Powerless Cooking Event

• 09 May 2012
• Jayce
• 0 responses

Join us for an evening of free information on different options for cooking when the power goes out.  Representatives from great companies such as Sun Oven, Volcano Grills, Humless, and InstaFire will be combining with Jodi and Julie from Food Storage Made Easy to help you learn about these products as well as several free or inexpensive tools you can make yourself.  Come and enjoy free handouts, event discounts, giveaways and more!

American Preparatory Academy

12892 S. Pony Express Rd. (Just off of I15 and Bangeter)

Draper, Utah 84020

Click here for more details and to RSVP

Tags: Cooking, Education, Event, gear, meetup, preparedness, Preppers, preps

Giveaway: Threat Journal Radiation Safety Kit

• 16 Apr 2012
• Jayce
• 1 response

It should come as no surprise that the UtahPreppers site will accept advertisers to help cover the costs of hosting. It’s also nice when sponsors are willing to give out some of their products to our readers. So  I’m pretty happy that one of our new sponsors here has a little contest .  The Threat Journal is a free newsletter that focuses on different possible dangers to people in the US, and what you can do to be ready for those dangers. The newsletter covers a broad range of disasters, and discusses the plausibility of each. This should give you the reader a chance to become more informed about various dangers, and decide for yourself how likely they are to affect your family.

For the giveaway, the publishers of Threat Journal are having a drawing for three (3) radiation safety kits.  These packages are designed to help with the three most basic tasks you face during a radiation emergency:

1. Detect
2. Measure
3. Protect (more…)

Utah Prepare Conference and Expo – Ticket Giveaway

• 10 Apr 2012
• Jayce
• 8 responses

Interested in a day of workshops focused on preparedness? Who wouldn’t?  Utah State University, BYU, and BeReady Utah have combined to host a day of classes and booths called the Utah Prepare Conference and Expo. Now, the title is rather similar to our name, but hey, it involves many groups that we rely on for well-researched information.

I’m really excited about this conference, in that it is *not* a sales machine. BeReady is the state organization charged with getting citizens ready for known disasters in the state, and it has teamed up with some of the best resources for preparedness around. Anybody who has done real research into local agriculture, animal husbandry, or food preservation has come upon materials published by the USU extension. They are the standard for food preservation testing in the country, and we love having them locally.

Of course, there are vendors there as well, so don’t fret about missing out on the “toys” and fun there as well, but the conference itself is not “consumer-first”, and that should mean a lot to real preppers.

(more…)

Tags: Community, Education, Expo, Food Storage, meetup, Preppers

The Great Utah Emergency Preparedness Expo: April 6-7, 2012

• 28 Mar 2012
• Jayce
• 8 responses

Following up on last year’s very successful Emergency Preparedness Expo, a new preparedness based company Free Food 2 Go is sponsoring a preparedness event the first weekend this April. The expo will play host to a wide range of well know presenters in a variety of preparedness subjects as well as an expo hall for vendors, all at the UVU campus. This is the second year for this particular event which saw 1,500 attendees in 2011. This year the expectation is 2,500 to 3,500 attendees.

Free Food 2 Go, the expo’s overall sponsor appear to be a vaguely MLM/Co-op plan for food storage. As the sponsor, they will obviously have plenty of information prominently featured. However, if MLM sales pitches turn you off remember that while featured, they are just one of many vendors at the event. With the number of vendors and experts on hand this should prove to be a great chance to get hands-on with many of the suppliers and products discussed here on UtahPreppers.com and in other preparedness circles.

(more…)

Tags: Food Storage, meetup, Preppers

Meet The Preppers: Encore Presentation

• 20 Mar 2012
• Jayce
• 7 responses

If you by chance missed out on the premiere of local prepper and UtahPrepper author Phil‘s show, “Meet the Preppers” (bio), then you have another opportunity this Sunday. Animal Planet is going to rebroadcast the pilot episode in order to test the ratings again. If you want an opportunity to see less doomsday, and more family practice, tune in and let Animal Planet know you want to watch more!

Meet the Preppers: My Pink Pistol

Mar 25, 2:00 pm

Tags: Event, Preppers

Review: UVPaqlite and ToobLite Glow Sticks

• 03 Mar 2012
• Jayce
• 2 responses

ToobLite Mini with a Paracord lanyard and Turks Head knot.

At times when I’m building up my various forms of disaster kits, I want to throw you hands up in frustration at how reliant I am on different forms of technology. As much as I enjoy the outdoors I’m always bending it back to my more technological side. While this may make things more fun, accurate, or whatever other benefits I get, it also makes me dependent on power.

A great example of this is my need for light outdoors. Now sure we’d like to never be reliant on non-natural light forms, but it’s a reality. Even if you just have a midnight bathroom run once and a while, there are times that you need light. Historically of course, man has relied on fire to provide this light, and now we have flashlights to give us nice, portable light whenever we want, provided we have charged batteries.

(more…)

Tags: 72 Hour Kits, BOB, Evacuation Kits, G.O.O.D. Bags, gear, light, Lightning, preps, Reviews

Davis County HAM Radio Class: March 17th 2012

• 28 Feb 2012
• Jayce
• 0 responses

Reader erixun72 sent along a link to the Davis County Amateur Radio Club‘s posting about their upcoming radio class and test. If you’ve seen our posting’s about the Utah County tests, and figured it was too far of a drive, maybe this is a bit closer to you.  There’s never been a better time to get your license, as you can quickly find a local community getting ready for the Utah Shakeout and help out.

If you know of any other classes, please send them along via our contact form, or if you want to post directly, let us know and you can post too. To attend the class, just follow the instructions below.

From the site: (more…)

Tags: amateur radio, Class, Education, HAM

Dealing With Squash Bugs

• 24 Feb 2012
• Jayce
• 2 responses

The following is a guest post from Fern Miller a homeschooling Mom, wife, small business owner, internet marketer, and staff to two cats, who finally lives in a state with concealed carry. She blogs regularly at Fern’s Fronds which is her blog covering a wide swath of topics from preparedness, gardening, firearms, all from a distinctly wiccan point of view.  Enjoyably candid, she has a great practical approach to why and how somebody should be a prepper. Also available on twitter @Fernwise.

Blessings Darlings!

Lately lots of folks have been blogging about their plans for their upcoming gardens, and sighing about he bug-based problems they encountered last year.  I know that my neighbors and I had LOTS of problems with our squash from bugs, both from them simply sucking the life out of the leaves and from them turning the vines to mush.
Now, unlike my  neighbors, I DID get a really good crop before the bugs toasted the squash plants.  But my squash season ended earlier than it had to.  I don’t want a repeat of that.

This year I plan on dealing with the insect problems better than I did last year.  Which is why I’ve been researching the problems and solutions NOW. (more…)

Tags: Gardening, pest, Preppers

Six Months With A Berkey

• 22 Feb 2012
• Jayce
• 3 responses

A long time ago, in a country far, far away…  Ok, I won’t disclose how long ago, I was in Brasil for two years. Heading down there I was often told a familiar maxim to American travelers, “Don’t drink the water”. Everybody has heard this in relation to some foreign location.  Once in Brasil I actually heard it from the locals as well.  To deal with the various forms of bad things in their water, each home has a terra-cotta water filter that was so simple, that it was shear genius. The base was built with a simple spigot for easy water usage, and on top sat a ‘dirty’ water container that had filters mounted in it, letting gravity do all the work for you.

Fast forward several years, and I’ve started a family, and have moved from the bounteous moisture of the Pacific Northwest, to the arid, seemingly desolate land of Utah.

(more…)

Tags: filter, gear, preps, Water

Files for Episode 1 of Animal Planet’s Meet The Preppers: My Pink Gun

• 21 Feb 2012
• Jayce
• 4 responses

Some people noticed over the last couple of months that we had a few less posts appearing on the site. Besides the normal stress of work and the holidays, one of our more prolific writers (Phil) was heads down on a project he wasn’t allowed to talk about in public. You see, he’s been filming for a new preparedness TV show that just was on Animal Planet. Now some people, like myself don’t have cable (though Animal Planet was among my favorites when I had it). There currently isn’t a way to stream the show from their site, so I searched around until I found it on YouTube, at least for now.

If you interested in meeting some of the UtahPreppers, and missed it the first time it showed, check it out here. If you are interested in the show, make sure to set your DVR or tune in, and let Animal Planet you like the show! (more…)

Tags: Meet The Preppers, Preppers, television

Wok Like A Prepper With A Volcano or a Rocket

• 21 Feb 2012
• Jayce
• 1 response

In my mind, I can hear the sound of an 80′s song, but I am not an egyptian. No, but I do like a Wok.  Most commonly associated with Chinese cooking, the wok actually has variants found from India to Japan.  Billions of people have relied on this simple pan as their main cooking pot for good reasons. The wok represents one of the most efficient means to utilize a fires heat and cook in a variety of ways. This is why we thought it to be a good test at our recent stove party.

In short, a woks shape allows it to provide the best surface area to connect with your heat source, and concentrate it for efficient cooking.  Depending on what food you use, you could boil, saute, stir fry, and more. So for our test, I grabbed some of the cheapest stew meat, and frozen veggies to test a stir fry.  This cooking method is good in a preparedness sense in that it allows you to take smaller pieces of whatever proteins and vegetables you can get your hands on, and quickly cook them with some flavor for a group.  This can be really important in an extended emergency when food fatigue has set in, or if you just are trying to get the most out fo your food budget today.

(more…)

Tags: Cooking, gear, Reviews, Stove

Fixing it up: Refinishing a Table

• 18 Feb 2012
• Jayce
• 0 responses

Preparing for this past holiday season gave cause to some concern in my family.  Recently moved into a new home that is larger than our old one, my wife has the itch to furnish. Add to that the fact that her extended family was coming to visit to celebrate Christmas at our house this desire became much stronger.  There was one issue, however.  The fact that we had just moved into a new house, meant that our discretionary funds are and we are unable to purchase anything new.

The largest of concerns for my wife was our dining room table. Inherited from her grandmother, it hadn’t handled the years of abuse our kids have given.  Pitted, scratched, and discolored the table had truly seen better days.  My wife was really looking into what could be done to replace this thing. Dreams of counter-height, new colors, and more seating area were frequently discussed, but the reality of the budget didn’t leave her room to get what she wanted.

This then left me in the position of being able to work a little with my hands in order to make my wife a whole lot happier. (more…)

Tags: Article, DIY, Education, Skills, woodworking