Category: prepping book

Fri. June 9, 2023 – there’s always an excuse…

Cooler, but damp and warming up later.   Probably get all the way to hot.   It certainly followed that path yesterday, but ended in “cool” when the front rolled in around 6pm.   Gusts and 10 degree temperature drops say “excitement is on the way”.   So we retreated to the cars.   Well excitement never arrived at the swim meet, but the cooler temps were appreciated.

I did my pickups yesterday.   Got D1 from the airport.  She’d been with grandma for the last week.  Got a couple more pickups done on the way home, and then got D2 to swim.   Not a lot of time in there for messing around with restacking food on the shelves.

Maybe I get it done today.   If not, most of it is under cover or in covered bins and can sit for another few days.   I say ‘maybe’ because I’ve got two pickups in the morning (stuff for the BOL), lunch with my sibling who is in town, then possibly a quick trip to my client’s to tweak some things before the weekend…  It’ll make him happy and his wife too, so IF I can make the timing work it is worth doing.

Then load the truck for the next trip up to the BOL and head out.   No non-prepping hobby meeting on Saturday because of a scheduling conflict with the venue.

Full day.   Full night.   Full life.

Over at BayouRenaissanceMan, the inevitable commentor when Peter brings up food shortages.. “But I don’t have money or room for those things.”    Might be true for a very limited subset of people, mainly those in care or institutions, but it’s REALLY unlikely.   As shown here by RBT and me both, and in innumerable other prepping sites online, you can MAKE room and it doesn’t have to be expensive.  It’s easier to find reasons not to prep than it is to prep, but the reasons don’t sound very convincing to anyone who has begun the journey.

The best time to plant a tree might be 5 years ago, and the same might be true for prepping, but there won’t be any stored food in 5 years, or any new trees if you don’t start NOW.  Stop looking for reasons not to, and look for was TO prep.   There are lots of resources out there, and  a whole bunch here, just use the keywords on the right.

Get started stacking up food and other preps.   If you already have some nice stacks, congrats!  Now do more!  Take control of your life and your future.  Take this step to ensure both.

nick

 

Mon. May 8, 2023 – another week closer to the end of the school year…

Cool and damp.  Got some rain yesterday, expect we’ll get a bit more today.   Wasn’t hot, but wasn’t cool either.   I have tried a bunch of things to get my weather station reporting again, but nothing seems to work.   I’ve tried changing the outdoor unit 2x, and I have two different indoor units showing different things.   A third couldn’t find the outdoor unit either.   Something is interfering with the signal is all I can think.  Probably a cheap USB charger, but I can’t correlate the malfunction with any particular changes.  I’ll have to go on a hunt, so that’s farther down the list for now.

Did some sorting and cleaning up for the return of my bride…   got some of it done.   Pack is once again united.   Girl Scouts had a nice weekend.  I got some minor stuff done.   Rain put a damper on any outdoor stuff for me.  On the other hand, I didn’t have to do any more sprinkler work.

Today I’ve got a couple of pickups I can do, and a couple of things that are weather dependent.   We’ll see what we can get to.  I’ve got a bunch of stuff to go through for my  non-prepping hobby quarterly swapmeet/sale next weekend.  Don’t know if any of it will sell, but won’t find out unless I try.

Might have purchased some needful things in an auction.   I won, but this auctioneer will often pass items that don’t bring enough money.   Since I’m a bottom feeder, and need to get stuff cheap, I might not actually get it at my low bid.  They passed on a bunch of other stuff.   People waited too long to empty their safes and prices have come back down.  No one is buying Del-ton for what they had listed as a starting bid, but consignors haven’t realized that apparently.  I’m actually surprised any of my bids held up, let alone three.   I’ll have to find some cash somewhere if they DON’T pass on my bids.   Winning at a low price hasn’t been an issue for me for some time.  I feel a bit like Commander Zero this week.

There are always opportunities during times of trouble for the person with preparations and resources.   Keep your eyes open, there are bargains out there.

And you want to add to your stacks.

nick

Thur. Dec. 29, 2022 – in praise of standards

Cool, turning warm later.   Part sun, and humid.  Probably.  If I guessed right.   But that was what the day turned into yesterday, so I’ve got at least a 50/50 chance of being right.  Weird to go out in low 80s temps after the cold.  Houston.

Spent the day catching up on stuff, not doing plumbing.  I did cut my hair, shave, and trim my beard.   Cleaned up around the house too.

Ended up selling an ebay item,  so now I have to find it.    It’s somewhere.  Not where the other listed ebay items are, unfortunately.   While looking for it, I went through about half of one storage unit.  Found stuff to bring home, sorted some bins, and found the bigger grinder I picked up earlier in the year.   It’s a vintage Enterprise “tinned” number 22 meat chopper.   It is manual, and bolts to a table.  I’ve got a couple of smaller Universal grinders, but they clamp to a table and tend to squirm around too much.

I spent a while boiling the grinder and parts, then scraping and cleaning.   It came up pretty nice, considering it’s about 100 years old.  The plates are razor sharp still.   Unfortunately, it was missing the blade.   Fortunately, grinders were sold by size, #12, #22, #32, #8, etc. for a long time. There are brand new parts available, plates and knives.   So I bought the cheapest one on amazon, to see how it works.   I don’t use the grinder very often, and a replacement blade that looks like the original was $37 instead of $13.  Even the cheap blade should outlast me, but if it doesn’t, we’re either living like it was 1890, or I can order another.  If push came to shove, I could make one from steel plate.

A manual grinder/chopper/sausage stuffer is a good backup tool, and a useful kitchen accessory.  If you are harvesting wild game, you already know that.  If you think you might in the future, or that you might process it yourself instead of paying a shop to do it, get you a grinder…  They are widely available in estates, and online.  Make sure it’s not worn out and comes with the blade and a variety of plates.   I see smaller ones still in the box relatively often.

Why my sudden interest in getting my grinder working?  I want to make some of my family recipe sausage for the holidays.  Pork butts were on sale, and allspice was back in stock, so with a working grinder, I’m good to go.  Just need to get some sausage casings.   My local HEB used to carry them, but doesn’t have any.  There is a sausage supply house near my secondary location, and I’ll be headed by there later.  They keep in the fridge for a long time, and are pretty cheap, so I’m not worried about the cost, just the availability.

Of course, anything I do today will be after my semi-annual trip to the dentist to get my fangs cleaned.   Whole family is going this morning.    That will probably occupy us most of the morning.  Dental care is important.   People died from dental problems.  Don’t be a people.

Get out there and find some stuff to stack.   This week, try to get everything you’d need to process wild game- or at least familiarize yourself with what is involved.   Knives, saw, grinder, lift, trays, pans, cutting boards… and watch a video or two.   You might not every need the familiarity, but the tools aren’t expensive, fit in a smallish box, and might feed your family.

Stack it up.

nick

Tues. Jun. 7, 2022 – no snappy title

Hot and humid.  Maybe a breeze, probably sun.   Got over 98F in my yard yesterday.  I know because I was out in it cutting the grass.   Poor planning on my part, but it needed to be done, and that’s when I had time to do it.   Made it in record time and it looks like it…  Today will be the same in all likelihood.  It was 78F when I went to bed, and the same when I woke up.

I’ve got several pickups of BOL and home stuff, and a couple of smalls for resale.   I’m hoping to pay for the rest with those items.  All part of the neverending list of stuff needed to furnish another home, especially when some of the stuff is duplicating preps.

The world continues on its way down.  Gas prices continue to rise.  Stuff continues to not show up in the stores…

WRT Russia and the Ukraine, well, the food they’d export is not being exported this year, and the food for next year didn’t get in the ground.   That shortage is now “baked in”.  It’s gonna happen, is happening.   Riots in Pakistan over food price increases have already started.   Lots of people in lots of places are going to be lots of hungry.   And angry.  And desperate.  Some of those places are even going to be here.   Tyrants have always used food as a weapon.  Take the steps you need to take to keep you and yours in groceries.

Some good discussion in yesterday’s comments.   Some more in today’s comments if I get to it…

Stack it up.  The life you save may be your own.

n

Mon. Jun. 6, 2022 – D Day 1944.

National forecast has Houston in clear weather for the next three days.   Goes without saying it will be hot and humid.   Beautiful just a couple of hours north though.   Ah well, it is what it is.

Started yesterday at the BOL, did a bunch of work, and came home.   Now I get to do a bunch of work here too.  It’s all the normal stuff, plus the stuff that got put aside.   I don’t know what I’d do if I could actually catch up.    Up north I didn’t get back to my garden weeding, it was just too hot in the sun, so the carrots will have to compete with the grass for another week.    Here I’ve got grass to mow, gardens to weed, and maybe some blueberries to harvest, if the birds didn’t get them.   Plus a ton of stuff to move or put away, or organize.

Then there is all the stuff that needs fixing… and that is a growing pile too.   And the hurricane season has officially started, so there is all the normal hurricane prep to do.   This is not the time I’d have picked for rotating stored gas, but again, it is what it is.

It will be a short work day for me on top of everything else,  as D2 has a swim meet tonight.

Monday is not my fun day.

But hey, no rest for the wicked.

Do some stacking.  Don’t get caught lacking.

 

n

Mon. Feb. 14, 2022 – Valentine’s Day in the US, so pony up for the pretty….

Cool, clear, some wind…  I hope.   Yesterday was, with a gorgeous sky.   I could use more nice days, without the freezing howling wind.

Did some stuff during the day, but mostly auction shopping for the <s>new house</s>  BOL.  Then ran a couple of errands, swung by the storage unit, and got ready for today.

Pickup and drop off today, with a visit to my secondary.  Then daddy and D2 will do some projects or play chess… and dinner, etc.

I feel more sense of accomplishment when I don’t list all the things I am not going to get done.  Funny that.

Getting to be time for some planting.  Officially, we could still get a frost, but it doesn’t feel like it this year.  I need a plan for home and for the BOL.  We’re still a week or more from signing, but there’s a lot to do and I’d hate to miss a planting because I didn’t do the planning.  I’m bidding on another of the seed displays too.  Isn’t it Alas Babylon that the lady decides to store seed packets as light and cheap trade goods?

Needles and thread might be a good choice too.   The old treadle powered sewing machines are going for crazy money in the estate auctions.   Hundreds of dollars if they are in good shape and running.   Electric ones, unless they are brand new and feature rich, are going for $20-50 for the most part.  Older Kenmores are solid machines and can be had cheaply.  If you don’t have a sewing machine, I’d recommend getting a used one, and a basic book on sewing, and use it.  Since the crowd here is mostly men, use it to do some masculine stuff, like making your own web gear, or covering some old furniture… or make a shop apron.  Or doll clothes for the kid.  Think of it as just another power tool to learn and use.

Stack some tools and the knowledge to use them.  Stack the stuff needed too.

 

n

 

(and get something nice for your spouse.  you need the support and help.)

 

 

Tues. Jan. 4, 2022 – school’s back in session… and kids are SO grumpy

Cold again, clear, sunny, but cold. 36F when I went to bed, and not expected to freeze, but that is ‘see your breath’ weather for sure. I know, some of you are laughing right now. I’VE got the clothes and accessories for it, but a lot of people don’t. Not that I care all that much about them, they can prep too. It gets cold often enough here that a wind proof shell and a couple of layers should be in everyone’s closet.

I spent most of yesterday working at my desk trying to find money in shoeboxes. Not literal cash money, but stuff to send to auction. Found a bunch too. I checked a couple of spot prices on ebay and I don’t think I’ll get as much as I first thought, unless the auction brings better than ebay prices, but you never know.

Today the plan is to head out to my client’s house and clean up some outstanding issues before the programmer comes back down Wednesday or Thursday. It won’t be a super early start for me, as I have to make a pickup on the way, and I’d like to move some stuff to storage before I head out. We’ll see about that.

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Speaking of moving stuff around, one of the things I did in the beginning of the wuflu response was to bring a bunch of long term disaster items home from storage. When it looked like movement restrictions might be put into effect, I brought home a bunch of storage bins and buckets that made up my “ebola” stacks. By that I mean the panic buy (over the course of months, so not really ‘panicky’, just hurried) of bulk and long term storage items that I stacked up in case ebola got loose over here. I suddenly wanted to be able to stay home for 45-90 days without leaving the house for anything so I massively increased the amount of bulk food I had stacked. Of course that was in 2014, so that food was between 5 and 6 years old.

Most of it had just been put into black bins, with the lids on, and literally stacked. They were stored in a ‘cool dark place’, but I didn’t stabilize them or repack them. All of the bulk food was edible. The wheat flour has an ‘old’ flavor, but it’s edible with no ill effects. It would work fine in pasta, tortillas, or sourdough bread. The rice had no noticeable changes. Nothing was heavily infested with bugs. The canned veg were all fine. Canned tomato paste, not so much. UHT milk? Ugg. You might have been ok eating it, it wasn’t bloated, but it turns to something like tapioca pretty soon after it’s expiration date. Canned meat was all fine too (kirkland chicken mostly.)

Compare and contrast with my storage at home, in my garage. I had much higher ‘breakage’ in the heat and humidity. Cans rusted, and were covered with rat urine. Boxed goods that weren’t in a bag inside the box got stale. Some of the ready to eat meals changed consistency. They didn’t swell, so they probably wouldn’t kill you, but I tossed them. Flavoring packets got hard and stuck together, and often had an ‘old’ smell or taste. In general, if it had fats or dairy in it, it didn’t fare as well, although it all outlasted the ‘best by’ date by a large margin.

We’re still eating peanut butter, katsup, Miracle Whip, and hot sauce from the ebola stacks. The ketchup is a darker color but tastes the same. Miracle Whip too, darker but tastes fine. Mustard isn’t as bright yellow. Peanut butter separated from the oil despite me flipping the jars whenever I noticed. That’s easy to fix with a butter knife and some ‘butter churning’ action when you open the jar. Nutella separates too, but into more than just oil and nuts. It will mix right back though.

Peanut oil lasts a long time past ‘best by’ if it’s in the dark. It’s my go to fat.

I did move all the ebola bulk from bins to buckets over the summer. When I put it in buckets, I used “hot hands” chemical hand and foot warmers to act as oxygen absorbers. When they worked, the buckets dented in a little bit. If I had ‘cool and dry’ here at the house, I probably would have left them in the bins and original packaging, but I put a lot of it under my covered patio, up against the house, and I figured I needed to give the buckets the best possible chance of staying good.

Now that I’ve mentally transitioned to living like this as ‘normal’, and prepping for whatever is coming next, it’s time to move a lot of the bulk back to offsite storage. I’ll move the newest stuff there and keep the old ebola stacks close by.

One last observation- with a lot of stuff, I left it in the original packaging even though it went into a bucket. I could fit more if I dumped it in, but having some additional separation makes sense if the bucket is breached or you have a bug problem, then it’s not automatically contaminating the entire bucket contents. Three bags of pasta might still be sealed, while the fourth got eaten before you noticed the problem. I’ve also made a few buckets with different stuff in them, like one bag sugar, two bags flour, some yeast packets, a carton of salt, and a bag of cornmeal. Might be a pint or two of peanut oil in there too. I didn’t worry too much about the ratios. Water and any of that in any proportion would work fine in a real disaster. People are a lot less picky when they’re hungry.

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Anyone else made the transition from “we’re living in a pandemic, I’m using my preps” to “this is what life looks like now, time to get ready for what’s next”?

Anyone really use their stacks? (besides TP and PPEs)

Think about what you’ve got stacked, and stack some more…

nick

Tues. Nov. 9, 2021 – why yes, I am tired…

Cool and damp. Possible sunny later. I really hope it’s nice as I’ve got stuff to do. Was nice yesterday but I ate something that disagreed with me and I was afraid I might do a Biddn if I strained lifting and toting… so I worked on stuff around the house until it was time to get D2.

Mondays are short work days for me anyway with the kid home and projects piled up. This time we did a sewing project. I picked up a fabric backdrop of a fantasy jungle scene, and put it up as the back wall of her lower bunk, making a kind of jungle play fort out of the bunkbeds. Unfortunately it was two pieces and they were only glued together, and they seam failed. Fast forward and we have a nice project to sew it back together. So we sewed. Got the machine out, set up, tacked the seam back together with fusible interface, and then ran a line down the seam. She did the next one. She did ok for her first time, and we’ll try something more complex next time.

Since everything was out, I did some small repairs on a back pack/ laptop bag that has been waiting for a long time for the repair. It ended up being a bit more complicated than I thought, but I got it done. It’ll either go into the auction, or my wife or kid will steal it…

I think everyone should know how to do basic sewing with needle and thread, and at least straight seams with a machine. My ‘everyday altoids tin’ has a golf pencil, with 18 inches of stout black thread on a heavy needle wrapped around it. It’s great for a quick repair, and works well on webgear too. I’ve got an embroidery capable sewing machine, a serger, the wife’s machine, and an antique mostly manual machine. You don’t need much- a set of needles, a few spools of thread, some fray check liquid, and some fusible interface will go a long way. A basic machine isn’t expensive though, and a pair of good scissors is worth spending money on. You can do a lot with just an iron, fusible interface, and fray check. Heck, for years I kept a variety pack of iron-on patches in my travel bag. If I got a tear in my pants or shirt while on the road, I could iron the patch onto the INSIDE of my pants and fix the tear very well until I got home. For fabric and leather, I hit up the Goodwill, and I used to hit the IKEA ‘as is’ section for drapes, bedsheets, or curtains to re-use.

In the last year I added specialized leather repair tools- mainly stouter needles, heavier thread, and something called a ‘jerk needle.’ I’ve got some hope that I can do some leather work at some point just because I think it is cool, ever since seeing a guy doing tooled leather at a craft booth at the Silver Dollar City amusement park when I was a kid.

I don’t expect I’ll be making shoes or shirts after the fall, but it’s definitely worth knowing how to fix your own stuff, whether it’s gear, shoes, or clothes. (I did make an entire long overcoat/trenchcoat modeled on the one Jack Nicholson wore in Witches of Eastwick for my final project in my costuming class. Well, I designed it and sewed it. The woman that ran the shop did the pattern and cutting…) For anyone who is too ‘manly’ to sew, it’s a POWER TOOL! Are you going to tell me there’s a power tool you won’t try to master??? You don’t have to actually master it for it to be useful, but it is good to have an idea of what you’re doing around sewing. One more skill, one more system to add to the stacks.

Keep stacking my friends,

nick

Thur. July 29, 2021 – kids at rock gym, me working…

Sunny and hot, chance of rain. We’re in the middle of the thunderstorm zone today and tomorrow so we might actually get it. We didn’t get any rain yesterday despite the possibility. I even drove across town, and didn’t get wet.

Did my pickup yesterday and have a couple to do today. Then I’m off to my secondary to do a bunch more clean up. It’s gonna be a long day of hot hard work if everything goes to plan.

And I need to keep an eye on some auctions. There is a vet clinic selling everything, not too far from my house. There are a number of things I’d like to have from that auction… if the zombies ever come.

There’s another fairly close auction with a bunch of air rifles and the current prices are low. In the auctions in general, there has been a lot of late bidding lately, so low prices 8 hours out might not mean what it would have last year, but I’d like to pick up a couple of nice ones for the stacks…

And there is another auction with a bunch of stuff for my non-prepping hobby. I didn’t win any of the stuff I was bidding on this week, so I’m keeping an eye on this sale.

But I can’t sit in front of the computer all day, the kids are out of my hair, and I’ve got stuff to get done.

SO MUCH STUFF.

But it will let me break this log jam and keep making forward progress. “Everything takes longer and costs more.” If I repeated that mantra at work, I should understand that it applies to me in my home life too, right? But I’m SPECIAL and I operate as if it wasn’t true. Well it is true, and not acknowledging that can lead to frustration and disappointment and discouragement. Time to deal with it and just keep pushing through.

The end goal is to have stacks of stuff that will help me, not hinder me. Anything that hinders has to go. And if it helps, it gets priority.

I’m picking up more shelves today… and while it costs time, they should help organize, condense, and ultimately improve my situation.

Keep working to improve your situation. By stacking, or by getting rid of some stuff. Sometimes getting rid of a stack is the best thing you can do.

nick

Sun. June 20, 2021 – Fathers’ Day

Hot and humid here in Fla. High of 90, low of 70F, sure to be humid.

Flight was ok. Pretty bumpy for about half the trip, but because of hearing issues, PA issues, and a thick spanish accent, I don’t know which route the pilot chose. It must have been the one with the best flight characteristics, but it still knocked us around.

Mask usage was mandatory at the airport and on the flight. Silly to raise and lower a mask between bites of food and sips of drink, all that does is contaminate your mask and your food. I guess no one said this stuff was supposed to make sense or work.

I think we’re headed to the beach today. In any case, it will be short shrift from me on the keys….

y’all talk amongst yourselves.

nick

keep stacking!

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