Font Size:     

Friday, 17 July 2015

By on July 17th, 2015 in book- food, prepping book, weekly prepping

07:42 – I’ve been working on science kit stuff all week, so there hasn’t been much time left for prepping activities. I did get email yesterday from a guy who wants to remain anonymous, so I’ll just call him Bill.

I guess I’m in the wannabe prepper category you mentioned in one of your comments today. Either that, or I’m just really slow at getting started. I’ve bought Fernando Aguire’s Surviving The Economic Collapse. I bought
some oxygen absorbers from Amazon, and collected 24 two liter soda bottles. I even have a Sam’s Club Membership so I can buy stuff to store in the two liter bottles. I just haven’t bought anything to put in the two liter bottles. It’s taken over a month for me to do this little. In my defense, I will point out that real life keeps raising it’s ugly head and distracting me from prepping.

I have decided I’m going to start storing rice first rather than flour. My wife and I routinely cook with rice and use very little flour. I have started looking for recipes that use all purpose flour. It wasn’t clear from your list of iron rations whether you talking about all purpose or bread flour. I have assumed you meant all purpose flour. Julia Child’s French Bread recipe calls for all purpose flour and a video can be found on Youtube. The other common recipe for all purpose flour is egg noodles made from one cup of flour and one egg. Before I start stocking flour in bulk, I’m going to at least figure out how to make the tortillas in the recipe linked below.

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/homemade-tortillas

To which I replied:

Real life always gets in the way.

Why not just stop by Costco/Sam’s/Walmart this afternoon and pick up some basic food? Keep it simple to start.

1. A few cases of bottled water. [Following added for this post. RBT] Rinse out those two dozen 2-liter bottles with dilute bleach and fill them with tap water. You can never have too much safe water.

2. A 50-pound bag of white rice, for probably $17. Don’t even worry about transferring it to other containers for now. It’ll keep just fine for at least a couple years in the original bag.

3. Two dozen cans of assorted canned soups. You can use these with the rice to make a simple but tasty meal.

4. A case or two of canned meats (chicken, tuna, salmon, Spam, etc.)

5. A case or two of canned fruit, jars of applesauce, etc.

6. A case or two of canned vegetables, whatever you like.

7. A dozen jars of spaghetti sauce and a dozen packages of pasta.

8. A large bottle of olive oil.

9. A couple large jars of peanut butter and a couple large boxes of Ritz crackers.

10. Big jars of onion powder/flakes, garlic powder/granules, cinnamon, and any other spices you like.

All of this stuff, including the crackers, keeps for at least a year in the original packages.

As to the flour, there’s really not that much difference between types of white flour, other than varying protein levels (gluten). You can substitute them pretty freely. For example, if you make bread with all-purpose flour, the texture of the bread won’t be as good as it’d be if you used bread flour, but it will work just fine.

To which he replied:

That is an excellent idea. You ask why not do it this afternoon? One of the instances of real life happening is three days in the last two weeks when we got 4+ inches of rain. As soon as we get the basement sorted out, I will get a sturdy shelving unit and stuff from your list from Sam’s Club.

And, surprise, I heard from Jen’s husband for the first time. I’ll call him Ben. Ben is not as prepping-oriented as Jen, but he says he’s coming around to her view of things, and has no real objection to most of the actions she’s taking and the stuff she’s buying. Like Barbara, he’s more concerned about the amount of space it takes and the clutter than the cost, and he asks a reasonable question: “When have we done enough to declare that our preparation is complete?”

Just about any prepping website will tell you that you’re never done, that prepping is a journey rather than a destination. And that’s fine as far as it goes. But Ben’s question is still valid with regard to purchases. Is a ton of food each enough for them? Two tons? Ten? When does it stop?

My attitude is that you can indeed reach a level at which you can consider your acquisition of food and other supplies complete, at which point you can consider that your supplies have reached steady-state, where you buy only enough stuff to replace what you’ve used, whether food, ammunition, or other classes of supplies. For me, that level is a three-year supply. Some people are comfortable with just a year’s worth, and I have no argument with that. Others keep a five or ten year supply on hand, and I have no argument with that, either. What should never stop is your acquisition of additional knowledge and skills.

So, what precisely did you do to prepare this week? Tell me about it in the comments.

09:07 – Everything appears to be working normally, with a few minor exception like the placement of bullet points midway down the paragraph rather than on the first line. The other weird thing is that followed links seem to remain the same color as unfollowed ones, which makes it hard for me to keep track of the last comment I read.

Otherwise, I’m happy with this theme. I showed Barbara the new theme when she was on her way out this morning, and asked if she wanted me to install it on her site. She said to go ahead and do it, but I think I’ll wait a day or two to let any problems show up before I chance breaking her site.

Read the comments: 56 Comments

Thursday, 16 July 2015

By on July 16th, 2015 in politics, prepping, science kits

09:24 – Amazon’s big sale seems to have sputtered. From what I saw yesterday during several visits to the site, I think “epic fail” is a reasonable description. On the other hand, Walmart’s supposed big sale didn’t seem like much either. The only thing I noticed is that they’ve reduced the required order amount for free shipping from $50 to $35. This supposed duel of the titans turned out to be a fizzle.

Not that it really matters. Between Amazon and Walmart we can at reasonable prices get pretty much everything we need other than fresh foods without even leaving the house. I got email the other day from a prepper who said that, other than firearms, he’d managed to buy everything on-line that he needed to equip his family for year and, other than a trip to the LDS Home Storage Center to haul home literally a ton of dry staples in #10 cans and Mylar pouches, about 95% of that came from just Amazon and Walmart. And he could actually have ordered all the LDS HSC stuff on-line as well, albeit at much higher prices to cover shipping.

I’m still building science kits, which’ll be the story of my life until September or October. Just finding enough out-of-the-way places to stack the finished kits awaiting shipping is non-trivial.

The situation in Greece doesn’t bear talking about. The Greek government voted yesterday to give in completely to the Troika, which bought them nothing other than the EU agreeing to open talks about maybe funding another bail-out. The cynicism on both sides is incredible. The Greeks have agreed to everything the EU is demanding, but as usual the Greeks have absolutely no intention of complying. Promise them anything, and then just do what you want. The EU, on the other hand, has no intention of funding yet another large scale bailout. All the EU wants to do is maintain the figleaf that the Greeks are solvent and will repay their debts, neither of which is true. The one inexplicable thing in all this mess is why the Greeks seem so determined to remain in the euro, when it should be obvious to anyone that the only sensible thing to do is leave the euro, default on all of their debts, and return to the drachma.

10:36 – I think the main reason the Greeks haven’t already explicitly defaulted on all of their debts and returned to the drachma is simple fear of the unknown. Oh, I’m sure that wanting the rest of Europe to continue subsidizing their profligacy plays a part, but it must be obvious to anyone that those days are over. Europe is no longer willing to prop up the Greeks as they continue to consume much more than they produce. At this point, simple fear of the unknown must be the major factor.

Being a Viking-American, I forget that many people, perhaps most, are afraid of the unknown. That manifests in many ways, from the trivial–like refusing to try a new food because you might not like it–to the profound, such as refusing to prepare for emergencies because it’s more pleasant just to not think about the possibility. I don’t want to think about it, either, but not thinking about it doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. And if (when) it happens, I’d rather have thought about it beforehand and taken what steps I can to minimize its impact on Barbara and me, our family, and our friends.

Read the comments: 80 Comments

Wednesday, 15 July 2015

By on July 15th, 2015 in why we prepare

08:55 – Amazon is having its big sale today. I just took a quick look and didn’t see anything I wanted that was on sale.

Like almost everyone, I was aware of the San Andreas fault and its potential to produce a devastating earthquake. I also knew about the New Madrid fault. What I didn’t know about was the Cascadia fault, which seismologists believe is likely to produce a truly devastating quake and tsunami in the relatively near future.

‘Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”’

Seismologists estimate the probability of an 8.0 to 8.6 Cascadia earthquake occurring within 50 years as about 0.33 and a huge one (8.7 to 9.2) as about 0.1. Of course, that means it may be happening as I write this, or it may not happen for another thousand years or more. But a 0.33 probability of even an 8.0 quake occurring within the next 50 years should be cause for great concern. Even one on the low end of that range would kill tens of thousands of people. A 9.2 quake could easily kill millions, both directly and from the follow-on effects.

“On the coast, those numbers go up. Whoever chooses or has no choice but to stay there will spend three to six months without electricity, one to three years without drinking water and sewage systems, and three or more years without hospitals. Those estimates do not apply to the tsunami-inundation zone, which will remain all but uninhabitable for years.”

If I were on the Pacific coast, I’d certainly make relocation a high priority, and potential earthquakes are only part of the reason. Interestingly, if I were in that situation, the North Carolina mountains would be high on my list of potential relocation sites, not far behind the Montana/Alberta border area.

Read the comments: 81 Comments

Tuesday, 14 July 2015

By on July 14th, 2015 in government, politics, science kits, technology

08:53 – I wrote Sunday,

“As far as I can see, the only way out of this for Greece, if there is any way out, is for the EU to abolish government at all levels in Greece and appoint a receiver to oversee the bankruptcy of Greece and the auctioning off of Greek assets to pay off the creditors. Greece will have to become an EU colony for the foreseeable future, ceding all local control.”

but I didn’t actually expect them to do it. I underestimated just how much the Germans and the rest of the Northern Tier distrust Greece, because that’s essentially what they’ve gotten Tsipras to agree to. Whether or not the Greek legislators vote tomorrow to accept those humiliating terms is still very much up in the air. And, even if they do, it’s extremely unlikely that the Northern Tier will agree to fund yet another “bail out” for Greece, knowing that Greece will never repay the earlier bail outs, let alone the one under discussion. Payback, as they say, is a bitch.

My next task is to build another 60 biology kits and chemistry kits, which I’ll be working on over the next few days. With what we already have on hand, those should be enough to carry us through July and into August. Once I get those built, we’ll go back to making up solutions, labeling and filling bottles, and making up subassemblies for yet another batch of kits.

Barbara’s TV remote stopped working a week or so ago. When I popped the lid of the battery compartment, I found that the two AAA alkalines had leaked. At the time, I thought nothing about it. I just cleaned out the compartment, put a fresh pair of alkalines in, and gave it back to her. The other night, it stopped working again. When I opened it, the new cells had leaked. So this time I rinsed it out thoroughly under running tap water and put it aside to dry completely. This morning, I used a hair dryer for a couple of minutes to make sure the interior was dry, and again replaced the two AAA alkalines from a new pack of them. It works. We’ll see if it keeps working or the cells leak again.

Which has gotten me thinking about replacing all of our AA and AAA alkalines with low self-discharge (LSD) NiMH cells. We’ll use up our remaining stock of alkalines, which is around 100 of the AAA’s and maybe 40 of the AA’s, and then shift over to the rechargeables. For now, I’m going to pull the alkalines from our long-term storage stuff–flashlights, radios, etc.–and put the devices and a couple sets of alkalines with taped terminals in plastic bags.

We have a few devices that use C or D alkalines, mostly flashlights and lanterns, and those are a problem to convert to NiMH. C and D cells make up a tiny percentage of sales. AA and AAA combined are literally something like 97% of sales. So C or D NiMH cells are pretty hard to find, even on-line. When you can find them, they fall into one of three categories: ones made by name-brand alkaline companies like Duracell, Energizer and other mass-market suppliers, cheap Chinese ones that I wouldn’t trust, and the big name-brand NiMH cells like MaHa and Powerex. The Duracell/Energizer class ones are crap. They don’t want to cannibalize their alkaline sales, so their NiMH models are generally pathetic, with capacities of maybe 2,500 mAH in D (versus 10,000 to 12,000 mAH for the good brands). Their only advantage is that they’re reasonably inexpensive, roughly four or fives times the $1.25 price of an alkaline. Many of the Chinese no-name D cells have reasonable rated capacities of 8,000 to 10,000 mAH, but that’s usually grossly exaggerated and these rechargeables tend to die fairly young. Then there are the good brands, which have high capacities and are quite reliable. The problem with them is the price, typically $30 or so each. And, to top it all off, probably half of the available C and D models use early generation technology and are not low self-discharge. So I think we’ll stick with alkalines for our C and D devices.

Read the comments: 43 Comments

Monday, 13 July 2015

By on July 13th, 2015 in government, Jen, news, politics

09:17 – This guy gets it: On Second Thought, Stick to Your Guns He understands that US supporters of the 2nd Amendment are going to keep our guns. They’re not for hunting. They’re not for recreational shooting. They’re for the reason that the 2nd Amendment was written in the first place: to keep the government in line.

And here’s a story about a Customer service shocker. Having dealt with this company frequently for years, it’s not shocking to me. What’s shocking is that it’s not the norm. It used to be.

The headlines are shouting that the Greek crisis is over. Not even close. All that that Marathon 17-hour session accomplished was Greece agreeing to even more stringent terms ahead of any discussions about a further bailout, in exchange for the EU providing a trickle of additional funding. Chances are there won’t be any future bailout, because that would require unanimous approval by all of the EU nations. The probability of that happening is close to zero. Even if Germany could somehow be persuaded to agree, there’s still Finland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Slovakia, and all three Baltic states, all of which are very strongly opposed to “lending” any more of their money to Greece.

10:33 – Email from Jen. She and her husband have been discussing buying a cabin up at the lake, about an hour’s drive from their home, at least under normal conditions. Interestingly, Jen, who is the strongly pro-prepping member of that couple, is opposed, while her husband is in favor.

Jen argues that it’s too far away, too expensive, might be impossible to get to if things really turn bad, and is a distraction from things they should be doing at home. I told Jen that I agree with her. Their home is already reasonably remote from the underclass. They have infrastructure already in place there, and a supportive group of friends and neighbors. If they were near a large city, that’d be one thing. Barbara and I are relocating in part because we’re currently inside the Winston-Salem city limits, entirely too close to large numbers of underclass scum. Jen and her husband are already located in an excellent location, so it makes sense to me that they should focus their efforts (and money) on improving where they are rather than looking for somewhere else to go. I could be wrong, but events are unpredictable, and as Frederick the Great said, “he who defends everything, defends nothing.”

15:22 – As if we needed more evidence, the Greeks are not the only lying weasels in this mess. The eurocrats are a bunch of lying liars as well. EU demands Britain joins Greek rescue fund

The UK needs to withdraw from the EU immediately. The EFTA (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein), none of whom are EU members, has been encouraging the UK to withdraw from the EU and join them. That would make particular sense for the UK, which was one of the founding members of the EFTA. By doing so, the UK would get what it really wants–free trade with the EU–without any of the political or economic entanglements that are part of EU membership.

Read the comments: 66 Comments

Sunday, 12 July 2015

By on July 12th, 2015 in government

08:54 – Our cities are coming apart at the seams. “Police departments across the country that have spent years boasting about plummeting crime numbers are now scrambling to confront something many agencies have not seen in decades: more bloodshed.” And it’s not just the largest cities, either, nor is it just murder rates that are skyrocketing. Any town that has a significant underclass population is at risk. The progressives are doing their best to make it impossible for police to do their jobs, which should be and always was to protect decent people from the underclass leeches.

The eurocrats are making no progress on the Greek crisis, basically because none of the EU leaders believe the Greeks can be trusted. The Greeks have done nothing but lie. They lied their way into the EU originally, and they’ve done nothing since but make promises that they had no ability or intention to keep. The rest of the EU has finally come to realize that you can tell the Greeks are lying if their lips are moving. The Greeks make Joe Isuzu look honest.

As far as I can see, the only way out of this for Greece, if there is any way out, is for the EU to abolish government at all levels in Greece and appoint a receiver to oversee the bankruptcy of Greece and the auctioning off of Greek assets to pay off the creditors. Greece will have to become an EU colony for the foreseeable future, ceding all local control. Greece hasn’t had a functioning government in living memory and has no prospect of ever developing one on its own. It’s time to recognize that and bring in a non-Greek to get things back on a business-like footing.

Read the comments: 37 Comments

Saturday, 11 July 2015

By on July 11th, 2015 in prepping, science kits

08:42 – After dinner last night, Barbara was back in her office checking email and reading web pages, including mine. I was surprised when she shouted that she wanted me to order her a printed copy of 100-day Pantry: 100 Quick and Easy Gourmet Meals. She assumed I’d gotten it for Kindle but wanted a hard copy to look over and try out some of the recipes. I shouted back that I’d get it for her. When she finished back in her office and arrived in the den, I handed her the printed copy and told her that I’d ordered it and Amazon had just delivered it via drone.

After she’d finished beating me about the head and shoulders with it, she said that she wanted to try some of the recipes in it to use our shelf-stable food storage stuff. Like Jen, I’m fortunate to be married to someone who’s on-board with my prepping activities. That’s still fairly unusual. Most preppers are married to someone who at best thinks they’re nuts and at worst is actively opposed to prepping in any form, some so much so that they actually discard stored food, water, and other preps when they come across them. Normalcy bias on steroids.

Barbara is off to run some errands and then do some yard work. The rest of the weekend, we’ll both be working on science kits.

Read the comments: 27 Comments

Friday, 10 July 2015

By on July 10th, 2015 in Jen, science kits, weekly prepping

07:46 – For some reason, there’s been a flood of orders for forensic science kits. Our inventory of them is now -1, with (so far) one outstanding order for a kit that I don’t have available to ship. So today I’m building another batch of forensic kits.

Most of my time this week was devoted to working on science kit stuff, as will be true for the next month to six weeks, but here’s what I did to prep this week:

  • I spent a lot of time on relocation issues. We’re gradually getting all our ducks lined up. We’ll probably end up making at least a couple more trips up to look at homes, but it’s very possible we could find a suitable one on our next trip. If so, we’ll need to make the decision to make an offer versus keep looking. Actually, we may do both pending acceptance of our offer. Even though we plan to pay cash for the house, it’ll probably take 45 days or so from getting a house under contract to actually closing on it. I also need to find a good attorney up there, ideally one who can do the closing and also handle our business needs.
  • I read the first book in Glen Tate’s 299 Days series, The Preparation. Tate, like Bracken and Konkoly and unlike most other so-called authors in the PA genre, is a reasonably competent writer. Yeah, he needs an editor, as all of them do, and there are occasional howlers (repel down a cliff), but at least the first volume is readable. Tate is unabashedly conservative/libertarian, which drives the prog reviewers on Amazon to froth at the mouth. The real downside is that the price of these books is outrageous. There are ten in the series, and most of them are priced at $9.95 for the Kindle. I suspect a lot of people just torrent them.
  • I read 100-day Pantry: 100 Quick and Easy Gourmet Meals. “Gourmet” is a gross exaggeration. This book is a collection of recipes that use only shelf-stable foods–mostly canned soups, pasta, canned meats and vegetables, a basic set of spices, and so on–to assemble edible meals as quickly and easily as possible, with minimal actual cooking. If you’re not already experienced at cooking from scratch this is an excellent resource for using the stuff you’ve stored.

So, what precisely did you do to prepare this week? Tell me about it in the comments.

08:55 – Another email from Jen. When her husband got home from work yesterday, he told her about a conversation he’d had over lunch with a guy they shoot sporting clays with. It’s spreading. The other guy remarked that he and his wife were becoming very concerned about social unrest in the cities, and thought maybe it’d be a good idea to keep a bit of extra food and other supplies on hand. Jen’s husband said that he and Jen were also worried, and suggested that the other guy not put it off, but make a Costco run or two to get stocked up on canned foods and other supplies. He also invited the guy and his wife over to their place for a cookout next weekend, where he plans to feel them out to see how serious they are about prepping.

Read the comments: 56 Comments

Thursday, 9 July 2015

By on July 9th, 2015 in Jen, news, prepping, science kits

07:51 – I laughed this morning when I read a page two article with the headline Tom Selleck accused of stealing water for California ranch. Until I read the article, I assumed that he was accused of taking more than his allotted share from a stream or river. No, as it turns out. Apparently, he has an avocado farm and is accused of pulling a tanker truck up to a fire hydrant, filling the truck, and driving off. Not just once, but regularly over the past two years. I’m guessing he may be forced to resign in disgrace as the police commissioner of New York City.

When the alarm went off as usual at 0645 this morning, I realized that that won’t be happening for much longer. Barbara’s last day at work is 30 September, and after that we’ll have no need for an alarm clock. It’ll be nice to sleep until we wake up naturally. Of course, Colin counts as part of “naturally”. Like all of our Border Collies, he decides when we’ve slept enough. I call them Border Roosters.

More kits to ship today, and I need to build a new batch of forensic science kits, which means I need to put together subassemblies today.

12:58 – Email from Jen. She’d mentioned before that she and her brother both wanted to devote additional resources to prepping, but both of their spouses were comfortable with what they’d already done. Jen’s husband said last evening that the more he read news articles, the more concerned he was getting about where things are heading. He asked her if she thought it’d be a good idea to spend some of the cash in their bank account on more tangible items, particularly firearms and ammunition and more particularly on tactical rifles for everyone. I replied that of course I thought that was a good idea, because hard assets are better than electronic assets in a bank account. It’s not like the price of guns and ammo is going down anytime soon. I recommend entry-level tactical rifles like the Ruger AR-556, along with a dozen spare OEM magazines and 1,000+ rounds for each. What do you folks think?

Read the comments: 50 Comments

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

By on July 8th, 2015 in politics, science kits

08:20 – I built a batch of chemistry kits yesterday. Today I’ll build more chemistry kits and then get started on forensic science kits. The rest of the week, I’ll be making up solutions, filling bottles, and building subassemblies.

I’m not going to bother following the Greece situation any more. Greece is toast no matter what transpires, Tsipras is finished, and ordinary Greeks are screwed for the indefinite future. Decades, anyway. But the EU is also screwed no matter what happens. If the Brits have any sense, they’ll distance themselves as much as possible from the EU fuster-cluck.

Meanwhile, the Chinese equities crash looms. Unlike Greece, China isn’t a piss-ant little country that no one cares about. China matters. The Chinese stock market is in the midst of a 1929-class crash, and is dragging Australia down with it. It’s a scary world out there. The only refuges are the US and Canada, which is scary in itself.

Read the comments: 26 Comments