What we are doing this Spring

• 31 Mar 2010
• ekim
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Courtesy Marin Magazine

If my allergies are any indication, Spring has sprung. This means it is time for Daylight Saving Time, spring cleaning, starting gardens and other activities.

What are the UtahPreppers up to?
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Wrapping Up, With Blankets

• 20 Nov 2009
• Jayce
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As snowflakes begin to frequently drift down, my wife begins her odd seasonal transformation from warm, to cold-blooded being.  I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with this process, but it is the true mark of seasonal change around my home.  Appendages seem to have ice permanently on them, and thus have an odd habit of always finding their way to me, which is cause to no small amount of distress.

With that in mind, we have discussed what else we can do in my family to increase our ability to stay warm inside (because my wife sure doesn’t want to go out).  Beyond just comfort in the dark months, my southern CA native wife is petrified of the idea of being without power/heat, and our ability to deal with that. (more…)

Reminder: Driving in Snow

• 28 Oct 2009
• Jayce
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With the recent storms, and onset of Winter conditions here in Utah, I felt it appropriate to send out a little reminder of things people should do to prepare for winter driving.  Please prepare before the storms come, so that you can be ready for the enjoyable experience that is Utah roads in the Winter. (more…)

Farmer’s Markets

• 15 May 2009
• ekim
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Typical Farmer's Market Offerings

Now that the weather has warmed up, I am revisiting a post I started back in the deep winter of January.

Farmer’s Markets are a great way to find locally produced fruits, vegetables, meats and other products. These markets are often the only way to find heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables that our forefathers took for granted. You will also generally find more variety if you are looking for Organic or hormone/pesticide free food.
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Family Dynamics and Perpetual Preparedness

• 20 Apr 2009
• Connor
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photo credit: m o d e

Any minute now, I might become a father. My wife is (very) pregnant with our first child, and the seconds are ticking until our lives change significantly (for the better!). As the months have gone by, we have dedicated a great deal of time to readying, studying, and researching how best to do everything we’re soon going to need to do.

Preparedness has played a large role—indeed, a central role, since what we’ve been doing up until now is preparing for our son’s birth. Having an end result in mind forces us to think in the long term, and purchase things, learn skills, and become well versed in all that will be necessary. Too often we get wrapped up in the here and now, and let our long-term preps take a backseat.

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Prepping example on 18 Kids and Counting 4/7 on TLC

• 07 Apr 2009
• ekim
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Tomorrow night, April 7th TLC will be showing a new episode of 18 Kids and Counting.

In case you aren’t familiar with the show, here is a brief description of this reality show. Michele and Jim Bob Duggar are the parents of a traditional Christian family. After 20 years of marriage, they have had 18 children with only one set of twins. They manage to afford this large family by being frugal, wisely investing the money they do have in money making properties and businesses and always paying cash for all their purchases. If they don’t have enough money to buy something, they save and buy it later or do without. All of their children are also home schooled.

What does this have to do with prepping? (more…)

Ice Storm Stories and Preparedness

• 04 Feb 2009
• phil801
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As most everyone should be aware, the last week has provided a harrowing survival experience for Kentucky and surrounding states with a major Ice Storm cutting off power to over 1.5 million homes and killing 55 people.

For those of us here in Utah, we’re more likely to see catastrophic events from a major snowstorm than an icestorm (in searching, I cannot find records of an icestorm like this hitting Utah).  Our winter storms, especially in heavy snowfall years, can leave many icey problems.  While we may not be likely to have an ice storm, there are still many lessons we can learn from those who have just experienced it.  Let’s look at some reports from the Mid-South Ice Storm of 2009.

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Winter/Snow Camping Ideas and Tips

• 02 Feb 2009
• phil801
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This past weekend several friends and I got together for some fun in the snow.  About 50 of us (including kids) converged on the West Desert area of Utah for a couple days.  I had some new winter camping ideas that I wanted to try out, I’ll go over those results here.  I took a “barometer” of success with me for my experiments (being somewhat of a Polar Bear myself, I needed a better judge of my success).  I have an 18 year old daughter that HATES the cold – she sleeps on a heater vent at home as often as she can, she wears heavy snow clothes when there’s an old inch of snow on the ground and it’s sunny.

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Adding to your long term supply using dehydration

• 26 Jan 2009
• ekim
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Someone sent me these great videos on dehydrating food and using it in your food storage. The woman in the presentation is very knowledgeable about the subject and shows the correct way to dehydrate, store and use your food while helping to avoid some of the common pitfalls along the way.

These videos have changed the way I think about dehydrating food at home. Many of the tips about using oxygen absorbers, buying buckets, etc. are useful for other types of food storage as well.

Give them a thorough watching, take notes and let us know what you think.

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Get Home Bag

• 30 Dec 2008
• Jayce
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Recently I took some time to rotate a few items in my ‘Get Home Bag’ that I keep in my car.  The seasons were changing here, and they require different items to fill the bags purpose.  As I was changing, I realized I should take a few pictures to post on here (and satisfy the requests of a few friends wanting to know what I have).  With that in mind here’s a basic breakdown of my winter Get Home Bag.

Purpose:

I live a fair distance from my work now (oh how I long to telecommute again!).  Around 25 miles one way, around a lake, across a river, through several places that have limited road options.  How do I know this?  Well, I would say everybody should be very familiar with every alternate route between their home and most common destinations, because you never know when you will need them.  I have needed mine.  Beyond a natural curiosity and desire to optimize my commute, my neighborhood often requires it because it has a population that overwhelms the local road infrastructure on a good day.  Add in an accident, or bad weather and it becomes horrid.  Get worse weather, and you can actually shut down access to our town.  It’s happened before, it will happen again.  Throw in an earthquake, and there will be *no* cars heading home.  Whatever your locally preferred disaster, would you be able to get home to your wonderful food storage?

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Winter/Snow Driving Preps, Part 3 of 3, Driving Tips

• 18 Dec 2008
• phil801
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This is the final post in our 3 part series, Winter and Snow Driving Preps. The first post, Prepping your Vehicle, can be found here followed by our second post, Supplementing your Gear.

To wrap this Winter Prep series up, let’s go over a few winter driving tips. I’m not trying to teach you how to drive, but just some good techniques to use while driving in snow and ice conditions. (more…)

Winter/Snow Driving Preps, Part 2 of 3, Gear Supplements

• 17 Dec 2008
• phil801
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This is the second post in this series, the first – Prepping your Vehicle – can be found here.

Winter vehicle emergencies can be pretty harsh. If you breakdown, wreck or slide off the freeway that’s one thing, help should be there soon.

But, if you’re on the road less traveled and it’s late at night and something happens, you could be stuck there for a while. If for some reason you can’t start your vehicle in that situation, you have about 20 minutes before it starts getting cold in your car. You already have an emergency kit in your vehicle, right? Just in case you don’t, we’ll be covering that in a later post. But, from here we’ll assume you’ve got a basic 72 hour survival kit in your vehicle. These are some things you should add to it for the winter:

1. (more…)