Suture Follow Up – Suture Kits and Instructions!

• 08 Oct 2011
• phil801
• 3 responses

This is a follow up to my previous post on Suturing a Scalp.  At the Self Reliance Expo today, I spent the day with Dr. Bones of the Doom and Bloom Show and he just happened to be selling suture kits for a great price!  I showed him my post on suturing a scalp and he loved it, then he agreed to let us offer all of you his suture kits for his show price of $20.00!  Click the image on the right to see a much larger picture of it.

The kits come with a Needle Driver, forceps and a pair of scissors along with a sterile field, gloves and 2 sutures.  They also come with the step by step pictorial guide that you can see in the picture.  These are very nice kits and the price is fantastic!  If you would like to order them, send an email to DrBonesClass@aol.com and let them know what you would like to order.  There will be shipping on top of the cost, of course.

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Tags: Group Buy, Howto, Medical, Medical Prep, preps

Quick Skinning, Cleaning and Butchering a Deer

• 06 Oct 2011
• phil801
• 1 response

These days, most of us drop our game off at the butcher on the way home and go back a few days later and pick it up in nice white butcher paper. That’s all fine and good for now, but what are we going to do if we have to hunt for survival and can’t just drop the animal off to let somebody else do all the work? I’ve done it myself before and I’m sure I could do it again without any real problems, but if you’re hunting for survival the last thing you want to do is ruin your meat by doing something stupid!

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Tags: Books, butchering, Howto, Leatherwork, meat, tanning

Gold Prospecting Course in Utah Valley

• 20 Sep 2011
• ekim
• 0 responses

I was recently perusing Utah Valley University’s web site and found an interesting course on Gold Prospecting offered through the Community Continuing Education program. Given the current high price of gold and the fact that here in Utah we really don’t need to travel far to try finding it, this seems like a great course for a Utah Prepper.

Course Information

GOLD PROSPECTING FOR FUN OR PROFIT

Only 5 percent of the world’s gold has been discovered. With gold currently trading at over $1500 an ounce, panning for gold has made a real comeback. Learn new methods of panning gold that you can use 12 months of the year. Fee includes prospecting equipment you take home with you. No early registration discount. CEUs: 0.15 Hours: 1.50

At $39 this seems like a bargain for an evening of instruction on what could be a fun and profitable hobby. Here is a Link to the course. I hope to see you there!

Tags: Education, Howto, Preppers

Saved by Preps – Flat Tire

• 16 Sep 2011
• phil801
• 4 responses

Yesterday I was driving in my truck to pick up my son from school.  I heard a strange noise outside the truck and rolled down the window to investigate.  I could hear a hissing that rhythmically got quiet as I drove – then I realized, my left rear tire was punctured and deflating FAST!  I pulled over to the shoulder as far as I could and got out to investigate.  Sure enough, there was what looked like a nail hole right through my nice new tire.

That’s when my car Preps came to the rescue!

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Tags: Cars, preps, Vehicle Survival

Getting the Blues – Dealing with Corrosion

• 04 Aug 2011
• Jayce
• 1 response

My Blued Hawken

Gun ownership is a long-term investment which requires proper maintenance and cleaning in order to keep your guns working at their peak performance. A primary concern with long term storage of any gun — especially those stored in humid climates — is corrosion. Preventing corrosion is a multi-step process, starting with proper care of your firearm in the field, and followed with proper storage.  However, even if you take all the necessary precautions and care possible with your firearm, and even in the best of situations, if you use it corrosion or wearing will probably happen. How you deal with the results of such wear is the purpose of this article. (more…)

Tags: Firearms, gear, Guns, Maintenance

Food Production Systems DVD Review and Giveaway

• 09 Jun 2011
• ekim
• 44 responses

Can a two hour DVD turn you into a self sufficient farmer, providing all the food for your family on your postage stamp sized yard? Of course not. (If you think this is possible, let me know. I have a unique business opportunity to discuss with you :D ) However, the Food Production Systems For a Backyard or Small Farm DVD Is a wealth of information on how one family managed to do just that (on a bit of acreage) through trial and error over a decade. A full review of the DVD after the jump.
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Tags: Education, Food, Gardening, Howto, Links, preparedness, Reviews, Water

Homemade ice-claws

• 08 Mar 2011
• Jayce
• 0 responses

Image from KresimirPregernik

When I moved to college in Idaho as a teenager, I had a really quick introduction into a new world of snow and ice. While the snow I grew up with was wet and heavy, and usually melted away pretty quick in the moderate temperature. Idaho however introduced me to the bitter hard-freeze that left our campus with an amazing array of forms of ice that were completely new to me. I, as with many of my fellow students, became intimately familiar with this ice while performing the splits, or landing on my back when trying to hurry between classes.

In that time, I saw a few people that had some nifty attachments for their shoes allowing them to get traction on the ice.  Along the lines of higher end crampons used in ice-climbing, they strapped on over any shoes and allowed the user to dig into the ice a bit more.  Over on one of my favorite sites (Instructables) there are some instructions for creating a simple version of these yourself.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Ice-claws/

Tags: gear, Howto, Links, preparedness, Snow, Winter

Feeling the Shakes? Here’s a Brief Earthquake Review

• 13 Feb 2011
• Connor
• 1 response

In the past few days, there have been a few earthquakes just west of Lehi. As this page shows, we’ve had three small earthquakes (2.5-2.8) in the past three days. Events such as these provide us a great reminder of the need to be prepared. If the earthquake were much larger, would you know what to do? What immediate action should you take?

The following is some information which may prove useful for your review, in preparing for a future earthquake that affects us at a substantial level.

First, as a summary of the situation here in Utah living along the Wasatch Fault, this 10 minute video by the Utah Geological Survey is a great starting point.

One question you might have is whether this succession of small earthquakes is indicative of a larger one in the near future. Here’s one answer on that:

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Tags: Earthquake, plan, preparedness, utah

Starting a Fire with Steel Wool

• 04 Feb 2011
• phil801
• 0 responses

Continuing my Heat and Light Series, today we’re going to look at an alternative way to start a fire – with Steel Wool and Batteries.  Like I’ve said in previous posts in this series, this is probably something that every old Boy Scout and every long time Prepper already knows.  The point of this series is to get back to basics and cover things that new Preppers will need to get up to speed on – and to remind some of you about the skills and knowledge you have that you may have forgotten.  :) (more…)

Tags: 72 Hour Kits, BOB, Education, Fire, Howto, preps

Bee Keeping Classes in Utah County, Early 2011

• 03 Feb 2011
• ekim
• 1 response

Beginning Beekeeper’s Class

Bee Keeping is fun and relatively inexpensive.

Maple Mountain Bee Company is hosting another round of bee keeping classes over the next couple months. As you may recall, Bryan Esquivel of Maple Mountain Bees authored a guest post for us in the past about how he got started in bee keeping. You can find the article here.

These are free classes, held in Bryan’s home. If you have any questions on the schedule, please contact Bryan using the contact information below.

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Tags: Bees, Education, Event, Gardening, Howto

How to Make an Emergency Stove from Common Materials

• 01 Feb 2011
• phil801
• 2 responses

The next installment in our Heat and Light series is Making a simple Emergency Stove from Household Materials.  This stove is capable of boiling water in less than 10 minutes and is very easy to use and re-use.  The materials required to make it can commonly be found in the home and should be stored in your preps.  Required are: Paraffin Wax, cardboard and a couple tin cans. (more…)

Tags: Cooking, emergency preparedness, Fire, food prep, heat, Stove

Making Fire Starting Wafer Candles

• 31 Jan 2011
• phil801
• 2 responses

The next project in my Heat and Light series is Making Fire Starting Wafers out of reclaimed materials mostly available at home.  These wafer candles don’t have the same burn time (but it’s plenty long enough to get a fire going) as the egg carton candles but they have a much smaller footprint.  This project will again be familiar to most Boy Scouts and long term Preppers and Outdoorsmen.  However, the purpose of this series is to get back to basics and review how to generate light and heat with common household projects. As has been mentioned in the comments on the other posts in this series, you can use old candles or other wax sources instead of the new bars of paraffin I use in the demonstration.

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Tags: 72 Hour Kits