. Learn how to store food in 6 gallon buckets with a mylar bag and oxygen absorber. The same place that sells you wheat should sell 6 gallon buckets except for a health food store. I have not tried to pack my food like this yet but it's next on my list. :) There are some great videos on YouTube that demonstrate this. You can buy grains already packed like this. For some things like rice, I plan to pack myself with the O2 absorbers and mylar bags myself since it's more economical. (And sugar, too, minus the O2 absorbers.)

Long Term Storage - Healthy and Beauty Products
7. Combine coupons with loss leaders/sales to build a supply of health and beauty products like toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner and shower gel every six months. I utilize the site HotCouponWorld.com (HCW). They have previews of ads for major drug stores. I don't get a paper or clip coupons. I order them from a clipping service on eBay. Ads of chain drug stores are posted in advanced on HCW so you can order your coupons in time. If you get too much you or realize stuff will expire soon before using it, you can always post it on Freecycle. I guess donating it to a food bank or shelter is ideal but they never have donation hours when I can get there. With Freecycle (search it on yahoo groups with your city name) someone will pick it right up. :)

Short Term Preparedness.
Inexpensive ways to get started on a 72-hour kit. There are some great PDFs on the Internet and checklists about 72-hour kits. These is a just a few low cost things to get you started.

8. Bags. If you don't have bags around your home to designate for this, buy some from the thrift store. There are a lot of varieties of backpacks and travel bags there. Be sure to check things like zippers and if there is any foul scent before you buy. I've had good success with bags there. You also want to buy a box of larger zip lock bags for hygiene items. Save some of your plastic bags from the grocery store too.

9. Documents & Notebook. Most banks offer free photocopying. Grocery stores have it for around 15 cents per page. Copy your ID, birth certificate, social security cards, bank account statement. If you don't have things things start to acquire them. There are many lists on the internet on what to copy for an emergency financial folder. Make a list of important phone numbers, addresses and account numbers. I keep a notebook with page protectors for all of my important documents. My experience with hurricanes is the phone was turned on before power. I was able to get many things done over the phone. Keep some pens and sharpies in there. You may need to write ID on yourself and your children. US Mail may come back before power and phones. You may be able to send a letter before you have phone access so keep some stamps too and a few envelopes.

10. Medication. Ask your pharmacist for an extra labeled bottle and stick a few pills in there to put in your bag. If you use a local pharmacy you may want to transfer a few days worth to a chain pharmacy like Walgreens, CVS, Wal-Mart or Sam's in case you had to leave the area.

11. Food. Stick food in there that does not need preparation. Make sure to eat this food every so often. See what your kids eat and what didn't store so well. My son loves pop-tarts but they crumble pretty badly. I prefer canned food with a pop top lid. We like those small 1 - 2 oz cereal bowls too to snack on. Granola bars with chocolate melt and are messy. See what makes you feel full or not too. One day decide to only eat what is in there. Divide it up into 3 and see if that third gets you and your kids past 2 pm or not. :)

12. Drink. If you have a small child, use some type of drink that they can open without assistance. If they can't twist off a bottle cap use a juice box they can puncture. You could also keep a water bottle that has been opened. Practice with them. I recommended stocking some Kool-Aid singles. In a situation where the National Guard arrives they give out a lot of water bottles.

13. Whistle and Poncho and [Mylar] Emergency Blanket. These are less than $2 each. Make sure your kids know how to blow a whistle. :)

14. Discounted entertainment. When school supplies go on sale pick up some for your children for your bags. I cut inexpensive notebook paper into origami size paper. You can get pens, paper, markers, crayons inexpensively before school starts. Keep the crayons in a ziplock because they can melt. Around Christmas time the dollar store has $1 chess boards, checkers, word searches, suduko, card games and coloring books. This cost more than a $1 but Rainbow Resource Center has some inexpensive instructional books by Dover about origami, drawing, and paper airplanes. I don't have a daughter to use them but I've seen paper doll books too. I buy magazines for 25 centers each from the thrift store for my bag. I rotate these every few months.

15. Bug spray and sunscreen. You want to store this separate from your food. I find this highly discounted at the end of summer. I live in Florida so this is necessary here. You may need blankets from the thrift store or inexpensive warmers instead. :)

16. Discarded CDs. You can use these to reflect light. [JWR Adds: Save those ubiquitous AOL CDs for use in various projects including mirrors for home security, and to glue together front-to-front, and -hang up on monofilament fishing line, to scare marauding birds from your garden.]

17. Chewing Gum and Hard Candy.

Some Lessons Learned

It now seems so easy but at first I had no idea about purchasing small quantities of wheat. I called some of the vendors and had no idea about small cans, had no idea the health food store sold wheat, etc. It really took me years from the time of learning about it to purchasing it because I didn't have the money for 50# and had no idea I could buy it in a #10 can or locally one pound at a time at the health food store. It would have saved me a lot of time had I known those things. I learned about 72-hour kits and low cost things from dealing with the hurricanes.

Here are three web sites that I found useful:

The Prudent Homemaker. I know Brandy from the internet and she eats from her food storage. The nice thing about her blog is she posts recipes that she actually makes from her food storage and garden. She is really talented in making the food look really nice too.

Filling Your Ark. I know Erika from the Internet too and she is just brilliant with food storage and everything else! The PDFs there are great too.

Crockett's Corner sells the Cookin' With Wheat cookbook and DVD. They are both so helpful to someone new to long term food storage like wheat. It's not just bake bread, bread, bread. LOL.

In Closing
My final thoughts are first don't be discouraged if you have to "use" your preparations too outside of a disaster like you need the food or hygiene items in your 72-hour kit or items in your pantry you bought extra of, for a short-term emergency. I've had to use ours so much and hindsight it's a blessing because I am more educated about what we will use or need. One time was this past January, I remember being so happy about all the canned goods I bought at a Sam's Club [warehouse store]. I was finally prepared again for a short-term power outage. Not long after that I was unable to work due to a short-term illness. So soon we had very little canned food left. I was so discouraged but now looking back I see what was left (that we didn't eat for some reason or didn't eat as much I thought we would when purchasing) and what to buy double or triple of when I could.

Secondly ,prepare to the best of your ability. It's now September and I still haven't been able to replenish even an extra one week canned food supply. Keep learning and educating your kids about self sufficiency regardless of what you can buy or not and you will make better decisions when you do have the means to make purchases.

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Tuesday September 8 2009

Preparing for Uncertain Times--A Simple Guide to Getting Ready, by Mr. and Mrs. Joe Patriot

Introduction

Imagine this situation: All of the media outlets have gone to commercial-free coverage. They are reporting that the Dow has dropped 2,000 points and trading has been suspended on Wall Street. The Chinese, along with other countries have transferred their reserves from the US Dollar. Oil futures climb $50 a barrel in hours. A national bank holiday shuts down the financial system on Main Street. Within 24 hours the grocery stores are cleared out of all food stocks. The gas pumps dry up in 12 hours. Trucks delivering goods are stuck at truck stops waiting on fuel that may not be available in days; 18-wheelers that have enough fuel to get back home are doing so, with the trailer left on the side of the road. Inner city areas are turning into war zones with looting and random acts of violence occurring between rival gangs. The Interstate System becomes a parking lot with the suburbanites trying to “get out of Dodge” (G.O.O.D.). With no more fuel supplies people become stranded and forced to flee on foot, with panicked people who are usually rational and moral, now acting immorally and irrationally; doing what it takes to get their family to perceived safety.

Moral of the story is simple – given an emergency where you will be cut off from the comfort of the complex supply chain, utility grid, and police protection, could you take care of you and your family? Could you do it for a week, for a month, or even a year?

I know this has more than likely unnerved you. Do not panic! Simple planning can help you get where you can take care of yourself and your family. We are going to try to guide you step-by-step in your path to peace of mind. Look at this plan as purchasing an insurance plan. You pay hundreds per month to insure yourself and your belongings, and investing in preparations may be the best policy you ever purchase. This will be covered in several areas:

  • Money
  • Food Storage
  • Security
  • Self-Sustaining Lifestyle

It may be advised to keep your preparations confidential. Use discretion as much as possible when you make your acquisitions. Also note that there will be some sacrifice in making your targets. The items we are suggesting to buy in this document are costly, but remember what we said earlier about this being an insurance policy for the safety and security of your household. Try to think of others that may join you if they are displaced by a disaster. We will cover this in detail throughout this work.

Money/Finances

Most of the families in this country are trying to figure out how to make ends meet in these troubled times. The first thing you need to do is do a household budget with your family. You should put a total of what is coming in and the fixed bills that have to be paid out monthly. Write out your variable expenses for six months and see what you can cut to contribute to your monthly “insurance” expenses. There are many plans out there to help you with this. There are many ways to cut corners; you just have to be creative. 25-50% of the “insurance” fund should be used to pay down debt, with the remainder directed at your preparations. Use one month’s “insurance” allotment to purchase 90% pre-65 silver coins, which have intrinsic value with the silver content in them, or 1 oz. silver rounds from a recognized mint.

Water

Water is crucial for healthy living and survival. 80+% of the human body is water and must be replenished regularly. I human being can go on weeks without food, but without water, a person will perish in days. Each person will need three gallons of water per day to stay cleaned, fed, and hydrated. Invest in a high-quality gravity water filter. The British Berkefeld or Berkey Light (starting around $200) is recommended for its timeless design and filtration level. Rain collection and other sources of water must also be considered.

Food

In today’s just-in-time society, our logistics system is so finely tuned that the slightest hiccup in the system could cause massive trauma to the supply system. 3 days of delivery delays could interrupt the system for a month. How much food should be stored in reserve? Well, as much as space in your house and your pocket book will allow. 60 days will be your starting point. Remember to eat the elephant one bite at a time. Allocate an extra $30 per week to your grocery budget. Sit down with your family and make a list of what foods they enjoy to eat. Make a menu and look at the ingredients needed to make the dishes. Create a special storage area in a closet or basement for food storage. When you go to the grocery store by double the ingredients and put the excess in your storage closet. Keep an inventory and check off items when you meet your goal level for that particular ingredient. A starter list is included in this work.

If you have the funds, try to stock your shelf with freeze-dried foods designed for long-term storage. These are items are pricey, but worth it on that rainy day. If you have a Mormon contact, you can go to the Provident Living centers to can food at a reduced cost compared to other commercial sources.

Two Month Supply for Two People of Shelf Stable Grocery Store-Purchased Foods:

Starches (daily: 6 servings, 2 people/60 days: 720 servings)
12 boxes (10 packets ea.) instant oatmeal (120 servings)
6 lbs. rice (120 servings)
8 lbs. pasta (120 servings)
3 boxes instant potatoes (60 servings)
60 cans starchy vegetables (beets, carrots, corn, lima beans, sweet peas) (180 servings)
15 lbs flour (for baking bread) (120 servings)
           
Vegetables (daily: 4 servings, 2 people/60 days: 480 servings)
160 cans non-starchy vegetables (or 120 cans veggies & 20 jars spaghetti sauce)
(artichokes, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, green beans, yellow beans, wax beans, mushrooms, okra, spinach, tomatoes)

Fruit (daily: 3 servings, 2 people/60 days: 360 servings)         
120 cans fruit (no sugar added)

Meats/Legumes (daily: 4 servings, 2 people/60 days: 480 servings)
30 (6 oz) cans tuna (90 servings)
12 (15 oz) cans salmon (90 servings)
15 (12 oz) cans chicken (90 servings)
15 (12 oz) cans turkey (90 servings)
15 (5 oz) cans ham (30 servings)
30 cans (or 7 lbs. dry) beans (90 servings) (kidney, navy, great northern)
           
Dairy (daily: 3 servings, 2 people/60 days: 360 servings)         
6 (25 oz) boxes non-fat dry milk (enough to make 12 gallons)
or 16 (12.6 oz) cans NIDO brand dry whole milk (can be found in ethnic foods section)
6 lbs. Velveeta cheese
12 (12 ounce) cans evaporated milk

Other: 
10 lbs. sugar
20 packages active dry yeast
4 (26 oz) containers salt
2 lbs. popcorn
4 jars peanut butter (40oz)
4 (32 oz) bottles vegetable oil
shortening
syrup/molasses/honey
jam/jelly
nuts
dried onions, garlic & other spices
large bottle of Multi-vitamins

Security

This is where people tend to get a little uneasy. Except for the sociopath and serial killer, humans instinctively do not want to harm their fellow man. However, in times where there are challenges, people will be likely divided into two categories:

  1. Good guys that work with their neighbors and others survive
  2. Bad guys that will do anything it takes to survive.

You must be prepared to handle the second group, either though evasion, repulsion, or attack. The only way to do this effectively meet this task is to arm yourself with knowledge and of course – the hardware needed for the job.

Firearms

First and foremost, firearms need to be looked at as tools. They can hurt you if you are not safe! Just as a chainsaw, ladder, or tractor, like all dangerous tools, firearms must be handled with respect, with all the safety guidelines followed. Firearm selection can be complicated, so here are some easy guidelines in selecting a firearm.

Calibers

Caliber refers to what round the firearm is chambered to shoot. It is recommended that you purchase firearms listed in the primary category:

  • Rifle – .223; .308
  • Handgun – 9mm; 45ACP
  • Shotgun/Survival – 12 gauge;.22L

Secondary Calibers:

  • Rifle – .30-06; 7.62x39mm
  • Handgun – .40S&W; .357 Magnum(also shoots .38 Special)
  • Shotgun/Survival – 20 gauge;.17 HMR

A lot of people who are new to firearms, or who have never thought of needing defensive firearms can get confused with all of the choices out there in the gun market. We will use the primary caliber list above as a starting point. If you own firearms, make a list of the caliber and type you have. Then inventory the ammo you have on hand for each firearm. Sell excess firearms that are not in the primary caliber list to create some extra funds to get what you really need in your defensive toolbox. Keep firearms chambered in Secondary Calibers as barter items or handouts to extra “help.”s

For those on a budget and new to firearms, purchase a used 12 gauge pump shotgun and a used .357 Magnum revolver from an individual if possible. Guns have service lives measured in tens of thousands of rounds, so it makes sense to buy used guns, to save money. Also, by buying used guns from private parties, in most states you can avoid creating a "paper trail".) Find a friend or coworker that is knowledgeable in firearms, do your homework, and get these guns first. The 12 gauge has quite a recoil (“kicks”) with heavy loads, but can be used on any critter with wings or legs (2 or 4); make sure to get a model of shotgun that can have an extended magazine tube installed on it. As for handguns, the .357 revolver is a formidable self-defense pistol and can also shoot the [less powerful and slightly less expensive] .38 Special cartridge. Make sure you also have a holster and some speed loaders. Along with 100 rounds each of Buckshot and .357 hollow points, purchase low-cost clay load 12 gauge shells for the shotgun and bulk packs of .38 and to inexpensively learn how to use your firearms. Practice safe use and handling of all firearms, and make sure all chambers are clear or cylinders empty while stored in a secured safe or metal gun cabinet. Always make sure a firearm is clear before handling, and not in the physical grasp of untrained/young children.

After you have your “starter” guns, make sure you have plenty of food for a couple months and water filtration, then start adding to your defensive tool box. Acquire firearms that are more suited for defending your perimeter and neighborhood. This can be pricey, but remember, you do not want to skimp on an item that might save your hide!

  • Rifle – a rifle should be a magazine fed, self-loading weapon that can be easily handled and maintained by the individual.
    • AR-15 Lightweight Carbine with M4 or Magpul stock
      • 10-to-20 magazines per weapon
      • Minimum 1,500 rounds of M193 ball per weapon
    • Springfield M1A
      • magazines per weapon
      • Minimum 1,000 rounds of ball
  • Handgun – Remember that a handgun is just to get you back to your rifle and to defend yourself in situations where a rifle is not appropriate.
    • “Safe-acton" style in 9mm or .45ACP
      • Glock
      • Springfield XD
      • Smith and Wesson M&P
    • 1911 Variant in .45ACP
      • Kimber
      • Springfield Armory
    • 50 magazine loads worth of ammo and 6-8 extra magazines per weapon
  • Specialty – If you have the skills and the funds, it is wise to have a Varmint rifle handy for long range targets. There are many excellent choices out there, and is this is a custom weapon to the person; however, the author recommends .308 (7.62mm NATO) or .300 Winchester Magnum for the caliber

Equipment

You must have adequate gear to carry your extra magazines and survival gear. A plastic grocery bag just won't fit the bill. This is called load-bearing equipment (LBE). Purchase gear that fits you and your environment. Some manufacturers of high-quality gear include: Tactical Tailor, Spec-Ops Brand, and Maxpedition

24 Hour Kit – this is the equipment that is your base equipment you will wear while doing security patrols. It should sustain you for up to 24 hours in the field.

  • Load Bearing Vest with appropriate pouches for your gear
    • Rifle and 6-12 magazines
    • Sidearms and 2-3 magazines
    • Camelback hydration carrier – 2 liter
    • FRS/GMRS Radio
    • Survival Gear Pouch
      • Gloves – Cold Weather and Heavy-Duty Leather
      • Small Bible
      • 24-hour food supply
      • Water purification tablets/Water filter
      • Mosquito net
      • Poncho
      • Gun cleaning kit (Otis Universal Recommended)
      • 2 pairs of socks
      • Camouflage bandanna
      • Signal mirror
      • Emergency blanket
      • Small fishing kit
      • Sewing kit
      • Batteries
      • Fire Starting Kit
        • Matches in waterproof case
        • Magnesium starter
        • Starting Tender (dryer lint or cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly)
      • Camouflage face paint kit
      • Knife Sharpener
  • Quality surplus USGI pistol belt (usually attached to vest)
    • Tactical Pistol Holster (optional)
    • USGI Canteen (empty), with cover and cup
    • Quality Fighting/Utility knife
    • Quality LED flashlight with colored filters
    • First Aid Kit
72 Hour Kit (Also known as the Bug Out Bag) – This is in addition to your 24 hour kit. As with the vest, his should be ready to go at all times. Rotate times that need to be rotated and do a gear check on a monthly basis.
  • Small or Medium Daypack or Rucksack
    • 3 MREs or similar trail-type food
    • Spare ammo
    • 1 – Set of clothes (camouflage for your area)
    • 2 – Black, Drab Green, or Brown T-shirts
    • 6 – Pairs of Socks
    • Toiletries
    • Mess Kit
    • Sleeping bag – Winter
    • Poncho liner – Summer
    • Entrenching Tool
    • Plastic Bags
  • Scenario Specific Equipment
      • Advanced Medical Supplies
      • Bolt Cutters
      • Long Distance Two-way Radios
      • Entry Tools
      • Heavy Wire Ties
      • Large Wire Cutters
      • Rappelling Line and accessories
      • Barter/Charity Goods
      • Hatchet/Machete of some type

Make sure first off the pack you select fits you well, is durable (no Chi-com knockoffs), Drab in color (florescent colors and reflective stripes are a no-no). Make sure the straps are of modern ergonomic design and you have a chest and belly band the fits you will over clothing. The better the fit of the bag, the less fatigue you will endure.

Put your gear on and make sure it fits well. Go to a private location and test your gear out. Try to simulate being in the field. 99% of your activity in a disaster is gathering food and keeping yourself going, however you will need to periodically do a scouting patrol around your property to see what is happening, check on distant neighbors, etc. You need to make sure you can haul on your person every item you need to operate in the field for 72 hours.

Wearing this kind of gear around is very fatiguing. If you are not in shape now, you will get in shape when the time comes. Make sure you can eliminate weight at every opportunity. Examples include carrying hotel size soap bars or slices of soap instead of a whole bar; a lightweight one-man tent instead of a three-man tent; sawing a toothbrush in half; etc. Anything to lighten the load, do it.

Self-Sustaining Lifestyle

If you made it through this work so far without throwing it in the trash or deleting it from your computers, thank you. I bet the wheels are turning in your head. Do not panic or get overwhelmed. The point of this work from the first letter is to give a broad overview of what steps you need to take to become a more self-sufficient American. I know that the cost of items freak you out. Think about it as spending your money while it is worth something. A simple breakdown in the monetary system could invalidate years of savings. Make it where you are comfortable in the future and do not become a casualty. The biggest issue faced in a disaster situation is comfort. However, if you have a comfortable place to sleep, food to eat, and water to drink you will thrive in hard times.

Shelter

A survivalist thinks they will hit the woods and live off the land. A good majority of these people will not make it due to exposure and lack of clean food and water. A thrivalist makes plan A to go to the well-stocked retreat (which may be home) and ride out the storm. The thrivalist can also live in the woods, but it is strictly plan B. The best place to remain is in what you know intimately – your home and surrounding area.

Bug Out or Stay In?

This will be a difficult choice for you to make. This is strictly the opinion of the author, but you should plan to avoid major cities during this time of crisis. In other words, if you live in an urban/suburban area become good friends with someone like mind and a tank of gas away or if you live in the country, plan to stay in and make room to have extra permanent guests if a catastrophic event happens to our nation. Whatever choice you make, you will need more people than just yourself. You will need a team of folks to sustain your Area of Operation (AO). This is where the purpose of this document ends. You have to use the gifts God gave us – intuition, critical thinking, gut feeling, etc. – to plan out exactly what you are going to do.

Some suggested helpful links:

Survivalblog.com
Alpharubicon.com
Frugalsquirrels.com
efoodsdirect.com
Readymaderesources.com
Freezedryguy.com
AWRM.org

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Letter Re: Thoughts on Shedding Bad Habits, and Developing Good Ones

Hello Mr Rawles,
In response to Jane L.'s letter on shedding bad habits posted on September 3rd, it is admirable she has identified things in her life she can move away from for a more sustainable and healthy lifestyle.

I would like to caution her, as well as others, that preparedness and survivalism is not an activity one does for a few weeks, and "is ready". It is a lifestyle changing activity that probably reaches every facet of life, changing many things all at once.

Don't burn out on it.

Things like the glass of wine, some breath mints or chewing gum are all small things that add up. Remember, you should be in this for the long haul, and a perpetual cycle of denial of these little things can add up, building a resentment to the lifestyle you're trying to adjust to. I know when I'm going backpacking for a long time, I miss my bed. If I was suddenly out of the house and this was my only means of warmth at night, I would begin to resent requiring the tent and backpack, and long for the days of my warm house and bed. Finally, when I get my nice warm bed back, I'm likely to never want to camp or backpack again.If you deny yourself a lot of creature comforts all at once, then start "caving" on a few of them, you may find yourself in a backwards slide where you resent the whole preparedness mindset.

Even if that sacrifice of these little treats is acceptable to you, what of those in your family, who may not feel the sense of importance about what you're doing? Suddenly being denied soda pop and television may cause an instant animosity to the lifestyle you're hoping they embrace. Even a gradual denial of these things may cause it, albeit less severely all at once.

If candies or wine are important to you, find ways to store or re-supply what you have. Preparedness should be about sustainability, not denying ones self of what they feel is important.

As for television, it is a tool. You can cut it out altogether, or look at it as another medium of information. Yes, you can turn off Spongebob, but maybe you should be watching shows about deer hunting or food prep? Even the occasional movie is important, as your family all watches it with you. Some households, this is the only "together time" there is, sadly. Look at what that television means to your family. If gathering to watch a movie every other night is some family quality time, then don't deny that. These are the people you care most about in the world, and the ones that will have your back in the situations you're prepping for.Just having that quality time to reinforce family relations is important. - DA in Michigan

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Thursday September 3 2009

Letter Re: Thoughts on Shedding Bad Habits, and Developing Good Ones

Hi Mr. Rawles,
I was thinking today about a section I read either on the blog or in the book about getting rid of any habits you may have. I instantly thought, "thank God I quit smoking" and left it at that. Until yesterday. I thought of all the things I do that are my habits that would not be there in a melt down. I found some that I just had not even thought about as being a bad habit that needed to be curbed. I am keeping a written diary of my habits to see where I need to improve or eliminate.

Here is what my list consists of so far:
1. Gum chewing. This is what I replaced my smoking habit with. But in a melt down, where will I get gum to chew? Not to mention it's not something you want in a compost pile!
2. Soda/Pop. I have quit drinking this and have replaced this with water as I am trying to get back into shape. But soda will be gone in the melt down unless you can make root beer.
3. Snacking. I have been known to eat snacks through out the day, hence why I am getting back into shape. My snacks are healthy as I eat fruit but thinking on this, we will need to control the amount of food we eat daily to preserve the stock. So I am eliminating snacking from my diet. My whole family is doing the same thing. We will have a better control on our food supply this way.
4. My glass of wine. I would drink this or cook with it. But in a melt down, it would not be practical. So we are using what we have and not buying anymore.
5. Mints. Just about everyone I know has some brand of mints in their pockets. This is another thing to eliminate. What are in your pockets?
6. Cooking from boxed "dinners". We took a look at the box and decided we can make our own boxed goods with dehydrated goods just like the box does. This is cheaper and will last us longer as the packaging isn't the greatest. We have a huge dehydrator and have made individual meals of spaghetti and meat with sauce. You simply put in one serving of noodles, a dehydrated meat patty, and some spaghetti sauce in the dry package that only needs water. Then you seal it with the kitchen saver and you have a meal on the go with protein that will last a while. (You can do this for most dishes you make).
7. Waste. We decided to look at the fridge and find out what we waste the most of. Waste is costly. We now reuse everything, even if it just to the compost pile. This way we have our habits of our retreat already started and will not be in such a shock when looking at the trash pile.
8. Television time. We have cancelled our cable and have not turned on the television in over 6 months. We don't miss it and it gives us time to learn new skills and to be active and moving while accomplishing things on our list. I did not realize how much television time we used. I like you watch the colony via my computer. Actually you can watch anything via your computer, you just need a program installed. I wont as I just don't want to replace this habit.
9. Watching my change. I have started my nickel pile and have gotten everyone I know in the habit of saving the nickels. My saying is it's for my coin collection. I give no more details to that outside of my family at home. When buying anything with cash, I always ask for nickels instead of any other coin. I also keep pennies in my purse handy to ensure I can get a nickel back.
10. Dog walking. We have started our training of our team walking when we take the dog for his nightly walk. We space each other out and we carry sticks (must have them here with the wild animals attacking our dog). But it gives us the opportunity to fix what we didn't do right while we have the ability to do it under less stress.

My point is we are starting to think about all of our habits. Taking a really hard look at what you do daily will help you determine what habits are they good or bad and do you want to improve them or get rid of them? Will they hurt you or help you? We are creatures of habit. Will yours benefit your or not?

Thank you for all that you do! May God continue to Bless you and your family. Your family is my prayers. - Jane L.

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Letter Re: A Nation of Improvisers--More About Everyday Life in Communist Cuba

First our prayers are with your family in these dire times.

The first thing about surviving in Cuba was that we did not see it as "surviving", it was more like living, we did not know anything else, as the media in Cuba is tightly controlled.

I remember as a child we did not have glue so we made glue out of Styrofoam and gasoline, just mix them up in a glass container that you could close to preserve and that's it (if you go a little crazy on the gas it would be too liquid and take forever to dry). Canning was done basically with pressure cookers because there was nothing else, so all the knowledge of our grandparents was very handy and since you can't buy a new house we all live together, so it was very common to live in the same house with your parents and grandparents and sometimes your uncles and your cousins. You learn not
to throw away anything useful, screws, bolts, nuts, washers, you never know when you will need them and there is no hardware store available. Food scraps went either to the pigs or chickens or if you did not have any, you give to someone that has, that becomes a bartering tool you can say you will take care of the food and get some part in the profits when they are killed.

I know that a lot of people are amazed at how we kept old cars running, but trust me, it wasn't that big of a deal, a little bit of ingenuity goes a long way. I'll go later into more detail.

We were born with the system, so there was no getting ready like we are doing now, and believe me, no matter how ready you can get, if the S*** really hits the fan and it's TEOTWAWKI, you will run out of things, and even if it doesn't and we are stuck in the middle, then you need people because there is no way you can learn everything.

Your best bartering tool is your knowledge, if you have a trade, mechanic, electrician, construction, carpenter,... that is a life saver, the people that had a harder time were teachers, musicians, economists, etc.

They could not trade their work for nothing. For instance if you are good working with metals you will find someone to get the metals and that person will join with you and you can make parts for cars, if you are a welder you can also join in, remember that old cars were very simple, no hydraulic steering, no power nothing. It was basic carburetor, spark plugs, distribution and engine. An alternator is not that hard to fix, it basically a motor, the parts that wear down can be made again, maybe not the same quality as the originals but they will do. You can also adapt an alternator from another car (we had Russian cars coming in, including some WWII jeep-style Russian vehicles), they are mostly 12 VDC (some trucks are 24 VDC).

A good mechanic will make an adapter so you can use the transmission from a Russian built jeep and make it work with an old American car.

My trade was electronics (we use to call electronics to anything below that 24 volt and electrical anything above) so I will get in when they needed the electrical system of the car fixed, again it is very simple; remember no computers or anything like that in those cars. Here is a link of how a car alternator and a bicycle dynamo were used in the mountains to produce electricity, no means to store it so it was to use immediately, but when there is no power even a radio is an amazing thing. (See this YouTube segment: La Cuchufleta - Alternative Power Generating in Cuba.)

I also fixed radios and television, I used to buy old radios and television and use the parts to fix the other ones.

Later on when computer UPS [devices] became available, by available a mean people started to steal them from the government and sell them in the black market, then we can hook up a battery and get electricity when the power went off, which was very common. No deep cycle batteries, just whatever battery you could get.

Other people were real artisans; they would make shoes with leather and old tires, and let me tell you, they were super nice and expensive.

The hardest thing of all was to get food, because you need food to survive, you can live barefoot but not on an empty stomach, at least not for a long time.

When you were able to buy rice (the amount they give in rations, every family had a ration book, was minimal, so again black market) you would buy a good amount as much as you could afford because maybe next month the guy was in jail or it was impossible to get.

The rice you got was not stored properly so you always had to first put it on a table and go slowly through all the rice to search for small stones and foreign objects, then you put the rice in water and keep moving the rice with your hand and look for bugs, worms, they float and would come to the surface. I still remember as a child that grandma would call the children to "escoger el arroz" (that is what the cleaning process was called).

Milk was always boiled first, that way you could use the top which has more fat to make butter (you saved it till you had enough). If for some reason milk was spoiled and not drinkable you would make a dessert with it, I have to get you the recipe if you are interested.

After you ate the inside of oranges and grapefruits, you would use the rind and cook it in water with sugar and it was an excellent dessert.

To have some variety, you will get spaghetti, crush them and leave them in water, next day it was kind of a soft mix in the bottom, get rid of the excess water, add sugar and an egg and you could make pancakes.

Alcohol is consumed in Cuba in enormous quantities, I have no statistics, but it was relatively easy to make with a small homemade distillery (again quality is not a great concern), and I guess it's a good way to forget the problems, although it brings another problems.

People would fight for the simplest of reasons, and there is no 911, and you better not be the weakest link because your family is in for a rough time because no one will respect you. Criminals would typically give you respect if they know you and you respect them and they knew it was not going to be easy to take on you or your family. If not you would be the target of thieves all the time.

Those are my experiences living in a country in permanent crisis, you would have times when power was on for whole days, and times when power was on for only 8 hours a day, times when it was relatively easy to get meat, or bread and times when it was almost impossible. There is no planning, everyday will bring a new challenge and you have to adapt, and only your knowledge, wits and Faith are going to help you through.

Unless we go down into total collapse - War, in which case all bets are off and nothing will ever prepare us for that because it would be the law of the jungle, whoever is stronger will survive and then you better have a strong group of family/friends or you will have to join a group, because alone you are pretty much gone.

Read the accounts of Somalia and Serbia so you have an idea. I know more of Somalia because my father served for two years (in the 1970s) in the wars between Ethiopia and Somalia, Cuba sent troops there to fight on the Ethiopian side.

I'd also like to respond to a misinformed comment in the article "Developing Our Family's Survival Strategy, by FBP". Cubans cannot grow 70% of their own food as a country, let alone in the cities. Cubans eat a lot of rice, beans and potatoes, there is no place in a city to grow enough of that to supply a family, much less a whole city.

The population density in Havana City, Cuba is 7,908.5/sq mi,

By comparison:
Detroit, Michigan - 6378.1/sq mi
Los Angeles, California - 7876.8/sq mi

So can those cities provide more than 70% of their own food? - ILR

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Tuesday September 1 2009

Developing Our Family's Survival Strategy, by FBP

We started prepping about 18 months ago. I have felt like a chicken with its head cut off, going wildly in all directions. I’ve learned a lot about a lot, some by research, but have learned most from doing. Being prior military (I served six years in the Army Captain, and as a civilian, I was a financial planner), I started identifying mission statements and initiating plans, backwards (aka backwards planning) in order to get them accomplished on time.

The first mission: “How do we survive hyperinflation?” My readings led me to believe that the best protection is to plan on not needing to spend money on stuff and save money for taxes. The question is how to accomplish that! I concluded that becoming as self-sufficient as possible and inter-dependent and mutually supportive with other like-minded persons.

Another mission: “How to survive societal meltdown with options and strategies.” We determined that we needed to prepare in-place in our current home while we simultaneously worked to identify a homestead, but one that also optimized our security needs under a societal meltdown scenario. We had to define those security needs and defensive goals. We also decided to initiate some basic security in-place.

What kind of retreat? What does one need for a retreat and where? Our pursuits included looking at everything from two perspectives, the retreat and the in-place strategy. We have decided that if we haven’t relocated, that bugging out would entail leaving the majority our resources and is not a viable option. We will defend in place if we don’t get relocated before TEOTWAWKI.

My research indicated that to be fully self-sufficient where we not only grow our own food, but also that of our livestock, that we would need around 15 acres. Notably, a 5 acre homestead would do a lot! In researching homesteading and agriculture in-place alternatives I found out that Cubans grow 70% of their own food in the cities! I found that there are several cases of very small acreage homesteaders of an acre or less growing nearly all their needs! I recently discovered that I wouldn’t need to preserve so much if, instead of a huge garden once a year, I maintained a year-round greenhouse and grew what we needed on a staggered rotation basis inside the greenhouse with fresh food all the time! This year a summer thunderstorm hail storm wrecked a good portion of my garden and reminded me of the need for having a storage pantry! I will be doing a bit of both, for safety.

Other factors which have bearing on the retreat are:
1. Water. We wanted a creek, and especially if it had hydroelectric possibilities year-round; plus sub-irrigated property, and possibly a spring. Meanwhile, we have purchased a number of water barrels, filled them, and discovered some alternatives to ‘keep’ the water: bleach every 6 months, or other additives which could keep it up to 5 years, or boil it before use, and /or filter it. We bought a water filter system. Wells are acceptable for domestic use, but we still want a dependable surface water source in case the well ran dry. We found information available on property wells on the Internet under ‘well logs’ and the respective state.

[JWR Adds: Finding a property with sub-irrigated pasture is great, as is finding a property with micro-hydro development potential. But finding a parcel with both is a genuine rarity, because land that is sub-irrigated is almost always dead-level, near a stream or river. But for good micro-hydro power, you need a fast-flowing creek or river, with plenty of "fall" that you can exploit. For that, you need hilly property, not "bottom land." So those two goals are almost mutually exclusive, unless you buy a huge parcel that has both features.]

2. Sun. We looked at properties, and in particular, the garden and agricultural spots for solar exposure. This is affected by location such as northern or southern latitude, proximity to trees and hills, sun-angles including winter sun. We also looked into Solar for Solar Power. We found hydro-electric power to be less expensive and more available than solar so we have decided to make hydro a priority on our retreat search.

3. Soils. Self-sufficiency is agricultural based so having access to good soils for crops and livestock is paramount. Soil also needs to drain well for crops and septic systems as well. Meanwhile, our home garden soils have been amended (enriched) with compost and chicken manure and the garden looks like Hawaii, lush, green and prolific! The county ‘extension office’ was able to provide a lot of information about the agriculture in the local area of interest.

4. Elevation. The higher the elevation of the property, the shorter the growing season is. We determined that we preferred properties below 2,400 feet elevation, and although we love Montana, we found that virtually the entire state is above 3,000 feet, and Wyoming is largely over 4,000 feet, Northern Arizona is high elevation too! So, for agriculture, we like parts of Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

5. Population. After fairly extensive scouting of the territory, we found that a lot of the country is fairly densely populated, especially the good agricultural areas! It takes a lot of research, to locate remote properties. We found a useful tool for this research is the Internet, and specifically, Windermere.com (which also has aerial views) and Google Maps (which has terrain view) and MapQuest.com (aerial view). We found that the listing office web site often had additional information and pictures available. The SurvivalBlog provided a link to a great city population comparison tool at Moving.com.

6. Security. There are numerous factors to consider when contemplating retreat security, including in-place home security: the Lay of the land, Visibility, Obstacles, Community, Alert systems, Accessibility, Cache, Population, and Ammunition. Regarding Ammunition, if we need to defend in place in our current home, it would be appropriate to have more shotguns and handguns for the home. Rifle fire in a residential neighborhood is not a good choice. We don’t want bullets flying out through the neighbor’s property. Looking at fields of fire and early warning systems has become a high priority. We remember that it was during the Los Angeles riots that the armed Korean businesses were left alone, passed on by and onto easier targets. Being armed is important!

How does one survive hyperinflation? Research includes Harry Figgie's book Bankruptcy 1995, in which Chapter 8 spells out the history of hyperinflation. I figure that the US didn't go Bankrupt in 1995 because it has been spending Social Security funds for operating capital. Can you spell Ponzi scheme? Other research included the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic 1923, Argentina 2001, and Zimbabwe today. I have obtained an actual 100 Trillion Zimbabwe dollar note, worthless and no longer a currency, as a reminder of where we are headed. The Zimbabwean people have to pan for gold to buy bread. With worthless currency, the population (will that be us?) cannot get paid enough to keep up with the ever increasing costs of things and cannot afford heat, or food.

It is my belief that hyperinflation can be survived primarily through Homesteading and Self-sufficiency and/or inter-dependence in a tight-knit group. Essential Elements for self-sufficiency and which I/we have done include:
1. Canning. With the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, which is about $6 at Wal-Mart, you can ‘can’ almost everything you may want to put up including meat, vegetables, and even condiments and meals! I also discovered Lehman's catalog is indispensable for homesteading tools!
2. Gardening, Green House gardening, Container Gardening, and growing Herbs. This year I have learned about non-hybrid seeds, to grow crops that I can and did save the seeds to grow the same crop next year without having to buy seeds. I also saved seeds from fruits and vegetables eaten and successfully grew and harvested crops this year from them!
3. Dehydrating (vacuum sealing jars and crock-pot meals) http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/media.php These 9 incredible videos are on dehydrating foods and preparing meals, really quickly too.
4. Making bread (wonderful resources are at www.youtube.com and www.cook.com and many more.)
5. Making cheese (with friends)
6. Spinning wool (with friends)
7. Food storage long-term, Poly buckets, Mylar bags
8. Inventory management (FIFO) Pantry rotation
9. Cooking out of the pantry (www.backwoodshome.com) "Store what you eat and eat what you store!"
10. How to make stuff from scratch (baking powder, toothpaste, shampoo, dinner Not in a Box, beer, soda, root beer, ice cream, yogurt, cheese, butter, soaps, sew, automotive repair/rebuild, and much much more…)
11. Water. Water barrels and RV water system. Roof is ample for rain collection and plan on the above ground swimming pool for a holding tank.
12. Power. Our new China Diesel generator from India is nearly finished (teardown/rebuilt). It should run for 30 years. Long term fuel supplies will be a ongoing need.
13. Refuse/Garbage/Recycle … by canning and making from scratch, we have virtually eliminated ‘trash’. Leftovers get reused and consumed in casseroles, stews or other dishes and / or fed to the dog. Vegetable remnants go to the compost. Yard and trees waste get run through our shredder and put into the compost pile for our garden. We run two compost piles year-round.
13. Livestock. Currently in town, we are planning on chickens, rabbits, plus bees. We are fortunate enough to have an acre. If we are to make it on only an acre, we may have to barter for livestock feed because we may not have enough land to grow it. We can at a minimum raise rabbits for meat. We have city friends which have raised chickens, rabbits, bees, and sheep successfully for years. We look forward to a remote retreat where we will have more options for livestock.

How do we survive a melt-down crisis?
We decided that we wanted to provide for at least a year of reserves. We came to that conclusion calculating that our food supplies would need to carry us until we got the garden harvested in the year following the collapse; and, time to acquire and raise livestock (hopefully we would have chickens, rabbits and goats at a minimum before meltdown; but, if not, we have alternative foods stored for a minimum of a year!) We determined that there are several ways to achieve this goal depending upon timeframe, time you have to do it yourself, and money. First you have to determine what you need and how much. This can be quite involved depending upon your approach. Then your options are: Meals-Ready-to Eat (MREs), packaged foods such as Mountain House or Alpine Air which are either freeze-dried or dehydrated and you just add water, or you do it yourself, which gives you some flexibility and more important ‘repeatability’, but is very time consuming, and that is important if you think there is not much time left. You may want to ‘acquire’ a year’s supply of food package, and then learn ‘how to’ as you go. We found poly-buckets free at Costco Bakery, and for a nominal cost at Nalley's. Yes, they smelled of icing or pickles, but washed up fine and are food grade. With Mylar bags and CO2 from the local welding shop, we put up food stores readily.

In addition to food, we wanted a year’s store of normal shopping of household supplies: toilet paper, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, (handkerchiefs instead of Kleenex tissues), (towels instead of paper towels), laundry soap, bar soap, shampoo (sure we could make it, but we’d need “fat” and “hardwood ashes” to make it ourselves), medical supplies for general medicinal and also for emergencies: bleeding, dental, disease / quarantine supplies (masks, gloves, antiseptics), etc. We also anticipate that the banking system will not be available, i.e. there will be no operational ATMs, no open Teller Windows, and credit cards will be declined/inoperable. We set aside an amount of “cash”, today’s currency, for our crisis operating capital, and some in silver. We liquidated some IRAs to obtain the assets now. To us, these assets are better now to get prepared and are better than having more, but worthless currency in the future. The saying, a bird in hand is better than two in the bush, comes to mind. We have researched the metals markets and deemed them manipulated but with lots of upside (see Ted Butler's commentaries). We feel that one of the best investments is agricultural real estate.

We are debt free and hope to stay that way. We own our own home free and clear. This is not to brag or make someone feel bad, but rather to motivate you to wonder how. It is by not being a ‘consumer’, but by being balanced and frugal, buying what we needed, foregoing vacations, doing without ‘designer labeled jeans’, without landscaping, however we did invest in having a dump truck load of dirt dropped in the backyard for the garden since all we had was rocks for soil. We have several original household appliances and fixed them when they broke instead of getting new ones. We buy good used cars, maintain them well and keep them for years as long as they meet our needs.

I believe that there is a game of keep-away when it comes to how to get and stay ahead financially. The banks and others profit more by people remaining ‘consumers’ and participating as a throw-away society. Massive disinformation exists to misdirect and profit from the populace efforts. A lot of wealth for others is made and maintained by keeping the populace misinformed about financial tools, how they work and what they are used for correctly. However, ‘financial tools’ (CDs, Stocks, Insurance, Loans) are exactly that, “tools”! Tools can be an incredible resource and can help us build monuments, or can be deadly weapons that can destroy us.

Financial success starts with you. Identify your ‘needs’. Spend to meet your needs, not to ‘save’ on an on-sale item that you truly didn’t ‘need’. Shop wisely. Will second-hand merchandise meet your needs; can the item be repaired, etc.? Take care of your things and you don’t have to replace them so often.

You need to shop and learn about financial tools to meet your goals. The first is the placement of your savings (short-term, mid-term, long-term). There are numerous options with a few listed below.

Banks ‘are not your friends’! They are a ‘Tool’! They are a place to situate your short-term cash--your working capital that is used to pay bills.

Loanership dollars where you loan your money for a rate of return to you (interest): Banks (CDs), Money Markets, Insurance Companies (annuities), Corporate (Bonds), Municipal (Bonds), and Government (Bonds).

Ownership dollars where you invest your money and accept ownership risks (of loss or gain):
Stocks (owning a fractional interest in a company), real estate (your home, other real estate), Partnerships (business enterprise, etc.), and Precious Metals.

Insurance is a “Tool”! You need insurance to cover the calamity expense/risk(s) which you cannot afford, only! Often, you are not informed that your premium would be much lower if you accepted a higher deductible. It might be inconvenient to have to pay $1,000 if your car was wrecked or your home damaged, or a major medical claim, but the insurance would cover a catastrophic loss!

A home loan is a tool too. The structure of a loan is important, fixed or variable. Variable contains a ‘gamble’ element. Unless it is stipulated otherwise, most home loans can be prepaid, or accelerated. You have the ability to pay an extra amount above the mortgage payment. This extra amount can be applied towards principal, which you need to specifically specify ‘apply to principal’! Pre-paying a mortgage, especially in the early years of a loan is one of the greatest savings rates a person can achieve!

We actually paid our 30 year mortgage off in about 12 years. Admittedly, our friends drove newer cars, went on vacations, have better furniture, prettier lawns, fancier clothes, and went out to dinner and the movies more than we did. However, we are debt free. Yes, we are still worried about tight finances and the world situation, but our current position is a lot less stressful than being loaded with lots of debt. It can be done, with sacrifices!

It is an imperative for Americans to educate themselves, to not trust the system. Find out about things. Get inquisitive and broaden your horizons. This year I have eaten cooked nettles. Yes, it was very good. It was similar to spinach and no nettle burn! I had Yak meat at a local restaurant and now want to pursue having Yaks for livestock. Learn new things and hard skills. Become creative and inventive; how else can it be done? Become flexible, find alternative ways of getting things done, adapt!

We have a small group of friends with whom we meet regularly, try new projects and explore ideas. Our daily ‘walks’ have helped us meet our neighbors. Our friends suggested that we hold a ‘Meltdown Neighborhood Tea Party’ Potluck get-together. That sounds like a good idea to meet our kind of people. I believe we can do anything we put our minds to, especially if we work together.

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Saturday August 29 2009

Real-Life Inspiration for Preparedness, by K.P.

Background Information:

My interest in preparedness started in earnest really just a few months ago.  Before that, I had been an avid backpacker, rock climber, and other sports which require self-sufficiency and forethought.  I am also a Red Cross volunteer.  I was at hurricane Wilma, and I have done local search and rescue, amongst other things.  This February I was dispatched to the south-western region of Kentucky for the Ice Storms.  What I learned there changed me in a lot of ways.

I was aware of the pending economic collapse, but hadn't really thought of practical things to do until then.  As a pre-1840s Re-enactor, I was pretty sure I could comfortably live in a pre-industrial setting.  A little hubris, maybe, but at 23 sometimes that goes with the territory.

While we drove into Kentucky, parts of it looked like a war-zone.  Downed trees and power lines, roofs collapsed, the whole deal.  It was a long drive, and it really set in for us how serious this was.  People's lives were on the line. 

There were three FEMA gas depots throughout the State, but FEMA did next to nothing to help here.  Without electricity, the pumps at the gas station will not work.  Some place had hooked up diesel generators to power the pumps if they could, and very few business that were still open would accept anything but cash. 

When we arrived in the small town to which we had been dispatched, we found that the Red Cross volunteers at the shelter had not slept for any normal amount of time in close to 8 days.  At the height of the storms our shelter slept 150 people.

We gave the local volunteers a needed break, and worked 20-hour days.  It was rough; but anyone who has been in that situation knows it can very rewarding as well.  We served 800 hot meals a day, gave out pallets upon pallets of MREs and uncounted bottles of water.

The grid-water had been contaminated, so bottled water was really all the people could drink or wash with if they didn't have a very, very deep well, even then they were on a boil-alert.  If your house did not have a wood burning stove, then you were sleeping with us.  All together the power and gas were out, in some places, for more than 20 days.

That's the background and the quick version of events which eventually led to my interest in this area.

On to the practical details that I learned.  First and most important was this:  when the trucking lines break down, within two or perhaps three days, every store will be sold out of all dry food.  That means, that if you don't have at least two weeks worth of food stored up, you'll be visiting me at the Shelter.

We slept (at out busiest day) 150 people in the shelter. No electricity, no gas, no water.  We're talking serious survival kind of situations.  In talking with the people there, excluding the elderly, the main reason people could not stay in their homes was heat.  If you had a wood burning stove, you were basically fine.  You could get by. 

FEMA had  a recording when you called them, that gave the residents the Red Cross local number.  They did such unhelpful things as tell people we were giving our generators, gasoline, and kerosene.  Things that to my knowledge the RC has never done, and we were not doing.  FEMA had fliers telling people the could free food if they needed it.  Supposedly they actually gave out about 1000 meals, but after that they referred people to us.

Lesson learned here: Do not, under any condition, assume FEMA or any other government agency will help you.  Help yourself, and help your neighbors.

When I got back from Kentucky, I started to put the things I had seen in order.  I started to mentally make lists of the things I would need when this situation came to my neck of the woods.  I did not want to be in the shelter when (not if) something happened near me.

The main reason I saw in this specific situation was heat.  So I planned on picking up at least two working wood burners.  Then came water, then came food, and in a long-term scenario: barter.

Heat:

My house has a fireplace, and although that is not very efficient, in a pinch it would do until I can find the kind of stoves I really want.  So I moved on to next item.

Water:

Water was pretty easy.  I have a couple of streams on my property, and I can collect rain water.  Some friends and I built a gravity-fed purification system.  We modified two used beer kegs that we bought very cheap to hold water on top and bottom.  We connected them with a 4 foot long stainless steel pipe with a very fine metal mesh at the bottom and  filled with activated charcoal.  When the water is first put through a matrix of gravel and varying degrees of fine sand, then through this system, you get very, very pure water.  We believe it to be near laboratory-grade water.  In fact, this system is just a scaled up version of a purifier at out local pharmaceutical company.

The benefit of using kegs is two-fold.  First, they are readily available almost anywhere, and two they are stainless steel.  I suppose you could also pretty easily convert this into a still if you so desired, for barter or producing barter-goods.

I have been working on something called an Archimedes' Screw to help move the water.  It is basically a screw inside a cylinder.  When a mechanical force is applied to the screw to turn it, either by hand, modified bicycle, or wind turbine, the screw pulls water up the cylinder, from a low place to a high place.  This is not finished yet, so I cannot give it 100% clearance, but the theory seems sound.

Food: 

Food takes a bit longer.  I started by ordering some 6-gallon mylar bags and  a couple packages of 500cc oxygen absorbers.  I went to the local Big Box store, the kind that has a bakery inside, and asked if I could have their used 5-gallon buckets with lids.  They were happy to help; and they were free.  I cleaned them by alternating a bleach wash, a salt wash, and a vinegar with lemon juice wash.  That got all of the icing smell out of the buckets.  That step was more my OCD then a necessity, since the mylar will keep anything from being contaminated.  Although I thought this might reduce the likely hood of insects poking around my buckets...

Place a mylar bag in a 5-gallon bucket.  You want 6-gallon bags so you can press all the air, and seal the very end.  This allows you to re-use the bags several times.  Fill the bag with about 5 gallons of rice, beans, powdered milk, lentils, noodles, red winter wheat... whatever you are storing.  Seal about 9/10's of the bag with a clothes iron being sure to leave room for your O2 absorbers to fit though; I like to make a two-inch seal.  Grab the bag and lift it and shake it a bit to allow the contents to settle some, pressing the air up towards your seal. 

You'll want to do several of these at once, because as soon as you open the O2 absorbers, they start working.  I put the unused one in a zip-lock bag which I suck all the air out as I seal it.  I also put in the tester pellet that comes with the absorbers so I know if they are good or not.

So let's say you are putting up five buckets.  Each bucket gets ~2000cc worth of O2 absorbers.  If you bought 500cc packs, that would be four per bucket for a total number of 20.  Feel free to err on the side of caution here, if you are using some stored in the zip lock bags.  The extra costs of the materials is drastically outweighed by the value of the stored food.  If I have had the O2 absorbers exposed to air more than once, I toss in an extra one, more than twice, I toss in two extra, and I have never had any done more than that.

You want all your buckets prepped for final sealing before you open your O2 absorbers, for obvious reasons.  I usually ask for a hand with this next stage to allow me to move as quickly as possible with as little exposure to general environmental air for the absorbers.

So, toss in your 4 absorbers, press out as much of the air as you can, and finish off the seal.  I like to make my seals 2 inches thick, and again I use a clothes iron.  I use a large dictionary with a wooden cutting board on top to make this seal.  Snap down the lid of the bucket. 

The bucket is necessary to protect the mylar.  Although the mylar bags are strong in the sense that they can bear a lot of weight, pressure, or vacuum, they are highly susceptible to puncture.

Once all your buckets contain O2 absorbers and are sealed with lids on, take clear packing tape and put a long strip on the lid.  I write the date I packed the bucket, the approximate storage life, the contents, and the weight/volume.  I stack the buckets off the ground three-high.

Keep in mind that every dollar you spend here is worth many multiples of that in the future.  Even if we are all wrong on the possibility of Schumeresque Scenarios, think of the money you will save just because of inflation.

Now, speaking of money. If you spend $20 for 50 pounds of rice today, and three years from now, you could sell it for $100; if you did not do your storage well, you're out $100 plus the cost of storage materials, not $20.  So make sure that you do it carefully.  You can also rotate out and in new stock.

Bartering:

No one (or at least not me) has the resources/time/etc to put into long-term storage everything they need for the rest of their lives.  Eventually bullets and beans run out.  So, you will need something to trade. 

I like [non-numismatic pre-1965] junk silver, and one-ounce silver coins/bars.  In my mind, these would work for direct bartering: things like mason jars, food, animals, ammunition, whatever.  Flea markets are a great place to pick up small amounts of junk silver if your budget does not allow for larger purchases, like $500 or $1,000 face-value bags.

If we find ourselves in a prolonged period of hyperinflation like the Former Yugoslavia experienced (more on this later), then we might want to hedge our bets.  You could buy a few 10-ounce silver bars, with the intent to sell them for the hyper-inflated currency before the bottom drops out to purchase needed items.  Just a thought.

One could lay up, mason jars, paraffin, salt, sugar, alcohol, tobacco; lots of things for barter.  There is also the good old stand-by, ammunition.  My concern with ammo for barter, is that you might not know what that ammo is going to be used for, nor know for sure it will not be used against you or someone else.  I do see the incredible versatility and all the good reasons for an ammo-based barter system.  So do what you like.

The other event that really sent a lot of this home for me was a 6-week stay in Serbia.  Listening to stories about how people would smuggle in gas during the embargo, buy any solid good while the money was worth something, and generally do everything they could to survive really had an effect on me.  At the height of the crisis, they had 37% inflation per day culminating in the issue of the 500 billion Dinar note.  This was of course fifteen to twenty years ago, but the scars are still visible.  Belgrade did not demolish or clean up any of the damage done during the 1999 NATO bombing.  The Serbs see that every day. 

There is a quote I like, that many of you may know that I feel is appropriate here:

"History has shown us that government leaders often ignore the fundamental fact that people demand both dignity and freedom. Stripping motivated people of their dignity and rubbing their noses in it is a very bad idea." - John Ross, Unintended Consequences [JWR Adds: This otherwise excellent novel was marred by some vulgarity and gratuitous sex scenes. Beware!]

Back to the practicals...
People stocked up on silver, charcoal, wood burning stoves, anything that could be a store a value and increase their chances of survival.  Another interesting happening was the use of checks.  Checks in Serbia and the Former Yugoslavia are all printed with a maximum amount.  Usually 5,000 Dinars, (about $70 in today's Dinar/ Dollar exchange rate).  So, if you had a business, you are issued a certain number of checks each month.  What happened during the crisis is interesting.  The checks were spontaneously monetized. 

Here is and example of what I mean.  I write a check for 5,000 Dinars, but I don't address it to you.  You give me the goods for the check.  Then, instead of cashing the check at the bank, you give it to someone else for your needs.  This usually went on, especially in very small towns for up to four months before my account was drawn for the amount.

This also had the benefit of me being able to write a check I might not have had the money to back it right away, so it was like credit for me, and cash for you.  This doesn't happen anymore in Serbia, by the way. 

Although I imagine I'm preaching to the choir, I know from my own experiences that it's easy to get down, and disheartened.  But don't fret.  Get to work, lay in your stores, and every day do at least one practical thing that increases your and your family's chance of survival. Keep your powder dry.- KP

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Friday August 28 2009

Two Letters Re: A Method for Storing Fresh Eggs up to Two Years

Jim,
Thank you for the great information you share. I read the post about storing eggs with a Vaseline coating and have a couple of questions.

Do they have to be stored on a refrigerated shelf?
Does this work with store bought eggs? My guess is this only works for fresh eggs and I don't have a chicken....yet.

Thank you. - Angela S.

Jim,
First, I want to wish you and yours all the best. Thank you for this site, friends and I have been learning from your site for about a year now. It has continually supplied us with information to work from and discuss.

However, I do have some additional information to add to the letter "A Method for Storing Fresh Eggs for up to Two Years". I had done some research on the subject and earlier in the year, and found quite a bit of information on the subject, however, one study in particular I read and researched seemed to carry the most weight with me. I have not tried all their methods, so I cannot state that their process or conclusions where correct, however, I have included the link for all to read the study and take their own conclusions from it.

I understand that this article from The Mother Earth News is dated, but the methods seemed sound. If I am missing something, or if another test by a more reputable source can be found, I would be most interested in reading the results.

Below, I have included the conclusions from the test:

At the end of seven months (all of our experiment that was finished and processed at the time this issue went to press), then, we had drawn these conclusions about our egg preservation experiment:

[1] Unwashed, fertile homestead eggs seem to store much better than washed, unfertile agribiz eggs. Why? Probably for the simple reason that they're unwashed ... and not because they're fertile. Hen fruit, as it comes from the chicken, is coated with a light layer of a natural sealing agent called "bloom". And, while a good wash may make a batch of eggs look more attractive, it also removes this natural protective coating ... leaving the eggs more subject to aging and attack by the air and bacteria in the air.

[2] The very best way we've found to stash eggs away for long-term storage is in a sealed container at a temperature of 35° to 40°F. Their whites may become somewhat runny looking over a period of time, but even after seven months—the cackleberries stored in this manner smell good, taste good, have a good texture, and—in short—seem "almost fresh".

[3] The widely touted idea of covering eggs with a solution of one part waterglass (sodium silicate) mixed with nine parts of boiled and cooled water does indeed seem to work better than any other "room temperature" preservation method we tried. If our experiences are any indication, though, it's really good for only about five months and is a distant second to controlled refrigeration.

Another point: As good as some eggs kept in waterglass were, almost every batch we opened seemed to contain one real stinker. Which makes it a superior idea to open any waterglassed egg (or any egg, for that matter) separately into a cup ... where it may be inspected before pouring it into a skillet, pan, or dish with other food.

[4] Unwashed, fertile eggs submerged in a solution of 16 parts water/2 parts lime/1 part salt, packed in lard, and coated with lard seem to keep at room temperature almost as well as unwashed fertile eggs that have been given the waterglass treatment. Washed, unfertile eggs do not.

[5] Unwashed, fertile eggs packed in dry sand or coated with vaseline and stored at room temperature keep a little longer-but not much-than unwashed fertile eggs that are just left lying out at room temperature. Washed, unfertile eggs exhibit the same characteristics ... with all storage times running a few days less across the board.

[6] Forget packing any kind of eggs in wet sand or sawdust! Our tests show that such methods of "preservation" can turn eggs rotten within a month and are worse than doing nothing at all to the hen fruit.

Regards, - Jeff D.

JWR Replies: Thanks for that valuable addenda to Brenda L.'s post.

In answer to Angela's question: The storage methods described are intended fro "low room temperature" (namely, the coolest room in your house). Just avoid getting them below freezing. A refrigerator will extend the storage life considerably.

The methods described will work for store bought eggs, but not as well as for fresh barnyard eggs, for two reasons:

1.) Store bought eggs have been washed

and,

2.) Store bought eggs tend to have a thinner shells. (There must be some quite elderly hens out there!)

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Thursday August 27 2009

Letter Re: A Method for Storing Fresh Eggs up to Two Years

Mister Rawles,
You can store eggs on the shelf for two years with this simple process:

1.When you gather your eggs simply wipe them off with a dry rags to remove anything stuck on the egg. Do not wash them!

2. Get a partner to help with this next step. Cover the palms of your hands with Vaseline Petroleum Jelly. Cover each egg evenly with a thin layer of Vaseline. (This prevents air from entering the shell). Have your partner place the now very slippery egg into a Styrofoam carton. If using cardboard cartons, then line them with plastic wrap first. This prevents the Vaseline from being absorbed into the cardboard.

3. Eggs will store with this method for up to two years. If in doubt about whether or not they are usable simply place them in a bowl of water. If they float then they are no good.But if they stay on the bottom, then they are usable. [JWR Adds: In addition to the aforementioned float test, when cracking stored eggs, it is best to do so one at a time, giving each a sniff test before dumping them into a scrambling pan or recipe mix. BTW, here at the ranch, we do the same for eggs from our hen house, for the off chance that an egg has gone undetected for an extended period of time before being collected.]

4. When ready to use, put a little soap on your hands to remove the Vaseline, rinse, and immediately use the eggs.

I have been doing this for several years. Besides, what good is food storage if you can't have a good Toll House cookie now and again? - Brenda L.

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Wednesday August 26 2009

Basic Survival Skills for Children, by M.L.

Children play a part in many of our lives. Protecting them becomes an important issue in daily life as well as in an end of the world as you know it moment. However, what happens when adults can’t be there to protect them? What happens when they may need to protect us?
           
Our government and even many schools across the country, as well as parents and other adults, often do not see the potential in children. I am not talking about the educated potential one might find in the youth of a suburban school, but the potential to rise to the occasion when it is necessary to help themselves or their families.
           
The key to survival is knowledge. What you do with that knowledge and how you apply it at the right moment determines if you survive or not. Why can’t our children have the same knowledge?
           
We have many threats facing our world. Swine Flu or even other pandemics have been brought to the fore front this year. The WHO. is telling the world to expect an explosion of H1N1 cases. What happens if you and your spouse get Swine Flu? Who will take care of your children? Your sick neighbors? Your aging grandparents whom live three states away? Give your children the knowledge to take care of themselves and their families.
           
The following are some ideas on how to engage your children in survival learning (please gauge these ideas on the maturity levels of your own children):

  • Cooking ~ Sit down and plan out a list of easy foods to cook with the least amount of required steps. Make sure you include some easy recipes for items in your food storage pantry. Most children can begin to learn to cook around age 8, provided you explain the dangers in the kitchen and teach them how to properly use the range, oven, sharp knives, etc. Many libraries and booksellers, as well as the internet, offer cooking books or recipes geared towards children. Cook through the recipes with your child, but try to be as hands off as possible, while teaching them proper techniques.
  • Chores ~ Again, start out slowly, but instill an understanding in your children they can and are able to do most any chores in the home. By age 5, most children can at least do the simplest of chores like folding laundry, dusting, and putting away silverware. Give your children a responsibility and work along side them at first. Add laundry and yard work for older children. Again, teaching the safety protocols for certain items. When it comes to cleaning with chemicals, use alternatives made from natural ingredients. Label bottles and provide instructions. However, even children should not use certain chemicals and you should exercise caution.
  • Pets ~ Children always want pets. Make them responsible for those pets. Teach them how to bathe and groom Fido. Show them how to properly and safely remove ticks. Have your child learn the commands to control your dog as well. Let your child clean out the gerbil cage or feed the fish. All these things teach children how to be more responsible.
  • Protection ~ Enroll your child into a Mixed Martial Arts program or a boxing class with the understanding this is not for beating up little brother but to protect his/her self from others whom might want to harm him/her. For older children, teach gun safety. Show them your weapons, take them to the firing range, and let them understand what it feels like to shoot your P22 or your 12 gauge. Let them practice at shooting targets as well as clays. Take them hunting if you can. And if you have a bow set-up teach them how to shoot arrows as well. By properly teaching gun safety, archery, and self defense your child would be well prepared to defend themselves or to hunt for food.
  • Bartering ~ As odd as it may sound, take your child to garage sales or flea markets. Any age can do this. Make them use their good manners when approaching the seller to barter or haggle over prices. Teach them about good deals and help them to find things that may be useful at a later time.
  • First Aid ~ Children as young as five years old can put a band aid on a wound. Get a first aid manual and teach your children the proper way to care for cuts, scrapes, and other wounds. Let them know what alcohol and peroxide are used for as well as other medical topicals. Show them the difference between when to use a large butterfly bandage or gauze and tape. Teach them the proper way to take someone’s temperature. Explain when professionals should be called in to help or if you are in a situation where there are no professionals available what should be done. If you have a child that gets woozy at the sight of blood help them to get over their fear as best as possible or make sure that particular child has a different responsibility.

While many of the aforementioned tasks may sound obvious for all parents or care-givers, it always helps to remember your children can accomplish many tasks as long as they are given the chance to try. There are a variety of adult survival activities that you can tailor towards your children. Teach your child about your own family op-sec and basic safety when it comes to dealing with strangers. Above all, always remember to stress safety when teaching your children.

Give them a chance to hone their skills by taking them camping. Allow them to start the campfire (with parental guidance), cook the camp dinner, pitch the tent, etc. Get “lost” in the woods and have them bring you back to camp using a compass and map. Then later, have them look for a cache using your GPS. Teach them about the animal tracks your family sees and what animal crossing look like. In the evening, teach them the major constellations and how they can use those for direction as well.

I personally recommend the book The Boy's Book of Outdoor Survival by Chris McNab. Although it is titled "for boys" and has pictures of boys in the book, I think it is highly appropriate for girls as well. Every child should know how to take care of themselves in survival situations.

If you can help your children and give them the knowledge to help themselves and others, even at a young age, you will enable them to be more responsible for themselves for the rest of their lives. As a parent, you are responsible for teaching your children.

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Tuesday August 25 2009

Inventory Control for Retreat Logistics, by Rob C.

There is often a good deal of attention paid to the accumulation, storage and usage of critical supplies performed in the process of preparation, but one thing I rarely see discussed is proper management of your carefully gathered inventory before, during or after a critical event comes into being. 

It's important to consider viewing your family or team as a quasi business entity and recognize that one of the top cited reasons for small business failure is poor inventory management.  Inventory issues can cause nightmarish headaches for any business, and the consequences for your family will only be magnified if you do not begin to view you group, and their supplies, as important assets that necessitate careful management.

Throughout the article I'll refer to the inventory concepts using canned food as examples, but the procedures could be applied to anything you stock: from ammunition, to clothes, to cleaning supplies. 

First in, first out (FIFO) rotation of inventor should be used.  Generally you want to apply this concept to your food storage and consume the items you acquire first as soon as possible. It makes sense to mark dates on cans when you acquire the food, but do you relish the idea of staring at a huge shelf or bin of cans, buckets or jars and trying to determine which one to consume first?  The following control systems can make life much easier:

1) Split your items into color dated 'blocks'. 
For example, if you have canned goods you plan on consuming over the course of the coming year, mark six months worth of the oldest cans with a green marker and then mark the rest of your cans with a red marker.  Items carrying the green mark get first used. 

This will create a quick and easy visual trigger every time you dip into your inventory.  When you begin to break into your red inventory, it's time to pull up another six months worth of cans and mark those with your green marker.  A note or sign indicating which color is currently being consumed should be posted near by so all members who have the ability to draw on your resources are sure to take the proper goods. A bit of time spent once a month saves countless hours digging through supplies looking for the oldest items to consume first. 

2) Implement a simplified Kanban-esque system.
This is a process where a small amount of stock is kept on hand and is replaced as it nears depletion.  This process is mostly beneficial for helping you consume and replace inventory prior to a critical event. 

    - Have a portion of your supplies in a convenient location to the kitchen (again, ideally using the oldest first) and attach a small card to the last item of the 'lot' which lists the good being consumed, and the quantity that needs be replaced from your long term storage. 

    - When you reach the last item that has the card attached, you need to replenish your on hand stock with inventory from the long term location. The card should be placed in a re-order folder to ensure that your long-term storage has been re-supplied for the same amount you just pulled into normal, day-to-day usage. 

    - Upon re-supply, the card is attached once again to the last item of the lot and the process repeated, as needed, ensuring your replenishment process is accurate, timely and efficient. 

At a glance, you can look in your order folder and determine how much and what you need to be on the look out for in order to restore your long-term inventory to its pre-determined levels.  In this manner, you only re-order what you've used, and you ensure you're constantly rotating inventory to reduce the risk of spoilage.

As a quick example: you use one can of beans a day, keeping seven in your kitchen cabinet.  In your pantry you toss a card under can #7 that simply reads: Beans: 7.  When you get to the can of beans that sit atop this card, retrieve seven more from your storage and place the tracking card in your re-supply location.  At any time a review of this location would tell you every consumed item you need to replace for your long-term location.

3) Security and control. 
Ideally your inventory would be kept behind a gated barrier. While you'd like to assume that friends, family and your team would not stoop to theft, you never know what circumstances you may find yourself in that provides an exposure to your resources you never intended others to have.  In addition to the possibility of theft, you run the risk of children or others who are normally used to grabbing a snack whenever they like simply helping themselves, not through an act of maliciousness, but simply not realizing how the situation has changed.  To prevent this accidental (or otherwise) over consumption of supplies you should store inventory in a location not commonly accessed.  Keep your daily and generally consumed inventory readily accessible in a kitchen pantry, keep your long term supplies in a separate, locked facility.  This can be something as simple as a basement door where the knob has been replaced with a device that locks from the outside. 

I can't stress this point enough: The more casually you allow people to treat your long-term inventory, the more your errors will multiply. 

4) Visual inspection and count. 
How can your trade or use what you don't know you have?  You should conduct a full inventory count inventory twice a year.  Material should be counted and a general visual inspection conducted in order to identify any items or containers that might have visible damage.  If a container has become damaged, you may want to accelerate its usage or consider trading it to avoid wasting the contents inside.  If you identify a large container of goods early on that has become damaged that you have no hope of repairing or re-sealing, early detection will allow you to trade this off while it still holds some intrinsic value.  If you had waited a year and only discovered it when the decay was too far advanced, you could be forced to take an unsavory loss.  Value considerations aside, it's important to know what you believe you have is actually usable.  If you're depending on supply XXX and upon time of usage you discover it's a waste, not only do you find yourself at a loss for whatever you paid or traded for the item, you may now be short a critically important item. 

If you have a large group of people and supplies, you may want to increase this twice a year count to once a quarter. It's crucial you identify errors or missing items early only to keep small issues from snowballing to huge ones.  Quantity and quality inspections should have a primary counter and a second person verifying accuracy.

5) Record keeping. 
I'd suggest use computers while you can but print your records out, every time, so you have a hard copy.  A simple spreadsheet will do to start and if you don't have access to Microsoft Excel, you can utilize Google Docs to get started.  Your inventory records should include the item, the quantity, the date acquired and the use by date if applicable. 

This data allows you to track over time what you're using, and how often, and allows you to better prepare for not only your requirements, but also to identify what you may have that's not being fully utilized and trade it before you run the risk of spoilage.  When planning your food needs or trade possibilities, knowing you have 100 cans if item X is good; however, knowing half of those are 1 year past their use date and your consumption has dropped by a third would allow you to keep an eye open for possible barter opportunities in advance.

Try to keep your records in pencil.  Speaking from accounting experience, it's much easier to correct a mistake in pencil that it is in ink.  With a pen, over time, your records simply get sloppy from crossed out figures and attempted error corrections.

6) Second review on scrap or waste. 
Before any item is trashed or written off as a loss, obtain a second opinion.  One man’s trash is another's treasure and one of your group members may have knowledge of the item that allows you to squeeze the last few drops of value from something before your dispose of it.  Any value you can recover is better than 0.

It’s good to have stuff, be it ammunition, food or barter items. 

It’s better to have a lot of that stuff. 

It’s best to know exactly what you have, and when it’s approaching the end of its life, so you can use it in a timely fashion or trade it to someone who can. The topics above only touch on the very, rudimentary basics of inventory control but it's important to consider proper management of your assets and realize the benefits you can obtain through accurate tracking, control and utilization of your material resources. 

JWR Adds: Keep in mind that cooking oil that has gone rancid is often still quite suitable for stretching your diesel supply. (In effect, formulating your own biodiesel, up to 10 percent, by volume, in hot weather. This is not recommended for cold weather unless you have a fuel tank heater, or a fully-capable biodiesel making system and a vehicle that is rigged with two tanks--one for biodiesel and the other with dinodiesel, that is used when starting up and shutting down your vehicle.) And food that is no longer palatable for humans because of taste issues (rather than rancidity) are often still safe to feed to poultry or swine.

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Monday August 24 2009

Two Letters Re: Canning Your Own Butter

I've made several jars of canned butter using the recipe at the End Times Report web site and they turn out just fine and will keep for three years or more. This is very economical to do. Here is also another resource for purchasing canned butter - but making it is so easy and very good. My prayers go to you and your beloved wife as our Lord and Savior prepares her way into His presence. He holds you both very close in this time. - Pat B. in California

Mr. Rawles:
Now you can purchase canned butter from The Internet Grocer or make it yourself using the directions below. [JWR Adds: Be sure to use the appropriate safety measures including wearing long sleeves, gloves, an apron, and goggles. Boiling hot butter can cause very serious burns. To stay safe, just think of it as napalm.]

1. Use any butter that is on sale. Lesser quality butter requires more shaking (see #5 below), but the results are the same as with the expensive brands.

2. Heat pint jars in a 250 degree oven for 20 minutes, without rings or seals. One pound of butter slightly more than fills one pint jar, so if you melt 11 pounds of butter, heat 12 pint jars. A roasting pan works well for holding the pint jars while in the oven.

3. While the jars are heating, melt butter slowly until it comes to a slow boil. Using a large spatula, stir the bottom of the pot often to keep the butter from scorching. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes at least: a good simmer time will lessen the amount of shaking required (see #5 below). Place the lids in a small pot and bring to a boil, leaving the lids in simmering water until needed.

4. Stirring the melted butter from the bottom to the top with a soup ladle or small pot with a handle, pour the melted butter carefully into heated jars through a canning jar funnel. Leave 3/4" of head space in the jar, which allows room for the shaking process.

5. Carefully wipe off the top of the jars, then get a hot lid from the simmering water, add the lid and ring and tighten securely. Lids will seal as they cool. Once a few lids "ping," shake while the jars are still warm, but cool enough to handle easily, because the butter will separate and become foamy on top and white on the bottom. In a few minutes, shake again, and repeat until the butter retains the same consistency throughout the jar.

6. At this point, while still slightly warm, put the jars into a refrigerator. While cooling and hardening, shake again, and the melted butter will then look like butter and become firm. This final shaking is very important! Check every 5 minutes and give the jars a little shake until they are hardened in the jar! Leave in the refrigerator for an hour.

7. Canned butter should store for three years or longer on a cool, dark shelf. [It does last a long time. We have just used up the last of the butter we canned in 1999, and it was fine after five years.] Canned butter does not "melt" again when opened, so it does not need to be refrigerated upon opening, provided it is used within a reasonable length of time.

Best Regards, - Jane S.

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Tuesday August 18 2009

Letter Re: Comfort and Holiday Foods for Family Food Storage

James,
My prayers and best wishes to you and your family. May the Lord sustain you during these trying times. Regarding "comfort foods", "Momma" makes sure to keep plenty of baking supplies on hand to make "goop"; sweet things with no nutritional value but loaded with morale-boosting ability.

We also have many jars of home-canned preserves, marmalades, chutneys, relishes and other additions to spice up otherwise bland meals. A little bit goes a long way.

I hope this might give some folks an idea to spice up their menus. Thanks, - Crustyrusty

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Monday August 17 2009

Letter Re: Comfort and Holiday Foods for Family Food Storage

Mr. Editor,
I think someone should mention that one part of food storage schemes that is often overlooked is "comfort foods". These are foods that can be used as occasional pick-me-ups that can break up a really monotonous and bland diet, when you are [living] on storage foods. It is also important to be able to celebrate special events, holidays, and big accomplishments, with something more than just a bowl of canned peaches. But my question is: What comfort foods do I store, that store well for years? Thanx, - Clifford D.

JWR Replies: I agree! Part of keeping harmony in a family during trying times is maintaining the ability to cheer folks up. Several of our advertisers sell "comfort" type storage foods, some with remarkably long shelf lives. These include:

Freeze Dry Guy
JRH Enterprises
Ready Made Resources
Safecastle
Best Prices Storable Foods
Healthy Harvest
Milk on the Moove

For example, see the "Dessert Cakes in a Can" offered by Ready Made Resources, and the freeze dried Raspberry Crumble and Blueberry Cheesecake, both sold by Safecastle.

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Thursday August 13 2009

Letter Re: Storage Underground or in Humid Climates

Hi;
[In response to the comment on varnish steel food cans,] I have some experience with long term storage and especially underground storage. Since there aren't any books that I could ever find on this subject, trial and error is how you learn (or maybe you get lucky and the subject is covered on SurvivalBlog!).

Metal cans eventually will rust and especially if in an underground shelter or root cellar. Moisture is always in the air, no matter how well your structure is built. This may not be true if you have the means to have something professionally designed and built, for for everyone else, expect some moisture. Sometimes cans will have a tiny dent in them and the edges of that dent will be weak and rust through right there. So glean out any dented cans, and check them periodically, just because they weren't dented when you bought them does not mean they aren't dented now. If one can rusts through the liquids inside will leak out onto other cans and provide sticky moisture that will rust those next.

The best way we found to store cans is inside food grade buckets or barrels. As long as there is no moisture in that bigger container, you will be safe. But, if you put in a dented can and it springs a leak, then all that moisture will be trapped in your bucket and every can in there is doomed if not found fast. Watch those dents. Buckets are also nice because you can grab the handles and move a bunch of cans fast. If you need to, they can be buried and hidden. If buried the metal handles will rust/rot and be ruined, so after digging them up moving them will then be harder.
Plastic totes are worthless. They are too thin and do not have a waterproof seal. When stacked with anything heavy the ones on the bottom will collapse. We stored toilet paper in these and plastic trash cans and ended up with a lot of soggy and worthless toilet paper. No, duct taping the lids on won't avoid this. Don't use totes for anything.

Army surplus medical chests are a gem if you can find them. They split into two [clamshell] sections and will hold a lot of cans (or weapons, gear, etc). They have a big rubber seal to keep them air and water tight. These are great for #10 cans. They are made out of aluminum so they won't rust, but the 4 handles are steel and will rust. If you tar those handles these can be buried for a nice cache. Or you can stack these in a shelter to protect your food or anything. Need to bug out fast? Moving these will be heavy if loaded with food, although not bad for gear, blankets, etc.. These can be moved and dumped into a forest fast. They are OD green so they blend in. There is a scenario in "Patriots" where this would be an obvious advantage. (I don't want to post "spoilers" that would ruin the book for anyone that has not read it yet.)

You can sometimes find large plastic [or fiberglass] crates that are military surplus. These are also [usually] water and air tight, but harder to find. They can be found up to 4'x4'x4' and come in all sizes and shapes. Check these for cracks and splits. Make sure that their rubber gaskets are not torn.

I've had people tell me that they store food in ammo cans. Ammo cans are great for some items, but I would avoid them for food. Some cans have a residue of gun powder [or other chemicals] inside them, and they may have been used by the military to store something else after the ammo was emptied out. A chemical in a can that touches your food or food container and ends up in you could make you sick or worse.

Metal 55 gallon barrels work well, too. Just make sure what used to be in them won't poison you and have them completely cleaned. You want ones with removable lids. They are steel so they may rust after a long time.

Watch for mice and rats, they will wiggle into any shelter you can build. They will chew up all kinds of supplies and may chew through plastic containers. I've never had them chew through buckets or barrels, but they have chewed through plastic totes. Metal medical chests will stop them.

We had metal cans of lantern fuel stored and after about 10 years every can developed a tiny pin hole somewhere. The result was once that pin hole developed, the fuel evaporated out. So while the cans looked fine, some were 1/2 full. No odors from the fuel to warn us.

Batteries should never be left installed in the item you need them for. If they get too old they will leak acid and can destroy a critically needed item. I would store batteries in a way so that if one leaks it won't contaminate all the others. You can try zip lock bags to separate a dozen or so.

If you are considering storing fuel to cook or for heat, consider coal. All oil-based fuels will eventually go bad. Wood rots after awhile (I'm talking long term here), so you can't cut a 10 year supply and have it last. Chainsaws make noise that may attract people and require gas and oil. A chainsaw cut to can be deadly or at a minimum it will take some medical care. But coal is basically a rock. It doesn't go bad, evaporate or require a noisy dangerous saw to produce it. [JWR Adds: But coal should be stored out of the rain to prevent deterioration.] You can buy wood/coal cook stoves and heat stoves from Lehman's in Kidron, Ohio. (They also stock spare parts and know about what they sell so they can answer questions) You can buy as much coal as you can afford and stockpile it. If you want to hide it you could dig a trench, fill it in with coal and bury it. If it's fine sized you might want to line that trench, but if the pieces are big you might not need to. Or you can fill big culvert pipes. Use your imagination.

If you are burying containers you will want to defeat metal detectors. It isn't practical to dig to China with a backhoe to go real deep, someday you want to dig that back up, and then you might only have a rock to scrape the dirt. So your cache may be found unless you can fool the detector. Consider burying your cache in a junk area full of scrap metal. A few junk cars with old pipes, barrels, anything strewn about will help. Bury some metal around as well. Nothing obvious, just a few pieces of junk to discourage people from looking any deeper. Stacks of old pallets, lumber, all kinds of junk can make a good junk pile as a distraction. You could even stash some old tools [hidden above ground or buried just below the surface] to help dig up your cache!

Hopefully this will help someone and save them spoiled supplies. - Don in Ohio

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Wednesday August 12 2009

Preparedness Beginnings, by "Two Dogs"

I am a retired Marine Corps officer and Naval Aviator (jets and helicopters), commercial airplane and helicopter pilot, and most recently, an aircraft operations manager for a Federal agency.

I graduated from numerous military schools, including the U.S. Army Airborne (“jump”) School, U.S. Navy Divers School, Army helicopter, and Navy advanced jet schools. In addition, I have attended military “survival” courses whose primary focus was generally short-term survival off the land, escape from capture, and recovery from remote areas.  Like most Marine officers, I attended The Basic School, an 8-month school (only five during the Vietnam era – my case), which is still designed to produce a second lieutenant who is trained and motivated to lead a 35-40 man platoon of Marines in combat.  This course covers everything from field sanitation to squad and platoon tactics, artillery and other ordnance delivery, communications, reconnaissance, intelligence, firearms training, and much more.   Later, I attended the Marine Amphibious Warfare School and the Command and Staff College, both follow-on schools and centered upon the academic study of tactics and strategy as they applied to the missions of the Marine Corps.  I flew helicopters offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and across the U.S. I found out first hand how thoroughly corrupted is the federal bureaucracy and the government, in general.  Not a pleasant experience. I’d rather have been flying. I have bachelor's and master's degrees.

As a result, my wife of forty years and I seem to have been moving endlessly from place-to-place.  Nevertheless, I have tried in each place to do what I could to maintain a level of self-sufficiency for my family that varied greatly with locations and personal finances. My intention here is to try to share some of the less-than-perfect ways that I have tried to accomplish that end. 

Only in the last few years, primarily as a result of the political and fiscal situation in the U.S., have I begun reading some of the huge amounts of literature about how one can prepare for serious long-term off-the-grid survival.  I have found that the preparation required to be ready for that contingency seems to be endless.  I do not want to talk about all of those preparations.  Others have done so very well, and besides, I’m not there, yet.  What I would like to do is to talk to those, perhaps like me, who are not true survivalists in the commonly referred-to sense, but who are genuinely concerned about the future of this country, and might desire, like me, to begin to prepare. Perhaps my elementary and simplistic efforts might be of help to someone else who is beginning to think about the subject of preparedness.  There are many scenarios that might require this, but the two that I am thinking most about are economic collapse and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. I’m building small Faraday boxes, but not doing much else for EMP.

My thinking on begins with my own estimation of the basic problems:  shelter, water, food, fuel, and security.  I view these as the most critical needs, whether living in a tent or other outdoor shelter or here in our rural home in West Virginia. Here I have and often take for granted what I have -- shelter, well water, a small stream, a pond, a rain barrel; canned, dried, frozen, and freeze-dried foods; fuel for the generator and portable stoves, kerosene heater and lanterns; factory-made and reloaded ammunition for any one of several firearms.  Edible plant books. Gardening books. Encyclopedia of Country Living-type books. Reloading books. Hunting books. Tracking books. A few novels devoted to the “what ifs” of the future, including Jim Rawles' excellent "Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse", for example.  Books to fill an entire bookcase.  The Boy Scout Field Book sits right there next to the military survival manuals, as do Tom Brown's Field Guides, the The Foxfire Book series, a canning book, field medical books, and quite a few others.

Those are the basic things about which I think. I have been thinking about them for quite a while, in fact, longer than I even realized.  Perhaps I’ve been thinking about them ever since I was a young lad.   For example, my very first “survival book” was the Boy Scout Field Book, the original of which I still have (circa late-1950s edition). It is still a great reference if one is looking for an all-in-one manual for starting fires, making simple shelters, recognizing game tracks, tying knots, and much more.  I note that it is still available on Amazon.com. (It’s probably been scrubbed to favor the politically correct, but don’t know [JWR Adds: Yes, I can confirm that unfortunately it has been made politically correct--with the traditional woodcraft skills showing any injury to innocent and defenseless trees duly expunged. So I advise searching for pre-1970 editions!] ) One does not necessarily need the SAS Survival Handbook or the U.S. Army survival manual. I have them and have read them. They do cover security problems, but then don’t cover other topics.  Alas, there appear to be no “perfect” manuals, and the Boy Scout Field Book is no exception.  But it’s not a bad beginning. And so I was beginning the journey even before I knew that I was. 

I think that my first education in “survival” came at about fourteen. That’s when I first shot a .30-06, an old [Model 19]03 Springfield. It pretty much rattled my cage.  Mostly, my older brother and I used to track and shoot small animals in the deep woods of Missouri as youngsters.  We were “issued” ten rounds of .22 LR ammo by our father, a retired USAF pilot, to be used in a bolt action, single shot, .22 rifle with open sights.  One would be surprised what that meager handful of loose ammunition could do for one’s choice of shots, one’s ability to be patient in waiting for the shot, and for one’s great satisfaction at having brought home six or eight squirrels for the cooking pot, having used just those ten rounds – and sometimes, but not often, less.  My point is that the knowledge of firearms is, in my view, basic to the notion of preparedness and in surviving in the wild. And it need not be exotic or overly complicated in nature.  One can surely attend modern schools that will teach one to double-tap a cardboard target or silhouette at seven yards with a semi-auto pistol, as well as basic and advanced tactical rifle courses, but very basic survival skill with a rifle can be had without much cost if one is committed to learning the skill and if one disciplines oneself. Start with only one round, and work up from there.  As Col. Jeff Cooper used to say, “Only hits count.”  In a purely off-the-grid survival scenario, I can envision that .22 LR rounds would be very precious, indeed.

Consequently, and even though I own handguns and rifles that will shoot .45 ACP, .44 Magnum/.44 Special, .357 Magnum/.38 Special, .380 ACP, .223, .25-06, .270, 7mm-08, .308, .7.62x39, .30-30, .30-06, and .45-70/.457 WWG Magnum (a wildcat), I shoot a .22 rifle and pistol more than all of the others, combined, and normally at least twice a week. And I’m hoarding them, as well as shooting them.  I have the capability to reload all the calibers (except .22 LR/Magnum, of course) above, as well as shotgun ammo in 12 and 20 gauge. I wasn’t really thinking of “survival” when deciding to do this about twenty years ago, but was interested only in having the capability to shoot more, and to do it more cheaply. Yet it appears that much of that ammo could be used for barter. I had never even considered this until reading some of the recent “survival novels.”

My apologies.  I’ve wandered into the weeds here, as I could do forever on my favorite subject.  Suffice it to say that whatever firearm one chooses – and make no mistake, one is necessary in my opinion -- there are all kinds of reasons to choose one over the other, depending on the situation and the person. One must endeavor to shoot it well. Owning a firearm is of almost no consequence, at all, unless it is properly employed.  Personally, I prefer a M1911 .45 ACP pistol and a 7.62 M1A SOCOM, while my wife is comfortable with the milder .38 [S&W] revolver and 20 gauge. pump shotgun.  I won’t even begin to get into the debate over .223 vs .308 and 9mm vs. .45 ACP.  Suffice it to say that in Vietnam I had the opportunity to see the effects of all of these, and I chose for my own security the .308 and .45 ACP.

Having got my favorite subject out of the way, I’ll talk about one that is likely even more important.  Water.  It is amazing how complicated this can be, and how many choices one has to solve this problem.  I have not yet solved it.  I have put up a rain barrel, and plan to get a couple more.  It’s amazing how rapidly a 55 gallon barrel will fill in even a moderate thunderstorm.  I got mine from Aaron’s Rain Barrels. http://www.ne-design.net/. I’ve camo-painted the first one to make it recede into the bushes that surround it.  

We have a very shallow stream down the hill that I need to dam so that it keeps only about a foot-or-two deep pool for gathering some water. It flows into a large pond, of which we own half (The owner of neighboring property owns the other half.).  But that’s over a hundred-yard trek downhill with empty buckets, and the same distance uphill with full ones.  Now, while that is okay for a backup, in my thinking, because I’m going on 63 years, I prefer to have something closer.  So my next “big” purchase will be a Simple Pump that allows one to drop a pump and pipe though one’s existing well casing down to below water level and extract water by means of a hand pump or DC motor attached to a battery which, in turn, will connect to a solar panel.  This is much, much cheaper than a Solar Jack.  At $1,200 for the hand pump capability (I’ll add on the DC and solar later), it’s a bargain, for me. See: http://www.survivalunlimited.com/deepwellpump.htm.  
I’m not recommending it for anyone, yet, as I haven’t got one. It has plenty of good reviews, and I’m willing to try it.  My apologies, but I am just talking about how I, for one, intend to solve my “water problem.” 

I’ve also started collecting clear plastic soda bottles for use in Solar Disinfection (SODIS), see; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection.  I’ve set up a rack for putting out the bottles in a sunny place.  Again, that’s a backup, but I’ll use it.

I have bought three different water filtering devices, the best of which is the Swiss-made, all-stainless Katadyn Pocket Microfilter.  It works wonders in that shallow stream and pond down the hill.. [JWR Adds: The same Katadyn filter model is available from several SurvivalBlog advertisers. They deserve your patronage first, folks!]

With the exception of the Simple Pump, these solutions are relatively cheap and effective, if not producers of great volume.  So far, they are what I’ve come up with.

I won’t go much into the food problem. It isn’t quite as complicated as the water problem.  I’ve either got to have it [stored], grow it, or kill it.  I’ve started storing all kinds of Mountain House freeze dried #10 cans (with expiration date dates in 2034), two-serving meals from Mountain House (expiration dates circa 2016), and numerous grocery store-type canned foods (expiration a couple years), in addition to dried beans, rice, Bisquick (sealed in plastic bags with desiccant inside), salt, sugar (Domino, which are sold in one-pound plastic tubs), olives, peanuts, wheat, etc.  Basically hit-or-miss, so far.  I need to get this “food problem” organized and do it right.  But it’s a start.  I think we’ve got only about a 60-day supply now, for two.

I’ve got two Coleman two-burner stoves.  One is a butane stove, and the other a dual fuel (white gas or unleaded gas), as well as several small backpacking stoves, the best of which is a MSR Whisperlite International, which uses virtually all fuel (unleaded, white gas, kerosene, diesel, and maybe even corn oil).   I was heavily into backpacking when we were stationed in Hawaii in the late 1970s, and still have all the gear.  After having one knee replacement and hedging doing another, I’ll not be backpacking if I can help it.  Nevertheless, I have two bug-out bags with essentials in them, ready to hit the trail if need be.  I’ve saved up and bought two good Wiggy's bags and a couple of his poncho liners.

Concerning backpacking stuff, I can recommend a book that I read back then called The Complete Walker, by Colin Fletcher. I haven’t read it in at least a decade, but its import is such that I remember much of it.  He emphasizes simplicity in gear.  That is to say, don’t pack a tent if you can get by with a tent fly – which you cannot in cold weather. I’ve still got my old three-season tent, but am saving up for a four-season. And he emphasizes: don’t worry about pounds – worry about ounces.  That is to say, if one is packing tea bags, remove the labels from the bags.  Ounces.  Remove all packaging material unless it is absolutely necessary (usually never). Don’t carry a “mess kit,” nor a knife, fork and spoon set.  A spoon will do (I’ve done it) along with a pocket knife. Now I have so many knives of so many types that I can’t remember them.  Personally, I’d go for a multi-tool.  But it’s heavy.  I never used to carry a weapon while backpacking.  Of course, it was (and is) illegal in Hawaii, but I think one would be remiss in not doing so today.  There was so much good advice in that book that helped me in the USMC, if nothing more than when packing my helicopter before a mission, or a car, trailer, or truck to move across the country.  “Think ounces, not pounds.”  I always think about Mr. Fletcher’s advice when I pack.

Anyway, I think I’ve got the camping stove angle covered in spades.  That is, until the fuel runs out.  Same goes for kerosene heater and lanterns (5).  My plan is to pull out our pellet stove and replace it with a free-standing wood stove.  Pellets are nice, but they must be bought, and the price is getting exorbitant, according to my pocket book.  They likely will be non-existent in a crunch. 

I connected a 12,000 Watt/50amp gasoline generator when we moved into this house nine years ago, as I have with every house in which we’ve lived for the last two decades.  I’ve got it wired through a transfer box to the circuit-breaker panel, a job that I did myself. It works, and it’s safe.  The main reasons for having this were to run the 220V[olt AC] well water pump and to run the refrigerator and our free-standing freezer during power outages.  But I’ve got it wired, anyway, to nearly every circuit in the house, except the other 220V appliances – water heater and heat pump.  It is somewhat selectable. That is to say that I can choose which circuits I want to power by engaging or disengaging the switches on the transfer box.  The problem is that it uses gasoline. So in a long-term outage it would soon become useless.  I’ve had the propane gas company come out to estimate what it would cost to get a dedicated 100 gal propane tank for the generator.  It would be about $500, but then, in addition to the 50+ gallons of gasoline, butane tanks, and white gas that I keep stored in a separate outbuilding, it would make a great explosion when hit with a tracer round.

Which brings me to the subject of security.  We live in a split-level home on about ten acres of forest.  The property is surrounded by other similar-sized properties of seemingly like-minded individuals.  I gleamed this because everyone out here shoots.  The sweet sound of gunfire can be heard at times in a full circle.  West Virginia, at least, has still got its priorities straight in this regard.  But I digress. This is a frame house with half of it below ground in front, but framed in back, which faces the forest.  The forest, itself, is a maze of downed pine trees blown over by the wind, interspersed with small saplings, vines and low brush.  Not a likely avenue of approach for anyone but the most determined.  For those who are determined, the downed trees would make excellent cover and concealment.  So I have a security problem to solve there, as well as at the front. 

I’ve started buying rolls of barbed wire and baling wire.  Unfortunately, I do not have access to dynamite, which we used to be able to buy in a hardware store in the 1960s.  We used it back then to blow stumps while clearing the land for our house.  I am thinking of buying a bunch of used railroad ties to build cover in the back; I’ve thought also of bricks and sandbags.  Problem is we’re reaching the point in all of this where the house would begin to look like a fortress, of sorts, to all but the most ignorant observers.  So there’s a line here concerning security versus “normalcy” that I must cross sooner or later.  Inasmuch as my wife is a few years older than I and is on constant medications, I’m afraid that finding a retreat (if we could even afford one) would be out of the question, as access to doctors, hospital and pharmacy are a necessity. Nevertheless I’ve got the bags packed and gear ready to throw into the pickup (Toyota 4x4 – like to have one of those older model American trucks, but I think they are getting rare, at least around here.  And what there are will likely go to the Cash for Clunkers Program….grumble, grumble. What will they think of next?).

So it looks to me as if we are here for the duration of the crisis, or sooner, if they try to take the guns from my cold, dead hands.  Speaking of, I still have to build a cache or two for guns and ammo and a few other necessities. 

And since I’ve more-or-less made that decision (here for the duration), I’ve thought of organizing the apparently gun-loving neighbors.  I’ve begun to buy walkie-talkies, if not field phones and commo wire.  I’ve got solar panels and several batteries (need to get a mega deep cell or two, however) to run the small battery chargers and the CB radio. My shortwave is up and running.

I will have to wait to talk to the neighbors, whom I rarely see, much less know.  I can just imagine the words that would come out of their mouths if I were to mention to them the notion of forming a security “company” and establishing a perimeter.  “That old retired Marine down the road is nuts!”

So that’s what I’ve got to say.  I do hope it at least stimulates some thought for those who are starting out trying to prepare, as I am.  All of this shows me that one “problem” in this “survival” business leads to several more, and they in turn lead to even more problems.  Lots to do. So I’m glad I’m retired.  I’ve got time to think about it.  If I were rich, I could do a lot more and likely in a far away place, but as it is, we do with what we have.   I have to use the lessons taught to every Marine:  Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.  

Long Live America.  Keep the Faith. - “Two Dogs”, Col. USMCR (ret.) in West Virginia

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Tuesday August 11 2009

Letter Re: The Virtues of Fasting Experience for Well-Rounded Preparedness

Greetings!

I have an idea that I have been wanting the patriot survival community to consider. Here it is:

Basically we are able to go without food for much longer than most people know. This is not true with water to be sure. A normal, reasonably healthy human body is easily capable of going three to six weeks on very, very little nutrition and remain completely mentally alert and even physically active. During a prolonged fast you will not be able to pick up as much furniture as normal but you may easily be able to walk for 100 miles!

The biggest concern with fasting is that it not begin too abruptly. Most trouble comes from toxic reactions not lack of nutrients. Its better to reduce junk foods, sweets, red meat and unnecessary drugs & medications before embarking on a serious fast. A series of single-day or two and three day fasts are rejuvenating like nothing imaginable! Juice fasts and broth fasts and even solid, bland diet (rice & red lentils) are intermediate steps. Health food stores often have written material on fasting techniques.

Fasting is very healthy and has an unmistakable spiritual side to it as well. It increases mental health and will power. It is an excellent occasion to practice prayer, meditation and all sorts of mental work. Benjamin Franklin, for one, extolled the virtues of keeping the mind full and the bowels empty. This is all in the preparatory phase while you are teaching yourself how to fast, how your body reacts, how your mind reacts, what to make of any "hunger pains" and in general learning that you don't need to consume all you are accustomed to. Watch your will power grow!

Once you are "hardened off" and experienced in "coming closer to your own inner nature" (you now know how to consume your own substance without cutting off an arm or leg to try to keep the stomach full) you should wax serene in circumstances where others may easily fall prey to panic. In cases of stand off, siege, emergency or just plain prolonged lean rations you can totally, effortlessly and fearlessly rise above the circumstances.

I can tell you of how it has worked for me, in Hurricane Andrew for example, where people rioted or scuffled needlessly over ice. But I had not intended to write so much. I just wanted to get the idea across. Best Regards, - WL

JWR Replies: Those unaccustomed to fasting should first consult their doctor for a checkup. Your tolerance for fasting will vary greatly, depending on your diet, your body type (fat reserves), your blood sugar chemistry, and your activity level. Rather than water fasting--which can be debilitating and precipitate some acute health problems--I recommend occasional juice fasting, to maintain your electrolyte and blood sugar balance. My general advice is to build up to fasting gradually, while very carefully watching for adverse reactions, such as dizziness, confusion, or hallucinations. Even someone with regular fasting experience should never fast more than 36 hours while living alone. There must be someone there to watch for signs of distress or incipient syncope (fainting). Fasting can be beneficial, but as with anything else, when done to excess, it can be harmful.

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Monday August 10 2009

Letter Re: Preventing Steel Food Cans from Rusting in High-Moisture Environments

Hello James and Memsahib!
Greetings and prayers for you both. In the Saturday August 8th blog there was a report of damage to underground storage food, with cans rusting.

When we traveled for years on our sailboat we varnished our canned goods to prevent rusting. We removed the labels, wrote the contents of the can with a permanent marker, then varnished each can. We never had a can rust with this protection. Our cans were exposed to salt air and an occasional dousing from bilge water.
B.B. thought that waxing his cans would help. That may work but any contact against the wax may remove some protection and defeat the purpose.
We read your blog daily and have learned much. "Patriots" is being read by all family members and we are praying for your bride.
With warm regards, - Ray & Vickie

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Thursday August 6 2009

Hard Times at Here--Are You Ready?

The hard economic times that I--and many others--warned you about are now here. We are clearly now in the opening stages of a full-scale depression that will last a decade or longer.

This news article (sent to me by SurvivalBlog reader Eric C.) .about an unemployed couple in Indiana is a microcosm of what we will be witnessing for the next decade. Take a few minutes to read it.

Our pampered society is in for a rude wakening. Now, at the risk of sounding unkind and judgmental, the term "white trash" comes to mind. Note that this man in Indiana had no savings, plenty of debt, and obviously no food reserves. Also note that despite his "austere" budget on unemployment insurance, he wastes hundreds of dollars per month as he smokes cigarettes, drinks soda pop, drinks beer (in large quantity), gambles, and pays for commercial car washes. His wife still carries a Blackberry with an airtime contract. Why are they buying disposable diapers, when they could be washing cloth diapers? The article also mentions that the husband has gained 40 pounds in the year since he was laid off. Did he consider planting a vegetable garden? Or washing his own car? (Both would have saved money and provided exercise.) This couple needs a serious lesson in budget priorities. They say that they are worried about their children's school grades, yet they still have a television and XBox games. It is time for a garage sale, to sell those time-wasting gadgets. Then regularly-scheduled trips to the local library, to get their children literate!

This gent is in his thirties, yet he has ruined his health with drinking, smoking, and over-eating. He and his wife seem to view military service as a last resort for their high school senior son. Well, I have a news flash for them: Both the son and the father should have enlisted! In 2006, the US military raised its maximum age of enlistment to 42. (BTW, as the economy continues to worsen, I expect the military to raise their standards considerably and eventually begin turning away large numbers of candidates, just as they did in the 1930s.)

It is also noteworthy that this man is on anti-depressants. He is not alone. Consider this article that was sent to me by Karen H.: Antidepressant Use Doubles in US, Study finds. That is alarming just by itself, but just consider what will happen if and when the Schumer Hits the Fan, and all those patients run out of their medications. (And their booze, and their cigarettes, and their marijuana, and their MTV, and their Crackberry instant messages, and their chocolate, and their American Idol, and their Dunkin' Donuts, and their porn, and their meth, and their soap operas, and their "Energy" drinks.) This could get very ugly, very quickly, once so many millions of suddenly very cranky, very desperate people start roaming the streets. My suggestion is: Don't be near then, in any significant numbers. Move to hinterboonies.

In summary: I had no idea that wallowing in self-pity was such exhausting, time-consuming work. At least they have a comfortable couch and recliner. This old quote mentioned by a SurvivalBlog reader sums up