December 2008 - Page 2 of 3

December 15, 2008December 15, 2008

Making Preparedness a Family Activity

One of the best ways to prepare and to get your family on board with preparing for an emergency is to include them in your preparations. This may seem a daunting task, but as Phil801 has shown us with his eight children, it can be done. Just look at some of his How-To posts to see evidence of them helping out.

For some of us though, we may just be starting out, or we may not have our family on board with what may be for some a significant lifestyle change. Fortunately, the LDS church which has always urged preparedness from its members has had the foresight to put together a series of family friendly preparedness activities which are perfect for those families just starting out.

You can access the activity list and lesson plans here.

December 13, 2008December 13, 2008

Water storage and purification

I am aware of at least one individual on Utah Preppers that had doubts about this article ever seeing the light of day. Catching up on honey-do lists (building 2 can rotation systems, etc.) and everyday life was keeping me busier than I would have liked. Besides, seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water (well, except for Utah), so what’s the big deal?

The truth of it is, without water, your chances of surviving an extended emergency are greatly diminished.

“Humans can survive 3 days on average without water — less when it is very hot or one is very active (as opposed to weeks without food). A single day without water significantly reduces bodily and mental performance.” – Wikibooks – Outdoor Survival/Water

Continue reading “Water storage and purification”

December 12, 2008December 12, 2008

Food Storage – Flavorings: Have you stocked up?

In a TEOTWAWKI situation very little will be available in the way of treats or delicious flavorings. Have you thought about making some preps to be able to provide a flavorful break from the bland day to day eating of rice, wheat and beans for over a year? More than just being able to provide something yummy to yourself and your family, good sweets will likely be a sought after barter item. The simplest treat to make and sell/barter would be hard tack candy. There are few ingredients to hard tack, we’ll get to those in a second. The most important ingredient in hard tack is flavoring! dscn0599

Now I want to digress for a minute and talk about Vanilla Flavor. Vanilla extract is a VERY time and labor intensive product to make. In fact, it is the second most expensive spice in the world next to saffron. The majority of the worlds vanilla comes from Madagascar – and it’s being destroyed! 80% of Madagascar’s Vanilla farms are currently being killed off by a deadly fungus! This most likely means that the already expensive flavor is going to skyrocket in price. Vanilla is one of the most common flavorings – it is used in baking all kinds of products and is also commonly added to powdered milk to enhance the flavor.

Continue reading “Food Storage – Flavorings: Have you stocked up?”

December 12, 2008December 12, 2008

one-quarter cup

Over on “Food Storage… A Necessary Adventure”, there is a recent post called Have you seen a 1/4 cup lately.

It put a few things into perspective for me. Of course you should go read the post, but the basic rundown for me was that the minimum amount of food for longer term survival comes in the form of 1/4 cup of rice, and another 1/4 cup of beans, in dried form. How much is a quarter cup, really? We all have measuring cups that size, go check it out. It is really little.

This should give us all some hope for the possibility of storing enough for ourselves. A 25lb bag each of beans and rice gives just over 300 days of *minimal* sustenance! Not only does that show us how easy it can be to get started, but as the poster notes, that also gives us a great understanding of how we can provide some charity in the worst of situations. I know I plan the food for my family, and in the worst of cases, I would need to focus on keeping those resources for my family. But inside we all want to help others. Even if we’re not giving much, just a quarter-cup of dried beans and rice can keep a person alive. Understanding that from our side makes it easier to share.

Now you need to learn how to make the best use *of* that little amount.

December 11, 2008December 12, 2008

Organizing the First Utah Preppers Meetup

We’ve been thinking about this for a bit, now it’s time to put it to the test – Who amongst us would be interested in having a prepper meetup? The first one would be informal, a meet and greet, there we would decide what kind of format we wanted future meetups to take. Future meetups might have presenters on a prep topic, could be a lead discussion, demonstration of certain technique, prep poetry reading – whatever. Although this will be sponsored by Utah Preppers, we want to invite other regional bloggers on prepping to come along and invite their readership as well.

We’ve had some interest expressed now we would like to measure it. We’re thinking after the holidays, so some time in January. We’ll never get a consensus on the night to do it, but what would be better? Tues/Wed/Fri? We’ll try to let the majority rule here :) So here are the options: Jan 13, 16 or 22.

Please let us know if you’re interested and what date would work better for you!

December 10, 2008December 10, 2008

The British called, they want their guns back.

Real world modern and historic data have shown that government efforts to suppress gun ownership negatively affects law abiding citizens while having little to no affect on criminals or the criminal use of firearms. Citizens of England and Australia have come to that realization, perhaps too late.

Listening to these people talk about the incremental way that their rights were first infringed upon, then completely taken away reminds me of a famous quote by Martin Niemöller:

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.”

As liberty loving Americans we need to stand up for not only our Rights but the Rights of others.

December 9, 2008December 16, 2008

Alternative Storage Techniques using Mylar Bags

We recently covered the step-by-step process of storing food in Mylar Bags and went over some of the advantages of them, key of which is protection from air and moisture. It’s pretty clear that you can store most any dry food in Mylar Bags, but what else can be stored in them? A Mylar Bag is an easily portable, strong, waterproof bag – there are lots of things you can store in them! Here are a few ideas (we welcome any other ideas!):

Cough Drops – wintering TEOTWAWKI will probably lead to a cough or two, better be prepared for it! We purchased 20 bags of 50 cough drops each from the dollar store. Each Mylar Bag received 2 big handfuls of drops. The normal shelf life of a Halls cough drop is 2 years. I think I’ve probably at least doubled that by storing them this way.

Continue reading “Alternative Storage Techniques using Mylar Bags”

December 9, 2008March 22, 2011

Cesta Básica

For several years I lived in the amazing country of Brasil (yes, that’s how to spell it right :) ).

One of the many things I learned while living there was about a product called the Cesta Básica (Basket of Basics). This product is the lifeblood of many Brasilian families, making up the core of their grocery shopping. What it is, is simple. It is a package containing an assortment of basic food items, designed to meet the basic needs for a given amount of time. Which products it contains, and how much would vary by store, but largely were the same. This was an extremely common item for several reasons. The first of which is the basic brasileiro’s diet, which starts with beans and rice, and almost anything else is extra. Which type of beans was largely a regional choice as the default, but alternative ‘versions’ of the packages could easily be found if you preferred another regions flavor.

Continue reading “Cesta Básica”

December 8, 2008December 9, 2008

Friend in need.

When I lived in Southern California, I began to get into long range target shooting. Through this hobby I met Tom Miller and Don Anderson, two of the nicest people you will ever meet. Tom is a retired ATF agent and FFL dealer. I bought my EDM Arms Windrunner through Tom as well as both of the Nightforce scopes that I own. His prices and most of all his friendly service are second to none.

Don was his right hand man, helping out at gun shows, but more than this, he was a regular at the monthly .50 cal shoot at Angeles Ranges. He allowed anyone interested to shoot his .50 cal, .408 CheyTac or .338 Lapua for free, just to promote interest in the sport. He invested in all the best equipment to reload .50 cal ammunition and would sell it to anyone at his cost to shoot in their own rifles. This of course represented a considerable amount of time he was giving away, just to help promote the sport.

About 2 years ago, a while after I left California, I found out that Don’s house had been raided by SWAT teams, the ATF and LA County Sheriffs. All his semi-automatic firearms were taken away. This was followed by two years of silence. Don had done nothing illegal and we all assumed that the DA and others were hoping they would be able to let it die without admitting they were wrong. Continue reading “Friend in need.”

December 8, 2008December 16, 2008

How To: Adventures in Food Storage with Mylar Bags

There are several options available to us for long term storage of bulk food – 5 gallon buckets, #10 cans and Mylar Bags are some of the most popular. In this post we’ll be going over the advantages and disadvantages of Mylar Bags and how to use a Mylar Bag Sealer. Specifically, we’re going to show how to turn all of this:

2200 pounds of food

Into This:

packaged food

Continue reading “How To: Adventures in Food Storage with Mylar Bags”

December 8, 2008December 5, 2008

Wood burning stoves as a prep.

Here in Utah it is very common to have a basement, often fully finished. My house is no exception. Our basement is around 2,000 square feet with only two finished rooms, both bedrooms. The previous owner of our home had ducting installed to heat the downstairs, but to do so would require another furnace which they apparently decided to set up in the closet of one of the two bedrooms.

In the interest of preparedness and to avoid losing a closet (and therefore a bedroom per building code) I started looking into the option of installing a wood burning stove in the basement.
Continue reading “Wood burning stoves as a prep.”