Category: prepping

09:21 – It was 64.3F (18C) when I took Colin out at 0715 this morning, sunny and calm. The cows are back in the field along our back property line. Until six months or so ago, there were always Black Angus cows in that field, anything from half a dozen to three or four dozen at a time. They often clustered right along the back fence. Then last autumn they disappeared from that field. About the only time we saw them was every few weeks in a field up along the ridge line several hundred yards to our west.

When I took Colin out this morning, he did his usual. Trotted down to the bushes along the road, sniffed them thoroughly, and peed on them. But this morning, he spent hardly any time doing that and then headed toward the back fence at a fast trot. When I walked around the side of the house to see what he was up to, I saw him down by the fence with half a dozen cows watching him. They got used to him pretty quickly after we moved in, and vice versa. They don’t pay much attention to him, and he ignores them unless they get too close to his fence. Then he does his stalk/pounce/ferocious growl routine and they quickly scatter. This morning, everybody ignored each other.

I noticed that one of our hand sanitizer bottles was getting low, so I checked Walmart, Amazon, and Costco to see what they carried. Walmart had Purell, Barbara’s preferred brand, at a good price, so I went ahead and ordered a case of twelve 12-ounce dispenser bottles and a 2-liter dispenser bottle, which I’ll actually use to refill the smaller bottles.

We keep bottles of hand sanitizer in each bathroom and the kitchen, as well as the small dispensers Barbara keeps in her purse and her car, so we go through a good bit of it. It’s effective against most pathogenic bacteria and some but not all pathogenic viruses. It kills enveloped viruses (those with a lipid envelope surrounding the virus) but isn’t nearly as effective against non-enveloped viruses.

The key determinant of effectiveness is the percentage of alcohol, either ethanol or isopropanol, that the sanitizer contains. The optimum is about 65% to 85% ABV. Any less than 65% and the sanitizer becomes much less effective, and more than 85% is actually counter-productive. Most of the name brands are 70% ABV, but the generics and house brands are often less. The CVS generic, for example, is IIRC 63%, and I’ve seen no-name stuff that contains 45% or less alcohol.

With this new order, we’re up to maybe 8 liters, give or take. One squirt is typically 2.5 mL, which is plenty. At that rate, we have enough on hand now for maybe 3,200 applications. That’s enough for the four of us for probably a year if I extend it with the 91% IPA that I keep a couple gallons of on hand.

09:30 – It was 59F (15C) when I took Colin out at 0645 this morning, gray and damp. We’re to have rain on and off over the next several days. Barbara is off to the gym and supermarket this morning and is volunteering this afternoon at the Friends of the Library bookstore.

Barbara and I were reading the local paper yesterday at lunch. I was scanning through the police/court reports section and noticed something horrifying. A 16-year-old girl had been arrested and is due to go to trial on 5 May for intentionally contaminating food or drink. She and two other teenage girls are believed to have put a drug in another teen’s drink which disabled the victim physically and mentally, presumably temporarily. I hope they throw the book at them. In fact, I suggested to Barbara that if it were up to me, I’d haul them all down to the public square, strip them to the waist, clamp them into the stocks, and give them 100 lashes each with a cat ‘o nine tails.

When I mentioned that, Barbara told me about another recent incident that was really, really horrifying. From what Barbara knew, about a dozen(!) teenage girls decided for thrills to murder a random woman by placing sleeping pills in her food or drink. They never carried out their plan because one of them chickened out and reported the scheme to the police.

These girls are irretrievably broken. They’re murderous psychopaths, and the best course would be to try them and, if they’re convicted, convene a public hanging.

I admit to being shocked when I heard this news. I expect stuff like that to happen in the cities, which is bad enough,  but not in little Sparta. There are obviously good kids and bad kids, and always have been anywhere and anywhen. But up here I expected bad kids to do stuff like shoplifting or maybe stealing cars. The worst of them I might expect to commit armed robberies. But not something like this.

I got email yesterday from someone who’s very concerned about North Korea launching a nuclear attack on the US. He’s seen the news articles about the Japanese government evacuating the 70,000 Japanese citizens currently in South Korea, and about the Hawaii legislature revamping and restocking their fallout shelters, which had last been maintained in 1985.

Maybe they know something we don’t, but I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that North Korea could launch a nuclear attack against even Hawaii let alone the continental US. Not that that little maniac dictator wouldn’t do it if he could, but I think doing so is well beyond their capabilities and is likely to remain so for many years. That’s not to say that North Korea couldn’t attack South Korea, of course, and that might rapidly escalate if China, Japan, Russia, the US, and other real powers got involved. But I think nuclear attack is very low on the list of things to worry about.

That said, prepping for such an eventuality isn’t much different from prepping for general serious emergencies. You’ll want water, food, medical supplies, etc. stored away. The one real difference is the radiation threat.

A nuclear detonation produces four types of harmful radiation. Neutrons are produced by the explosion, and are a threat only if you’re in the immediate vicinity. Gamma rays are penetrating, and are produced both by the explosion itself and by radionuclides that are deposited on vaporized soil and subsequently become part of fallout particles. Alpha and beta radiation are produced by radionuclides deposited on fallout particles, but neither of those types of radiation are strongly penetrating. Both are dangerous only if they are in direct contact with your skin or, worse, are ingested.

But fallout gamma radiation can be blocked only by putting a lot of mass between you and the radiation source. For typical gamma radiation, the tenth-value layer is about 2.2 inches of concrete (at ~150 pounds/ft^3) or 3.3 inches of dirt (at ~100 pounds/ft^3). That means that reducing radiation levels by a factor of 1,000 requires either about 22 inches of concrete, just under two feet, or 33 inches of dirt, or just under three feet.

If you’re concerned, the first thing you need to do is make a fallout shelter, which can be as simple as a trench in your yard, roofed with 4X4 supports and plywood or solid-core doors covered with a pile of dirt. For more information about formal or ad hoc shelters, I recommend Cresson Kearney’s book, Nuclear War Survival Skills. You can buy a printed copy on Amazon or simply download an electronic copy on the Internet. It’s out of copyright, so it’s even legal to grab a copy.

You may also want to stock either potassium iodide or potassium iodate, which we’ve discussed before, and perhaps a radiation survey meter like this one. Perhaps pick up a roll of Visqueen and some duct tape in case you need to seal your doors and windows. Again, I don’t think the threat is likely to materialize, but I certainly don’t take issue with anyone who decides to prepare for it anyway.

* * * * *

09:01 – It was 50F (10C) when I took Colin out at 0700 this morning, gray and drizzling again. The next few days are to be like this, which is fine with us. Barbara is off to the gym this morning, and will be working on kit stuff this afternoon.

When I took Colin out after his breakfast, I checked the gauge on our propane tank for the first time. It was showing right at 60%, which indicates about 195 gallons still in the tank. Given that they originally filled the 325-gallon tank with 200 gallons of propane (61.5%), that means we’ve used only about 5 gallons of propane since mid-December, or about 1.25 gallons/month. If that rate is accurate, which I doubt, a full tank would last us about 208 months or 17 years.

Rebecca Ann Parris has an interesting and useful article up on Pat Henry’s site: Prepper Must-Haves: Vices

Overall, Pat’s site gets my vote as the most useful prepping site out there. In particular, Ms. Parris’s articles are always worth reading. Unlike many authors, she doesn’t just talk the talk, she walks the walk. In fact, I may start re-posting her articles here.

* * * * *

10:33 – The propane guy just left. We now have a full tank. He said he doesn’t trust the gauges on the tank. He said the tank has a dip tube that extends down to the maximum fill level, so he just pumps propane until liquid propane starts squirting out the dip tube vent. That way, he’s sure it’s full. Sometimes, a tank fills up while the gauge still indicates 70% or less, and sometimes when it indicates 95%.

The tanker pumps about 1.5 gallons of propane per second, so it doesn’t take long to fill even a large tank. We expected our tank to take the original 60 gallon underfill plus however much we’d used since mid-December. The total was 62.6 gallons, so either we’re using hardly any propane or they originally actually filled the tank to more than 200 gallons. The total bill was $160.94, or about $2.57/gallon.